Written for the prompt "Sharing" in the Asbrry community and influenced by this post. Admittedly light on the Ryuu based on where it falls in the TGAA timeline, but he's there in spirit. T rating, CW for treating an injury and implied sex.
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“Come along, Apprentice,” Barok says.
The word has become a name in absence of the one that the apprentice no longer remembers. It rings in the hollow recesses of his mind, spaces that surely housed all that he once had been but which are now disconcertingly empty of all but his master’s voice and that still, quiet whisper: You have not yet fulfilled your purpose.
He has not yet discerned his fate—or, if he has, he can no longer recall it—but he cannot ignore the hastening beat of his heart when he looks at the man: his benefactor, his teacher. His master.
If he has some destiny that awaits him on these strange shores, he is certain that Barok van Zieks is a part of it.
“Yes, my Lord,” and he follows. He follows Barok with a sense of certainty; he stands at his side, unwavering, for whatever his Lord might need. Today it is assistance with their most recent investigation. Tomorrow it will be the prosecution of a man they both believe to be guilty of murder. The apprentice cannot help but believe that he has been drawn here, for reasons beyond his ken, to stand by this man’s side.
It is a familiar thing, he thinks, to stand at the side of another with such resolve. Steps he has walked before, a tale he has told once already. But what whispers of destiny he may have heard then, he cannot say.
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“You should take more care, Apprentice,” Barok says.
The apprentice winces at the sting of the antiseptic, but Barok does not pull away, and eventually the pain morphs into a lingering burn that is easier to bear. He applies gentle pressure to the fresh wound and does not meet the apprentice’s eyes.
“I would not see you hurt for my sake,” Barok continues. His free hand rests on the apprentice’s arm, fingers curling around the apprentice’s wrist. The apprentice smiles, and there is a shade of wryness to the expression.
“Not even you, my Lord,” he says, “can stop me from fighting for what I believe in.”
Barok’s gaze flickers up to meet his, a fleeting glance before he returns his attention quickly to his ministrations. There is a faint flush to his pale cheeks that had not been there before; the apprentice’s smile only grows.
There is another, the apprentice is certain, for whom he had been ready to die—or perhaps for whom he has died already?—but the memory unfurls before him like tendrils of steam over a boiling pot, barely visible, impossible to grasp.
Still, the apprentice knows how to wield a sword. His stance is different from his master’s, his technique something buried in the recesses of his brain, half-remembered, that had surfaced when he needed it most. If he has retained these skills, there must be some greater purpose for it.
It feels right, he thinks, to imagine that he has come here to fight for what is just.
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“You may go, Apprentice,” Barok says.
The apprentice doesn’t leave.
He is dressed in the clothing Barok procured for him, standing in the home where Barok grants him room and board, among all the books and all the knowledge Barok has so readily shared with him. He cannot speak to the years leading up to this, but it is clear to whom he swears fealty now.
“I would stay, my Lord,” he says, “if you would have me.”
Barok looks up at him sharply, surprise showing briefly in his expression before it settles once again on neutrality; his master is in the habit of wearing a mask, just as he is. The apprentice, however, is certain that Barok understands. His visage betrays nothing as he studies his apprentice, but Barok’s eyes are ever discerning.
“You are under no obligation to stay,” Barok says finally, cautious.
The apprentice is smiling as he approaches, brazen in a way that feels both all too familiar and as though he is stepping into another’s skin. Brazen in a way he thinks he might be if he weren’t half-hidden behind this mask.
When he reaches Barok’s side, he pauses next to the chair where the other man remains seated. “It would be no obligation,” he says. It is an invitation, and they both know it.
He waits, though the tension in his muscles protests his stillness and the heat in his veins tells him to strike first. He waits for his Lord to touch his face with soft, timid fingers, along the line of his jaw, to guide him without words to bow his head and bring their lips together for the first time.
Later, his master leads him upstairs; the apprentice, as ever, follows faithfully.
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“You can stay, my apprentice,” Barok says.
The apprentice smiles even as he presses a kiss to the other man’s jaw. “I dare not, my Lord,” he says. “What would your valet say?”
“Those in the van Zieks household value their discretion,” Barok says. He does not stop the apprentice as he throws back the bedclothes and slips from the sheets.
“Then let me be discreet, too,” he replies.
He does not say that the feeling of hands on his hips, of sweat-slick skin against his, has rekindled some faint recollection, as though his body has held onto what his mind has lost: memories, half-formed, of unruly hair and kind, dark eyes.
He could tell his master, he knows, of these unearthed relics from a past love. They come from a different world, and there would be no need for jealousy over something so far removed from them here and now. The apprentice, however, holds his tongue.
He has precious little left of who he once was, and each glimpse of his past is shrouded in a darkness that his mind’s eye fails to pierce. What remnants remain to him are hardly enough for him to piece together the larger picture of who he was, but he treasures them anyway. And he hardly dares speak aloud the memory of those dark eyes, lest they, too, fade away into the ether.
The apprentice can see fit to share his loyalty, his sword, his desire. He might even someday come to share his heart with the man who is helping to reforge him.
This little piece of his soul, though, the apprentice will keep for himself.
