A/N: Sebastian is a prince, betrothed to wed the Princess Quinn Fabray, but Sebastian has secret desires that his new wife will never be able to fulfill. This started out as just smut, and kind of turned into a love story. Go figure. Warnings for bondage, whipping, mention of injuries from whipping. Rated M. Dom/sub. Dom!Kurt, sub!Sebastian.
Sebastian stood dutifully in the courtyard and watched Princess Fabray's carriage pull away, the four white stallions at the lead trotting along the stone drive, the clacking of their hooves filling the air with their rhythmic cadence. A dainty, white gloved hand waved back at him from out the darkened window, a lace handkerchief clutched between pinched fingers, its owner shrouded by shadows. Sebastian didn't need to see her to visualize her golden hair spilling down her shoulders, her lightly sun-kissed skin, her moss green eyes, her baby pink bodice laced so tightly around her petite frame that Sebastian feared she might actually have a broken rib or two.
He raised his own gloved hand and waved back, the smile plastered on his face growing less and less sincere as the carriage drove farther away toward the black iron gates that surrounded the grounds. Before the carriage reached them, Princess Fabray let go of the handkerchief, leaving it behind as a token for her betrothed. The light lace fabric billowed in the air, floating freely in the wake of the carriage as the team gained speed and bustled away. The evening breeze picked up and caught the handkerchief, swirling it through the air, and then settling it on the lush green grass.
"Would you like me to fetch that for you, Your Highness?" Hunter, the captain of the prince's guard, asked with a sly smirk.
"I don't give a fuck," Sebastian muttered, turning angrily from the moonlit scene and storming away.
"Where are you going, Your Highness?" Hunter called after him, a thinly veiled taunt in his amused voice. The day spent guarding the awkward couple had been dreadfully dull and long for Hunter, but it was almost worth it to watch the prince forced to play nice for that vain and shallow fiancée of his. "What should I tell the king if he asks for you?"
Sebastian yanked off his white gloves and chucked them one by one over his shoulder.
"If he ever gets his dick out of the downstairs maid's ass, you can tell him I'll see him in hell," Sebastian snapped back without stopping his stride.
Hunter shook his head, watching the noble Prince Sebastian stomp away like a spoiled child. Hunter knew he was pushing his luck, but he and Sebastian had been friends since birth. Both nursed by Hunter's own mother, they were nearly brothers. Hunter knew Sebastian better than anyone in the kingdom, definitely better than the prince's own parents, which was why, despite all the slightly cruel taunts, his heart broke for Sebastian. He saw the prince's footsteps falter on the cobblestones as he made his way with purpose toward the stables.
Sometimes the worst curse in the world could be the circumstances of birth.
Sebastian didn't choose who he was or the way he loved, but the fact of the matter was that Sebastian was born a prince. He had duties and responsibilities. He needed to be a role model; a shining example to his kingdom. Those responsibilities included marrying well…and producing an heir.
Hunter turned to the rest of the compliment, who watched their prince with interest, the image most assuredly feeding rumors that would circulate like wildfire later in the drunken revelry of the evening. One or two guards even wore the shadows of knowing grins on their faces. Hunter scowled, and the grins beat a hasty retreat.
"None of you know where the prince is headed, do you?" Hunter bellowed to the stoic guards. When no one answered, Hunter repeated loudly, "Do you!?"
"No, sir," they answered in unison.
"Good," Hunter said, knowing in his heart that keeping them quiet through fear only worked for so long. "Keep your mouths shut and you might not be working in the kitchens come morning."
Sebastian concentrated on the click of his footsteps on the stones to scrub his mind clean of Quinn Fabray - his intended - and her inane chatter. She talked all day long about everything and nothing, rarely giving Sebastian's ears a rest.
"Oh, Your Highness," she blathered over breakfast, "what an amazing library you have in the palace. I'm sure I'll never tire of reading while I'm here. It's my one true passion."
"Did I tell you, Prince Sebastian," she jabbered on during their walk in the garden after lunch, "about the most marvelous idea I had for a tabletop that I would love to paint for my sitting room?"
"Does the prince enjoy theater?" she chittered as they took a carriage ride over the grounds. "Oh, I do love the theater. The costumes, the singing, especially the love stories…"
She sat close by his side and put a bold hand on his knee.
Then she proceeded to sing from her favorite score. She sang and she quipped and she barely drew a breath; so many times he wished he could scream, "Do shut the fuck up!" Sebastian wasn't ashamed of his obvious indifference toward the girl. He had no intention of leading her on. He was sure that he had made it quite clear on several occasions that this 'marriage' was one of no consequence to him. He wasn't marrying for love.
Sebastian made it to the stables, pleased as always to see the windows glowing with lamplight from within, so much warmer and more inviting than any single room in the whole of his palace. He had already undone the buttons to his coat, almost tearing a few in his haste to be rid of the damned thing. It was tight around his chest and restricted his breathing; just another cage that being royal kept him confined in.
He burst through the stable door and sighed in relief at the sight of Kurt, pitchfork in hand, laying fresh hay for the horses in their stalls. Through his loose-fitting linen shirt, Sebastian could see the muscles in his arms while he worked, shifting and stretching beneath flawless, pale skin. Sebastian admired how Kurt could keep his skin so perfect with all the hard labor he performed every day.
"Why does it always reek of horse shit in here?" Sebastian asked to announce his presence, loosening the collar of his shirt.
"Because this is a stable, Your Highness," Kurt answered without turning from his work. "It's full of horses and their shit."
Sebastian watched Kurt continue his work, effectively ignoring him and his mounting frustrations.
"Do you think you could cease shoveling and spare a moment for me?" Sebastian asked.
"A moment with you will turn into the entire evening, sire," Kurt chuckled. "Let me get these poor animals fed so I can take my time with you."
Sebastian pushed past the stable hand and headed to the rear of the shelter, straight to Kurt's meager quarters.
"Eager tonight, are we?" Kurt teased gently. He had no desire to incur the prince's ire, but he liked taking occasional advantage of the fact that here, in this stable, where he had total control, he had permission to treat his prince so familiar. Besides, he caught a glimpse of the prince's 'playdate' with the Princess Fabray.
Kurt knew very well the prince's pain.
He carried it, too.
Kurt gave the broodmare in the stall an extra helping of oats and patted her back comfortingly. She would foal soon, and it made Kurt's chest tighten with bittersweet hopes and dreams, each one fracturing a bit every day that the prince's wedding drew near. Horses had such simple lives. They lived in the stables and ran in the yards, their every need taken care of. They ran where their wills took them, and they fucked where they pleased. In the stable of the king, the horses were neither traded nor sold, and his favorites, cared for by Kurt, never went to war. How wonderful it would be to live out his life as a horse, Kurt thought. Then he rolled his eyes at his own foolishness.
He followed the prince to his room and saw him struggling with his clothes. He managed to tear off the coat and toss it on Kurt's bed, but the shirt was giving him some trouble.
"Could we just get this started," Sebastian growled, nearly ripping off the uncooperative garment. Kurt caught the delicate shirt when it finally slipped from Sebastian's shoulders and hung it along with the coat carefully on a dull hook in the corner.
Prince Sebastian stood before Kurt shirtless, back turned to the stable hand, breathing deeply, chest heaving in anticipation. Kurt took a moment to appreciate the body of the man who started coming to him more and more recently, in need of release…and sometimes, in need of comfort. Kurt rounded on Sebastian. He stood before him, stripped off his own shirt, and tossed it aside. He allowed the prince this time to lay eyes on his body. He wore only his leather work pants, the supple fabric clinging to his thighs. Kurt let Sebastian's eyes wander where they pleased, gawk openly, and once Kurt noticed the growing bulge in the front of Sebastian's pants twitch with interest, he knew Sebastian had seen enough. Kurt pointed sharply to the ground and seeing the signal from his Dom, Sebastian lowered his eyes to the floor.
"Arms out," Kurt commanded, no more need for ceremony or fancy titles now that Sebastian had silently shown his willingness to submit.
Sebastian raised his arms and grabbed the posts at either side of him, keeping his eyes downcast while his Dom worked. Slowly and methodically, Kurt bound Sebastian's wrists to the wood, wrapping them with leather straps and pulling the ends tight, hearing the prince sigh when the leather bit into his skin.
"You like that?" Kurt asked, smiling, running a hand up Sebastian's spine, rubbing over his shoulders and pushing down on his bowed neck. "Of course, you do. You always do."
Without permission to speak, Sebastian stood obediently and listened.
In the confines of Kurt's quarters, his sub didn't have permission to speak…only to scream.
Kurt stole a moment to clean up, washing the layer of filth from his body with water from a basin on the table beside his bed. He grimaced when the clear water turned brown with dust, as did the towel he wiped down with. He opened a chest by his bedside and pulled out a braided whip along with a pair of leather gloves, both gifts from the prince after the first time Sebastian wandered down to the stables in search of Kurt's services. At the time, Sebastian barely knew himself; barely understood where his strange urges came from. He had noticed Kurt before, of course he had; who but the blind and the stupid could not. He was fair and strong, even back then, but kept mostly to himself. God, he seemed so quiet, so innocent to Sebastian's eyes.
After watching Kurt spend the afternoon breaking a new pair of stallions – a gift from the Belgium ambassador – Sebastian simply knew.
He knew what he needed, and that night he sought Kurt out – to have Kurt break him like one of his horses.
They taught each other, learned together, and as time passed Sebastian came to Kurt almost nightly, until the marks on his back frightened his servants. They would have sent most of the household into a fury had it not been for Hunter and his uncanny ability to stop wagging tongues.
Falling in love with Kurt…well, that was something that Sebastian hadn't expected.
Kurt slipped the gloves over his hands and then ran his hands all over Sebastian's body, starting down at his ankles, drawing his hands up Sebastian's legs, firmly massaging the muscles of the prince's thighs, brushing over the outline of his hard cock aching in the restrictive pants. Kurt would have taken great pleasure in grabbing the impressive length and stroking it until Sebastian came, but he knew that wasn't what the prince needed. His hands traveled up Sebastian's flanks and his chest, pinching both nipples hard and soliciting a stifled groan. Kurt hugged Sebastian from behind, fitting their bodies together so that Sebastian could feel every curve and plane of his body against him.
Kurt felt Sebastian lean back toward him, longing to be close to him.
"That'll come soon enough," Kurt said. "That'll come as soon as you do, sweetheart."
Kurt released him and stepped away, and Sebastian whimpered silently beneath his breath.
"Was there something you wanted to say, sweetheart?" Kurt said, picking up his whip, feeling the weight of it in his hand, holding it so the braid didn't brush against the dirty floor. He came back to where the prince stood and rested his head against the man's shoulder. Sebastian shivered, holding on by a thread, and Kurt hadn't even started yet.
"Please," Sebastian breathed, his voice wavering, heavy with desperation.
"Alright, sweetheart," Kurt whispered, letting the words fall over Sebastian's shoulders and slide down his skin.
Kurt moved away again, and without any warning, snapped the whip into the air. The first crack of Kurt's whip didn't connect to Sebastian's skin. It was only meant to prepare him for what was to come. The sound of it, the promise in that sound as it broke the air around them filled Sebastian's body with a surge of unbridled heat. It loosened every muscle, released his inhibitions; gave him permission to be a man, not a prince. Kurt ran the leather braid of the whip over Sebastian's skin with light, playful touches, watching goose bumps blossom on the prince's smooth, tan back and arms. The prince's skin, dotted with freckles and pulled tight over his muscular frame, made Kurt's mouth water. He knew how it tasted, how it felt beneath his tongue, how it felt against his back when Sebastian pounded into him from behind.
Kurt walked back a few paces and watched Sebastian prepare for the first hit, his muscles tightening to absorb the blow. It made Kurt immensely hard to watch such a powerful man like Prince Sebastian, shrewd and clever, feared by his enemies and loved by his kingdom, submit.
Kurt took his time, eying the area right across his spine where thin, white marks had already heeled over other lighter, silvery marks. He raised his arm, but before he could bring the whip down he heard one last, soft plea from the prince's lips.
"Kurt?"
The whip cut through the air, the end of it slicing down Sebastian's back. The tethered prince threw his head back and screamed through clenched teeth.
"God!" he groaned, breathing out quickly.
"I love the way you sound the first time," Kurt moaned. "I love hearing you scream."
"More," Sebastian begged. "Please, or I'm going to go mad."
"No one told you to speak," Kurt said with delight, holding his whip at bay.
Sebastian dropped his head and whined, pressing his lips into a tight line to keep from making any more remarks, one in particular on the tip of his tongue that would most likely have him untied and sent home.
Kurt watched Sebastian's breathing slow, his body relax, and when calm had overtaken him, Kurt brought the whip down again, moving closer so more of the braid bit into his back.
"Augh! Christ!" Sebastian growled, his arms shaking, tugging reflexively against the straps binding his wrists and pulling them tighter.
Kurt held tight to the whip handle, feeling his heart race in his chest. Another crack of his whip cutting into Sebastian's back made the prince's knees buckle. He grabbed at the wooden posts and held firm, righting his feet beneath him.
Kurt brought the whip down again, harder than before, and the scream that escaped the prince's throat morphed into a moan. His knees buckled again and this time he almost fell completely to the floor.
"Now, now," Kurt tutted, swallowing down the stirrings of his own erection, begging to be free from his pants. "We wouldn't want you breaking your pretty little wrists. Stand up like the good boy you are."
Sebastian regained his footing, his knees wobbling as he waited.
Kurt reached down a gloved hand, snaked it beneath the waist of his pants and grabbed his cock. He held himself, squeezing below the head, suppressing the craving to stroke himself. Holding his hard length in his hand, he brought the whip down again, and again, harder, and then less so, letting Sebastian's mutters and groans fuel his own desires. Sebastian held on to the posts, fingers straining, knuckles white, while his body slumped and his knees fought to keep him upright. Four more stripes and Sebastian's back was nearly painted red, but still he begged for more.
"Do you want to cum, Sebastian?" Kurt asked, his voice low, merely a growl in the back of his throat. He approached the prince slowly, letting Sebastian hear his footsteps on the floor behind him. Kurt surveyed the crisscross marks on Sebastian's back, wondering how it felt, wondering how he could get off on being whipped the way he did, but the look of them, slightly grotesque and swollen, made Kurt long for release himself. "Do you want me to make you cum?"
"Y-y-yes," Sebastian mumbled, his voice struggling to be heard past the chattering of his teeth.
"Do you want to cum off the end of my whip, Sebastian?"
"Y-y-yes." Sebastian's voice was nearly inaudible this time, but Kurt didn't need to hear him say it. The answer was the same every time.
Kurt retreated again, forgetting the pain of his erection to focus on what he knew would happen next. He brought the whip down lightly on Sebastian's shoulder, but it was enough to make him weak. One more time on the opposite shoulder almost obliterated his grasp on the wooden post.
"Oh, God," Sebastian whispered into the air. Kurt could tell from his breathy gasp that he almost had him. The whip snapped at Sebastian's lower back, in those dimples where Kurt loves to fit his hands when they get the chance to make love. Sebastian's hips lurched forward, and a quiet, "yes," passed his lips.
One more. Kurt knew he only needed one more, and he picked his spot carefully, a spot that had taken a lot of practicing on his own to perfect.
A spot that had become the prince's favorite by far.
Kurt snapped the whip out along Sebastian's waist, where the braided length wrapped around his hip and hit his throbbing cock, with enough force to sting, but not enough to do any damage.
But it was all he needed.
"Fuck!" Sebastian moaned and came with a string of muttered curses, his knees giving out and his wrists pulling on the leather straps until Kurt thought they might dislocate. Kurt dropped his whip and rushed over with a tall stool for the prince to drop down onto, giving Kurt time to undo the leather straps from the posts, and then from Sebastian's wrists, taking care with the sore, broken skin.
"Kurt…I…" Sebastian muttered with his eyes half-lidded, lust blown pupils searching Kurt's body while he worked. The fingers of Sebastian's freed left hand toyed at the strings of Kurt's pants while Kurt worked to untie the left.
"Sebastian…" Kurt warned, panting as tired, shaking fingertips brushed the head of his neglected erection.
"Kurt," Sebastian mumbled, "I want to…"
"No, Your Highness," Kurt said firmly. He wrapped his arms around Sebastian's waist and lifted him from the stool, helping Sebastian limp his way onto the bed, "you can barely stand."
"I don't…need to stand…for what I have in mind," Sebastian stuttered, and Kurt immediately got a vivid image of his gorgeous prince on his knees, pink lips stretched around his cock, taking him down his throat to the hilt, sparkling green eyes staring up at him with no shame, no superiority, no lines or borders or boundaries between them. It was almost a tempting enough image to make Kurt give in, but he couldn't. It wouldn't feel right. It would feel like taking advantage of a tired and wounded man.
"Maybe when you can stand on your own, I'll let you," Kurt said, trying to think of anything he could to make his persistent hard-on die.
He laid Sebastian down on his stomach. He refilled his basin of water and dusted the cool liquid with healing herbs that he remembered his mother using to heal cuts and bruises when he was younger, long before he entered the king's service. They worked well against infection, and cut down the sting, but most of all, they sped the scabbing of the wounds. Any mark against the prince's skin stabbed at Kurt, regardless of how erotic whipping him was. Kurt emptied and refilled the basin three times before the wounds were well cleaned.
Kurt pulled off Sebastian's shoes, pants, and stockings, leaving him exposed to the cool air. Kurt disrobed completely and climbed onto the bed beside him. Sebastian's hand reached out instinctually to find Kurt, to hold his hand or touch his shoulder, anything to let him know that Kurt was there beside him.
"You will be staying on here, will you not? After I am wed?" Sebastian asked. It was a question made of more than one feeling. It was a statement, a command, a prince relaying an order that would be followed without dispute; but it was also a plea, a hope, a gentle request.
"I was not commanded otherwise," Kurt replied, hiding his smile. Sebastian laced their fingers together and brought them to his mouth, kissing Kurt's knuckles.
"Will you be telling Princess Fabray about us then?"
Sebastian's kisses stopped, and Kurt wished he could take his question back, but he also needed to know.
"Why would she need to know?" Sebastian asked.
"Well, she is to be your wife," Kurt said matter-of-factly. "Don't you think she deserves to know?"
"No," Sebastian said with a catch in his voice. "No, she doesn't. I will not share you and I will not lose you. Do you understand?"
"But I'm sharing you," Kurt grumbled.
"It's not the same," Sebastian said, "and you know it."
"But…"
"No, Kurt," Sebastian interrupted. "It's different. You understand, don't you?" Sebastian let out a heavy, shuddering sigh. "Please say you do."
Kurt sighed, sinking further into the thin mattress with his arm wrapped around the prince's middle, avoiding putting too much pressure on his back.
"Yes, Your Highness," he said, leaning over to kiss Sebastian's cheek. "I understand."
Kurt drew his blanket over them and kissed Sebastian softly on the nape of his neck, feeling the body in his arms relax at the soothing touch of his lips. Kurt let his breathing follow Sebastian's, till they inhaled together and exhaled together, drifting off to sleep, with a sympathetic Hunter guarding the stable door, ready to wake his prince before dawn.