Kurt sleeps straight through till the next afternoon. He usually wakes before sunrise – that was the schedule he kept in the regent's house, but he can't help himself sleeping in. He's exhausted for one, but the bed he's in is soft, and the body beside him warm and comforting. He passes the night without dreaming - his mind, for once, completely blank.
It's a rare luxury for Kurt not to dream. His subconscious mind has not been his friend for quite some time, as it seems to delight in torturing him with memories of all the things he's been forced to do, all the punishments he's suffered, all the pain, all the losses…
Sebastian's body pressed against his, his arms wrapped around Kurt's body, keeps the nightmares away.
Kurt doesn't mind a dreamless sleep. Back at the manor, he thought of it the same as being dead. Even with his strong spirit, his will to fight, sometimes Kurt prayed for death, especially when he had no food in his stomach, or the night was cold and his head burned with fever. Feeling dead might frighten some people, but not Kurt. He doesn't mind feeling dead. There isn't anything so great waiting for him in sleep that he should prize it anyway. He's fine disappearing from life for a while.
As he begins to wake, he realizes that he will have to leave Sebastian soon, and he's not looking forward to dreams again.
Kurt pulls himself from his deep sleep in stages. First, he feels the tingle of cool air against his skin. Then, the glow of sunlight kissing his cheek. Finally, his mind starts to comprehend the world around him – smells of food from somewhere nearby, the sound of people talking, more hushed than the night before, and of animals clucking and mooing and lowing. He wiggles his toes and fingers, scrunches his nose, shakes his head. Every piece of him wakes in one way or another before he manages to pry open his eyes. When he drags himself completely from sleep, he sees that Sebastian is gone.
Finding himself alone in this room, Kurt panics. Sebastian wouldn't just leave him, would he? Was this all a ploy to stick Kurt with what must be an exorbitant bill? How would Kurt escape? He knew better, didn't he? When he first saw Sebastian, he knew that going with him would be trouble. Why did he do it? Why did he give in?
Simple. Because he would have been dead if he didn't.
But now he may belong to the owner of this inn.
As he feared, he left one master and walked naïvely into the arms of another.
Just a slave, that's all he would ever be.
Just a slave, despite Sebastian's heartbreaking story and his sweet words.
Kurt stares at the heavy door, waiting for someone from the inn to come collect him. He holds his breath, listening for sounds of footsteps pounding down the hall, coming his way. Paranoia creeps over him, weeding around his brain, sharp thorns pricking him, punishing him for his stupidity. He thinks he hears a scratching noise and his eyes move in search of it. He spots a mouse, probably as frightened as him, scuttling along the wall. It stops in its running and turns to look at him, black eyes staring, nose twitching, front paws curled against his body, chest heaving frantically. They stare at one another, both feeling trapped, but not for long. The mouse makes its break, leaping forward and ducking behind a large wooden object. Kurt stares at it, waiting to see if the mouse will reappear. It takes a moment for Kurt to register what the large object is.
Sebastian's trunk.
His wooden trunk filled with clothes. Beside it sit a pair of boots, and beside that a saddle. Kurt's eyes sweep around again, and he notices other things around the room – personal items – that Sebastian would not leave behind.
Sebastian left – but he didn't abandon Kurt. He'd be back. He had to return for his things at least. He probably had some business and figured that Kurt knew his way out.
He didn't say goodbye. Somehow that doesn't make Kurt feel any better.
Kurt looks over at the table in the corner where he left his dinner from the night before. If it's still there, he might as well finish it, cold and congealed though it probably was. He could take it down to the kitchen and have it warmed up. He's sure that nice lady who brought him his food last night would do that for him, but he doesn't want to risk drawing attention to himself.
It's not all that safe for him here without Sebastian around.
But the plate is gone, replaced by a bowl with a different plate over it, and beside it, another mug. Kurt climbs down off the bed, looking left and right as he crosses the room, still partially expecting someone to leap out and grab him. He turns the plate over and is greeted with a steaming bowl of meal – a pat of butter and a mound of brown sugar melting on top. The mug beside it is full of milk – ice cold – which meant that Sebastian didn't leave too long ago…or someone came in while he slept.
He hopes it's the first. He's a bit wary of people being in a room with him while he sleeps.
He climbs into the chair and sits down to enjoy his breakfast, letting the smell of warm meal seep into his senses and calm his anxiously thrumming heart. He tries to stop himself from smiling, from being too relieved, from letting this feel right to him. He has to remind himself constantly that it won't last. Sebastian will return eventually and they'll go their separate ways.
Go their separate ways.
Kurt's heart starts to race again.
What exactly did he think he was going to do when he left this inn? He had a goal, but he didn't have a clue how to obtain it. Sebastian had been right when he said that Kurt was pretty much good for nothing. The regent took a poor farmer's son and turned him into an ornament, a plaything. He was kept on display, taught that his body didn't belong to him, his feelings and emotions didn't exist. They tried to take his mind, too. They almost succeeded, but during one particularly harsh punishment, he discovered a recess in his mind that beatings and starvation couldn't reach. In it he kept the few memories he had of his mother and father, of the farm where he was born, the animals they kept, the small pond where his mother taught him how to swim... Kurt could no longer recall their voices – that memory had been lost to him years ago – but their faces never faded.
He stirs the butter and the sugar into the warm meal, watching them swirl into the white mush, melting together. It smells like heaven and his mouth waters. He wasn't hungry when he first woke up, but now he's close to raising the bowl to his mouth and slurping the whole thing down his gullet. Fighting those urges, he picks up a spoon and takes a first tentative taste. He lets the meal bathe his tongue, lets it sit and dissolve in his mouth until the sweet taste of the sugar and the savory accent of the butter absorb completely, and then he swallows. After that bite, he eats in earnest, his body shaking with hunger. He shovels warm meal into his mouth, spoonful after spoonful filling his stomach more than he did with dinner the night before. In between mouthfuls of meal and gulps of milk, he hears another slight scratching, but this time at the door.
He stops, paralyzed for a second like that mouse on the floor, again imagining burly men storming in and dragging him from the room, but those images are shorter lived, especially when the sound of a familiar voice calls from outside the door.
"Dearie?" It's the woman from the night before – the woman with the red and silver hair. She scratches at the door again and Kurt swallows his mouthful of meal quickly to answer.
"Com…come in," he calls, his voice not up to par enough to yell too loudly.
She seems to hear because the door swings open and she fills the doorway, looking in at Kurt with a motherly smile on her face.
"It's nice to see you up, dear," she says, taking a step inside the door. Kurt's face falls.
"Were…were you in here earlier?" Kurt stammers. "Did you bring in the food?"
"Oh, no," she says, seeming to understand his unspoken unease. "Your gentleman friend brought it up for you. Told us not to bother you, except that he gave me this..." She takes another step into the room and holds a folded slip of paper out to Kurt. Two steps through the door she stands and waits for Kurt to take it.
He climbs down out of the chair and walks over to her. Stopping a distance away, he reaches out his hand and takes the letter from her outstretched hand. She smiles sadly when he does.
"He told me what it said in case you…" she stops, chewing on her words carefully, but Kurt knows what she's going to say.
"I can read," Kurt says with a grateful smile. "Thank you."
The woman sighs, staring at Kurt with a renewed longing, as if seeing someone else in his eyes.
She looks at him close to the way Sebastian did when Sebastian first saw him out on the dirt road.
She smiles at him and nods. She looks like she's about to say something else, but then decides against it. She backs slowly out of the room and, looking her last, leaves, closing the door behind her.
Kurt looks down at the folded square of paper in his hands. Feeling it, touching it, knowing that Sebastian had written it for him, fills Kurt with a giddy euphoria that he despises himself for. A day. It took a day for this man to get under his skin. A day to undo all the work Kurt had done as a slave for the regent, mentally preparing for freedom – all the walls he built up, all the defenses.
A handsome face and a few kind words had nearly torn them all down.
Kurt hadn't realized that he was this weak.
His hands start to tremble, clutching the paper in his fingers tighter than he realizes.
Stupid he says to himself. So blind and so stupid.
He was betraying himself.
He was worthless.
Kurt opens the letter and reads Sebastian's surprisingly neat writing as tears start to fill his eyes.
Kurt –
I'm sorry I won't be there when you wake. I have business to finish here before I can move on. Please stay, have breakfast, relax. I would like to have another chance to talk to you so please, don't leave.
If you do, I'll understand.
Sebastian
Kurt's skills at reading aren't the best. He'd been taught but rarely had the opportunity to practice. He stumbles through the letter, re-reading it again and again to make sure he understands every word.
Stay.
Sebastian asked him to stay.
It's closing in on twilight when Sebastian returns to the inn. He stables his horse and races up to his room with agitated footsteps, bounding in through the door without knocking, calling out for Kurt the whole way.
"Kurt! Kurt!" Sebastian bursts into the dimly lit room, head turning left and right to find him, which he does, lying on his stomach on the bed, knees bent, feet swinging in the air, lost in thought. "Oh, Kurt," Sebastian says, sounding relieved, rushing in rambles to explain his absence. "I didn't know I would be this late. I swear. I didn't intend…" Kurt's shy smile cuts Sebastian off, and with that one sweet look, Sebastian's distress bleeds away. Sebastian's breathing races as he watches Kurt, stretched out like a cat on his bed, lazily gazing up at him. The image makes it hard for Sebastian to remember to speak. "I…I didn't want you to leave."
Kurt nods, not asking for any explanation. He figures that Sebastian's business is Sebastian's business.
Kurt should have been gone by now anyway.
Kurt looks over the man standing above him, his lips parted, breathing less heavily, his hair and clothes dusty from the trail. Beneath the dirt Kurt can see a bruise starting on his jaw, but Kurt decides to overlook it. There are dozens of ways to get bruised up like that while riding a horse.
"Just so you know," Kurt says, "I can read a little." He pulls the letter from his pocket and waves it through the air. Sebastian squints in the low light to see it better. The paper looks a great deal more worn out than it did when he scrawled it out this morning. He wonders how many times Kurt looked it over. Did he carry it with him all day long? Sebastian imagines Kurt alone in the room, the letter clutched in his hand, and his heart wrenches. It hadn't dawned on him when he woke this morning – lighthearted, in fact, his entire body weightless, having had an incredible night's sleep – that Kurt would not be okay on his own.
Not until the sun began to set and Sebastian was traveling back to the village on that same dusty road – the one he had met a half-dead Kurt on – did the thought occur to him.
The poor boy had been violated, beaten, burned, starved, and Sebastian left him alone, in a strange place, with just a note.
Sebastian doesn't know if he should forgive himself, but from the smile growing on Kurt's face, a smile of guarded affection, it looked to Sebastian as though Kurt had.
"They taught you how to read in the regent's house?"
"No," Kurt says, returning the letter to his pocket, dropping his gaze as he does so Sebastian can't see how his eyes water, "my mom did."
"Ah," Sebastian says for lack of anything better, anything insightful, to say. "I'm sorry that I assumed…"
"You didn't know," Kurt says, waving Sebastian's worry away. Tension settles in the room, a combination of unspoken words and miscommunications. Sebastian stands, stiff-legged from riding, skin itching up a storm, and one other thing that he doesn't want to think of – something that makes his hand's twitch inside his gloves.
"Uh…I need to go bathe." Sebastian looks down at his dirty clothes as if to confirm this fact, eyes shifting to glance at his gloved hands – rough, brown leather gloves spattered with dots of fresh blood. Kurt hasn't turned yet to look back at him so Sebastian removes his gloves hurriedly and stuffs them in his clothes trunk. "Did you want a bath?"
"I'm good," Kurt says with a grateful smile. "I didn't really do anything today, and I'm sure you don't need the expense."
Sebastian's face falls a bit at Kurt's concern, but he doesn't try to persuade him. Sebastian returns Kurt's smile weakly and reaches for the door.
"I won't take long," he says, already halfway out the door when Kurt speaks.
"You…you don't have to leave," Kurt says, walking toward the doorway. Sebastian swallows hard and looks up, watching the barefoot boy approach. Kurt has an innocence in his darkening blue eyes that shrouds so many complicated thoughts and feelings, Sebastian can almost see the weight of them bowing his shoulders. "I don't mind if you stay and bathe in here." Sebastian breaks eye contact, looking down at his feet, berating himself quietly for actually considering this boy's offer. "It seems a shame," Kurt continues when Sebastian stays silent, reaching the door and putting a hand over his, "that you should be exiled from your own room."
"It's not for you that I leave, little one," Sebastian says, looking at Kurt's hand, thin and pale, covering his. He stares for a time, then his green eyes glance away, tracing a path down the hallway in front of him. "But, I'll return quickly and take supper with you, if you'd like."
"Yes," Kurt says, moving his hand away. "I would like that very much."
Sebastian nods and walks off, with Kurt's eyes watching him from the doorway, holding tight to the door to keep from following behind.
When Sebastian returns, he's carrying two plates balanced in his left hand – one stacked on top of the other – and a large pitcher in his right, with his dirty clothes lying across his arm. He knocks on the door with his foot and Kurt runs to open it for him. Kurt takes the clothes off his arm without being asked and Sebastian nods in thanks, concentrating too much on not spilling their dinner to spare a word. He heads straight for the table while Kurt piles the clothes in the corner by the door. Sebastian places the plates down and Kurt separates them, setting a plate in front of each chair.
"I hope you don't mind sharing a mug," Sebastian says, pouring milk from the pitcher into Kurt's mug from earlier. "They didn't have another downstairs."
"I don't mind," Kurt says, watching the white liquid fall into the cup. "You sure have a thing for milk. I would have guessed that you drink ale or something."
"You need the milk," Sebastian comments. "It'll put weight on you. You're thin as a bean. It's unhealthy."
Kurt grabs the mug when Sebastian stops pouring and takes a sip to hide his smile.
He could hear the father in Sebastian's voice right then.
Sebastian sets out a fork and a cloth napkin for each of them. Kurt waits behind his plate for Sebastian to eat. Sebastian smiles when he notices.
"You don't have to wait on me," he says, motioning to Kurt's food with his chin.
"It would be rude to eat before the founder of the meal," Kurt says, the reply sounding rote, rehearsed. Sebastian doesn't let it show on his face the way Kurt's automatic response bothers him.
He wonders how many times they beat that rule into him.
For being the regent's favorite, Kurt appears to be quite beaten down. Could that have happened after he was captured for running away? If not, if this is the way Kurt lived the majority of his life, Sebastian would hate to see how the regent's least favored slaves are treated.
Sebastian sits, and with Kurt's eyes on him, he raises a roll from his plate and brings it to his mouth. Sebastian watches Kurt back, waiting a breath with the bread poised at his lips, but Kurt doesn't move.
Fuck, Sebastian thinks, taking a bite, not wanting to see Kurt sit at heel like a dog any longer.
Kurt takes a bite of his bread while Sebastian chews the bite he's taken, gazing down at his plate, a multitude of thoughts clouding his eyes.
"I have a proposition to make," Sebastian says seriously. "Why don't you come along with me?"
Kurt stops chewing and looks up at Sebastian, who seems fully engrossed in his meal, even with the words that just left his mouth.
"Wh-what?" Kurt stammers, dropping his bread to his plate. "What do you mean, come with you?"
Sebastian smirks as he slices a hunk of cheese from the block between them. He breaks the hunk in half, putting a piece on the edge of Kurt's plate.
"I thought it was kind of a simple concept," Sebastian says, his words carrying a little bite. "I'm leaving here tomorrow and I'm offering you the opportunity to accompany me." Sebastian looks up and catches the surprise on Kurt's face. "You're not entirely healed up," Sebastian continues, "and I have a cart you can ride in for the time being till you do."
Shocked, Kurt stares at Sebastian with his eyes wide. Kurt would be a fool not to accept, but how can he?
"I…thank you," Kurt says, "that's…but I'm looking for my father."
Sebastian nods, chewing a bite of his dinner.
"Fair enough," he says, brushing the crumbs off his hands. "Where is he? I can take you to him."
Kurt sighs, tearing the piece of bread in his hands into smaller pieces.
"I don't really know," Kurt admits. "I haven't seen him since I was taken. I was only eight."
Sebastian coughs, nearly choking on the food he was swallowing.
"They train you to be a sex slave at age eight?" Sebastian sputters, too aghast to be tactful, and even though it hurts a bit for Kurt to think about, he smiles at Sebastian's reaction.
"Not entirely," Kurt says, toying with his piece of bread more than he's eating it. "You don't lose your virginity until you're twelve or thirteen…" Sebastian's face blanches and Kurt expects him to look away in disgust. Kurt is used, filthy, and he knows it. But Sebastian doesn't look away. As horrified as he looks, he stares at Kurt with sad eyes, and Kurt almost feels guilty for bringing it up. "But they do teach you… things…to prepare you…"
"Like?"
"Discipline," Kurt answers. "Obedience. Self-control."
"Kurt," Sebastian says, "I'm sorry. I didn't…"
"That's why I need to find my father," Kurt cuts in, skewered through the heart by the sound of Sebastian's pity. "I need to know that he's okay. I'm all he has."
"So, you don't know where he is, and you think wandering alone is the best way to find him?" Sebastian scoffs. "How far do you think you're going to get, Kurt - a young boy like you with five gold coins in his purse?"
Kurt starts to sink inside himself at Sebastian's light ridicule.
"It's all I have," Kurt says quietly.
Sebastian watches Kurt change, falling away, shrinking in his seat. He could bite his tongue out for not being gentler, but this boy needs to learn. Kurt has been stuck behind walls most of his life, and yes, he's suffered, but life beyond those walls is not much better.
Out in the real world, the punishments can be much worse.
"I think I can help you out," Sebastian says after a swallow. "I've found people with less to go on than that."
"Are you in the business of finding people?" Kurt concentrates on his diced apple so that the question sounds less desperate and more conversational.
"Not really," Sebastian says, tearing off a chunk of bread. "I'm a rancher by trade. I have a house and a parcel of land far away from here. But I also have a particular skill for finding people, even if they don't want to be found."
Kurt shakes his head.
"I can't pay you…" Kurt says, ashamed of the position he's in, the condition Sebastian found him in.
"I'm not asking you to pay me," Sebastian chuckles. "In fact, you'll earn your keep, I promise you that. You'll help tend to my horse when we're on the trail, and with the cooking and the cleaning and any mending that needs to be done." Sebastian pauses to take a drink from the mug, his brow drawn, considering his next words, hanging on whether he should speak them or not. He puts the mug back on the table and swallows. "Besides, I've been alone a good long time. I've forgotten how pleasant it is to have another human around to talk to…another body to lie down next to at night."
Kurt looks at the remains of his dinner, moving his food around his plate with his fork as he and considers Sebastian's proposal. Kurt weighs the pros and cons silently in his head as Sebastian finishes his meal, knowing that he's waiting for an answer. If he takes Sebastian up on his offer, Kurt would be making out far and away better than Sebastian. Kurt would get protection, transportation, meals, a place to sleep, and help finding his father. Sebastian would get…him. Kurt. And not even in the way he's used to men having him or wanting him. Sure, Sebastian mentioned Kurt helping out with odds and ends, but Kurt knows for sure that's not why Sebastian wants to keep him around.
Kurt's only real choices are to join Sebastian and benefit from everything the man's willing to share, or go it alone.
It doesn't seem like he has much of a choice.
The best thing for Kurt to do would be to go with him.
"Alright. I'll…I'll go with you," Kurt says, picking at his food with his fork.
Sebastian looks up at Kurt, but Kurt doesn't raise his eyes to meet his.
"That's good," Sebastian says, wiping his mouth with his napkin. "Thank you. Thank you for taking me up on my offer."
"No," Kurt says. "Thank you…for everything. You've been more than generous."
Sebastian doesn't tell Kurt that he's welcome. It doesn't seem right. What is Kurt even thanking him for? Treating him like a human being? Keeping him alive? Kurt shouldn't be thanking him because there's a selfish root to everything Sebastian's done.
Sebastian isn't a philanthropist.
If Kurt didn't look so much like Sebastian's husband, the boy might be lying dead on the side of the road.
He wouldn't have been the first boy that Sebastian's ridden by without a second glance.
A knot forms at the thought, at the guilt that exists within him at such an admission. It grows bigger when he sees the subdued smile on Kurt's lips.
Sebastian isn't an evil man, but his life is complicated.
This, too, might end up being a bad idea.
"Well, we'd better pack it in," Sebastian says, eager to see this day done. "We have an early day tomorrow."
Sebastian leaves his plate on the table and stands from his seat, heading to bed.
Now that Kurt knows what to expect, he doesn't hesitate to climb into bed after Sebastian, even though this detail of their arrangement still confuses him. How is sleeping – just sleeping - in another man's arms earning his keep? There has to be something else. Maybe it'll come up along the way. Does Sebastian already know and he's not telling him? Kurt doesn't like to be kept in the dark, but he's also in no position to argue.
Kurt lies on the soft mattress with his back to Sebastian, expecting a kiss on his shoulder, or strong arms wrapped around his body. He had never once desired touches when they were forced upon him, but he finds that he's been longing for them from Sebastian all day.
Instead, Kurt feels Sebastian put a hand to his shoulder and push him face down toward the mattress. A lump of solid pain lodges in Kurt's throat. He knew it – he knew it was just a matter of time, but he thought it might take longer with Sebastian.
He fooled himself into believing there was a chance that Sebastian wouldn't.
His body goes rigid and his heart starts to hurt, but Sebastian's voice whispers in his ear," Trust me."
Trust him.
If Kurt had a gold coin for every time he heard that…
When Kurt doesn't move, Sebastian sighs and says, "Please? I promise, I'm not going to hurt you."
Kurt complies, near tears as he rolls onto his stomach, a bit of his dream broken. He hears the sound of a cork pulled from a jar, and his nose fills with the strong scent of rose hips and honey. Kurt's head turns in Sebastian's direction, looking at a small clay pot in Sebastian's hands.
"I got this for your mark," Sebastian says, tilting the jar for Kurt to see the thick white ointment inside.
"Wh-what is it?" Kurt asks, inching away, sniffling and catching the sweet scent again.
"It's a salve," Sebastian explains, dipping his fingers into the ointment and bringing up a dollop. "Don't be afraid. It shouldn't sting."
Sebastian's fingers touch Kurt's skin, the ointment sinking into his damaged flesh, and the skin of his shoulder tingles.
"Where did you get it?" Kurt asks, his muscles slackening, his head relaxing onto his folded arms.
"I traded downstairs for it," Sebastian explains, pulling another dollop from the pot with his fingers, "from the master of the inn." Sebastian's green eyes follow his fingers as he traces over the cruel burn, the unnecessary desecration of this boy's smooth skin. "I was lucky that he had it. There are no healers in this village I've been told. Not for miles."
Kurt looks at the small pot with surprise. An ointment like that…Sebastian must have paid dearly for it.
"You didn't have to do that," Kurt says when he knows he should have just said thank you.
"Yes, I did," Sebastian replies, his voice firmly squashing any argument. "I can't have this getting infected. Then you would be nothing but a burden to me. Besides…maybe this will help it go away." Sebastian blows a stream of cool air across the ointment-covered wound, and Kurt shivers. Sebastian rests his forehead against the back of Kurt's head, indulging in inhaling the scent of his hair. "I know it must be difficult for you, but try to learn to accept kindness," Sebastian whispers. He kisses the back of Kurt's neck and pulls him close, rolling Kurt's body gingerly and facing the boy toward him this time so that the wound gets the benefit of the air circulating around them to help it heal.
Sebastian draws the sheet over their bodies and closes his eyes, locking himself away in his own terrible mind and his own horrific nightmares - ones that this tortured young boy had been able to extinguish for a single blessed night. Maybe it was a fluke. Maybe it wouldn't happen again, and if that was the case, he was grateful for his night of rest. Sebastian always slept better with his husband, Aaron, in his arms, so he is relying on that. He feels his mind and his body float away. Another night over and another day beginning – that is all he has to look forward to. This wheel of day and night continues to roll on with him somewhere in the center of it, waiting for his time to be done.
He's only in his thirties. He has way too much time to look forward to.
His mind drifts far from his present – from the room he's lying in and the Godforsaken village he's been wandering around for days - but before everything switches off to quiet and dark, he feels the slightest brush against his cheek – soft and light like the fluttering of a butterfly's wing. He feels the bed dip and hears the sheets rustle, but when he opens his eyes there is nothing - just a still room and Kurt in his arms asleep.