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AI FIC: All That Time, Silent Still (3/29)
TITLE: All That Time, Silent Still
AUTHOR: Mari
RATING: NC-17
PAIRINGS: Mavid, Tiedam, miscellaneous hints of others both slash and het.
DISCLAIMER: I do not own this sandbox, and all of the sandbox games played within are entirely fictional.
SUMMARY: Civilizations have crashed before under the impact of one great catastrophe. Make it two, and what’s left behind is barely recognizable. Slavefic AU.
CONTAINS: Coercive themes by definition; sex, violence, language, and torture both onscreen and off. Contact me if you want or need to know more.

Part One
Part Two



Part Three

David watched the dealer go and then glanced up at the slave again. “I probably could have gotten you for a thousand,” he said. “It’d still be more than you weigh.” Beating was cheaper than feeding, and probably more fun. The slave’s eyes ticked towards him again before finding something deeply fascinating in his own feet. He was probably looking at the manacles, which had had been buckled too tightly and would have been cutting his circulation off before much more time had gone by. David didn’t suppose that he needed to be able to walk in order to play his role in the advancement of science, either.

David looked from beneath his lashes, in a gesture that he knew bore more than a passing resemblance to the ones that Archuleta had been giving him for hours, at the black-clad men and women standing only a few feet away and waiting quietly for the trader to return. He knew why they were there. So did the slaves who did not have local buyers drifting through and looking at them speculatively; though their faces remained as blank of expression and demonstrative of the fact that at least a handful of them had been well-trained, once upon a time, David had been informed by those who knew best that the quickest way to gauge a slave’s true mood was to watch his or her shoulders. There were marbles beneath the flesh, even in the leanest and most underfed of them all. For more than a few seconds, long enough to become dangerous, David thought about calling the trader back and putting in an offer for all of them. Stupid, stupid; might have the money in his accounts, but barely, and that wouldn’t leave enough to deal with any of the other emergencies that were certain to occur between now and spring. He could at least come up with a reasonable story for why he was purchasing the slave who had scars, but no other marks of mutilation. The slave was underfed, but looked as if he would be strong once he had a few days of food and a warm place to sleep where boots didn’t conveniently find their ways into his side. He could say no such thing in regard to the pitiful creatures standing before him with some of their limbs missing.

You’re a coward. Andrew’s voice echoing through his head. David stared fixedly ahead and ignored that one or two of the Eastlander’s were now giving him curious looks themselves. But he was alive, and he was the only one left to manage the estate, so that had to say something for his ability to keep fighting for another day.

The slave on the podium shivered abruptly and then made an irritated noise when his hands could not move to cradle his side the way that he clearly wanted to. Hunger or pain, David could not say which affliction it was that made him move, but it would have been unheard of in one of the perfect and blank body slaves being pinched and examined at the front of the building. David looked up at him.

“My God, you’re on the verge of passing out, aren’t you?” he asked as he took note of the dark circles which painted the skin below the slave’s eyes.

The slave looked towards him, paused, and then seemed to realize that there was no way for him to avoid answering that would not be more of a breach of etiquette than moving in the first place. “Whether or not I ate today would not make enough of a difference in my weight to affect my price, sir.” There was no insolent delay in applying David’s proper title, and he had an accent that David could not immediately place, though it certainly was not from any of the nation-states of North America. Simple jingoism could often explain how a person became a slave as much as unfortunate political beliefs or economic desperation. David tilted his head to one side and regarded the slave carefully, even though he was no longer looking David in the eye. Studying his feet as he was, even though the slave was standing slightly above David, David had an unobstructed view of the back of his neck, unmarred save for the red and abraded line where a collar had been, before he had been taken out for the day’s sale.

And David was a goddamned fool. He spun and did not care that now he had all of the Eastlanders staring at him, muttering obscenities beneath his breath. He had not looked behind him to check that Archuleta was still there. He had just assumed that the boy was there, because Archuleta was probably the last slave in the world that would creep off without David’s leave, but he could not remember the last time that he had been able to feel Archuleta like a shadow at his back.

He could hear the beginnings of a commotion at the front of the building.

“All that I need you to do is sign,” the trader was saying as he came back, holding out an electronic data pad and stylus for David to take. He did not see that David’s expression had changed.

“In a minute,” David snapped. He thrust his arm out in the new slave’s direction; he knew that he was looking every inch of his class and thought that this was the very least of all possible instances in which he could be moved to give a fuck. “Just get his legs free.”

The trader stepped back for a second. “I can’t transfer the funds until you sign,” he started slowly, a line appearing between his eyes.

David’s lips pulled back from his teeth before he even realized that he had given himself the order to move. “Are you honestly suggesting to me,” he said, enunciating carefully and leaning over the trader until they were nearly touching. He saw the trader’s eyes dipping down to the gold brocade at the edges of David’s jacket, the deep and expensive blue of the wool. “That you do not think that I honor my debts?”

The line between free and slave depended much more upon the influence that one held than any version of the official story cared to admit. David knew that he had one as soon as he saw the edges of the trader’s mouth start to twitch; he was too well-disciplined to let them entirely bow downwards. “No,” the trader finally said. He dipped his head and stepped back, giving David only a flash of his murderous expression as he knelt to release the slave’s ankles. “I would never presume that. Sir.” And there was the snarling pause before the proper address that a slave never would have been able to get away with without reprisal.

There red and purple indentations in the slave’s skin when the manacles fell away, and he stumbled when David reached out, twisted his hand through the Y chain, and yanked him down hard from the podium. It was less than a second of skin pressed from thigh to shoulder against David’s clothing before he righted himself; David was barely even willing to give them that. He dragged the slave behind him as he nearly sprinted through the building, appearances be damned, knocking people out of the way with his shoulders when his glare was not enough. The slave behind him made a soft sound as a few of them took out their pique upon him when they could not touch David himself. David doubted that the black eye and the purpling mark on his side were the only injuries that he carried, just the only ones in which someone had been foolish enough to leave a mark. David should have slowed down, to accommodate him. He made an angry noise from the back of his throat and only jerked his new purchase along that much faster.

Andrew’s voice, from the back of his mind, made a disapproving sound and then fell silent. David didn’t guess that there was anything else that needed to be said, but he was alive and that was that, so he guessed that his brand of simultaneously surviving and still managing to live with himself was good enough.

The sounds of a ruckus grew louder the closer that David got to the front of the building. Oh, fuck him, it was actually coming from outside, and David had no doubt whatsoever that it involved Archuleta. His gut would not allow any arguments to the contrary. He burst through the doors, feeling the cold slamming back into him like a physical blow, and found his slave. Two men in dark gray were present, turning David’s blood cold and sluggish in his veins as soon as he laid eyes upon them. They were not the ones who had Archuleta by each arm though, and were twisting so hard that there were definitely going to be bruises from this contact. They had their arms folded across their chests (David had no doubt that the guns at their hips could still be reached faster than anyone within the crowd could hop to lay hand upon them), they were watching with dispassionate eyes.

“Where did you think that you were creeping off to, boy?” One of the people who had Archuleta by his upper arm was a woman, small and frail. David thought that Archuleta could have shaken her off hard enough to do damage of his own, if he had not looked too petrified to move. “You were moving pretty fucking fast, don’t you think?”

“I wasn’t--” Archuleta started, and then he saw David. If anything, David thought that the boy’s face lost even more color. “I wasn’t trying to run.” He finished in a whisper.

David put his hand upon its customary place on the back of Archuleta’s neck, twisted his fingers beneath the links. He had to take a deep breath before he was able to keep himself from choking the kid by jerking him back against David before the people on either side of him were able to let go. “That’s enough,” David said in a clear, ringing voice intended to address everyone at once, including Archuleta.

The woman looked sullen, and unaccountably small, in spite of the fact that she actually appeared to have been getting enough to eat recently. Being free was one of the few superiorities that she could claim, and by snapping at her rather than Archuleta, David was taking that from her. “He was slipping off down the street,” she muttered.

David looked at Archuleta. “I wasn’t!” Archuleta protested immediately. “The crowds inside--we got separated and I thought that maybe you had come out here--”

“Okay,” David cut him off without being certain that he believed the story, and repeated more firmly, “Okay,” when Archuleta looked as though he was about to launch himself back into another spate of nervous babbling. He looked over his shoulder and nearly collided faces with the new slave, who was standing silent and unmoving directly behind, watching everything with inscrutable eyes. He was breaking his resemblance to a statue only by the fact that his skin had broken all over into gooseflesh, and he could not hold back his shivering. “Will you get fucking inside?” David snapped at the slave, even though he could not remember if he had dropped the Y chain before or after they had burst out into the elements. The slave dipped his head, just once, and entered the market building again without saying a word.

One of the neat men in the neat gray suits with the neat empty eyes finally spoke up. “Do you require our assistance, sir?” There was an entirely different inflection when he said “sir” than that which was present when any of the slaves or poor free said it. Whereas David had been fighting back the urge to pinch at the bridge of his nose in frustration, they had nothing more than his full and complete attention before his heart had managed to beat twice.

“No,” David said, weighing his words very carefully. He threw a glance around at the hungry crowd. “No, I think that I can discipline my own slaves quite satisfactorily without aid. Thank you.” He could have been military himself, given the precision that he put into his turn, and re-entered the market while all but bodily dragging Archuleta along at his side. The boy was still trying to protest his innocence, albeit in a much lower tone, as if he was not certain whether he would be making it better or worse.

“Shut up,” David told him calmly. It was like a recording being shut off, how quickly Archuleta fell silent and staring.

The new slave was standing just inside the door, his hands still chained in front of him. He was examining the locks, face blanker than anything that David had ever seen before in his life, and he looked up when he noticed that David was before him again. If there was supposed to be some kind of spark there indicative of the fact that he had once upon a time fought for the Resistance, then David wasn’t seeing it.

“I wasn’t--” Archuleta tried again in the lull. He had to be desperate, if he was speaking after David had explicitly told him not to.

David felt exhausted and wrung out and entirely done with seeing or being seen, however fucking much it might improve his longevity when it was all said and done. “Have the vehicle brought around,” he told Archuleta instead, and “Yes, I am giving you permission to go outside,” when Archuleta hesitated. Archuleta still hesitated for just a second before he slipped out the front door, as if he was expecting a horde to come descending upon him again at any moment. David was left staring at the new slave and the slave’s absolute refusal to give him anything in return. If nothing else, he was saving someone from being sold by the pound for a likely death foaming at the mouth. If nothing else, he had that standing in his favor.

“Sir!” The voice of the very last person that David thought he wanted to see at that moment. He pressed his lips tightly together so that a groan would not be able to slip past them and turned. The trader was there, his data pad back in hand. David snatched it from him long enough to scrawl his signature and then glanced back at the new slave.

“There. You’re mine,” he said, and grabbed for the trailing end of the Y chain. When the trader reached for his arm again, appearances be damned, David was entirely certain that he could have punched him.

“The collar, sir,” the trader told David calmly, after he had removed his hand from David’s arm. David saw that in his other hand he was carrying the string of flat, brushed-steel links that would mark the new slave as David’s property until such time as David decided he did not want him any longer. There was a microchip hidden within one of the square segments, near the clasp, monitoring everywhere that the slave would go as a part of the national database. It was why the crowd had been entirely foolish in assuming that Archuleta must have been running before; the mutilated forms inside were proof enough that there were still some desperate and crazy enough to try it.

“Of course,” David murmured. He even felt a slight color rising in his cheeks as he took the links from the trader’s outstretched hand. The slave was slightly taller than he was, but he did not wait for direction from David before he was hunching over and dipping his head so that David could fasten the metal about his throat. The clasp made an entirely permanent snicking noise as it came together; it would not release again unless David or a party on his behalf formally relinquished ownership. “The chip has already been loaded?”

“Of course.” The trader straightened and even looked affronted for a moment.

“Now I’m yours,” the new slave said softly. He straightened up again and met David’s eyes, not for long enough to be considered insolent. The sound of the vehicle being pulled up outside made him turn his head, so he missed David picking up the Y chain again, though David noticed that he looked at the manacles again very hard once he had twisted back around. He fell into perfect, proper step behind David when David led him outside again, now that they were not running faster than the slave’s battered body would allow him to keep up.

The vehicle itself could have been called a carriage, though it was certainly boxier and more hodge-podge than any of those that David had seen in history books. For all but the longest journeys, those generally made by the military alone, oil cost so much that it was cheaper to use animal power. The two horses standing at the front were healthier-looking than many of the slaves that David had seen. He hesitated for a moment when he saw it, weighing the cold versus the watching crowd, and in the end pushed the new slave towards the empty space beside the driver. “Go on.” The driver, Jason, exchanged a look with David before he extended his hand down to help the new slave up, as he could not climb unaided with the restraints at his wrists. Jason knew this game, too, and was able to keep his lashes lowered and the flash of expression quick enough that David did not think that it was visible to anyone but himself. He took Archuleta by the elbow and led him into the interior compartment, slamming the door hard behind them. The handful of people watching them go who had witnessed the earlier altercation in front of the slave market could make of that whatever they wished.

David settled back into his seat as he felt the carriage beginning to move, wincing as they soon hit far rougher roads than the packed dirt that he had been crossing on foot during the earlier errands. There had been an art to constructing these kinds of vehicles, once; they had clearly not entirely managed to rediscover it. Archuleta sat opposite him, clearly struggling to hide his fear behind a body slave’s china-doll blankness and failing utterly.

“Archuleta,” David started. The boy shifted forward in his seat immediately. Fuck them both, he would probably be relieved if David took now as an opportunity to use his hands or his mouth, so that he could stop wandering around wondering what the hell his function was and if David actually had something worse planned. He wanted to pinch at the bridge of his nose again, and had to remind himself very hard that medication was too difficult to come by to use against any headache short of blinding. “Turn on the wireless,” he said finally. Archuleta shifted from his seat long enough to turn on the small radio that was hanging down from one of the windows, twisting the dial until he found the day’s live frequency.

“...estimates of the dead range into the dozens,” a woman’s voice rolled across them, soothing in spite of how often she was broken up on a burst of static. “The House of Governance has issued a statement calling this the greatest victory since the Battle of the Red River, and add that our inevitable victory is nearer at hand than ever....”

David tilted his head back against his seat and closed his eyes in an effort to keep the ache behind them from growing any larger, all the while unable to escape Archuleta’s presence forced into such close quarters in the cab. Though the slave sitting above with Jason was making no noise, somehow David was unable to stop sensing him, too.

End Part Three

Continue to Part Four