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Published:
2021-11-03
Completed:
2022-01-15
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81,167
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14/14
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my pain fits in the palm of your freezing hand (my ivy grows)

Summary:

“Ridiculous, his behavior.” Day’s voice, clear now that Aaron’s pressed so close to the door, holding his breath lest he miss something with the rattle of his lungs. “I fear there’s nothing to be done most days.”

“It’s shameful.” Matt says, tone agreeing. “After all we’ve done for him. You, more than anyone.”

“Every day,” Day’s voice continuing, “I’m tempted to let him go.”

~ ~ ~

After being disowned from his family and watching his twin brother murder their mother, Aaron Minyard is cast upon the dirty streets of Palmetto, orphaned and lonely. But when a tragic chance occurrence leads to his meeting the famous solicitor Kevin Day and his husband, the wealthy Matthew "Matt" Boyd, Aaron catches a new lease on life as a hired servant for the Day-Boyd estate. But when the news breaks that his outlaw brother has been captured and set to be executed, Aaron must reconsider all that he knows and feels for his brother. That, along with the tangled desires beginning to grow like ivy for the two men who saved him.

Well, assuming he doesn't get fired first.

Notes:

cw: implied/refernces of canon-typical violence and abuse thru/o the fic, especially regarding tilda's treatment of aaron and andrew's following response. sexual content appears a couple of times thru/o, but nothing overly explicit.

dedicated to my wonderful friend moony, thank u for being as excited for this "started-as-a-crack-ship-is-now-my-comfort-ship" as i am <33

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Chapter 1: If It’s All in My Head Tell Me Now

Chapter Text

Aaron Minyard wakes up every day wondering if it’ll be his last.

Well, not his last day waking up, per se. But his last day waking up under these cotton sheets, in this too-soft mattress, behind those just translucent enough satin curtains. A bed he doesn’t belong in. A house he doesn’t fit in. A family he’s not even a part of.

But that’s the trouble with his job. Or, rather, the point of it. To serve those greater than he, those more accomplished and better fit for society. Better than he could ever be, at least.

So every morning, he wakes up. 

He does his job. Well, he might add.

And he pushes the thought of tomorrow aside before he drives himself insane. 

“Good morning,” Katelyn Harris greets him as she does every morning. And like every morning, Aaron returns her smile and begins preparing the breakfast platters for their masters.

Aaron began working for Master Boyd and Master Day a few months after Katelyn. It didn’t take the pair long to form an alliance filled with as much platonic affection as the amount of hard work they put into their job. Employment opportunities had been scarce since the end of the War a few years prior, and Aaron was too lucky with his current engagement to ever consider slacking, much less actually.

Then again, there was a lot more than luck at play when Master Day found Aaron all that time ago. The young man had nearly been trapped under a carriage wheel and too numb from his mother’s public display of disowning him only weeks prior to care much about the ugly, twisted form of his ankle trapped under metal. Living homeless in such a rambunctious city like Palmetto was only bound to run into troubles like this. Aaron almost welcomed it, almost hoped the carriage that had stumbled over his foot had instead stumbled over him— 

“What’s with the frown?” Katelyn nudges his elbow where she prepares an identical platter of eggs and buttered toast next to him. Where Aaron goes to brew black coffee for Master Day, Katelyn pours a cup of Earl Grey for Boyd. “You seem ill.”

Aaron lifts his head to stare out one of the kitchen’s open windows, an idyllic countryside view meeting his eyes. The Boyd-Day residence is located just outside the city’s lines, just far enough from the smoke and crowds to be reminded that air is not necessarily suffocating. 

“Just tired,” he tells Katelyn before turning with his tray and heading for the stairs. Although he cannot run from her—he can not even ascend the stairs quickly thanks to his permanently troubled leg—for of course she follows behind with the other tray, she allows the matter to drop.

Passing one of the wall mirrors on the second lading, Aaron catches sight of what Katelyn must see. Sunken cheeks, pale skin (more so than usual—while the sun never did warm up to him, this new shade is simply ridiculous), and not to mention his ever ragged frame. Tilda would always remark that Aaron was more bones than boy, and nearly a year after being free of her, her words still hit hard.

Like usual, Katelyn knocks on their masters’ door, Aaron keeping his eyes appropriately downcast when the familiar affirmation permits their entrance. Mornings are always routine, though Aaron can not always expect what he’ll be met with at this particular point of day. Somedays Katelyn and he enter with their masters’ respective meals, only for Master Day to be long gone without a forewarning, some urge, some ambition, propelling him to either his office, or to the courthouse where he works, or to the back acres of the manor. Other days the pair will enter, and Master Boyd will already be dressing himself, he and his husband in the middle of some light hearted banter despite the sun not yet woken.

And then other days, the rarest days of all but no less present, Katelyn and Aaron will open the chamber door, only to find neither of their masters out of bed, instead tangled between each other and their sheets. And the blushed servants will realize they must have mistaken a certain command for permission to enter the room, before quickly slamming the door shut once more on the two lovers. 

Those days, Aaron has a lot more trouble keeping his gaze averted.

But today is thankfully a reprieve. For when Master Boyd signals them in, he is already dressed and seated on the corner chaise, conversing amicably with Day who still lay in bed, an opened book in the latter’s hands. They exchange pleasantries with Katelyn and Aaron, thanking each as their breakfast is laid out. It’s business as usual. It’s routine. 

Until it’s not.

“Aaron,” Matt says after the two servants bow their leave. Aaron would, of course, never call his master by his given name out loud, much less his nickname. But to simply think such was his own guilty pleasure, of sorts. His way of pretending that he, Aaron, could ever be important enough to another to be privileged—humbled—with such another’s name on his lips. Like a hymn. Like a prayer. “Stay, for just a moment.”

Aaron starts but can only nod. It’s not like he can argue or disobey an order, no matter how polite its framing. 

His masters exchange a look Aaron can’t read. Once the door is closed behind Katelyn, the woman flickering a curious look at Aaron as she departs, Boyd continues, “Is there something wrong? You seem unwell.”

He remembers the face reflected back in the mirror. Aaron’s never looked particularly great, but even today, he’s a sorry sight. 

“Not at all, sir.” Aaron forces his lips to twitch upward, just enough to look genuine, if perhaps a bit abashed. “I feel slightly under the weather, but nothing some tea and rest won’t fix.”

Master Day or, Kevin, as Aaron whispers to himself when no one but the devil can hear him, raises an unimpressed brow. Aaron flushes under the man’s gaze. Both his masters are good men, better than most even, but there is a sharpness, a refinery to Day that is absent in Boyd. 

“Sleep alone is not nearly enough to raise the dead,” Kevin comments. “And you look quite close to it. What ails you?”

The picture of that first meeting comes to Aaron’s mind yet again. Master Day—who had not been his master at the time, of course, but even in memory Aaron regards him as such—calling for his partner, he and Boyd managing to lift the carriage’s wheel off Aaron’s injured ankle. Aaron, staring blank-faced, tears he didn’t remember shedding though the pain became obvious minutes later, shrinking from their helping hands when they both tried to pull him further off the street. 

“Get away from me,” Aaron had gasped when they once again reached out to help him. Dazed and numb and so utterly broken in more ways than one, Aaron couldn’t distinguish enemy from friend. “Don’t touch me.”

“You came close to death, boy,” Matthew Boyd had told him. His face was gentle unlike his tone, so ripe with concern rather than anger. It was a queer dichotomy for someone like Aaron who had only ever known the coupling of harsh countenances and even harsher words. “Let someone help you, at least to study your leg.”

“I’m fine,” Aaron had spat. Literally. There was so much blood in his mouth from biting through his tongue—when he did that, he wasn’t sure. But either way, the sight of his mangled leg along with the blood trickling out his mouth was enough to do Aaron in for good. There was already a crowd formed, many who’d watched the entire scene take place in morbid fascination. But only two from the crowd had cared to step forward and do something. 

“Fine?” Kevin Day had repeated. “You need a hospital—“

“No.” Aaron had shaken his head violently. Once upon a time, Aaron dreamed of becoming a doctor, one of the renowned hospital physicians who lived to serve the sick and broken. But Tilda had beaten that idea out of his head years ago. How could a relentlessly sick man ever heal another? How could an ever broken boy mend his brothers?

“It’s not a matter of choice,” Boyd had growled. Almost physically growled, like a beast. To this day, that first meeting was the most heated Aaron had ever seen his master. 

Aaron.”

Aaron blinks away the memory to find both his masters staring at him like they’re waiting for something. Oh, right. Kevin had asked him a question. Right?

“I’m sorry,” Aaron says with a grimace. “I didn't hear what you said. I—“

“Aaron,” Matthew cuts in. He’s frowning, concerned, like that day on the street when Aaron had confessed he couldn’t afford a hospital visit, even for—no, especially for—a broken ankle. “I know that we are your masters, but humor us, for a single minute, and consider we aren’t just your employers. Stop telling us what you think we want to hear, and tell us the truth: what ails you?”

We. 

Us. 

And then: you.

We are your masters, but humor us, for a single minute, and consider we aren’t just your employers.

But why? What would be the point? From the moment Kevin and Matthew disregarded all of Aaron’s protests and not only brought him to the hospital, but paid for the services and splints for him without a second thought, Aaron knew he’d do whatever he could to spend the rest of his life—however long, though most likely short—repaying them. They tried refusing his wishes of service, of course. They’re good men, Aaron knows, better than most men, a mantra he’s long since inscribed upon his heart’s cage. They didn’t need repayment, physically speaking, which was evident enough through their family name and wealth to match. They didn’t want Aaron feeling indebted to them. Anyone with a soul would’ve done what they could to help the mangled orphaned boy in the streets. 

But Aaron was relentless, much like his brother, though Aaron refuses to think much about that. He hasn’t heard from Andrew since…

Aaron’s eyes fall shut against his will.

Since…

His head spins.

Aaron.” Matt is faster than Day, though the latter is out of bed and by their sides in seconds. Aaron, without meaning to (well, surely, who would mean to do such a thing?), had fallen to the ground, more in on himself than out. The ankle he’d broken healed months before but it still troubles him, and while it’s not the culprit this time for his fall, it’s an easy scapegoat. Aaron instinctively grabs for the limb and fakes a scowl at it, though truly, it doesn’t even twinge. 

“Let me see. This is the bother?” Matthew asks him, reaching for Aaron’s leg though pausing until Aaron nods his allowance. 

“I think I slept on it wrong,” Aaron mumbles. 

“I reckon you slept wrong all over,” Kevin returns, and if Aaron was pale as death before, at least the color of fire blooms in his cheeks at that remark. “Why don’t you take the day off and rest?”

“Rest?” Aaron scowls before remembering who he’s talking to. He does his best to relax his expression (how successful he is, he’s not quite sure) and grudgingly accepts Matt’s hand helping him up. He tries not to miss the feeling of another’s skin on his own when Boyd lets his hand go, but some lies are not quite deceptive. “I thought you don’t believe in rest.”

Thankfully, Kevin hears the humorous undertone and cracks a smile. Aaron firmly believes the man looks incredible when he smiles, unbearably so. Perhaps it’s safer that such moments are not an often occurrence, though the man’s long hours and stress of work is a sorry reason for such refrain. 

“My rest and your rest are two different matters,” Kevin tells him pointedly, though his eyes soften once more. If Aaron could die with one view in front of him, it would be his masters’ eyes directed his way, like the sun embracing Icarus, a noble fall.

But, no. That’s not right. Not for Aaron. His fall, like his brother, his mother, the long line of his cursed ancestors, knew nothing but a ghastly fall, never noble. Oh, like the crucified Yeshua, fallen three times on the road to Calvary, Aaron stumbles along through stage to stage of his life’s act. Fallen from grace the first time, that unholy birth to a woman never fit to mother. Fallen a second, away from his family, disgraced and disowned by the woman who reared him, cast away as much as he cast himself out from that demon of a brother. Fallen a third time, onto the road, in front of that carriage, still not sure if his stumble was accidental or…

London bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down…

A nursery rhyme the children used to sing, skipping hand in hand in circles until they inevitably toppled over. The memory rises, unbidden, to Aaron’s mind, and he wonders if he too is destined to fall like the great London road leading back to Rome eternal. How he’s fallen so many times, and how he continues to fall, every time since he sold his soul to these two men. They didn’t ask for his soul, but Aaron was more than willing to part with it.

He closes his eyes again, briefly. He’s just so tired. 

But for all his loyalty and shame, Aaron cannot bring himself to answer the simplest, most brutal of questions his masters asked of him. What ails you? 

It’s not like they would know. Aaron never offered the entire truth, and he has no plans to ever. What is past and gone is passed on. In the grand scheme of things, neither does what happened matter. Maybe to Aaron, but not to anyone else. Certainly not to his masters.

Why would, after all, they care about another nameless orphan? The world has enough wandering children for anyone else to spend time lamenting those poor ghosts. 

The irony is thick on his tongue, tasting of blood. Aaron barely slept a wink last night thanks to those ghosts. Well, one ghost in particular. 

Even if Andrew were still alive, who’s to say that would be a good thing?

The last time Aaron saw Andrew…

The last time he saw his brother…

Exhaustion weighs him down along with the memories, the past (not so gone, not quite passed on) flooding his vision. Andrew standing over Tilda, the shotgun still in his hands. The crowd gathering to peel him away, to drag him to the gallows. The crowd’s cheers, as bloodthirsty as they were revolted.

Hang him, they screamed. 

Draw him, they cried.

Quarter him, they begged.

A typical Friday afternoon occurrence. 

It was only later, as Aaron stumbled, alone and hungry through the streets, that he learned his brother was not, in fact, killed. The news was hard to miss, seeing as every newsboy in the city was trying to sell papers with his twin’s face on the cover. Andrew had escaped the prison he’d been thrown in to await trial, through means of which Aaron could not even attempt to guess. 

And that was exactly how it came to be that a carriage plowed right into a dumbly shocked Aaron.

Fifty dollars. Five. Zero. That was the sum awarded to Aaron in apology for the carriage driver’s mistaking of Aaron to be his doppelganger. As accidental (or not) it was of Aaron stepping in the path of the carriage, the carriage driver was, in fact, aiming for the person he believed to be the Minyard with a five hundred dollar bounty on his head--dead or alive. Only a birthmark on the underside of Aaron’s chin proved his innocence. To their credit, Kevin and Matt hadn’t even known much about the wanted Andrew Minyard charged with matricide, and they didn’t care when Aaron explained to them that he was related to the killer.

It feels so long ago. It feels day ago. 

But goddamnit.

It’s been a year.

An entire year, to this day, since he saw his brother.

Since he had proof, real, concrete proof, that he belonged to someone.

Well, ‘belonging’ to Andrew Minyard is a far reach. No one belongs to Andrew Minyard, and he is certainly not a man you would ever want to belong to. But big picture wise, the fact of the matter, is that in a way, yes, Aaron belonged to his brother, only in the way that blood belongs to blood, that twins, reared in the same womb, belong to the flesh that carried them. That Aaron had a family, at one point in time. 

That they were a horribly rubbish family is another matter.

He couldn’t sleep last night. He wishes he had, because thinking all this is is nothing but a drain.

Aaron cannot tell his masters any of this. They have been unbearably gracious since the very first day their paths crossed. And ever since, allowing Aaron into their home, affording him a job--a stable one at that, with a roof over his head and three meals a day--and never treating Aaron lesser like he objectively should be. How ungrateful, how scandalous, to bemoan his brother’s absence. To complain in the faces of the people who no doubt are the reason Aaron is even still alive. Shameful.

“He is right,” Matt says. Aaron's train of thought becomes jumbled with the present exchange and for a second he is left wide-eyed, ashamed, momentarily dumbfounded that his master read his mind. But of course that is not the case and he remembers quickly enough of Kevin’s previous comment.

“Take today off and rest yourself,” Matt continues. He lifts a hand and briefly cradles the side of Aaron’s cheek, like one might do to comfort a child. With the starling size differences between him and his masters (honestly, it’s quite ridiculous. Even Katelyn is taller than he), Aaron is once again left feeling small, out of place, yet never dare to yearn for anything else. That is, at least not until he is once again alone and has only himself for company. “You work hard as always, too hard. You deserve a break.”

“Work too hard,” Kevin repeats with a short laugh. “Now that I don’t believe is possible.”

“Hush, you,” Matthew says, but Aaron notices the gleam in his master’s eye (not directed at him this time, because of course, such a heat would never be reserved for a man like him) when he looks at his husband. The secret language of lovers, never spoken, painfully loud. Aaron is promptly overcome with the sense of intrusion, not for the first time feeling out of place. Perhaps he did die when that carriage hit him, and his life ever since has been nothing but a purgatory, endlessly torn between desire and loneliness and want and isolation.  

“Thank you for your generosity. I will retire now, if you need nothing else from me,” Aaron somehow finds the will to say, if flatly. Ever formal. Ever careful. How he wanted so much to be a doctor once, how well that precision of his would have come in handy. Flawless, faultless, this morning notwithstanding. 

“I believe Katelyn mentioned she was going into town for some goods,” Kevin says. “I will have her bring back a pain cream for your leg.” Unlike Matthew, he doesn’t touch Aaron, but his gaze alone, those juniper eyes illuminating a deep, vast forest, is warmer than any other touch. He’s well known in the city and surrounding areas for his legislative prowess, commanding the courts as well as his own household. Once again, Aaron is not mournful to be subject to such a man. Most days—nay, all times, though Aaron struggles to even admit such to himself—he wishes to be even more subject, in many ways. 

But Aaron is a servant. And a servant he shall be to repay the graciousness of the two men he credits his life. It’s not enough, and he fears it never will be, but he does what he must. 

“Thank you, sir,” he tells Kevin Day. Ever formal. Ever careful.

Even though he wishes to say, 

It’s no bother. I have borne worse pains than this. 

I will bear you too. 

Shameful.