Cordillair (6/10+E Kurtbastian)
Some time ago I took this prompt on the GKM and thought to myself, "I can do this. I can make this world." I took it to try to deal with my feelings on Klaine breaking up, and I took it to stretch my writing wings. If Kurtbastian isn't your thing, let me assure you - Kurtbastian doesn't happen for many, many chapters. And this is DEFINITELY not canon. It's a completely different world, with OCs and only three canon characters in name - Sebastian Smythe and Kurt and Burton Hummelod (Hummel-ODD). Maybe take a chance on me and I'll take you on an adventure.
Part One / Two // Three // Four / Five
In the end Sebastian goes to Montaire, though not with permission.
After three more occurrences with his “master” like that in the barn, each one a bit more forceful and abusive than the last, Sebastian feels as though he’s earned some time away from the house.
He wakes early and dresses for his day, begging Juniper to let him warm some water by the fire as he hasn’t bathed in the week he’s been at the Amsterdam house. She relents, showing him how to use the buckets and how to get the water just the right temperature, and eventually he is able to ease himself into the small washtub they keep for the horses. After he’s in the tub, barely fitting with his legs all akimbo, Juniper comes out to bring him a small sliver of soap she has nicked and she falls over laughing.
“Oooooohhhhmuhlord, lookit you! You’re all knees and elbows, youare! Like someone’n tossed a stick-bug in the washin’!”
“Hey! Stop looking at me naked!” Sebastian complains, trying to cover himself unsuccessfully.
Juniper peers into the tub and whistles.
“I see now what the Mrs’n hand was going on about.”
“Wait, What?” She’s got Sebastian’s attention as she hands him the soap and backs away, finally averting her eyes.
“Welllll...” She begins, eyeing him guiltily.
“C’Mon, Juney. Juuuney,” he says, soaping up and smiling like it’s his job. “You know you want to tell me. Look at me! I’m all banged up. I should get some kind of praise.”
Juniper, looking all of her 10 whole years, says something that makes him gape.
“She’n said ya have the bestdick’n the land.” She blushes straight to her toes.
“Juniper! You gossip, you!” He throws the soap back at her, preening a little at the fact that he, in all his lack of heterosexual prowess, had impressed the lady of the house.
She giggles then, hiding her face still.
“She said your mouth, too, whatever that’sn about.” With that she skitters away, the topic too much for her.
When he gets out of the tub he’s surprised to find clean clothes waiting for him; another kind gesture from Juniper. A little over a week and she already has so much of his heart, though he barely admits it and only in the dark of the night when he thanks her for her kindnesses throughout the day.
As if sending them out into the wind would carry them to her.
He pulls on the breeches first, and then the tunic, noting that she’s chosen a long-sleeved for him today despite the weather. He tugs gently on the left cuff, exposing the thin brands on his arms from the night before. When his “master” had discovered heating thin metal rods to press to his arms until he gave in with his mouth again. Fighting, in the end, had been no use after his acquiescence the first night. It all ended the same way, anyway. Lord Amsterdam calling him names and denying what had just happened with kicks and swats; sometimes with steel.
Still, his face is intact and he can walk so that’s something.
He tries to forget it as he pulls on his boots and makes for Montaine.
***
Kurt’s been at Montaine since daylight.
In the 6 days since he’d seen Sebastian he’s eagerly awaited shooting with someone who so obviously enjoys it, and with Alander’s bows. He’s been goading Alander’s to sell more; get a grander site at the market and markets abroad, but to no avail.
It doesn’t help that Solara is begging Alander to marry as well.
Alander is actually inside, waiving his invitation to join them, not wanting to give anything away. It makes no matter to Kurt; he simply wants to shoot with someone who loves it as much as he does. Alander is skilled at bowery, yes, but he doesn’t feel that actual act of shooting in his fingertips like Kurt does.
He’s taken 5 practice shots into the hay bales strung with linen and lined with soot before Sebastian arrives, sauntering in from the West.
“Hello!” He cries, tugging his last arrow from the hay and running cross the field to greet his new friend.
Sebastian waves but doesn’t smile, his eyes searching for the bows, Kurt knows.
Well, he’s certainly focused, Kurt thinks as he nears Sebastian’s side and reaches out his hand for a shake.
“Welcome to Montaine,” he says, trying to look into Sebastian’s eyes. He can’t, he finds, and something is different from the last time he saw this boy. Something’s off and he seems sadder still.
He burns a little at Lord Amsterdam for a moment and then shakes himself out of his own conclusions. There is no proof - never has been - of Lord Amsterdam being anything but a gentleman to his hands, but the rumors still persist.
“Well, good Toby, I’m so glad your master let you off today. Let’s see what you can do, shall we?” Kurt says, and turns before he can see Sebastian wince at the words.
“So what kind of bow do you-”
“Do you have the one from last week?” Sebastian’s first words and Kurt can hear the desperation in them; the need for release. He has a moment where he wishes he could help more as he gazes at Sebastian who, in turn, is gazing at the bow he was speaking of.
“Uh, yes. I- right here?” Kurt doesn’t know what to say, he’s lost his bearings watching Sebastian waltz over and pick up the beautiful piece, hefting the string and humming in appreciation before grabbing an arrow and letting it fly, further than the hay, further than the back of the field, and into a tree. The center of the trunk.
“So this is fucking beautiful,” Sebastian says, grinning at Kurt.
Kurt can’t help but smile back.
***
At dusk they stop, the light fading too much to be safe and both of them exhausted from shooting and...riding. Kurt had asked if Sebastian could ride halfway through the day and then brought them both to the edge of Montaine’s lands...the edge, as luck or evil fate would have it, of Lagau.
Sebastian had felt as though he might bite his tongue off keeping quiet.
During the ride he and Kurt had been silent at first and then, as the time passed, Kurt had mentioned his mother. About how he had learned to ride from her.
“Is she still a rider, your mother?” Sebastian asks.
Kurt turned to him and frowned, his usually calm face darkening.
“Not anymore, actually. My mother...my mother died when I was 10. She withered for months and then was struck with fever. And that was that.”
Kurt looks ahead, obviously in his own world of sorrow. Sebastian just stares, wanting to commiserate so badly he just blurts it out.
“My mother’s dead, too.”
Kurt shoots him a look, daring him to be joking, but then softens at something he must see in Sebastian’s face.
Sebastian could kick himself, hard, and square in the ass for exposing himself so, but since he’s Toby now, he can afford to talk.
“She was murdered, actually, right in front me me. Stabbed.” The words settle and then sting, making his own stomach feel rent through. “I’ve never told anyone else about it. I guess I just-”
He’s not expecting tears, but they are there anyway, coursing down his cheeks in rivulets.
“She was so beautiful, you know? I mean, maidens are maidens but she...she just shone when she laughed or sang and I-” A sob cuts out of him and he can barely breath.
Kurt’s slowed their pace without Sebastian knowing it and they’re barely moving, really at a walk now when they had been at a canter.
“How long ago?” Kurt’s voice, quiet and without judgement from his left, and Sebastian pulls himself together, his movements quick and sure, angry at himself for letting go.
“When I was nine.” He laughs at himself then, thinking himself a fool in Kurt’s eyes.
Instead Kurt is close enough to touch him, lay his hand on his forearm and Sebastian hisses, the pain from the burns still sharp.
Kurt pulls back, his face anxious. “I’m sorry. I won’t touch you I just wanted to say I understand. That it doesn’t matter how long it’s been and- and well, I’m glad you got to tell someone finally. Is that why you can ride and are a hand?”
Sebastian shakes his head to clear it, sweat and tears running off of him, and then replies.
“Yes, of course.”
***
Now they’re watering the horses and rubbing them down, and talking like friends...something Sebastian’s never really done, actually. Kurt had removed his shirt long ago, the heat of the day having rendered modesty a moot point. Sebastian keep sneaking furtive glances, watching Kurt’s long, smooth torso bend and move.
Sebastian clears his throat and notices, finally, the dim light, the setting sun.
“Shit.”
Kurt looks up, surprised.
“Not in here right now, I just mucked these stalls yesterday, I mean-”
Sebastian makes a face at him, finally catching the sarcasm as a smile creeps across Kurt’s face.
“You. Are a dork.” Sebastian says, crossing to Kurt and brushing past him to put down the brush in his hand. The small point of contact is a little flare in his gut; a reminder of freedom, and he wants to hold onto it as long as he can. “And I have to go. I’ve been gone way too long and my...” He grits his teeth, both angry and a bit scared at what will happen when he does get home. “Master,” he spits out the word, “will be worried.”
Kurt watches his a moment, seeming about to say something but then stills, letting his arms hang at his sides.
“I have to go,” Sebastian says, quickly turning for the door of the stable.
“Wait,” Kurt pleads behind him, and Sebastian can do nothing but. Kurt’s voice has an edge to is, something that makes him stop, stand still. He wishes he could just leave, go take his punishment, but the way Kurt talks, the way he moves, everything that they have done today makes him want to stay. To know more of Kurt. To be a better person.
Sebastian sighs and turns around, ready to face whatever Kurt has to say. Kurt, though, says nothing. Just walks up to him and folds him up in a hug so sincere it aches in Sebastian’s chest because what if...
Kurt pulls back quickly enough, just taking half of Sebastian’s heart with him instead of the whole thing, thank god, before speaking again.
“Come again next week?” Kurt asks.
Sebastian smiles sadly.
“Of course.”
***
“-and you should see the way he talks about that other hand - the young girl? Her name is Juniper but he calls her Juney. If she weren’t so old I would wonder if she was his own and I-”
“Smiiiitttten,” Alander’s voice interrupts, and Solara muffles a laugh from the hearth. “So smitten, wow. I didn’t think I’d see it like this, did you mother?”
Kurt tries to look put upon as she turns from her fine lacework to acknowledge them both.
“It’s never been this bad, no, and his mother would be all aflutter, I’m sure.” she grins at Kurt and he can’t help but grin back.
“Hush, both of you, it’s not like that at all.” He turns to retrieve his boots; to actually go home at a proper time for once.
“Oh he protests! Honestly, mother, listen to him!”
Kurt closes the door on their laughter, unable to hide his smile.
Part One / Two // Three // Four / Five
In the end Sebastian goes to Montaire, though not with permission.
After three more occurrences with his “master” like that in the barn, each one a bit more forceful and abusive than the last, Sebastian feels as though he’s earned some time away from the house.
He wakes early and dresses for his day, begging Juniper to let him warm some water by the fire as he hasn’t bathed in the week he’s been at the Amsterdam house. She relents, showing him how to use the buckets and how to get the water just the right temperature, and eventually he is able to ease himself into the small washtub they keep for the horses. After he’s in the tub, barely fitting with his legs all akimbo, Juniper comes out to bring him a small sliver of soap she has nicked and she falls over laughing.
“Oooooohhhhmuhlord, lookit you! You’re all knees and elbows, youare! Like someone’n tossed a stick-bug in the washin’!”
“Hey! Stop looking at me naked!” Sebastian complains, trying to cover himself unsuccessfully.
Juniper peers into the tub and whistles.
“I see now what the Mrs’n hand was going on about.”
“Wait, What?” She’s got Sebastian’s attention as she hands him the soap and backs away, finally averting her eyes.
“Welllll...” She begins, eyeing him guiltily.
“C’Mon, Juney. Juuuney,” he says, soaping up and smiling like it’s his job. “You know you want to tell me. Look at me! I’m all banged up. I should get some kind of praise.”
Juniper, looking all of her 10 whole years, says something that makes him gape.
“She’n said ya have the bestdick’n the land.” She blushes straight to her toes.
“Juniper! You gossip, you!” He throws the soap back at her, preening a little at the fact that he, in all his lack of heterosexual prowess, had impressed the lady of the house.
She giggles then, hiding her face still.
“She said your mouth, too, whatever that’sn about.” With that she skitters away, the topic too much for her.
When he gets out of the tub he’s surprised to find clean clothes waiting for him; another kind gesture from Juniper. A little over a week and she already has so much of his heart, though he barely admits it and only in the dark of the night when he thanks her for her kindnesses throughout the day.
As if sending them out into the wind would carry them to her.
He pulls on the breeches first, and then the tunic, noting that she’s chosen a long-sleeved for him today despite the weather. He tugs gently on the left cuff, exposing the thin brands on his arms from the night before. When his “master” had discovered heating thin metal rods to press to his arms until he gave in with his mouth again. Fighting, in the end, had been no use after his acquiescence the first night. It all ended the same way, anyway. Lord Amsterdam calling him names and denying what had just happened with kicks and swats; sometimes with steel.
Still, his face is intact and he can walk so that’s something.
He tries to forget it as he pulls on his boots and makes for Montaine.
***
Kurt’s been at Montaine since daylight.
In the 6 days since he’d seen Sebastian he’s eagerly awaited shooting with someone who so obviously enjoys it, and with Alander’s bows. He’s been goading Alander’s to sell more; get a grander site at the market and markets abroad, but to no avail.
It doesn’t help that Solara is begging Alander to marry as well.
Alander is actually inside, waiving his invitation to join them, not wanting to give anything away. It makes no matter to Kurt; he simply wants to shoot with someone who loves it as much as he does. Alander is skilled at bowery, yes, but he doesn’t feel that actual act of shooting in his fingertips like Kurt does.
He’s taken 5 practice shots into the hay bales strung with linen and lined with soot before Sebastian arrives, sauntering in from the West.
“Hello!” He cries, tugging his last arrow from the hay and running cross the field to greet his new friend.
Sebastian waves but doesn’t smile, his eyes searching for the bows, Kurt knows.
Well, he’s certainly focused, Kurt thinks as he nears Sebastian’s side and reaches out his hand for a shake.
“Welcome to Montaine,” he says, trying to look into Sebastian’s eyes. He can’t, he finds, and something is different from the last time he saw this boy. Something’s off and he seems sadder still.
He burns a little at Lord Amsterdam for a moment and then shakes himself out of his own conclusions. There is no proof - never has been - of Lord Amsterdam being anything but a gentleman to his hands, but the rumors still persist.
“Well, good Toby, I’m so glad your master let you off today. Let’s see what you can do, shall we?” Kurt says, and turns before he can see Sebastian wince at the words.
“So what kind of bow do you-”
“Do you have the one from last week?” Sebastian’s first words and Kurt can hear the desperation in them; the need for release. He has a moment where he wishes he could help more as he gazes at Sebastian who, in turn, is gazing at the bow he was speaking of.
“Uh, yes. I- right here?” Kurt doesn’t know what to say, he’s lost his bearings watching Sebastian waltz over and pick up the beautiful piece, hefting the string and humming in appreciation before grabbing an arrow and letting it fly, further than the hay, further than the back of the field, and into a tree. The center of the trunk.
“So this is fucking beautiful,” Sebastian says, grinning at Kurt.
Kurt can’t help but smile back.
***
At dusk they stop, the light fading too much to be safe and both of them exhausted from shooting and...riding. Kurt had asked if Sebastian could ride halfway through the day and then brought them both to the edge of Montaine’s lands...the edge, as luck or evil fate would have it, of Lagau.
Sebastian had felt as though he might bite his tongue off keeping quiet.
During the ride he and Kurt had been silent at first and then, as the time passed, Kurt had mentioned his mother. About how he had learned to ride from her.
“Is she still a rider, your mother?” Sebastian asks.
Kurt turned to him and frowned, his usually calm face darkening.
“Not anymore, actually. My mother...my mother died when I was 10. She withered for months and then was struck with fever. And that was that.”
Kurt looks ahead, obviously in his own world of sorrow. Sebastian just stares, wanting to commiserate so badly he just blurts it out.
“My mother’s dead, too.”
Kurt shoots him a look, daring him to be joking, but then softens at something he must see in Sebastian’s face.
Sebastian could kick himself, hard, and square in the ass for exposing himself so, but since he’s Toby now, he can afford to talk.
“She was murdered, actually, right in front me me. Stabbed.” The words settle and then sting, making his own stomach feel rent through. “I’ve never told anyone else about it. I guess I just-”
He’s not expecting tears, but they are there anyway, coursing down his cheeks in rivulets.
“She was so beautiful, you know? I mean, maidens are maidens but she...she just shone when she laughed or sang and I-” A sob cuts out of him and he can barely breath.
Kurt’s slowed their pace without Sebastian knowing it and they’re barely moving, really at a walk now when they had been at a canter.
“How long ago?” Kurt’s voice, quiet and without judgement from his left, and Sebastian pulls himself together, his movements quick and sure, angry at himself for letting go.
“When I was nine.” He laughs at himself then, thinking himself a fool in Kurt’s eyes.
Instead Kurt is close enough to touch him, lay his hand on his forearm and Sebastian hisses, the pain from the burns still sharp.
Kurt pulls back, his face anxious. “I’m sorry. I won’t touch you I just wanted to say I understand. That it doesn’t matter how long it’s been and- and well, I’m glad you got to tell someone finally. Is that why you can ride and are a hand?”
Sebastian shakes his head to clear it, sweat and tears running off of him, and then replies.
“Yes, of course.”
***
Now they’re watering the horses and rubbing them down, and talking like friends...something Sebastian’s never really done, actually. Kurt had removed his shirt long ago, the heat of the day having rendered modesty a moot point. Sebastian keep sneaking furtive glances, watching Kurt’s long, smooth torso bend and move.
Sebastian clears his throat and notices, finally, the dim light, the setting sun.
“Shit.”
Kurt looks up, surprised.
“Not in here right now, I just mucked these stalls yesterday, I mean-”
Sebastian makes a face at him, finally catching the sarcasm as a smile creeps across Kurt’s face.
“You. Are a dork.” Sebastian says, crossing to Kurt and brushing past him to put down the brush in his hand. The small point of contact is a little flare in his gut; a reminder of freedom, and he wants to hold onto it as long as he can. “And I have to go. I’ve been gone way too long and my...” He grits his teeth, both angry and a bit scared at what will happen when he does get home. “Master,” he spits out the word, “will be worried.”
Kurt watches his a moment, seeming about to say something but then stills, letting his arms hang at his sides.
“I have to go,” Sebastian says, quickly turning for the door of the stable.
“Wait,” Kurt pleads behind him, and Sebastian can do nothing but. Kurt’s voice has an edge to is, something that makes him stop, stand still. He wishes he could just leave, go take his punishment, but the way Kurt talks, the way he moves, everything that they have done today makes him want to stay. To know more of Kurt. To be a better person.
Sebastian sighs and turns around, ready to face whatever Kurt has to say. Kurt, though, says nothing. Just walks up to him and folds him up in a hug so sincere it aches in Sebastian’s chest because what if...
Kurt pulls back quickly enough, just taking half of Sebastian’s heart with him instead of the whole thing, thank god, before speaking again.
“Come again next week?” Kurt asks.
Sebastian smiles sadly.
“Of course.”
***
“-and you should see the way he talks about that other hand - the young girl? Her name is Juniper but he calls her Juney. If she weren’t so old I would wonder if she was his own and I-”
“Smiiiitttten,” Alander’s voice interrupts, and Solara muffles a laugh from the hearth. “So smitten, wow. I didn’t think I’d see it like this, did you mother?”
Kurt tries to look put upon as she turns from her fine lacework to acknowledge them both.
“It’s never been this bad, no, and his mother would be all aflutter, I’m sure.” she grins at Kurt and he can’t help but grin back.
“Hush, both of you, it’s not like that at all.” He turns to retrieve his boots; to actually go home at a proper time for once.
“Oh he protests! Honestly, mother, listen to him!”
Kurt closes the door on their laughter, unable to hide his smile.