The greatest indignity of servitude, to John's mind, was that Bane needed no manservant, and John found himself at loose ends for many hours of the day. At first he tried to beg duties from the Commander; but Gordon had no intention of expending his only spy in the al-Ghul wing upon armory details and requisition councils. By now, John had established a vague structure to his days: regular meals, and food brought for Bane; an hour's run around the decorative battlements of the palace in the mid-morning, exchanging awkward greetings with the men he'd once trained beside; care and maintenance of Sir Bane's armor and equipment in the afternoon; and an evening's worth of correspondence and study, to keep his tactical mind sharp and his hard-won connections active. It was no challenging schedule for a man accustomed to the hardships of campaign.
His proximity to Sir Bane complicated this, filling his too-broad idle stretches with unwholesome thoughts: powerful shoulders and sinewed hands, a mighty barrel chest, a metal mask and blue, perceptive eyes. Worse, Bane himself seemed to suffer an excess of free time, and preferred to maintain his own weaponry in the privacy of his room, where John would perch cross-legged on his cot, working beeswax into the leather of Bane's armor straps while the scent of Bane himself- sweat and lye soap and a strange medicinal astringency- soaked into John's very skin, until every waking moment was a torment of scent-memory and daydreaming.
And Bane began to speak to him, after the first month; simple questions in the beginning, questions about John's daily activities, and then- skipping past the events and thoughts of John's last five years, which would only serve to remind both of them about their enmity- they went on directly to debate the nature of war and humanity and government.
Bane believed that all men were corrupt, base animals feigning conscience to avoid punishment. John questioned this, convicted that men might continually fail in their attempts to be good, but that their longing to be good must eternally surpass their abilities, or they would cease to strive for anything at all.
"And you believe," Bane said, resting his back against the wall and watching John keenly (which John felt like a weight upon himself, and fought against the flush that rose across his collarbone and up his throat), "that men have not forsaken the pursuit of goodness? You, who have been my enemy, and seen what my men do to yours when we take them, and have ordered the torture and execution of mine?"
"I sleep at your feet," said John, cursing himself for his vulnerability, eyes fierce on his hands' work. "And yet every night we close our eyes in this room, and every morning we awake uninjured. Have we not found some variety of peace?"
"Fear of punishment," retorted Bane, "and desire for reward. If there were no consequence for it, you would have slit my throat the first night we slept."
"The death of a man is not a consequence?"
"Not to some."
"So a consequence does not exist unless everyone agrees upon it?"
Bane set back to the process of sharpening his sword. "Do you dissect everything so thoroughly, so... distantly?"
"On the contrary," muttered John, "I am subject to every whim of thought my mind sees fit to wrack itself with."
After that, John busied himself with the only subterfuge he could find in the al-Ghul wing: hunting Selina. She was, to all appearances, a devoted lady's-maid, staying most of the time in Lady Talia's quarters (which were, as always, utterly off-limits to John) and sailing through the halls with deft and diligent purpose when she emerged. Had John's curiosity not been piqued, he would have never suspected her of a moment's plotting.
And yet, now that she had shaken him off so effectively, now that he had seen the satisfaction and the cool victory on her face, her innocent behavior made him even more curious. On the fourth day of his pursuit, he was paid well for his suspicion; he lost her for almost an hour, and only discovered her by accident, passing the dairy-shed and hearing her voice.
She was reporting to Alfred, the castle steward, and she appeared to be nearly finished with it; as he listened, she seemed to be implying that the Lady Talia was lying with Sir Bane.
Falsehood, thought John, he would have told me, and it was such a curiously intimate and terrifying idea that he nearly missed Selina's departure and had to hurry to catch up with her. Indeed, as he rounded the corner, he found her closing with a set of the Lady Talia's personal guards, and he wondered what on earth Lady Talia's personal guards were doing near the dairy-shed. Perhaps Selina was being tailed by more than one person?
But as Selina passed them, she spoke to them, low-voiced and furtive; and within moments they had fixed themselves upon John. He smiled as they approached him, spreading his hands to indicate that he meant no harm, and a moment later he doubled over as a gauntleted fist sank into his abdomen.
Behind him he heard dairy-maids gasp and scatter, but he hardly cared, staggering with one hand outflung and the other grasping his stomach. "What," he began, as soon as he could breathe, and the guard hit him again, and then another guard drew back a fist and caught him in the ribs.
At last they drew back, letting him sprawl against the plastered corner of the dairy-yard, gasping and spitting blood. It was not a beating intended to kill, he realized, but they certainly meant to leave him incapacitated, incapable of following Selina. Were they protecting her, a maid who told her lady's secrets to the steward? Or did Talia have other secrets she wished to protect?
"It's not-" he began, and immediately they set into him again, fists and feet connecting with no real ferocity; but John was one man to their four, slim and bookish, and wearing shirt and hose against their steel-and-leather armor, and they were really having an embarrassingly easy time of it-
Except that Bane appeared, a mountain in leather and steel, blotting out the sunlight itself as he seized the two closest to him. "Explain yourselves," he roared, and John felt a quiver of pride and fear at once in his belly as he watched them quail.
"He's bothering the Lady Talia's maid," said one, braver than the others, and Bane reached out and took him by the shoulder, a dangerously friendly gesture.
"And so you've taken it upon yourselves to beat my manservant bloody?" Bane's voice was gentle, resonant, smiling; the guard in his grip shrank, and John exulted. Bane was Talia's most loyal servant, her most trusted; let some wretched pack of dogs raise a hand to-
But they did, all at once pulling weapons (dull maces, thank the gods, and not sabers, so they did not intend to kill) and throwing themselves at him like madmen from a cliff.
The altercation ended predictably; four armed men against Bane's bare fists was a painfully imbalanced battle, and Bane simply batted them away like pups, breaking ribs and crushing noses, sustaining a few injuries but, on the whole, living up to his reputation as an unstoppable flesh-rending monster. He lifted an opponent and threw him, bodily, against the wall; his arms moved like uprooting oaks, fists and forearms catching blows and plowing through them, and John watched in a delirium of pain and awe and lust as Bane laid waste to his assailants and, amidst the groaning ruin of Talia's inexplicably violent guards, slung one arm under John's shoulders and hefted him bodily.
"I can't believe they attacked you," said John, to keep himself from swooning like a maid under the sickening heat and rush of Bane's arm around him. "Surely the Lady's men know better than to strike her favored warrior."
"Am I still her favored warrior?" Bane's voice was thick and bitter and full of pain out of proportion to his wounds.
John fell silent until they reached Bane's quarters, understanding; no woman would order a man she loved to be beaten.
The water in Sir Bane's basin was fresh, but not warm; John made some show of attempting to retrieve linens from the cupboard, but Bane pushed him back down on his cot, stripped the muslin sheeting from his own bed, and tore it into four strips with his bare hands.
They bathed their wounds in grim silence, staining the water with rusty tendrils of blood. John found his hair matted with blood over the ear, where his split eyebrow had bled freely across his temple, and hissed as he dabbed at the wound; Bane made a sound, something rumbling and amused, and John glanced up to see the man sopping blood from a blow to his chest that had shattered the skin and the pale flesh under it like pottery.
His mask protects him from pain, thought John, and then he heard the pained intake of breath as Bane carefully shucked away his vest, and watched Bane abandon the process of removing those leather straps and begin working at the straps of his mask, loosening them where they dug into a deep purpling bruise on his cheek.
As the mask slipped, John could not tear his eyes away; and for a moment he glimpsed the edge of something, a pink-and-silver stretch of damaged flesh, and he understood at last that the mask was not a protection from bodily harm but proof against some already-inflicted wound.
His wounds seemed shallow beside this; the muslin in his hands fell away, and he rose and made the few steps between the two of them, and like a good manservant fell to unbuckling the straps of Bane's vest. This time, Bane did not stop him, though John's chest heaved from his bruised ribs and John's hands were sticky on his master's sides from the blood and dirt of the dairy-yard; at last the vest pulled away, revealing that broad and muscled chest that John remembered in his daydreams. Only now, fresh welting bruises crisscrossed his skin, sharp impacts of leather straps under heavy blows and occasional bloody gashes of split skin.
"Gods above us," breathed John, taking the soaked muslin from Bane's grasp to gently dab at the wounds. "You have the constitution of an ox."
"And yet," said Bane ruefully, "in fact I am only a man," and he groaned as John's fingers moved on his wounded flesh, and groaned again with relief as John set to work on his mask.
John feared, at first, that Bane would strike him away, even half-sprawled across his stripped bed with John kneeling above him; he feared too that he would take away the mask and reduce Bane to screaming, but Bane reached up for a moment and pressed at his mask, then relaxed and let John peel away the leather and steel piece by piece.
"A high dose," he said, "like the one I take before my meals," and that answered many questions and raised a few more, but John worked at it still until it came free. His fingers brushed the impressed lines on Bane's skin, at the edges of the mask, and Bane's eyes flicked up to catch his own, more human and vulnerable than John had ever seen. Then he closed his eyes and sighed, resigned, and John lifted away the mask.
Beneath it was a person, a scarred face, puckered slash marks across the mouth and both cheeks- a ritual scarring, or a deliberate and vengeful one. Where the scars went, the flesh was poorly healed, pink and angry; where the scars were not, shockingly full lips parted, pale sunless skin stretched, a strong but shattered nose stood proud. He was not an easy man to look on.
To John, he was beautiful.
He tore himself away, setting the mask aside, businesslike and purposeful; but Bane kept his eyes closed while John dressed his wounds, and even when John sat back to survey his work Bane would not meet his eyes, instead stiffly beginning the process of sitting up to remove his boots.
"Don't be ridiculous," said John, and ignoring his own protesting ribs, he knelt to remove Bane's boots as he had every night for the last month and a half, glad for the opportunity to distance his hungry eyes from Bane's naked torso.
He had removed the first boot and was working at the second when Bane spoke; his voice was strangely clear, still honey-thick and masculine but unmuffled by the mask. "You see now why I eat alone," he said. "And why I sleep alone."
"If the Lady Talia disdains you for your face, she is a madwoman," muttered John, struggling with the bootlaces. "Men who campaign bear scars; if every soldier's wife turned him out of bed for his wounds, our barracks would empty within a week."
"I do not think she sees me as a man enough to notice my scars," responded Bane, with more rue than bitterness.
"And have you spoken to her about this? About your scars, or anything else?"
Bane laughed, a funerary knell. "It is never so simple, John." John. "Words pierce like darts, crippling the subtlest plans. If I declared myself, what good would it do? Shall I remove her strongest weapon and replace it with a rose? You of all people should know-"
"I, of all people?" John sat back on his haunches, fear and anger kindling inside him.
"I spoke to my lady," said Bane; now that John was looking up at him, the movement of those lips was mesmerizing, the line of muscle and flesh on the strange face a puzzle of new expression and tangled scar. "I asked her how she compelled you, my enemy, to serve me, and she answered."
"And what did she answer?" The room seemed to have gone cold; blood roared in John's ears. He was found out, and the word would surely spread- but if Talia saw fit to break her secret-keeping, her blackmail would soon hold no sway over him.
"She said you were a man who loved his king," said Bane, and there was something in his voice both understanding and terribly sad. "She said... she implied that you wished you were a maid, so that you might lie with him."
"The Lady Talia is a fool," said John, feeling a flush rise into his cheeks. "I would no sooner be a maid than you would."
"Milady is... naive." Amusement tinged Bane's voice, not the deadly detached interest that preceded a beating but a genuine smile. "Though I fear that turning into a maid might not help me closer to her bed."
John returned to his boot, ducking his head to hide the painful blush that would not stop spreading. The image of Bane in anyone's bed- it was easy to imagine the rise and push of that body, the tense and roll of his back... Unthinking, he worked his fingers into Bane's calf muscle, easing the knotted flesh while he stripped away the boot. He froze when Bane groaned again, a sound of bone-deep pleasure.
"Pardon," rumbled Bane, a ridiculous word from that powerful body, incongruous spilled from those lips. John sat for another moment, stunned and reeling; then he pulled the boot away with a single determined motion and stood.
"Your trousers," he said, and he could hear the danger in his voice, and he knew Bane could hear it too. And yet Bane raised himself up, belly tightening as his hips lifted, and John divested him of his trousers and set to washing the wounds on his left thigh with trembling hands.
Some secret tensed between them, an echo of John's fear and Bane's loneliness, and Bane lay carefully and absolutely silent while John washed the twin gashes on the outside of his thigh; but John could not stop his hands from lingering, and as his palm smoothed against the muscle above the knee a sound escaped Bane's mouth, a hungry sound that set John shaking in earnest.
"Pardon," said Bane again, "I am not... I am not accustomed," but the sound of him was broken and John felt himself succumbing, felt himself pulled forward, felt his knees buckling and knew himself absolutely lost as he found himself lying across Bane's thighs with his lips pressed to the skin and the strength of Bane's belly, the stretch of muscle and the light dust of hair just below Bane's navel.
"Not accustomed," said John, lips dragging against Bane's skin as he spoke; under his breath and his touch, Bane did not exactly quiver, but there was a tightness to him, a shallowness to his breathing, and John took encouragement from this and laid his palms flat against Bane's skin: one across the breadth of his thigh, one upon the muscle at the base of Bane's ribs.
And still, under his touch, under the intimacy of each breath unfurling like a banner across his belly, Bane lay still- Bane, who could crush the life from John without any great effort, who had broken necks with his bare hands, whose prowess in war was so great that John's beloved king had been driven to marry Bane's princess to prevent the destruction of his realm- and he now lay shivering like a warhorse longing for battle under this utterly wrong and shameful touch.
"I do love her," said Bane at last, and John practically tasted the confusion and anguish in his voice, recognized the bitter flavor of it from his own years of longing and solitude, and he allowed himself a laugh that was actually a sob.
"I know what it is to love and be unloved," whispered John against Bane's belly, and he let his hand smooth its way up Bane's thigh until his fingertips brushed the crinkling hair at the hem of his breechclout. John turned his head, letting his cheek rest where his mouth had been, and with his hands he followed the path of his eyes: over the straining cloth that scarcely disguised Bane's heavy arousal, flickering across the skin at the edges of the cloth, around again to cup and slightly squeeze and feel the heft of it, the mass.
"You worship me like a god," said Bane, deep and wondering. "How can you... see me and not loathe me?"
"I am no princess," murmured John. "I am a manservant, and I serve you." And with this he found the steel in his spine at last, rose and arranged himself and stripped away the last shreds of modesty from Bane's body, and let his hand at last stroke along the shaft, massive and well-formed as the rest of him.
Bane groaned, a voice of torment and pleasure, and his hands fisted into the ticking of his bed. He spoke no words as John stroked him and let his free hand wander across the expanse of scarred and beautiful skin; but John knew the words that Bane could not speak, surprise at the pleasure to be had in this and denial of any true meaning and fear that he would be changed by this and fear that this would ever, ever stop. And still his groans went on, rich as music on a winter's night, thrumming and burning in John's belly until Bane's voice itself seemed like some ethereal hand upon his own hardening length.
"May I kiss you," said John, and Bane flung one mighty arm across his face in alarm, but he did not draw back and John was done waiting, done watching and hoping, and he leaned down to lay a mock-chaste kiss upon the crown of Bane's cock. This earned him a staggered gasp, and the next kiss as well, and then he began licking and watched a pearl of clear fluid bead up at the tip and roll down the velvet-soft skin- only to be seized by John's tongue, and followed by John's entire mouth as Bane nearly rose from the bed with the force of his pleasure and shock.
"John." It should have been a roar, with the wracking spasms that chased through Bane's body; instead it was a moan, broken and fearful, repeated over and over as John worked his mouth upon his master's flesh until Bane's hips began to jerk and his head rolled back against the ticking, that beautiful flawed mouth dark and gasping and those blue eyes tensed shut in a charade of pain.
As John felt the tremors building under his ministration, he finally let his hand stray, seeking relief from the agony of want and yes that filled him; he had no sooner taken himself in hand, one stroke from root to tip, than Bane spilled down his throat, crying out as if in grief, and John followed him to a choking, shaking climax that squeezed tears from his eyes.
When it was done, John crept up onto the bed, exhausted and drowsy; Bane let him, holding himself in enforced stillness, while John curled up against his side and raised a hand to stroke the ruin of Bane's cheek.
Bane flinched, but he met John's eyes, and whatever he saw there held him fast for a few moments, until the torment of his bitten lips proved too much for John and he raised his mouth to Bane's to kiss him-
But Bane pulled away at that, his shame and self-loathing disappearing behind leather and steel as he pulled his mask back into place as rapidly as the protesting material would allow. And John watched the beautiful man, the lonesome wild murderous beast, return to the silent and threatening form of Lady al-Ghul's champion, and turn his back on John- though he did not bid him leave the bed- and lie silently, as if asleep, until John slipped away into darkness, huddled against his back.