It's late in the evening when Dern is finally permitted to escape the rigmarole of the day. It's seems he's met one man after another, each of them someone his mother would have him marry, and she isn't even hiding it anymore, isn't even trying to make up subtle excuses, feigned pretenses.
Every time he meets a man within the city it feels as though they are appraising him, his body.
The knight captain's gaze had roved over him, noting the narrowness of his hips and no doubt remembering that Dern has never been much of a swordsman, that he cannot well hold himself in the ring, when Dern had come to supervise the knights' training, and discuss the plans for what was to come; in the early afternoon, at lunch, he had been introduced to Baron Henderstaff, a playwright, who had been quite nice, but twice had commented on the flatness of his chest in a way that had made Dern's skin crawl; the third man today had been a Duke visiting from the Hourglass Continent, from Nez, and he hadn't even learned his name. He'd been nice, hadn't stared, but had asked what Dern wanted in a husband, and Dern had said, "Nothing, I don't much want one," he had gone quiet and not known what to say.
The door closes with a shift of hinges and a metallic click of the key in the lock, and Dern stands in the centre of the room, scarcely even moves a muscle as he stares into the middle distance.
He hears Land's bootsteps on the ground, the metal clanking quietly on the stone floor, and Land's hands come to reach around him to undo the leather vest he wears over his shirt. He feels Land's breath on the back of his neck, and feels his hands through his shirt, bristled as the back of his hands are with dark hair that drags at the skin through the silk.
The vest is slid down his shoulders, pulled down over his arms and thrown aside, and Land's hands come back for his shirt next, unbuttoning each painted enamel fastening with the same neat movements. Land's hands are large for his body, and his nails are like claws, thick and dark brown, the same colour at his hair, but he is careful with them, neat and tender, and he does not tear the fabric as he slides each of the buttons free.
"You want me to fuck you?" Land asks.
"Yes," says Dern.
"You want me to fuck you hard, fuck you soft?"
"Hard."
"You want me to... tie you? Bind you? You want me to hurt you?"
"I want you to show me I'm yours," says Dern in a low voice, hears the quaver in it. "Please."
They don't speak the same mother tongue -- according to Land, he didn't learn any of the common human or elvish tongues 'til he came this far east, and sometimes it takes him a few seconds to know what Dern has said, after he's said it. He's quiet sometimes, because he says he can't express himself the way he wants to, but it seems to Dern he's the most poetic man alive, even in a language that isn't his own.
"If his highness wishes it," says Land, and pulls his undershirt from him, tosses that aside to. "I will endeavour to please."
Dern used to have a serving boy, a young man dedicated to him, but after he fell and broke his arm, Dern insisted he take a break from his duties to heal, and had Land come from the Royal Guard to assist him instead.
He'd refused to let the boy back, after.
Land is his personal guard, after all, and his valet too -- it is more secure this way, and his mother likes it, because with Land always here, always so close by, Dern cannot creep from the palace in the early hours and make his escape about the city at large.
It doesn't occur to her, perhaps, that Dern has no reason to, when Land is with him, or maybe it does, and she doesn't care.
"Undress," says Land, and there's a two-fold emphasis on the sound of the "r", both from the slight growl that colours every word he speaks, coming throaty from his wolfish mouth, and from his accent too.
Dern unbuckles his trousers, then leans to unlace his boots, pulling them off and tossing them aside, and then wriggling out of his clothes.
"That bastard Henderstaff," says Land. "He says from outside you have small tits, as if he knows a damned thing. Even if you had big ones, wouldn't be able to see them through vest."
"He doesn't know what you know," says Dern. "Isn't that a good thing?"
"Is good thing," says Land, and with a length of rope thrown over one of his broad shoulders, he comes forward and grabs Dern by each of his nipples, tugging and pulling on each of them like he's trying to milk him, and Dern cries out, pressing his knees together and Land laughs, a gruff, quiet sound. "I like these tits. Small, neat mouthfuls. Not too heavy on your delicate back."
Dern opens his mouth to say something, but he isn't able to when Land dips and takes one of his nipples into his mouth, sucks it hard in a way that makes a thrill run up Land's spine and makes his clit jump, and then Land drags his sharp teeth over the nub. The pain is a hot threat, and Dern jumps: Land leans back, and puts his lips into an "o", blows cool air over the nipple so that it goes completely hard, and the whole time Dern squirms, because the sensation is too much, too overwhelming.
Land reaches down and takes his clit between thumb and forefinger, squeezing it between them, and he squeaks out a breathless sound as Land leans and sucks the other nipple into his mouth. His other nipple, peaked and oversensitive, aches to be touched as Land swirls his thick tongue around the other, and then takes it very delicately between his teeth, and tugs on it with those.
Dern is breathing heavily, but his chest is small enough that his it barely even wobbles -- he used to worry about their growing too big, used to worry about having a chest like his mother's for reasons he couldn't describe, but they never came in like that.
They will, he thinks, when they finally marry him off and make him get pregnant.
There's no escaping it forever.
Land blows on this nipple too, and Dern shudders, stumbling a little as he pushes into Land's tongue, his teeth, and grinds his hips into Land's grip, the squeeze he has on Dern's clit.
"No," Land says, and draws his hand away, and Dern whines, but Land grabs him by the jaw and squeezes. "No disobedience, princeling. You asked me, and now I give. Yes?"
"Yes," Dern says, and before Land ties him up he falls against his chest, presses his face to the furred hair between his pecs, because he's set his chest plate aside, and only the leather braces harnessing his shoulders remain.
"You tell me if it is too much," says Land. "You always tell me."
"I will."
"I do this because you need it, but because I like it, also. Why do I like?"
"Because I'm yours," says Dern. Wishing very much that it was true, and Land laughs quietly, cupping his cheeks in hairy palms.
"Yes, correct answer," says Land. "Full marks for princeling." He doesn't pull back straight away, but keeps Dern's head against his chest, stroking his cheeks with the backs of his knuckles now. His voice is quieter, more gentle, but regretful, when he says, "I wish this was true also. But it is true for as long as it lasts. Yes?"
"Yes," says Dern.
"So no worrying," says Land. "No engagement hovering overhead in this room. Only thing hovering over is my hand over your backside. Yes?"
Dern laughs, and nods his head, because this moment isn't just about obedience, but comfort -- comfort for him, and for Land too, that the rest of the world is locked out of Dern's bedchambers with the key in the door and the thick curtains over the windows, and that means here together, there is a safety of sorts.
"Good," says Land, and takes up the rope. "The prince will put out his hands, please, and let himself be bound."
Dern obeys, his hands in loose fists with his wrists pressed together, and Land begins the process of tying him up.
Land's father was a sailor, he had told Dern before, and taught him how to tie knots, but he didn't learn how to tie up men until he was a guard for transporting prisoners. He became obsessed with rope then, he always says: the way rope feels, the weight of it, the many knots that can be done, all the ways it can harness a man, control him, hold him, suspend him.
The ropes coil around and around his wrists, so that they are bound together, and land hooks one finger under the ropes to ensure there is enough give -- enough that Dern's wrists do not rub uncomfortably together, enough that his blood still flows, and will still flow even when Land drops his wrists over the hook on the wall, to keep him hung up there.
He watches Land's face, the expression of concentration in his yellow-grey eyes, the shift of his mouth, facial hair moving with his scowl, and his whiskers twitching as he concentrates.
When he is satisfied with this binding, he gives a neat nod of his head, as if approving of his own work, and then puts a loop of rope around Dern's neck.
Dern likes to close his eyes for this part.
The rope is a pleasant, comfortably tight cord that presses against the back of his neck and crosses over at the hollow of his collar bone, and then he feels it pass underneath his armpits, but not at such an angle that it digs into his armpits. Land begins to loop the rope around his belly, crossing between his legs on each side as well as his thighs, and up around his shoulders again, too.
This is one of Land's harnesses, and Dern knows from experience that when Land chooses to hang him from them, it almost feels as if he is hanging from nothing at all -- he has a way of spreading the rope around, of balancing it where it coils around his body, so that when Dern is made to hang from more ropes or hooks, it is as though he is laid in a basket, with no uncomfortable drag or pull on his chest or his stomach or his thighs particularly.
Land won't suspend him like that tonight -- when he does that, he always ties Dern's arms in as well, so that they won't get in the way, so that Land is powerless to do anything but let Land move him one way or the other, one rope-wrapped gift in a singular parcel, easy to fuck, to control, to play with.
On nights like that, Dern is a toy -- Dern isn't a toy tonight.
