[AU][C][M] Festivities

For a moment, he envied them. He was slowly adjusting to the bath. But he would much rather have a comfortable, cooler one.

He turned up slave. Still naked. Painted cracked and split on his chest. The oil had dried and dirt coated him for the wrestling match.

A little bit of guilt slipped in when he remembered the hard hit and humiliation the slave was given. Only because he couldn't keep his mouth shut at the bait.

"You can join me if you want."

"Thank you, my prince."

He gratefully rose to his feet and stepped into the baths. Despite mentioning that the other baths he frequented were much colder, he didn't so much as wince as he descended the stone steps.

As he did so, his hands moved to the nape of his neck, freeing his hair then unwinding it from its braid. He massaged his scalp as he came to a stop a good five feet from Richard, and sat on the submersed steps.

He gave a pleased little moan as the hot water surrounded him, hands slipping from his hair and dropping to rub at his chest. The paint began to melt away, leaving his chest clean and bare, besides the henna patterns staining it.

Richard watched the slave descended into the bath. How he did it without wincing, he didn't know.

Blue eyes continued to watch when the slave's hands began to unwind his hair. Glossy hair shimmered as the slave shook if free from the scalp, the ends became heavy in the water as he submerged.

If it wasn't for the heat of the bath, he would have blushed at the honest moan.

His eyes didn't leave as the paint melted away. As proud as Richard felt when the slave one and his family crest shone, he decided he liked him better without it.

"You beat the champion out there today."

His eyes cut to the Prince and he let out an amused chuckle and a smile.

"You told me to, my Prince."

A slave in his position didn't disobey an order from his Prince. He was told to win, and he won. Without debasing himself with cheap tactics, too. It was one of his proudest wins.

He could just imagine his brothers cheering, and his father's proud grin if he told them.

"I did," Richard laughed, easily. This was the most relaxed he had been since he had got here. The slave being relaxed helped, too.

His fingers skimmed the surface of the water, watching it ripple.

"I have to admit, I was worried for a second when they had you go up against the champion. When you stumbled, too. But you managed to turn it around. You floored him."

He was grinning. It would have been on of the best matches of the day if the Ecrutezian didn't see slaves as little more than bodies they could fuck.

A smile curled his lips.

"I've had practise with tougher men than him, my Prince. I just needed a moment to get back into the game."

Boys like the castle champion wouldn't last a minute against the men that fought on the island in the lake. They'd be chewed up and spit back out. He'd be chewed up and spit back out if he challenged any of them in his current state, and he had won against the champion in a matter of minutes.

He shifted, dropping under the water, then rising up out of it, brushing his long hair back.

Dick's smile lingered on his lips as the slave dropped under the water and rose back up. Water droplets ran from his face, his chest. One slid over his nipple and back into the water.

His gaze turned sharply away.

Leaning back, he dipped his own head, wetting his hair. Sitting up straight is hung heavily on his head, straitening out most of the curls past his shoulders. He then splashed his face with the hot water.

"Is there any oils and soap to wash with?"

He nodded and left the water, padding naked and dripping to the table that he had left the Prince's clothing on.

When he stepped back into the water, he approached Richard, carrying a cloth and bar of soap. He stopped directly in front of the man.

He wet the cloth in the steaming water and lathered it with soap before bringing the cloth up to gently scrub at the Prince's neck, and down, carefully, slowly, over his chest.

Richard froze as the cloth was brought to his neck. Little circles rubbed into his skin. Slowly making his way down his chest.

This wasn't something that was done in Alden. Baths were private. Even nobles and royalty would wash themselves, very rarely calling for an attendant to help.

This sort of thing happened between lovers.

His chest rose slowly, eyes sliding shut. He could tell him to stop. But another man cleaning him felt good. Too good.

It wasn't like he asked the slave, he thought dimly, head dizzy from the steam. The slave just did it.

He washed Richard's pale skin gently and methodically. His chest, then stomachs. Shoulders, then arms one at a time. He circled around him, washing his back, then lower.

His expression was serene, as the cloth passed over the prince's backside then lower, over his upper thighs.

When he circled back around, he didn't bother attempting to clean his genitals, knowing what an awful reception that act would get form the closed-off Prince. He just held the cloth up in both hands like an offering, for the young man to take.

Richard didn't think his body could relax further, but it did. The too hot water numbed most of the tingling nerves that would come with being washed.

His eyes did snap open when the cloth dipped lower than his back. He straightened a bit but he didn't reprimand the slave. Not after how well he relaxed tensed muscles.

Blue eyes blinked when the cloth was offered to him.

He knew that slaves bathed and washed their masters. He didn;t realise it went both ways.

He chewed on his lip. The slave jerking forward as he was slapped hard refreshed itself in his mind.

Carefully, he took the cloth then pressed it lightly to the slave's chest. Very slowly he began to wash away the last of the oils and paint.

Fleck jerked backwards slightly when the cloth was bought to his own skin and not used to clean his genitals like Fleck had expected him to do.

After the first moment of shock, though, he relaxed, eyes sliding shut and shoulders relaxing as the cloth passed over his body, ridding it of paint and oil and the dust of the day.

When was the last time someone else had washed him so delicately?

At the jerk back he stopped, not expecting it. Only when the slave relaxed under his hand he continued to wash his chest. Hands moving in small, gentle motions.

His teeth found his lip as he set himself on his task, finding a rhythm in it.

Slowly, he finished cleaning the front of his chest.

His hand found the slaves in the water and brought it up above the surface. The cloth rubbed over the large muscles, then down his forearm and hands. The cloth gently pulled each individual finger.

He then moved onto the other arm with the same thorough care.

Back on the chest, he moved lower. Briefly over the muscular torso. He didn't linger there too long.

Then he moved, water rippling, to wash his back. He watched as muscle rippled and moved under his hand. His hand didn't drop any lower.

He turned back so they were almost chest to chest. Like this, he could lean up and kiss him. It was tempting too. Instead, he placed the cloth back on the side.

"Feel better?"

He relaxed into the gentle feeling of warm, wet cloth against his skin. The circular motion of the cloth was soothing.

He noticed, with some amusement, that the Prince's hand didn't dip below his waist, either at the front or back of his body. Even so intimately close and sharing a bath, he stayed so formal, so proper.

Didn't he get bored of proper?

He could feel his breath against his damp skin.

At the question, his eyes fluttered open. "Yes, my Prince." He felt much better after a hot soak, and having the dried oils and paints stripped from his body.

How could he not feel good when he'd been tended to so carefully for the first time in years?

Dick hummed happily at the answer.

He moved to take his seat back on the step, eyes lingering on the slave. His elbows rested on one step higher.

His humming came to a slow in realisation. He was a slave. So, of course, he would agree with whatever he said.

"Would you ever say otherwise?"

If he did, it wouldn't bother him. Much. He could have maybe missed a spot or pressed too softly in areas.

After a few long moments, he left the bath, padding naked along the floor again to the table.

He picked up an oil and unstopped the bottle, but set the bottle down again a second later and reached for another. That first scent was strong, spicy. The sort of scent a sharp wit like Emilio or Espiridion would prefer. It didn't suit the Prince.

The scent he chose much softer. It flirted with the nose, rather than assaulting it. Gentle, subtle. That suited the prince better.

By the time he'd picked that scent and returned to the bath, the Prince had come to his realisation.

He gave an amused little him. "No, my Prince," he answered as he knelt behind him and oiled his hands, before running them carefully through his pale hair.

Richard gave a short hum as the slave began to comb his fingers through his hair. The subtle smell of the oil dancing around his senses.

Eye sliding close, he tilted his head back.

"If I tell you, you can say no, would you?"

He turned around before the slave could finish with his hair, or answer his question. Cool eyes looked up into warms ones.

"I mean, out there, in public, we are slave and master," he said those words with disgust, his nose crinkled up. "In here, I want you to be your own person."

The pull away from him shocked him, but then he gave the only reaction to that request he could.

He let out a quiet laugh. "No, my Prince."

His hands dropped into the water and his head tilted to the side a little.

"I've survived these years through self-preservation, not complacency when given an inch, my Prince." If someone gave him an inch, he didn't try to take a mile. He stayed right where he was.

"I am a slave, my Prince, nothing more."

He was just a hole to fuck, and hands that served. He didn't have the luxury of being liked by his owners, like some complacent slaves did - like the slaves that perched in the laps of the princes and nobles, and tittered like spoiled pets.

He was less than a slave, really. He was a disliked slave. There was only one reason he was even left alive, and the reason wasn't a good one.

Richard stared up at the slave, lips pursed and a line drawn between his eyes. He felt disappointed.

"Nothing more? You can speak more than two languages and you beat an Ecrutezian champion out there today."

He knew that the situation the slave was in couldn't be helped. Few slaves escaped Ecrutez. They had to do what he could to survive.

He just wished the man would stop acting like a slave and be more of the person around him in private.

"Slavery strips a person, my Prince."

Those things, the things he had learned - languages and sports - were things he'd learned long before he was a slave. He may have spent almost a fifth of his life as a slave, but that left twenty years of living as a person to develop interests and skills, but all that had been left behind him when he'd been cuffed and collared, only to be dragged up again yesterday.

He shifted, circling around Richard so he could begin oiling his hair again.

The man he was then was not what he was allowed to be now.

Richard gave an annoyed sigh.

They were talking in swings and roundabouts, and he was at lost on what to say to the slave to insist that during their private time together he could be a person. Or at least a glimpse of what he was.

In hindsight, he knew he was being selfish.

He pulled away from the hands as they were brought back up to his head.

"It's fine. I can do it myself."

The water splashed around him as he put some distance between himself and the slave. His fingers ran through his hair to coat it with the oil the slave had already put in it.

It would only be a thin layer, but it would do.

Letting the oil soak, his back rested on the other side of the pool. Not too deep. The water rose just below his shoulders.

His eyes, inevitably, landed back on the slave.

He'd upset him, by insisting that he wasn't a person. Aldish people were very sensitive people. Any Ecrutezian, anywhere in the country, would have nodded and agreed with what he had said.

He just watched the Prince sweep away from him, blinking languidly.

Polite, kind, but didn't like being told no, Fleck noted as the polite smile he was known for came to his face. A Royal, for sure.

"Yes, my Prince."

He settled himself in the water, and focused his efforts on brushing out his long hair with his fingers.

The Prince would call him when he was needed. Until then he would occupy himself.

Richard rested his elbows on the sides and watched the slave brush through his own hair.

"What was your name?"

He couldn't remember if the Queen called him by one or not when he was gifted to him. He was in too much in shock at the scantily dressed body.

He offhandedly mentioned this to his mother, who sharply insisted that he didn't go asking. Even if he intended to only use it in privet, he could slip up in public. Negotiations were still being delicately handled, even after the ceremony. The last thing they needed to do was accidentally insulted their culture.

His eyes turned upwards at the request.

"Hank, my Prince."

The name would likely come as a shock to the young man he was sharing a bath with.

The name wasn't Ecrutezian. It was from far further North than that. It was an Aldish name.

Fleck's looks were pure Ecrutezian. He didn't look as if he had anything diluting that strong blood.

The slave's name threw him off.

He was expecting something exotic. Lots of rolling R's that curled around his tongue. A name Richard would have difficulty pronouncing the first few tries - or it may fall flat.

"Hank," he repeated, easily.

It was a popular commoner name in Alde being the diminutive version of the noble name Henry. Boy's were given the name in hopes they would become strong and level headed.

Richard's eyes wondered over the slave's tanned skin, dark and glossy hair, and his strong nose.

"Were you originally Aldish?"

He didn't act Aldish. But as the slave said, his personhood had left when he turned a slave.