"Destruction is the foundation of all creation."
The afternoon sun slanted through the sparkling window panes that Kurt polished every morning before the sun was up. It left long rectangles of light on the bare floorboards he swept clean every evening when it was too dark to work. Master Neric sat on his bench with his white head bowed over a garment, his fingers flying so fast that they blurred like sparrows' wings. Kurt stood before the huge work table holding the master's fine shears, staring down at a pile of soft white linen that was meant to become a shirt – the very first garment he was to make entirely with his own hands.
He was fourteen – and terrified. Every lesson he'd learned in two years of hard work had deserted him. The fabric glared at him like it knew all the secret fears he tried so hard to hide.
"What if I . . .? His voice caught. He cleared it with a cough. "There's so much of it. It's so expensive. If I . . ." He didn't dare finish his thought lest he make it real by invocation.
Master Neric snorted from his bench. "You think that's expensive?"
Kurt kept looking at the fabric, trying to find the courage to begin. He heard the master moving behind him; heard the familiar rattle and clank as he unlocked the trunk he kept in one corner of the room. Then the old man shuffled back toward Kurt and tossed something on top of the pile of linen.
"That's expensive," Master Neric said. He left the object where it was and went back to his bench.
The swatch sat in a beam of sunlight, glowing against the white linen. It was the most exquisite thing Kurt had ever seen. Silk, he was sure, only silk could reflect the light like that. Brilliant sunshine yellow silk, brocaded with butterflies and flowers and one tiny bee in colors Kurt hadn't even known could be reproduced by human hands. It was a square just big enough to wrap around Kurt's small chest, with fraying, uneven edges. A scrap. A remnant of something else.
"Pick it up," the master said from his bench.
Kurt's fingers shook as he reached for it. He knew how silk was made, of course. Thousands, millions of tiny worms spinning cocoons for a metamorphosis they'd never achieve. They were transformed, in the end, but not at all in the way nature had intended. He closed his eyes to better feel the rough/smooth texture and the pattern of the embroidery. It slid through his hands like water given form. He could imagine just from the feel how it would drape and flow over his body, how the weight would anchor the movement. He wanted to cry with happiness that such a thing could exist outside of his imagination.
"It's fantastic," he breathed.
"It's nothing compared to the gown I made from it."
Still holding the fabric, Kurt turned to look at the master. "You?"
Master Neric nodded. He looked up from his work and the eyes under his bushy caterpillar eyebrows were soft with memory. "My first creation after I rose to journeyman. Lady Fenner. Her husband was on King Harold's council. She took a great risk coming to me instead of Master Tressewick for her gown for young Prince Harold's christening." He smiled, not at Kurt but at the shining yellow silk. "When that fabric arrived . . . well, I've never been so scared. I cowered over it for at least a week."
Kurt tried to imagine his master as a frightened journeyman but it was impossible. "I can't believe that," he said.
Master Neric had come to the end of his seam. He tied a swift knot and clipped the thread, then setting the garment aside he rose and made his way slowly over to the table, still holding the needle with its trailing tail. "Imagine yards and yards of it. The pinnacle of both weaver's and embroiderer's art piled in billows all across the table. And you have to make the first cut."
Kurt shuddered at the very idea.
The master's gray eyes rose to meet Kurt's gaze. "Have you ever really listened to the words we use for things?"
"What do you mean?"
"Cut. Break. Bite." Master Neric clipped the ends of the words, snapping the consonants against his teeth, making them sharp. "The needle is a weapon." He brandished it in Kurt's face. "It rips; it severs; it tears apart what the cloth makers spent weeks and months creating. On a tiny, tiny level, to be sure, but over and over again. Thousands of infinitesimal wounds. Hundreds of thousands. Bite. Bite. Bite." He mimed as he spoke, pushing the needle through an imaginary cloth. "But it binds, even as it breaks. It recreates. We recreate."
He slid the needle into a nearby pincushion, one of the many that were scattered around their workroom. Then he reached out and stroked his fingers over the silk Kurt held. "The price of the fabric for that gown would buy this village, down to the last millpond duck. But the costliest of fabric is useless until someone cuts and tears and punctures and creates." He dropped his hand to the pile of linen and prodded at it like it was a dead animal he'd found by the road. "It's nothing. Pointless. It's no good to anyone until you give it shape and purpose. Never be afraid of destruction, boy. Without it nothing beautiful can be born into the world."
He turned and went back to his bench, leaving Kurt holding the exquisite fabric. With a grunt the old man took up the garment he'd been working on, selected a fresh needle from the ones Kurt kept threaded for him in a cushion on a shelf nearby, and resumed his own act of destructive creation.
Kurt was still staring at the fabric when a noise drew his attention to the large windows that looked out over the road past the shop. Laughter, raucous and sharp. Kurt's fingers clenched instinctively around the delicate brocade as a small mob tumbled into view, carousing merrily up the street. It wasn't really a mob; it was only Cale, Master Neric's son, and a few of his friends, but grown almost to manhood they were about as close to a mob as Pluna would ever produce. Kurt's heart sped to double time and he held his breath but none of them even glanced in the window as they passed. They were too busy shoving at one of their own, berating him merrily for some fault. Still, Kurt watched until they had moved on down the street and the sound of their voices began to die away.
When he glanced at Master Neric he found the old tailor also staring out the window with an expression that made Kurt feel like he'd intruded on some deep, private moment. Kurt turned to the table, coughed a bit, and when he turned back the master was sewing again and the strange moment was gone.
"Should I put this back in the trunk?" Kurt held the fabric out toward his master.
Master Neric looked up again and stared at Kurt for what felt like a long time. "You keep it," he finally said.
"But master . . ."
"It was never meant to be an old man's souvenir. I kept it so that it could provide inspiration for –" his lips pressed in a thin line before he continued "– my successor. For you."
Kurt stroked reverent fingers over the fine embroidery. "Thank you, master," he breathed.
"Don't thank me. Make a shirt."
Kurt set the fabric carefully on his bench. He would take it home later and tuck it away with his other most precious belongings in the carved box he kept under his bed. But there was still time in the day for him to make a start. He faced the work table with renewed determination, picking up the linen by one selvage edge and shaking it out over the table with an emphatic snap, watching it settle like a cloud, straight and true, awaiting its destruction.
His knees hurt. He shifted on his pile of cushions and opened his eyes to the real world, the duke's beautifully appointed sitting room, empty of all life save Kurt himself. He hadn't seen a soul all morning; it was as if a ghost had pushed the bell that summoned him from his room. Yet he found he felt safer like this, following routine, than he had left alone in his room the day before. Safety, though, was always a relative concept for Kurt.
Destruction. All around him he saw only order in the carefully arranged furniture of the duke's sitting room. Perfect symmetry. Oh, destruction had happened here, over and over again, he bore the marks of it, but there was no sign, not here, not unless you counted the small, dark stain that still marred the upholstery of the duke's favorite armchair.
Destruction. Creation. Which had triumphed as the fire that Sebastian had started burned its way through him while he'd slept? He knew, he'd known the moment he'd woken alone in his little room, that the slut had been destroyed. Not just its mask, which he'd not found since the night Sebastian had first given him release, but all of it, every trace of the dissociation that had kept Kurt safe. He had known from the moment his lips touched another man's for the first time in his life that he needed – he longed – to lie with Sebastian just one time as his true and honest self. But he couldn't exist as two people. Offering himself to Sebastian had meant sacrificing the careful detachment that kept him safe from the things Gavin did and made Kurt do.
Now the slut was gone and what was left was the only thing Kurt was going to have to help him face today and tomorrow and the rest of his life, however long or short that might turn out to be. But was the Kurt Hummel he'd woken up as the same boy who'd trembled over a pile of linen in that workroom so long ago? Or had Sebastian's fire forged someone new? What would happen when he finally – as he had to, he knew they wouldn't leave him alone forever – faced Sebastian or Gavin or even Reginald?
He should probably be worrying about that. He should probably be frozen in fear at the mere thought. But his memory of Sebastian's naked body in his bed wasn't the only thing protecting him from panic. He had an unexpected ally.
The memories had begun to creep forward as soon as Kurt had floated up out of dreams of caressing lips and hands and opened his eyes to the early morning light and the emptiness of the space where Sebastian had lain. Locked away for so long, his memories sensed a new weakness and they circled like wolves, scenting opportunity, pushing forward one by one to test Kurt's resistance. They were insistent and Kurt's protective walls were damaged beyond repair. It was easier to let them have him. One by one they carried him back to a past that felt more real now than this room or the impossibly bizarre sequence of events that his life had become. Every time one left him another was waiting, drawing him away and creating its own illusory buffer between Kurt and whatever today had in store for him. And Kurt knew there was nothing he could do to prepare himself for whatever he would face today, so he surrendered willingly to each insistent pull. He was grateful.
Night in the workroom, the big windows dark, lamplight reflecting Kurt's body – a taller, stronger body, heavy with exhaustion – back at him. His hands trembled but he forced them still so he could see to finish yet another seam by the inadequate glow. He fought to keep the needle in focus but the monotony of bite and pull lulled him into a drifting stupor from which it was becoming harder and harder to drag himself away.
From time to time the sound of muffled crying made its way to his ears from the other side of the door between the workroom and the private part of the house. Genaa hadn't cried in front of him. She tried to hide her fear. It was her nature to be stoic, but she was as exhausted as Kurt and perhaps had forgotten how thin the walls were. Or the fact that Kurt was still awake on the other side of the door.
His eyelids fell closed and he forced them open again. He longed for his bed. But there was such a pile of work yet to be done and with Master Neric stricken Kurt was the only one who could do it. He was going to finish their orders, on time, and to the master's exacting standards. It was all he had.
A knock sounded on the door, startling open the eyes he hadn't realized he'd closed again. The door swung inward and Genaa's face appeared in the crack. She was younger than her husband, and had never looked old, but tonight her kind face was deeply lined and her red-rimmed eyes betrayed her emotions. Still she smiled when she saw Kurt on his bench holding his work.
"Go to bed, Kurt. You look like you're ready to drop."
"How is he?" Kurt asked.
Her lips pressed tight. "The same. The healer's gone now. He'll be back in the morning. You should go up. That will keep until tomorrow."
"I just want to get a few more done. I don't want him to have a pile to come back to when he's . . ." Kurt couldn't bring himself to finish. He could see in Genaa's eyes that she knew as well as he did Master Neric would never pick up a needle again.
"You should go to bed too," Kurt told her. "You need rest."
She smiled again, but it looked as pale and sickly as Kurt felt. She came into the room and fell heavily onto Master Neric's bench, across the wide work table from Kurt.
"Cale's going to come back after the council meeting. I'll go to bed once he's here. I don't want to leave Neric alone too long."
Kurt nodded, and lowered his eyes to his work again. The seam was easier to face than the truth in Genaa's eyes.
"He was so proud of you. You know that, don't you?"
Tears – his first – blurred the fabric but he blinked them away before they could fall.
"He told me once that of all the beautiful things he's ever made, his greatest legacy to the world would be you. And the apprentices you'll train someday. He said there were two reasons the gods brought him here to Pluna. To fall in love with me and to give you a master equal to your talent. And I couldn't tell you which of the two made him happier."
This time the tears wouldn't be banished; they ran down his face and Kurt set the garment aside before it could be spattered. He scrubbed at his wet cheeks. He couldn't look at Genaa. If he did, he might never stop crying. "I don't know what I would have done without him," he said. "He saved my life."
"I know the feeling. We were lucky, you and I."
Genaa got up with a sigh and turned to go but she stopped in the doorway. "Kurt?"
He was still crying, but he had no choice but to look at her.
"People will understand if the work doesn't get done on time. Go to sleep."
"Just a few more minutes." It came out as a plea, like a child begging for one last story at bedtime. "I have to put everything right for tomorrow. Then I'll go."
She nodded. "I'm going to make some tea. I'll leave a cup on the sideboard for you. I expect you to drink it while it's hot."
"I will," he promised.
But he didn't keep his promise. One seam led to another, and another, and another. Helplessness and fear joined forces to keep Kurt's hands moving. At some point his brain dimly registered a male voice. His heart leapt for the briefest second before he realized that it must be Cale, slipping in through the back door. For the first time in his life he welcomed the presence of the tailor's son, especially when he heard the staircase creak as Genaa climbed to her bedroom. There was no doubt in his mind that Cale was only here because it would look bad if he wasn't, but just having him in the house would comfort Genaa and give her a respite, and Kurt was gladdened by it.
He sewed until the clock struck two, startling him out of the trance of bite, break, push, pull. He knew he had to sleep. He was bone-tired, despite the terrified noises in his head.
He cleaned up carefully. Because he couldn't bear not to, he threaded needles that would never be used and anchored them in Master Neric's pincushion. He blew out the work lamp and watched its smoke curl up and disappear into the dark near the ceiling. Then he took the smaller lamp and carried it back into the kitchen.
The cup of tea was waiting on the sideboard, next to a single flickering candle. There was no sound from the sitting room, where they'd made a makeshift bed for Master Neric after he'd fallen unconscious. Kurt hoped that Cale was still there. It would be just like him to sneak out when his mother thought he was keeping watch.
He picked up the cup. The tea had gone cold and he could have simply dumped it down the basin but the thoughtfulness of Genaa's gesture, caring for him even as her own world was falling apart, was something Kurt could never ignore. He took it and the lamp to the table. He would drink it for her sake then go and lie in his bed and watch night shadows play across his ceiling. He felt too frightened to sleep, no matter how tired he was.
He flopped into a chair and lifted the cup in fingers that shook with fatigue. The tea swirled and tilted dangerously close to the rim and he had to steady it with his other hand. It was cold, as he'd expected, and oddly bitter and as he forced it down in several deep draughts it left an unpleasant grit on his tongue. He suspected Genaa had put one of her special herbs in it. Something to help him sleep. It would be just like her.
The ticking of the clock from the workroom grew louder. Its monotonous drone echoed inside Kurt's brain and he forced his eyes open – when had he dropped his head to the table? – and righted the cup, which lay on its side, trickling dregs onto the polished wood. His body felt heavy as lead as he pushed himself up and made for the stairs.
He had just reached the second floor landing when his knees buckled and he fell hard onto the steps. The solid things around him began to move in a subtle swirling that made up down and left right. He tried to reach for the railing but there were three of them floating in front of him so he closed his eyes and moved by feel alone, pulling himself upright and dragging one foot after the other. Dimly, from somewhere far away, he heard the sound of a door opening, or closing, or maybe both. Something was wrong, he realized belatedly, his legs were too heavy; he felt like he was slogging through quicksand one sucking, dragging step after another. He was being pulled irresistibly downward. Whatever had been in that tea wasn't one of Genaa's gentle herbs. Panic spiked his belly and it felt so strange to be frightened while his heart beat slow and steady and his breath slipped easily in long inhales and exhales. He should run, he thought, but he could no more run than fly. He fell again, with a thump, and crawled the last few steps to his garret chamber. The bed was miles away, he knew he couldn't reach it. He heard a tread on the steps so far below him, a world away, and he tried to cry out for help but no sound came from his throat. Everything was moving; the floor undulated like ocean waves that roared in his ears, surging him forward then pulling him back. The tread on the stairs came closer, louder, it pounded like a heartbeat, like the deathly tread of the Render and Kurt fought the black void that was spiraling behind his eyes with everything he had but the blackness swallowed him up anyhow, pulling him down into an endless nothingness . . .
Pain again, in his hands this time, and he forced them open. The cushion he'd been crushing fell to his lap then rolled onto the floor. The crackle of the fire was the only sound in the room, but Kurt's ears were still ringing with the echo of his memory.
He'd fought so hard to stay awake. Last night in bed, with Sebastian warm and naked alongside him, he'd battled valiantly because he'd wanted to hold on to every moment of their impossible night together. But Sebastian's kisses had been like a drug absorbed through his pores each time soft lips had brushed his cheeks, his eyelids, the corners of his mouth, and his own willing lips. Every gentle touch had severed another line anchoring Kurt to the present moment until eventually the only thing holding him was Sebastian himself. But Sebastian was drifting too, they were floating away together, or so Kurt had thought, until he woke up alone, again, with all trace of his nighttime visitor gone. Again.
He'd thought, as he lay on the floor of his room the night he'd been taken, that he was dying. He'd thought that Cale had poisoned his tea, just to be sure, just in case Master Neric had decided to leave Kurt something of value. And Kurt had wished so many times in the intervening months that he'd been right. Death would have been better than the mockery of a life he'd been condemned to. But a dead journeyman tailor was worth a great deal less than a live, naked, cock-sucking slut, he supposed, and Cale was just the kind of person to wring the utmost advantage out of any situation. Kurt stroked the cushion he'd been strangling. It was infuriating, really. As cocksure and arrogant as any duke but then he could strip it away and lay himself bare; so strong and real but ephemeral as mist, always evaporating in the morning sun . . .
No, no he was thinking about Cale, not Sebastian, wasn't he? Kurt pressed his palms to his eyes and watched colors dance behind his eyelids. He let his inner gaze follow the drifting spirals that spread in dizzy kaleidoscope patterns.
Maybe Sebastian was mist. Maybe he was something Kurt had made up in his own head, the product of a deteriorating and desperate mind. He'd never seen Sebastian outside of his room, had he? He struggled to remember. Others had talked about him, he was sure of that, but maybe he'd made that up too. Maybe none of this was happening and he was still lying on the floor in his garret room, his brain slowly dying from the poison in his tea. The colors behind his eyelids spun and he began to spin with them, turning . . . turning.
The floor was spinning. It lurched and heaved and Kurt grappled desperately for something to hold onto but his fingers found only floor, cold floor covered with something loose and rough, floor that wasn't his room at all. He pressed his hands flat, forced his eyes open but vision only made the spinning worse. Dark walls, dim light, that was all he could register before his stomach turned upside down with the room and he retched weakly, coughed, wrapped his arms around his throbbing head and curled tight around himself to try to stop the nauseating motion.
He was cold. He was so cold because he was naked, he realized as his brain inched its way toward consciousness. Naked on a floor covered with straw. Naked in the cold and dark and . . .
. . . no he didn't want that memory, anything but that but he was trapped now and it refused to let go . . .
. . . on a freezing stone floor with nothing to cover himself. He was afraid to move but he knew he must, he had to think, everything was terribly, terribly wrong and he had to understand, to find some kind of sense in the impossibility of it all. He pushed himself to his hands and knees, retched again but stayed up this time, and breathed. The cold helped; the air was sharp in his lungs and his head was clearing now, the pain receded to a dull throb at the base of his skull and the room slowed until he couldn't feel any motion at all. He opened one eye, and then when everything stayed solidly in place, the other.
A wall rose in front of him built of massive stones, like the foundations of some great castle. They were oddly dark, and Kurt suspected that if he touched them he'd find them wet. Wan light came from somewhere, a window, high up in the wall, a narrow slit covered with bars. He craned his neck to see it. It hurt to move but he forced himself to look, to turn and take in the whole room. The whole cell, for now he saw that that was what it was. There was a door, heavy wood banded with metal, with its own barred window. And nothing else. Just dirty straw and himself, naked and shivering.
A harsh jangling and scraping came from beyond the door and Kurt shrank back instinctively into the farthest corner of the cell against the wet stones. He pulled at the straw but it couldn't cover his nakedness so he curled his knees up and hugged them tight. With the scrape of a bolt sliding through its hasp the door opened. Light flooded from the corridor, unexpected, it hurt his eyes and sent the pain blooming back throughout his head. He squinted against it. Silhouetted in the doorway was a man, enormous, Kurt could see that through his pain, with arms like tree trunks and a bald head that reflected the light.
"Good. You're awake." The voice was deep and rasped like a hacksaw biting through iron.
"Where am I? What's going on?" Kurt heard himself ask, his own voice a frail imitation of his captor's.
"Oh no. You don't ask questions. In fact, you don't talk at all. On your feet, slut."
Kurt didn't move. He was still befuddled, still naked, he curled tighter around himself. It wasn't defiance, just instinct.
The bald man crossed the room in two long strides, fisted Kurt's hair and pulled. Pain exploded, Kurt screamed, and when the claxons stopped ringing in his ears he found himself on his feet, cringing against the wall, his hands cupping his genitals to try to cover himself.
"Hands behind your back slut," the man barked.
Anger flared, unexpected, sharp and sudden like the pain in his head. It wasn't the last time he would feel it, not by a long shot, but it was the last time he would express it so openly.
"Fuck you!" he shouted without thinking, words he'd never before spoken out loud.
The man moved so quickly that Kurt was on the floor gagging again with the copper taste of blood sharp in his mouth before he even realized he'd been hit.
"Quint!" his captor hollered in the direction of the door. "This one thinks he can defy his betters. Bring me the big strap."
Another man appeared, a slightly smaller, hairier version of the first. He held a wide strip of leather which he placed in the other's outstretched hand. The bald man cracked the strap in the air, leaving a bright, stinging sound hanging between them. Kurt flinched, and his captor's mouth split in a grin that cut his face like a hatchet blade.
"Close the door, Quint," he commanded. Then he turned on Kurt, brandishing both the strap and that feral grin. "This is going to be fun."
The light and any hope of escape slowly faded as the door swung its wide arc and finally fell shut with a slam . . .
Slam!
Kurt's eyes flew open and he would have cried out if there had been room for air to escape past his heart in his throat. The image of his burly captor – Fell had been his name – floated in front of him in all his avid sadism, but there was someone behind him, misty and misshapen but all too real, standing between Kurt and the door to the outer corridor. Kurt's heart slid back into its proper place and the tension drained from his body so completely that he had to press his hands to the floor to keep from falling over. It was surprising yet not. He'd been on the edge for so long that to have the moment finally arrive was almost a relief.
Gavin wasn't smiling like the Fell shadow was, but both sets of eyes had the same dangerous glitter, reflecting knife blades of light in all directions. Kurt tried to blink away the remnants of his memory. He needed to know what was real and what wasn't. But then Gavin moved forward, through and past the shade of Fell, forward until he was standing over Kurt and staring down at him.
Kurt leaned on his hands and waited to feel fear, but there was only calm as he watched the memory of Fell and his strap fade into wispy nothingness. The more Fell dissolved, the more solid Gavin seemed to become. Kurt should pull himself up to kneel properly. He knew his disobedience would only make his ultimate fate worse. This was it. It had to be. He hadn't even seen Gavin for days. His sudden appearance, his flashing eyes, could only mean that this was the moment Kurt's fate would be pronounced. He should pull himself up but his body was beyond his control. It kept him cringing and low. A smaller target, perhaps. Kurt didn't know.
Gavin, for some reason Kurt didn't have the energy to try to understand, waited. He stood and looked at Kurt, threateningly close but silent. The tension between them crackled louder than the fire burning in the hearth but still the duke didn't move or speak. He stood there like a statue until Kurt finally summoned up the energy to straighten his back and kneel up the way he'd been taught at the end of that vicious strap. But even then Gavin remained silent, waiting, until Kurt, with nothing left to attempt, turned his face upward to gaze at the duke with eyes he was terribly afraid were pleading.
That seemed to be the signal Gavin was waiting for. The corners of his heavy mouth twisted up in a sneering smile. "You can go," he said, and turned for his bedchamber.
Aghast, appalled, Kurt watched him retreat across the room and reach for the chamber door latch.
"Wait!" The sound burst from Kurt's chest without asking permission and his heart gave a thrilled flutter, leaving him dizzy.
Gavin, inexplicably, obeyed. He stood still, but he didn't turn around.
"I can't do this anymore," Kurt heard himself beg. "For the Maker's sake, just do it, whatever it is! Beat me, torture me, kill me if that's what you want, but I can't take it . . . the waiting . . . I can't . . ." Kurt's hands fisted the cushions around him, beating at them in time with his words. He was begging for his own doom, he knew, and he gasped at his own stupidity but he had nothing, nothing left. "I can't take it," he said again, barely more than a whisper.
For another long moment Gavin was still, then he continued as if he'd never stopped, through his bedroom door, pulling it closed behind him.
Kurt fell forward, boneless as a marionette with cut strings. His muscles trembled and he panted heavily, as if his gesture had been physical instead of vocal. As if he'd run at the duke and battered him into the door. His muscles trembled but his heart was calm and still. His brain felt heavy and blank. With a detached kind of clarity he realized that his penis flopped against his thighs, not the tiniest bit hard despite the looming threat of its master.
Sebastian, he thought. Sebastian couldn't save him, but he'd promised Kurt answers and with his world turned inside out those answers were Kurt's only hope of figuring out what the fuck was happening. He climbed to his feet and leaned against the wall until his legs felt slightly more reliable than soggy noodles. Just a few steps, out the door, to his room, wait for Sebastian. Real or imaginary, Sebastian was Kurt's last hope.
He tripped the latch for the secret door and slipped into the empty corridor, but habit or inattention took him past his room and he found himself on the steps heading down, as he had so many times before, to the spring room. He didn't need water tonight; he wasn't hard. He hadn't been hard since Sebastian had taken him over the edge last night. Today had been filled with just as many emotions as yesterday but Kurt's penis didn't seem to have noticed and his balls swung loose and soft as he walked. He let his feet take him to the room with the gurgling spring. He took down a basket, just as always, and filled it with icy water that he had no use for.
". . . pathetic deviant! Every time he comes he's worse! It's insufferable!"
Kurt cringed in the doorway of the spring room. He hadn't heard the voice on his way down, but now it rang loud enough to discern over the splash of the water into the stone basin. Cautiously he peeked out into the hallway.
One door was open – just a little way beyond the turn to the stairs. It might be the kitchen, or the big room where the servants ate their meals together. Either way, he was sure he could make it to the steps without being seen. Not that there was anything wrong with being seen – he made this trip every day, passing pages and maids and manservants all along the way.
"Nothing shabby, he says! Make sure they're suitable!"
Kurt's breath caught. It was Reginald. Talking to someone about Sebastian, mocking his words. "Maybe he'd like me to get him a dress – then he could use him and still feel properly like a man."
"Well now you've lost me." A female voice this time, and one Kurt easily recognized. This was Mary the kitchen keeper. "Who's getting a dress for who?"
Kurt's eyes darted around the still-empty corridor. The door to the room the two servants were in was swung wide open, almost flush against the wall. He dashed for it, bucket in hand, and slipped between it and the wall, hiding in its narrow shadow.
"Sent to the village like a common peasant – to a shop! Oh no, nothing shabby. Nothing's too good for him now!"
"For Sebastian?" Mary asked, and Kurt could hear frustrated confusion in her voice.
"No, not for Sebastian. For the fucking slut!"
The air in Kurt's chest congealed into something cold and solid and suddenly claxon bells were ringing in his ears and he was going to die here, naked, holding a bucket of water, because he couldn't make his lungs work. The hand not holding the water curled into a fist. The world began to spin before his belly finally unclenched and he sucked in a breath. His legs were shaking again. His toes were wet and cold. His penis was still limp as dead eel. And Reginald was still complaining.
". . . why not? Why the fuck not? Nobody said it was a secret. Everyone will know soon enough."
"What will everyone know?"
Slowly, achingly slowly Kurt lowered the bucket of water to the floor. He wasn't going anywhere, not now, not until he knew everything Reginald had to say. He didn't care who might find him here. He needed, desperately needed, to know.
But Reginald, despite his previous assurance, was suddenly silent, as if he didn't quite dare to speak this thing that wasn't a secret.
Luckily for Kurt, kitchen keeper Mary wasn't one to give up when her line had been baited. He heard the click of glass on glass. "Sit down," Mary said gently. "Drink." There was a long pause, and more clinking. "Now let's try this again. Who's buying a dress for who?"
"There's no dress." Reginald's voice rasped unnaturally. He grated out cough, as if he'd just gulped too much hard alcohol. Kurt sent a silent, trembling prayer of thanks to kitchen keeper Mary. There was another long pause. Kurt could easily imagine the glare Mary must be giving the valet. When he spoke again it was on a slurring sigh. "Fuck it. It's not a secret."
"You said that before. What's not a secret?" Mary wasn't any better at concealing her impatience than Kurt would have been.
"They sent me to the village. Like some kind of errand boy. As if we don't have actual errand boys."
"Who sent you? For what?"
"His Grace of course. Sent me to buy clothes. In a shop!" Reginald spat it, sounding as horrified as if he'd been sent to a bordello.
"His Grace is buying his clothes from a village shop? I find that hard to believe."
"Not for himself. I told you before. The clothes are for the slut."
The world around Kurt tilted, but he dug his fingers into the mortar between the stones and pulled it upright again. There was a long silence, followed by more clinking of glass. The stones behind Kurt's bare back and ass were cold as ice but he pressed against them all the same. He would rather die than move now.
"And why," Mary asked for him, "does the slut need clothes?"
"And that Sebastian! Nothing shabby! Oh, yes sir, whatever you say." Reginald's words slipped and bumped against each other in a verbal version of drunken reeling.
"Why does the slut need clothes?" Mary repeated, with an impatience in her voice that Kurt was sure he was projecting onto her.
"Because he's leaving, obviously. He can't very well go swanning around the countryside naked, can he?"
He's leaving . . . leaving . . . leaving . . . it echoed in Kurt's head, too loud with possibility, and he forced it quiet. He couldn't afford to miss a word.
"You're not making any sense, Reg. Where in the world would the slut have to go?"
With Sebastian! The words burst like fireworks in Kurt's chest and his arms wrapped tight around his torso, holding himself still by sheer force of will. Was this what it had all been about? Had Sebastian found a way? Had some miracle happened – was that why Gavin had been so angry yet silent? Kurt's heart was beating triple time, his entire existence hanging on Reginald's next words.
"That's the question isn't it? And no one would believe it. I wouldn't have believed it myself if I hadn't had it from His Grace's own mouth."
"Reg . . ." Mary's voice was a threat and Kurt thanked the gods for it.
"Concordia City. That's the fucking joke of it all. Our slut, at the high court of the realm."
What?
"What?" Mary echoed Kurt's brain.
"And me sent to dress him up for it. Valet to most powerful duke in the east but let's not worry about that, no. What use protocol when the sex slave needs to be clothed?"
Bitterness dragged heavy on Reginald's words but Kurt didn't care. Concordia City? His mouth hung open and his eyes shut tight. All his life he'd dreamed of the shining city by the sea, he didn't understand how or why or what in world could be happening but hope blossomed like a tiny snowflower deep in his belly. Had Sebastian really . . . ?"
"Mother's tits why?!" Mary's voice and the bang and rustle that followed it broke through Kurt's thoughts. He imagined her reaching across the table in frustration and shaking Reginald by his lapels. The mental picture made him want to giggle.
"Ah, yes, why indeed?" Reginald did giggle, a high drunken unpleasant sound. "It's the why that almost makes being forced to trudge around shops all afternoon worth it. His Grace is giving the slut away. To none other than the fucking crown prince of the realms. As a gift. He's going and never coming back. The clothes are just for the journey. I'm sure Prince Harold'll have him stripped and on his knees as soon as . . ."
Reginald's voice was lost in the roaring torrent of water that filled Kurt's ears. He grasped the door to try to hold himself upright as the color began to bleed from the surrounding hallway, transforming solid walls into empty outlines with blurred edges, like a drawing done in soft charcoal by an indifferent artist.
Given away? Given away as a present? Kurt's brain struggled to understand what Reginald had said. Was there no Sebastian's miracle, then? No last-minute escape? Was he really to be sent to the high court of the land, to kneel in naked submission exactly as he did here – and worse – for the very people he'd dreamed about as he'd sewn endless rows under Master Neric's watchful eye? The people whose acclaim he'd imagined would make every painful, painstaking hour worth it in the end? He couldn't breathe; the water in his ears was running down his throat, leaving him gasping.
". . . very unlikely." Mary's words began to work their way past the noise in Kurt's head, faint at first, then more insistent. "I can't believe His Grace would ever let him . . . and how does he even know the prince wants a slut?"
Kurt sucked air into his lungs. He had to keep breathing. He had to know.
"I tell you, he told me so himself. A present, he said. For the prince's affirmation. And as to your other question, I'd bet my last penny that woman had something to do with it."
"Woman?" Mary's voice was confused, but then she gasped. "Lady Montrose!"
Eyes so sharp and blue, peering into Kurt's soul, illuminating his secrets . . .
"She was in his grace's ear the whole time she was here."
"You're right," Mary said. "And you should have seen her in the hall! She couldn't take her eyes off the slut. Or her hands either. She was dead furious when His Grace said she had to stop. Looked like she wanted to take a torch to the place."
"She comes from the court," Reginald said, his voice stronger now as he warmed to the subject. "She must have planted the idea in his head."
"But what does she get out of it?"
"Who knows? Favor with the prince? Or maybe she thinks he'd be more willing to share than His Grace was and she'll finally get to have her way with him
Mary laughed. "I bet she'd love outfoxing His Grace. You might be onto something there."
"Either way, I don't care," Reg slurred. "It makes no difference to me."
"Poor Reg," Mary clucked, but she sounded more gloating than sympathetic. "You're going to lose your plaything. Imagine our slut, at the royal court."
"Sucking royal cock, more like. I just wish I could figure out how he's involved in all this."
"The prince?"
"Sebastian," Reginald spat. "He's part of it, somehow. I know he is. I just can't figure out the angle. Why would His Grace let his steward – under-steward – use his slut, especially if he's planning to give him off to a royal prince? It doesn't make sense."
Kurt was still trembling, shuddering really, against the stone wall, but inside a stillness had come over him. The color was seeping back into his surroundings, but in his head everything was creeping gray fog. It didn't make sense. It wouldn't make sense – to anyone but Kurt himself. And sudden as a bolt of leftover lightning it all made sense to Kurt.
"Maybe," Mary said, "he let Sebastian use him because he's giving him off to a royal prince."
"I don't follow you."
"Well, we don't know what kinds of deviance a prince might get up to. In a city. In the west? What if Sebastian is . . . preparing him somehow? In ways His Grace has too much self-respect to consider?"
"You mean getting him ready for the ways the prince might want to use him?"
"The prince, Lady Montrose, whoever. All I know is, from the sounds coming out of that room at night, preparing is the least of what that steward was doing to the slut! Not that I listened. Disgusting, really, but loud enough to wake the dead. I was afraid for the . . ."
Kurt's stomach somersaulted and he fled as fast as he could, not caring who might hear him go, before he could hear anymore. He left the voices behind as he pounded up the stairs but he couldn't outrun Lady Montrose's piercing eyes or the touch of Sebastian's lips, or the shame and fear that pierced him like spears tearing holes in his flesh. He ran full out, the rattle of his own breath deafening in the quiet. Turning the corner at the top of the stairs he collided with someone – a lamplighter. The glancing blow sent the old man sprawling but Kurt by some miracle stayed on his feet, kept running, the servant's angry shout another projectile pursuing him. He threw his door open and slammed it shut behind him, stumbled to his washing alcove and fell to his knees over the drain in the floor.
His guts twisted and heaved, retching bitter bile onto the iron grating. He hadn't eaten all day, but his body didn't care that his stomach was empty. It spasmed over and over, as if it could purge Kurt's brain along with his belly. It was impossible. It couldn't be possible. And yet he knew it was. He knew . . . he knew . . . and another violent convulsion propelled thin yellow bile onto the floor because he knew what Reginald didn't. He knew what Sebastian had done.
. . . what do you do in the village of Pluna . . .?
. . . a boy who likes a little pain with his pleasure . . .
. . . no one to come looking for you . . . ?
. . . little tailor . . .
Still more spasms ripped through him, punctuating each memory with gall. Kurt pushed away the last, the worst memory, until his frantic retching slowed. Finally spent, he slumped to the side and curled in on himself.
What's your name?
His feet were cold. Cold and wet, despite the fire that burned hot just beyond the alcove. He pushed himself up against the wall and opened his eyes. The bucket of water he didn't remember picking up when he fled the kitchen corridor sat in a puddle in front of the fireplace. Kurt twisted onto his hands and knees and crawled to it. It was only half full now – his heart quaked at the idea of the mess he must have made running the halls with it, until he remembered that didn't matter anymore. He dipped his hands into the icy liquid and dashed it hard against his face, scrubbing as if he could clean his memory as easily as his skin.
He was shaking still, but the nausea was passing. It left in its wake only darkness and dread. Kurt shuffled away from the puddle of water he crouched in, toward the bed; he pulled the blanket down and wrapped it binding-tight around his body.
What's your name?
He understood now, too late, what Sebastian had done. Lady Montrose's eyes floated in front of him as real as if she too was crouched in the tiny room. Eyes full of knowledge, and questions. Questions that Sebastian had asked him, later, digging, always digging, teasing past all of Kurt's defenses to study him, like a bug under glass in the collection of some mad sorcerer. Uncovering his very deepest secrets, and so effortlessly. Kurt's chest produced a bitter sound that was almost a laugh and he scooted around, putting his back to the door that had let Sebastian into his life. A few gentle touches, the promise of an orgasm, and he'd broken all his rules. He'd given Sebastian everything – everything Lady Montrose had wanted to know about him. He pulled the blanket over his head, blotting out the room, the bed, the puddled floor. But even that couldn't muffle the realizations that battered at his brain. Things he'd said and things he'd fantasized about, all the details of his life he'd laid out before Sebastian like a gift. Everything Gavin had never been able to use against him had been found out, offered up so willingly, and tears began to fall now as Kurt held himself and rocked back and forth to the staccato rhythm of his breath under his blanket.
Sebastian. He wanted to reject it, to scream that it was impossible. Sebastian, who he'd wrapped his naked body around, who he'd kissed until his lips burned with heat, until their breath had synchronized, in and out of each other's mouths. Sebastian who'd whispered his name with the reverence of an invocation to the gods. Sebastian who Kurt had dared to dream might be his salvation – how could he have been the agent of his destruction? But the memories were inescapable. Sebastian drawing him out piece by tiny piece, so that his new master would know his every secret. Kurt shook his head hard, trying to dislodge the terrible knowledge, but it wouldn't be banished. Sebastian always holding himself just out of reach, always in control, dominating Kurt, even last night when he pretended they would be equals, he'd still held Kurt down. He'd still teased him just as long as he wanted to and he had plumbed the depths of Kurt's submission even as he pretended to give Kurt what he wanted.
Would you stay like this? Hard and desperate for me? If I asked you to?
And Kurt had answered, yes, yes he would, he'd shown Sebastian just how far he could be taken and how completely he could be controlled. He'd served himself up on a platter, and for what? Because he was lonely? Because he was afraid? He knew even as he thought them that both of those were wrong. The truth was even worse: Sebastian had enticed him with the chance to fulfill the secret fantasies that had enflamed Kurt's desire since he'd known what desire was. And more, he'd taught Kurt that there was no shame or fear to the things he longed for. He'd given so much, and, it had seemed to Kurt, expected so little in return.
But those little things were everything. Kurt had let Sebastian in and now Gavin was sending him to the capital, to the city he'd dreamed of all his life, to kneel naked, to be used and abused, he could feel himself there even now, with the crown prince or the Montrose woman or whoever was using him at the moment barking commands at him – Kurt! Kurt! Kurt! – he wouldn't be able to hide from them, he couldn't pull his mind away if they used his name, there would be no way to detach himself from the things they made him do in order to survive.
There would be no way to survive.
The tears stopped then, suddenly, like closing a tap, and he trembled no longer under his blanket, but despair spread cold and heavy from the pit of Kurt's stomach out along his limbs. Despair fueled by the inescapable truth of the thought. There was no way to survive.
He lifted his head and let the blanket drop back down around his naked shoulders. He turned back to the door, facing it and the things that lay beyond it as squarely as he could. He took a deep breath and willed his babbling brain to quiet. He needed to be sure.
He'd always known it was possible. No one watched him at night. The castle was well-guarded and there was nowhere for him to go. He'd long ago found the staircase that led to the roof and although there were guards up there too, the men looked outward, watching for threats to the castle gates. It would be a simple thing – so simple, he'd always known it – to slip silently through the door and creep to the inner edge overlooking the courtyard. No one would see, no one would hear, not until his body broke on the stones three stories below. He'd always known. He'd kept the knowledge in a tiny dark secret place in his head, barely allowing himself to know that he knew, but there. A final, foolproof escape plan.
He sat down on the edge of his bed. His grip on the blanket softened and it fell again, to his waist this time, pooling on the mattress behind him. He felt so calm, all of a sudden. Why did he feel so calm? His mind should be rebelling against the very idea. After all, everything he'd done for six long months – every terrible, humiliating act he'd performed – had been born out of his unflagging determination to live and find his way through the nightmare that his life had become. But how could he – now? How could he kneel naked in the royal palace before a master who knew how he'd struggled over tiny stitches, how he'd stood crying beside his father's grave until it was too dark to see the stone, how he'd fantasized about the miller's apprentice tying him down and taking him . . .
No. No. Kurt stood and shoved the blanket away. It was too much. It was more than he could bear. There was no way to survive. They'd killed him already. All that was left was to climb, then fall.
He thought he should probably be crying. He felt like he was crying. A sucking hollow pressure pulled at his chest but his cheeks were dry. For the first time he was glad he didn't believe there was an afterlife where his mother and father waited and watched. Would they be ashamed of him for giving up? Would they understand? I tried. But they beat me in the end. He stepped toward the door. He would do it now, quickly, before fear took hold of him . . .
The sharp knock on the door startled him so badly he cried out and his knees buckled, but he caught himself before he could fall. For a moment he was lost, his grip on himself slipped loose and he began to tremble again. By the second rap, though, he understood what he'd almost forgotten. Sebastian.
There was nowhere to hide in his tiny room, and nowhere to run, and Kurt knew that Sebastian wouldn't go away if he didn't answer. Not tonight. The only way out to the roof was through Sebastian, once again Sebastian was taking away his choices and destroying his chances and again Kurt's emotions spun him around. He was suddenly, toweringly angry, filled with rage that blocked the breath in his throat and accelerated his heartbeat to a war drum's beat in his ears. The edges of the room began to blur around him but the door was a single sharp point of light, and the hammering of Sebastian's knuckles against it the only sound louder than his desperate heart.
"I know you're in there," the voice outside the door was muted, almost tired. "I'm not going away."
Well fine then. If Sebastian was inescapable, Kurt would give him what he wanted. He turned and climbed onto the bed and reached up to tangle his wrists as tightly as he could in the rope hanging from the ceiling. What had been bondage before would be his anchor tonight. It would hold him fast while he endured these very last moments of his enslavement.
Fuck you, he silently told the door.
Sebastian waited longer than Kurt would have expected. That was fine, though, the pain of the rough rope biting his flesh kept Kurt's anger front and center. He welcomed it. He wouldn't cry; he refused to cry. Not tonight. Tonight he would survive one more time.
The turn of the door latch filled the room like a cry of pain. Sebastian's face, when it appeared in the opening, was pinched tight, tense and exhausted. But it softened with surprise when he saw Kurt displayed on the bed with his hands caught up above his head. He didn't speak, he simply stared at Kurt, running a restless hand through his hair, until he remembered to turn and close the door. The click was softer this time, as if he too had been startled by the violence of the first noise. His white shirt glowed too bright in the lamplight and when he turned back Kurt imagined he could see the green of his eyes in the light the shirt reflected.
"Kurt, what are you . . ."
Sebastian's voice trailed off; his eyebrows came together and he sniffed the air, confused. His eyes roamed around the room then settled back on Kurt, all caution and concern. "What's going on? Are you okay?"
Kurt wanted to laugh, but instead he tightened his grip on the rope and forced his eyes to meet Sebastian's. Whatever Sebastian saw in his face changed his expression yet again, to something that might have been empathy but the anger inside Kurt yelled that it was only pity. He pressed his lips together to keep them from trembling.
"Kurt, please, talk to me."
"Why?" It came out as a croak from a throat hoarse with vomiting and stifled emotion. "Why bother to pretend anymore?"
Sebastian's eyes went wide. "Pretend?" He sounded so innocent, like he barely understood the word, and bile rose in Kurt's throat again.
"This is what it's always been about, I know that now. The slut. I've never been any more than a body for you to use while you peered into my head." Kurt's voice was hard and brittle as broken glass. "A little compensation for all your hard work. Well here I am. All yours. But I'm not going to help you anymore. Take what you want and leave me alone."
Sebastian was good. He stared up at Kurt, his mouth dropped open and he looked . . . hurt. As if he was the one who'd suddenly found out that everything he'd believed was true, wasn't. When he finally spoke, it was quiet and careful. "Kurt, please, just come down so we can talk." He took another step closer. His hands raised between them, whether to plead or to ward Kurt couldn't bother to figure out.
"Was it fun? Was it a game to you, screwing with my mind like that? Did I give you enough of a challenge or were you disappointed that I surrendered everything so easily?"
Kurt's hands ached against the rough rope. Sebastian kept coming, one tiny step after another like a stable master easing up on a spooked stallion. His care made Kurt's anger burn hotter.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Don't you? I know, Sebastian," Kurt spit the name at him like the word hurt his mouth. "I know everything."
"What –"
"I know about the crown prince, I know what you did! I know what you're going to do, I overheard them, do you understand? I know everything."
Sebastian froze; fear and something more than fear dawned in his eyes. His hands between them turned upward, like he was supplicating before a deity. "Kurt, just come down and let me –"
But Kurt was beyond placating now. He was beyond caution and far, far beyond his own determination to simply survive this last encounter with Sebastian. His anger, all the rage he'd been holding onto for so, so long burned like a hundred suns and vaporized logic and resolve. "Do you have any idea what you've done to me? Do you even care? I can't live anymore. I can't live! How can I let them send me to him, when he'll know everything, where I come from and who I am and my name?" Tears were falling now; they blurred Sebastian's shape in front of him but Kurt was too far gone to think of letting go of the rope and brushing them away.
"Send you to . . . ?" Sebastian stammered. "Kurt, what . . . ?"
"You've killed me! Do you understand that? Everything I lived through, everything I let them do to me so that I could live and you destroyed it all! Did you even think, for one second, what you were –"
When Sebastian moved it was lightning fast. He dashed across the room and caught at Kurt's wrists, pulling at the rope that wrapped them. "Kurt, no, you have to listen –"
"Don't touch me!" Kurt spat. He grasped at the rope but Sebastian pulled it free. It burned as it slid through his palms but Kurt ignored it. The fire inside him exploded in one final conflagration and he shoved at Sebastian's encircling arms and kicked out with his knees. One landed a blow to Sebastian's belly that doubled him over but he recovered so quickly, still trying to pull Kurt down from the bed.
"Just let me –"
"No! Don't touch me!" Kurt yelled again. He was still crying but he shoved Sebastian backward, taking him by surprise and sending him reeling. All thoughts of roofs and escape and death fled Kurt's head; he had no thought but to make Sebastian pay for everything everyone had ever done to him. He flew off the bed and tackled Sebastian, beating at his chest with his fists. Sebastian struggled to capture his wrists, but then he stepped in a puddle of water and went down hard, dragging Kurt with him onto the flagstones. Kurt rolled away but Sebastian was so fast; he caught Kurt's arm, keeping him close while he climbed to his feet. Kurt backed away but Sebastian wouldn't let go. He was pulled along, until Kurt was trapped between the wall and his bed.
"Kurt, I –"
"No!" Kurt pulled his arm free and clapped his hands over his ears. He didn't want to hear – he couldn't hear anything Sebastian had to say.
"You have to –"
"Fuck you!" Kurt screamed it, out loud, for the second time in his life. "Fuck you!" He pressed his hands harder against his ears and wrenched away from Sebastian's restraining hands, turning to the wall, shutting him out. "Fuck you! Fuck you! Fuck you!" He shouted it as a denial, an accusation, a hopeless prayer to gods who'd never existed. Sebastian's hands came down on his shoulders and that was it, he couldn't take it anymore, he had to get away. He turned and attacked, slamming his shoulder against Sebastian's solar plexus. They grappled, Sebastian trying to wrap his arms around Kurt's body and hold him still while Kurt fought for his life, desperate to reach the door, shouting an endless litany of "Fuck you! Fuck you! Fuck . . ."
And then something beautiful happened.
It was like falling, not down, but into. The room and Sebastian's effort-contorted face receded, not dimming exactly, no, they drifted away from him until Kurt watched them through a kind of tunnel, bright and small at the end. He was surrounded by darkness but he wasn't afraid. It welcomed him, like he was coming home. He might have worried that he was dying, but he could still see his own fists battering and the view twisted and turned as his body struggled to escape Sebastian's grasp. He could see those things but there was no feeling at all. He was floating somewhere inside himself, he mused, not above or below but deeper. Wherever he was felt safe and warm with no sense of urgency and no buffeting emotions. And it was blessedly, mercifully, silent.
This must be it, he thought. His mind had finally snapped. Now that the dreaded event had arrived, he wondered why he'd fought against it for so long. At the end of the tunnel he could see Sebastian shouting something at him; the muscles in his shoulders and neck corded with the effort of trying to subdue the naked, hysterical boy in his arms. He could read his own name on those silent lips, the bottom one really was beautiful, Kurt was fleetingly sorry he wouldn't get to taste it again.
The world at the end of the tunnel tipped sideways as the two men, still locked together, fell again onto the wet floor. As his body went down Kurt glimpsed the doorway, open now, and shocked faces sliding by in a blur. Then Sebastian was shouting not at him but above his head and wrapping him in something – his blanket – while Kurt's own hands and feet pushed it away.
It was nice, really, this place where Kurt was. He could live this way, he thought, if he had to. Here in the silent darkness where he wouldn't feel the things they did to him and couldn't hear himself scream. If he could just find a way to close his inner eye to what was going on at the end of the tunnel, he would be perfectly fine. The crown prince of Concordia could do to him whatever he wanted and none of it would matter. Kurt was safe now, locked away inside himself.
Down at the end of the tunnel a cup had appeared, thrust into Sebastian's hand by someone else, and Kurt watched, curious, as Sebastian held it up to Kurt's own lips and tipped its contents into his mouth.
Then suddenly the world tilted again but not outside, it was the inner world this time. He felt it pulling him down, down, he was falling now, flying along the tunnel and he wanted to reach out for purchase to stop his slide but he had no hands and he wanted to cry out a denial but he had left his voice behind with his body. No, no I was safe. I was free! No! But the slide only sped up, hurtling him back toward the world he longed to leave. Nausea swept through him in long, bitter waves – how could it when there was no feeling here? – and his stomach lurched as he was slammed back into the naked body twisted in the blanket on the floor.
He hurt, everywhere, his palms were on fire and his throat ached. He was struggling, trying to push the blanket away because it wasn't allowed – he was never to cover himself in front of anyone. But his movements dragged, like he was slogging through quicksand, he was too heavy, made of lead and the iron arms that circled his torso loosened as he stilled. His body lurched as Sebastian pulled him close, cradling his limp form. Someone was crying; he had no idea if it was him or Sebastian or maybe one of the pale faces at the door. The sound of his own harsh breathing filled Kurt's ears but as stupor forced it to slow he could hear Sebastian above him, chanting hoarsely.
". . . so fucking sorry, I didn't know Kurt, I didn't know I'm sorry, I'm so fucking sorry . . ."
He wanted to yell at Sebastian again for using his name in front of the people at the door, but everything was moving, the floor undulated like ocean waves and the sound of Sebastian's voice began to stretch into a nonsensical drone. He surged forward and rolled back in a way he'd felt before, just once. He couldn't believe it; he wanted to rage but he only had energy to turn his head and force his eyes open.
Sebastian's face floated above him, doubled, then tripled, too many cheeks streaked wet with tears and twisted in a rictus of pain.
Kurt fought off the darkness long enough to whisper, "You drugged me." The words slurred and dragged. "Bastard . . ."
Then his eyes fell closed and his head lolled in the crook of Sebastian's elbow. There were hands . . . too many hands . . . lifting him, jostling, and he wanted to protest but the darkness wouldn't let him. There was nothing left to fight. It was over, and he had lost.
For the second time in his life, filled with terror at what was to come, he succumbed to benumbing oblivion.