For icebun: "Lance/JC slave au, with JC as the master."

"I didn't hear you," Joshua said softly. "What did you say?"

His slave lowered those glistening green eyes to the floor, where his chains dragged on the ground between his legs, and repeated, more clearly this time, "I said that it is your choice, Master. I am your property, after all."

That hadn't been what his slave had said, not at all, but Joshua was not an unreasonable master, and he believed in allowing his slaves a great deal of latitude if they so desired. All he required from them was obedience; they were welcome to keep their own thoughts and opinions, if they so desired. If they were able to. It was rare to find a man who would not break under the training, the discipline, the rigorous and exacting challenge and response that the ritual required. This one -- Lance, Joshua thought his name might be, purchased in the markets five years prior and not yet broken underneath the weight of the chains -- had taken to the life like one who'd been born to it, becoming under his owner's hand nothing more than a purer, more refined version of himself.

Joshua had watched him bloom, quietly and unobtrusively, and known the satisfaction of having made a proper purchase. His friends had laughed at his choice of the unassuming youth, all awkward elbows and blushing stammers and delightful tears underneath the whip of the slave factor in the market. "He'll never amount to anything," they'd said, laughing behind their sleeves; "Joshua, pass him by, choose one more suited to the life. There are hundreds of young men here who are prettier or more solid; why choose this one?" But Joshua had seen it, lurking beneath the baby-fat and the last throes of adolescent gawkiness; he'd seen the potential, and knew, in that one quick moment of connection, what he could sculpt out of the raw material presented to him.

"Very well," Joshua said. "The metal-tipped cat o'nine, then."

"As my Master commands," the slave murmurred, and shook his chains out prettily behind him as he crossed the room on his knees to fetch it.

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