Christian only ever calls him "prince" when he's pushing him down in the stable, and barking out commands. He likes the idea, of his highness brought so low, his cheeks hollowed out, lips slick and his eyes streaming tears because he has to struggle to fit Christian inside his mouth. Most times the Prince doesn't even manage to get his jodhpurs all the way down before he is reaching in with his too-soft hands and whispering, begging, "yeah, yeah, please- please." But Christian always makes him wait, even if it's been weeks, even if he's been crawling the walls of the flatshare going insane from the want, from the loneliness. The two are often indistinguishable and it becomes easier not to examine this when the Prince is on his knees looking up at him with his big wide hazel eyes, trying to catch his breath - trying to catch Christian's attention. It gets even easier when he grabs a nice fistful of brown hair tight in his grasp, because those little winces of pain the Prince gives him, the way he chokes on his cock, they give Christian something he hasn't had in too long. They make him feel. He doesn't know what the feeling is, maybe strength, or power - he hasn't had the will to examine it. But when he makes the Prince whimper the sound lights his nerves up, and sometimes, it's enough.
Nothing really worked for Christian, in those first few months after Olli had gone, really gone from Dusseldorf. He hated to admit it, but it was better, sort of, when Olli had been in town. He would catch glimpses of black hair and a flash of green, and it kept him grounded and focused in a way he didn't know he'd miss. Things were simple, completely clear. If Olli was somewhere, that meant Christian wasn't. It meant that he'd had direction and that direction was away, far away from Olli or anything that had to do with him. Unfortunately, it also meant staying away from his traitor brother, but Christian shouldn't have been surprised by Gregor's defense of his cheating ex. Whores, it seemed, looked out for one another, no matter what.
At the time it had also meant staying away from home, or rather, the flat, since he'd stopped considering it home from the moment he'd laid Rob out in the hallway. So he'd moved into Königsbrunn for a little bit. The staff quarters were tiny, but that was fine, he didn't have much or need much. The walls had been thin and he could hear the underbutler on the other side of the wall coughing, and snoring, or sometimes fucking Jessica first thing in the morning before breakfast service. It wasn't ideal, but it was a place to stay and a good excuse to stay away.
But after a few months, he returned to the flat, conceding after Luise had called and begged him to go back. Olli was gone, and the building needed a landlord. There was no real reason why he couldn't anymore. Except, sometimes, he woke up in the middle of the night, nauseated and sweating, his heart pounding painfully in his chest, barely making it to the bathroom in time to hang his head over the bowl and breathe through the dry heaves.
His dreams. They'd been full of blood, watching himself tear someone apart, hearing Olli's laughter and feeling dizzy and out of control, and the feeling didn't dissipate during the day. He'd go to make a cup of coffee and remember how Olli used to dance in front of the machine in the mornings - to make it work better he'd said. Christian didn't bother cleaning the deep brown stain by the front door where he'd flung the coffee machine in rage. It was easier to take to drinking tea and his appetite wasn't the greatest anymore anyway.
He threw himself into his work, double shifts at the stable, riding the mares and stallions until his hands chafed and his muscles ached, even helping Justus with the accounting to keep busy to keep that weird vertigo feeling of loss from taking over completely. The apartment, he only crawled back to when he was exhausted, when work had wrung everything out from his veins and he could just collapse on the couch into dreamless sleep.
The staff wasn't really surprised when Christian started hanging around on their weekly poker nights. He was welcome, by virtue of his being on the payroll, and he took advantage of it. The Koenigsbrun staff had a tradition that they adhered to closely, a bonding ritual leftover from probably Ludwig's time, if not even earlier. Frau Lentil would know, but on Fridays she and Justus had the day off, so she didn't participate anymore, if she ever did to begin with. It was a little difficult for Christian to imagine that, not to mention deeply disturbing. The game started out with Euros, but would always devolve into raucous strip poker and ungodly amounts of drinking. Christian would never play, just stand off to the side and observe, and the staff didn't try to force him, preferring a silent moody Christian to whatever might come out in the face of gambling and alcohol. Besides, they were too amused by Prince Phillip's good natured insistence on joining them to bother Christian too much.
Like any good ritual it was fairly predictable. Christian would flit around looking at everyone's hand, Phillip would be down to his underwear almost immediately, and Jessica was always generous with her trademark wide-mouthed smirk, sitting pretty with her ironically modest maid's uniform, and her smart-assed comments. She hadn't lost a hand yet, in the weeks since Christian had started watching and Phillip was obviously on an epic quest to see Jessica divested of her garments ever since the day he'd first stumbled onto this weekly game, when he'd wandered drunkenly into the kitchen to find half the staff semi naked and laughing in the half-light of Frau Lentil's kitchen. Not terribly regal of him to mix with the help, Christian thought. But there wasn't much about Phillip that was regal, and he could understand why Nico was into him. Phillip was kind of a contradiction, willowy, slim, but still masculine with generous lips and heavy-lidded hazel eyes.
It was unnerving and unexpected for him to feel that little frisson of interest whenever Phillip would tip his head back and laugh, or when he'd wink suggestively at Jessica. Christian had come to associate that with Olli, but in the weeks that he surveyed the game, it became increasingly apparent that he had a type, and Phillip fit the bill, which made Christian a little upset, because he was better than this, wasn't he? Better than being a mindless servant of his own need, like Olli. But that didn't stop him from hovering behind Phillip a little longer than he did everyone else and even, shockingly, silently helping him win a hand. Not that it mattered much against Jessica, Phillip always lost anyway.
"Guess Mr. Sunshine isn't much help," Jessica cooed to Phillip as she shrugged on her jacket and shoveled the money into her pockets at the end of one of their games.
"I guess not, Fake-a-rape," Christian growled as he made his way to the fridge.
"Not my fault your boy-toy cheated on you, Chrissie," Jessica fired back, her tone poisonously sweet. "If you need tips on how to keep a man around just let me know. Always happy to lend a hand."
His hand flexed and relaxed on the handle of the fridge, willing himself not to end her life right there in the kitchen.
"See you next week Phillip!" She called out brightly, breezing out of the kitchen door.
"You might want to loosen your grip there, don't want them to take that out of your salary," Phillip called out. "Only the best for the von Lahnstein's – that includes appliances."
Christian grabbed the dinner Frau Lentil had set aside for him. "Thanks, great advice. Please keep talking, nothing goes better with my dinner than a nice full serving of horse shit. It's not like I don't get enough of it at work."
Phillip tipped his head back and let out a gentle laugh, and Christian watched his adam's apple bounce, fighting the completely irrational urge to bite it. Phillip rose out of the chair slow and easy like vapor and floated over to Christian with the whiskey glass outstretched. "Christian Mann, yes? Nico's ex? I think it's time for a more formal introduction. I'm Phillip Zu Hohenfelden, and you, my friend, look like you need a drink. And, while you're at it, you can teach me how to beat Jessica at poker."
And, oh, wasn't there something achingly familiar about this, a handsome man who didn't understand or care about the concept of personal space, tempting him with all his most secret vices; alcohol, friendship, and a nice hot electric undercurrent of sex. There were things he wanted to do to Phillip, nameless rough things that would wipe the sass from his face and satisfy the strange hollow space he felt in his gut, day in and day out. The closer Phillip came to him, the harder it was to ignore that dark impulse.
Their fingers brushed as he took the offered glass, Phillip's fingers uncurling from the glass the way they might uncurl from his –
"Prost" Christian said quickly, knocking back the whiskey in one gulp and setting the glass down on the counter behind him. "And I haven't been Nico's ex in years. I'm someone else's ex now."