"Mmm … hm-mmm. Hmm! God, that feels good!"
"Don't it though?" Sebastian murmurs, running calloused hands down smooth skin, tracing the swells and valleys of muscles, kneading and massaging with strong fingers.
"Yeah, but … but we don't have time for this! There's too much to do! So much to prepare!"
"Of course, we have time," Sebastian counters, his hands traveling paths they've blazed time and time again, searching for the one thing that will end this argument dead. "There's always time for makin' love, darling. Especially on a day like today - when the sun's shinin', the wind's whistlin' lullabies outside our window, and there's no one around to interrupt …"
"Yes … oh, God, yes! I see your point … yes … yes … YES! No! No-mmm … mmm … Sebastian! You need to get that herd ready to move! We're burning daylight we can't afford!"
"Simon's doing that," Sebastian hums behind his husband's ear. "Got an early start this mornin'. He's excited about goin' on this run."
"Hmmm … he wants to make you proud."
"Well, he already does that." Sebastian strokes, taking his time feeling his husband's cock, memorizing every ridge and vein. Seeing as they'll be apart for close to a week, he needs this to sustain him. "And help'll be here soon. They'll have things handled till I get there. I don't want the two of us to move from this spot until we absolutely have to."
"And when is that, do you think?" Aaron shifts positions, rolling onto his stomach a hair to help Sebastian maneuver his way inside his body. Despite his arguing, he wants to be full of his husband for as long as he can have him before they have to say goodbye.
"Maybe a couple of hours. Possibly more. We aren't scheduled to move a head of that herd till dusk. I bet I can make you cum at least a dozen more times before then."
"Only a dozen, Sebastian?" Aaron chuckles around a moan, bunching the blankets beneath him with his fists and rising to meet his husband, too desperate to wait. "Tsk-tsk-tsk. I think you're losing your edge."
The sound of Aaron's laughter echoes in Sebastian's ears long after that memory drifts away, leaving behind a lump in his throat so massive, he's sure it will choke him to death.
And he'd welcome it. Despite the things he hopes to accomplish with this life, he'd welcome death if it came to him.
A terrible thing to say considering the boy wrapped in his arms, and not only because of the attachment Sebastian knows Kurt has formed to him.
But because, for the time being, Sebastian is the only person Kurt has in the world.
Kurt had kept Sebastian's dreams at bay for those first few nights, but now they're back, and with a vengeance. And they don't only show up when he's asleep. They come for him when he's awake – when Kurt nods off in the wagon and Sebastian's mind wanders. Sebastian doesn't have to close his eyes to relive those moments either. They're not even so much dreams anymore, but a constant strip of events playing in his mind, like a reel spinning round and round and round without end. He'll glance over at the sleeping boy in the wagon, and for a split second, he'll see Aaron - wearing Sebastian's hat and dressed in his son's old clothes, which were really just hand-me-downs of Aaron's after all.
And Sebastian has a feeling he knows why.
He knows Kurt.
Somehow, he's seen Kurt before.
Sebastian thought he was being sympathetic at first, having heard so many stories like Kurt's, having seen so many people abused the way he'd been. But no. There's something in his heart and in his mind that pulls toward him; as if, along with Aaron and his son, Kurt is a part of Sebastian's unfinished business on this planet.
Suddenly, Sebastian wants nothing to do with Kennerstown, either. Whatever Kurt is afraid of there, Sebastian has a feeling it will bode ill for him, too. But he sees no way around it.
Not for what he has in mind.
Sebastian needs information, and Kennerstown is where he'll most likely to get it.
And since he needs that information to complete his unfinished business, Kennerstown is where they'll have to go.
But he'll need to stay extra vigilant. He'll need to make certain that Kurt feels safe, and then follow through in ensuring that he stays that way.
Morning chores are performed in silence, heavy thoughts hanging between them left unspoken. Kurt hovers on the beveled edge of begging Sebastian not to take them to Kennerstown, of offering anything Sebastian wants, including himself bound in chains …
… or at the end of a whip.
He knows that Sebastian is too honorable a man to take him up on that, but there has to be something. Even the best of men have a weakness. But the only weakness Sebastian seems to have is his husband and his son, and to use either of them as a device to get what Kurt wants would be unforgivable. So much so that he'd considered running away, but he was certain there wasn't anywhere he could get to on foot by sunrise that Sebastian couldn't find him.
But what if Sebastian didn't come looking for him at all?
Kurt didn't want to risk finding out, not with the way he felt about Sebastian. He'd prefer Sebastian beat him purple than to find out he meant nothing to the man. Besides, running away is the action of a child, and Kurt had promised himself that he wouldn't behave childishly and make Sebastian's life difficult. Sebastian had offered him protection, and so far, he's delivered. Kurt had to have faith that they could walk into the lion's den and Sebastian would keep him safe.
Have faith, like in that book Sebastian gave him to read. Kurt doesn't believe in God; not yet anyway. Nothing he has seen or read has convinced him that an all-powerful and benevolent creator exists somewhere in the heavens. But he believes in Sebastian. His words and actions thus far have proven the type of man he is. Kurt is inclined to believe what he can see, not what others tell him is real.
But men can change at the drop of a hat, and Sebastian is a man. But being around Sebastian had Kurt beginning to believe in a different variety of man. A man who can be kind and caring and loving without having a vicious bone in his body.
The type of man he remembered his father being.
The type of man he hoped to become.
They eat and pack up their camp without speaking, Sebastian's green eyes distant even when Kurt stares straight at him, hoping to hear a word. Sebastian's silence had started to make him nervous. A silence as thick as the one they shared is usually the precursor of rough times ahead. Had something changed? Had Kurt's insistence that they camp one more night made Sebastian angry? He doesn't think so. He didn't think it would. Sebastian seemed so amenable to the idea.
But he won't know until Sebastian opens his mouth and speaks. He can't go by Sebastian's eyes. The eyes are the windows of the soul, so-called, but they can betray. The tone of one's voice, its rise and fall, its pitch and edge, are much harder to manipulate. Kurt doesn't need to hear much. The man doesn't have to make a speech or anything.
His name. That's all he wants.
"So, are you ready to get a move on, little one?" Sebastian asks, and Kurt sighs, because even though his manner is weary, he doesn't sound angry.
He doesn't sound changed.
"I am," Kurt says, making his way onto the buckboard, nearly leaping the distance. He's no more eager to get to Kennerstown now than he had been last night, but he's elated to still be traveling with Sebastian, that what he had done hadn't thrown a wrench between them.
It never dawns on Kurt that Sebastian would even think to kiss him considering how distracted he seemed all morning, but he does.
And it's no ordinary kiss.
Sebastian joins Kurt on the buckboard and, before the boy can take his seat, Sebastian winds an arm around his waist, pulls him close, and crashes their lips together, breathing him in with such ferocity, Kurt thinks they'll eventually become one. With a hand to the back of Kurt's head, Sebastian holds him steady, though if Kurt had any ideas of trying to escape Sebastian's hold, they disappeared.
And that errant thought he had of running away? Completely disintegrated.
Kurt feels his knees go weak beneath him just as Sebastian decides to pull away, and Kurt's brain starts crying: 'Why!? Why now? Why in heaven's name would you stop!?' But the wrinkle in Sebastian's brow gives Kurt a hint.
"I … I hope that was okay," he whispers against Kurt's lips. "I hope that I didn' frighten you or nuthin'."
"No," Kurt says with barely any breath. "No, that was … that was fine." Perfect, he thinks, but it doesn't seem appropriate saying it. "In fact, if you want to keep doing that … w-we could stay here a little while longer? Get started after lunch … maybe?"
Sebastian smiles at Kurt – sweet, innocent Kurt – with so much experience and so little knowledge about life.
A delicate bird locked inside a gilded caged, but egregiously used.
Sebastian could kiss Kurt all day – drink every gasp from his lips, absorb every tremor from his body, savor the rise and fall of his chest against his own, speak only from one heart to another.
But that's the stuff of dreams.
The dream he was reliving that morning, as a matter of fact.
Of course, we have time, Sebastian recalls saying. There's always time for makin' love, darling. Especially on a day like today …
It's that very same type of day today – the sun shining high overhead, more warm than hot; the blue sky smudged by wispy clouds and touched with a slight breeze, swirling around them, doing its best to keep them twined together. It would be a perfect day for making love outdoors.
More than perfect.
Sebastian looks in Kurt's eyes, so much like Aaron's it makes his heart stutter. "I wish we could, little one. But …" Sebastian smirks, overwhelmed by thoughts of his husband and a tremendous sense of déjà vu "… we're burnin' daylight we can't afford."
"All … alright," Kurt says. "I understand." He has no right to feel disappointed. He knew it was a long shot. But as Kurt turns to take his seat, Sebastian takes his hand, keeping him tethered to this moment that he doesn't want to lose.
It's the closest he's felt to his husband since that day making love at the ranch.
The last time he saw his husband alive.
"But soon," he promises. "Alright?"
"Alright," Kurt says, planting a small kiss to Sebastian's lower lip before the man lets him go. "But I'm holding you to that."
Sebastian watches his companion take a seat, spine tree-trunk straight; grab his hat and book, and get started reading as if that sassy remark he came out with was part of the norm.
More of the real Kurt released from his chains.
It's not a complete turnaround, but it's a step in the right direction.
"Lookin' forward to it."
"What in the world is goin' on in that head of yours?"
"Hmm?" Kurt murmurs, answering the second time Sebastian asks, since he'd apparently missed the first.
"You're thinking so hard over there, I'm beginning to smell smoke."
Kurt hadn't started out thinking. He'd started out reading, taking up Sebastian's good book and opening it to the place he'd left off – a story about a king threatening to cut a baby in half.
The supposed son of two prostitutes.
If that didn't sound like something the regent would do, Kurt didn't know what did.
Except, in this story, the baby lived, and wasn't made to suffer for his (real or fake) mother's mistake, which wasn't like the regent at all. At Sebastian's question, he's forced to blink his eyes thrice to get the rows of blurry print to pop back into place. He can't even recall the last sentence he'd read.
It was the thought of a baby boy that had caused his mind to wander away from the page in the first place.
"I … I have a question, but I … I don't know if it's my place to ask."
Sebastian pulls himself up straight, fidgeting with the reins. "Considerin' all the liberties I've taken, I don't think there's anythin' you don't have the right to know."
Kurt closes the book, his index finger lingering beneath the cover, where all of the information he wants might be written. But it would feel like breaking a confidence to go looking. Besides, he'd rather hear it from Sebastian himself. "I was hoping you'd tell me … I mean, I wanted to know more about … your son."
Sebastian grinds his teeth together. He was prepared to field questions about his husband, but for some reason, not his son. "What about my son?"
"What was his name, for one thing? And …" Kurt scoots nervously on the bench "… who was his father? By blood, I mean. Was it you? O-or Aaron?"
"Simon. His name was Simon," Sebastian replies, swallowing hard to keep his voice steady. "And he was mine, flesh and blood."
"How … did that work … if you don't mind my asking?"
"I don't mind," Sebastian lies, girding himself to cut to the chase. "There was a girl in our village - a sex slave. She belonged to a local lord – an older, kinder, more civil man than most. Anyway, she didn't do well in his household, didn't like staying indoors. She started hurting herself on purpose, so he found her a place at one of the mercantiles. She worked the counter doing normal, everyday stuff, but she still turned tricks on the side, so to speak. I don't know why. Maybe because it's all she'd known. Maybe because it made her feel normal. I … I don't know." He glances sheepishly at Kurt. "I … I don't mean to speak for her … or you."
"That's alright." Kurt shrugs. "You might be right. I can't speak for her, either."
"My father arranged it. He didn't have anything against me liking men, and he loved Aaron. Loved him like a son. But he didn't feel a man was truly a man till he slept with a woman. A lot of men felt that way. He made me a deal, said I could have the ranch, I could have my inheritance early so I could marry Aaron, if I … if I lost my virginity to her."
Kurt watches Sebastian settle into those words, wrapping the reins so tightly around his hands that Kurt can feel them cutting in to his own skin.
"Had you … been with Aaron yet?"
"Nah." Sebastian snaps the reins lightly, speeding his horse along as if trying to outrun the truth. "He wanted to wait till our wedding night, and so did I."
"That's a shame."
"Not really," he lies again. "I mean, it was what it was. It counted to my father, but not to me. And not to Aaron …" Or so Sebastian had hoped. Aaron never gave him a clear answer on that account. For the most part, he's sure Aaron didn't want to think about it.
"And … how was it? I mean, what was it like?"
"You never been with a woman?" Sebastian asks, slightly surprised.
"No," Kurt admits, feeling suddenly small in Sebastian's eyes.
"Well, it's different, I'll tell you that. Man, I was so terrified! I couldn't keep it up!" He follows that with a humorless laugh until he notices Kurt shrinking in his seat. "Is this uncomfortable for you to hear?"
"No." Kurt shakes his head. "Not at all. I find it sort of … interesting."
"Interesting?"
"Yeah. I mean, I know my father kind of suspected that I was … th-that I would turn out … you know … the way I turned out."
"Gay?" Sebastian supplies.
"Yes. Gay," Kurt repeats quickly, getting it over and done with. It's a difficult word for him to say, Sebastian can tell. He says it like a curse, like something he might have gotten hit for uttering. "But back in my village, there wasn't a name for it, and to be quite honest, I didn't really know. Or at least, it wasn't the kind of thing I would have needed to know at the time. I was a child, who didn't have romantic feelings for anyone, except …" Kurt sighs. Sebastian watches him from the corner of his eye, trying to sort through his thoughts. "It's just interesting to see how your father felt as opposed to how my father felt. It seems so very different. I don't know which I would choose, to tell you the truth. They both seem cruel in their own ways."
"Yeah. I get you." Sebastian understands. Even though he got Simon out of it, and Aaron in the end, it still seemed unnecessary. And unfair. He can say it didn't count all he wants, but the truth is it had always felt like being unfaithful. And even though Aaron didn't hold it against him, Sebastian never forgave himself for not finding a better way.
Of course, hindsight is twenty-twenty. As a young man with nothing to his name except the things his father would bequeath him, he could see no other way.
"Where is she now?" Kurt asks quietly, almost hoping that Sebastian wouldn't hear. "Simon's mother, I mean. Whatever happened to her?"
Sebastian barely deliberates on his answer before he gives it. "Don't know. She left our village soon after she gave birth to Simon. We never heard from her again."
"Did she leave because of Simon? Or because of you?" Kurt suspects, though he knows nothing of this woman or her circumstances, that it could likely be the latter, since Sebastian is a man one can easily become attached to, especially if he showed her the same kindness he's shown Kurt.
"Possibly. I try not to think about it. Like a lot of things from my past."
"Yeah." Kurt returns to the book, but doesn't open it. He's had enough of stories for the time being. "I get you."
They hear Kennerstown before they see it, then smell it soon after – the sharp mixture of horse dung, wood fire smoke, and sweat that condensed, isolated townships often effuse. Men on horseback pass them by, nodding and tipping their hats as they hurry on ahead, paying them the briefest of minds. With each new face that passes, Kurt becomes stiffer and stiffer, eyes pointed dead ahead, on the lookout for danger. But as they close in on the gates of town, Kurt's gaze is locked, Sebastian realizes, on what they're quickly approaching - a set of stocks constructed smack dab in the center of the square. As those stocks come into clearer view, Sebastian feels Kurt's hand tremble beside his thigh.
He shoots Kurt a glance. The boy is shaking, so much so that his hat has started to creep down his brow. He recoils in his seat, much like he did the night before, about ready to vault over the bench and into the bed of the buckboard – possibly even over the side and back down the road they came.
That's the reason Kurt didn't want to come here. That's what he's trying to avoid.
Something happened to Kurt in Kennerstown. Something unthinkable. Something he's probably shoved so deep down, he can't put it into words.
While they have a few moments of anonymity, Sebastian puts his hand over Kurt's and squeezes.
"I'll keep you safe, darling," he says. "I promise. I won't let anyone here hurt you."
Kurt nods, but whether or not the boy believes him, Sebastian can't tell. He can't even see if he's still breathing. But he has no time to check. Before Sebastian's rig reaches the first building on the main road, a man steps down and approaches. He puts out a hand as if he means to grab the bridle on Sebastian's horse, but Sebastian pulls his horse up short and stops.
The man sneers, but drops his hand.
"Hello, stranger," he says. "What be your business here?"
"Just passin' through," Sebastian replies.
"Are ye fixin' to stay the night?"
"That I am. Does this town have a vermin problem?" Sebastian gestures towards the stocks. "I don't think I've seen one of those in a dog's age, except in some of the more lawless towns out West."
He's changing the subject, directing the man's attention away from them, but he's also hoping that whatever answer the man gives will ease Kurt's mind. Most towns that Sebastian travels to don't use public stocks anymore. Folks tend to handle their issues privately. Sebastian hasn't been through Kennerstown in a few years, but in that time, he can't remember seeing those stocks in use.
The man turns his head for a look.
"Nah," he says, an unsavory smile curling his mouth. "Haven't used those in a while. Just keep 'em here as a warnin'. You know, to horse thieves, and, uh … unruly slaves." He turns his eyes and his smile on Kurt. "He your slave?"
"No. He's my son," Sebastian replies, pulling himself up proud.
"A-ha," the man says, unconvinced. "Yer, uh, son have a name?"
Sebastian nods. "I call him Aaron."
It takes everything Kurt has not to jerk his head up in surprise. He'd expected Sebastian to say Simon. From the look on Sebastian's face, his oh-so-subtle eye pop, Kurt suspects that that's what Sebastian had planned on. Sebastian doesn't correct himself. He can't. If they're going to make it in this town without incident, Kurt would now be called Aaron … like Sebastian's late husband.
"And where's the boy's mother?"
"Dead. Killed by undesirables a while back." He bows his head and tips his hat. "May she rest in peace."
Kurt does the same, hiding the tears in his eyes.
The man stares at Kurt, glancing between him and Sebastian, probably trying to make out a resemblance. And there are several. Kurt and Sebastian have a similar shape and structure to their noses, their brows, their cheekbones. Their hair color is close, and they both have light eyes. But those are generalities. Still, Kurt's not sure exactly how deep this man's looking. It may be that he's attempting to unnerve Sebastian into admitting more than he has. But Sebastian isn't an amateur. He knows not to give anything away.
If you act like you don't have anything to hide, people will believe it.
"Alright then." The man steps back to let them pass. "Enjoy yer visit."
"Thank ya kindly." Sebastian clicks to his horse and the beast begins to walk, the buckboard lumbering forward and taking Kurt's stomach with it.
"Now, you gentlemen behave yerselves, ye hear?" the man calls as Sebastian steers them further in. "We wouldn' wanna have to use those stocks tonight, if you catch my meaning!"
Sebastian doesn't respond, leaving the man to howl at his own joke as he leads his horse by the stores and saloons that would be seen as traps to those who know their way around … which Sebastian does.
"You can breathe now, little one," Sebastian teases, though he himself remains on high alert. Getting past one sentry doesn't put them in the clear yet.
They won't be that until they have their backs to this town, far enough away that they can't see its silhouette on the horizon.
They don't stop at the first inn on the road, nor the last, but find a place in the middle, separated on both sides by a fairly wide alley leading to the stables beyond. As with Carole's inn, he seems to know the proprietors of this place well, though not as cordially. He knows what room he wants, and the man at the front desk gives it to them without argument.
It's a slightly larger room than the one they stayed in last, but not as homey. Not as bright. Sebastian stables his horse while Kurt quickly unpacks the buckboard. Sebastian double-checks Kurt's work when he's done to be sure he left not a scrap behind, nothing that might tell lookie-loos who they are, where they're going, or what they have.
"Best not to pique anyone's curiosity," Sebastian remarks, sliding their trunks and bags into the far corner of the room. "Don't need anyone asking questions that don't need answering. But I, on the other hand, have a few questions that need answerin'. So Imma have to leave you alone for a little while. I recommend you stay inside. People get very suspicious of strangers in this town."
"Are you sure we fooled him?" Kurt's eyes dart anxiously in the direction of the door, expecting the man from outside to burst in any second and drag him out. Not Sebastian. Just him. "You … you don't think he suspects …?"
"That man don't know nothin', darling," Sebastian says, resting his hands on Kurt's shoulders. "He's a deputy in this town, and he's paid to be suspicious. He could see God himself pulling you from my rib like Adam did with Eve and he'd still think we were up to something."
"But … why? Why be suspicious of everyone?"
Sebastian smiles at Kurt's naiveté. He puts a hand to the boy's cheek, caresses his soft skin with his rough palm, then reaches for his coat. "That's how they keep the law in this town. Kennerstown is a gateway of sorts. People from beyond our borders have to pass through here to get to larger townships inland." Sebastian shrugs on his coat, puts on his hat. He leans in to Kurt, crooks a finger beneath his chin, tilts his head up, and gives him a gentle kiss on the lips. "Just lay low and sit tight. I'll try not to be too long." He follows with a kiss on Kurt's forehead before he heads out the door, and Kurt locks it behind him. Kurt stands with his ear to the seam, listening to Sebastian's muffled footsteps retreat down the dusty hallway. He listens till there's no sound left, and when he's gone, Kurt feels more alone than he has in a while.
He looks at their room, lit only by the dim glow of sun seeping in through cracks around the shuttered windows, their things stacked in a pile on one side, and finds himself longing for the buckboard - for the sun on his face and the wind in his hair, eating dinner over an open fire and camping under the stars. After that first night in Sebastian's rented room, Kurt never wanted to sleep outside again. He'd had his fill of the outdoors – of being dirty and sun burnt, starved and exhausted, filling his body with whatever filthy water and rotting remnants he stumbled across, which did nothing to keep his mouth from drying out or his stomach from rumbling.
He can do without the starvation, of course, but the smell of fresh air, feeling unrestrained and free – he'd trade a lifetime in the finest rooms in any township for that in a blink.
How strange the past few days have been. How quickly things had begun to change for him.
With a lack of anything better to do until Sebastian returns, Kurt starts to tidy up, not that the room needs much in the way of tidying. There's only one bed, one table, a dirt floor he can do nothing about, and two chairs. He goes through the trunk of clothes, separating out dirty pants and shirts, and setting them aside to wash. He then selects which of the jarred foods and dried meat they should have for supper. It's calming, organizing their gear, preparing for the evening. He'd like to find some fresh flowers to dress the small, wobbly wood table, since the ones from the day before are looking a bit past their prime, but he doesn't dare go outside. He makes due by giving the ones they have more water in the hopes that they'll spring back to life. Then he wets a rag and gives the table a good wipe down, wondering what it would be like to keep house for Sebastian.
Maybe raise a child with him.
Kurt hadn't given too much thought to having children considering, but now, he can see himself having a son, as long as he had a man like Sebastian to raise him with. He couldn't see having one off a sex slave the way Sebastian did. That shouldn't bother him, but it does. He knows that he himself probably couldn't manage having sex with a woman, so that task would fall on Sebastian again, and that thought burns him – not just for Sebastian's sake, but his own as well, and for dozens of reasons he should feel ashamed to admit to. According to that book he's been reading, he thinks that makes him a "hypocrite". He's not sure. He doesn't quite understand what that word means, but it seems to fit.
But, for the moment, he doesn't care, even if being a hypocrite means he won't get to enter the magical fruit garden or what have you after death.
Maybe they could adopt a boy - find someone on the road the way Sebastian found him, possibly even a slave like him. Though why he's even entertaining the idea, he hasn't a clue. Sebastian isn't his. They haven't even known one another but a few days. Kurt remembers that boy at the regent's house, devastated at being left behind. Kurt refuses to end up that way. He's not going to let himself get so attached to Sebastian that he'll be destroyed when the man goes. Regardless of what they do together, or how Kurt feels, Kurt is a slave Sebastian picked up on the road, and that's all. Sebastian is taking Kurt to his father, back to where he belongs. Then Sebastian will be on his way. End of story.
Their parting is inevitable, so Kurt had best remember that.
But, for the meantime, they're together. Kurt may not have Sebastian's heart, but he has him to hold, to talk to, to share a bed with …
… to kiss.
As the sun starts peeking down below the horizon, Kurt decides he'll have his hand at getting supper ready, try to make their room feel like a home for one night. He straightens the sheets on the thin mattress, fluffs the pillows, and lays out some clean clothes for Sebastian's return. He fishes out a washing cloth, imagining Sebastian will order up a bath after his long afternoon out and about.
He chews his lower lip, fighting a smile as he ponders the chances that maybe they can share it together this time.