Carlos/Posa slash (based on Verdi's "Don Carlo") - rated M
Olive Oil and Orange Trees
Carlos/Posa fanfiction by Farfalla
based on the opera "Don Carlos" by Giuseppe Verdi
Yes, Prince Carlos really is that emo in the original French libretto. Take it up with Joseph Méry.
This story is set in an AU (alternate universe) in which Princess Eboli rescues them both when Carlos is in prison and they escape together, as seen in Eboli's Gift
I would like to thank MysticPenguin for proofreading.
WARNING for extremely graphic homoerotic sexuality.
Summary: On the way to Flanders they sort of seduce each other
Señor y Señora Verde, who were staying the evening in the little room at the end of the hall, were not seen very much by the other travelers at the inn. Their driver, who spent much of the evening drinking in the inn before retiring back to the coach to sleep, couldn't say much about them, either--only that he'd been hired outside Salamanca, that the husband was devoted but dull, and that the lady remained consistently veiled and didn't have much to say, "Thank God," he added.
The Señora was prone to bouts of illness and often spent the entire night in the room of whatever inn they inhabited, even taking her meals there. Tonight was no different; Señor Verde ate his dinner without speaking and then gathered pork, bread, and wine to bring upstairs to his wife.
He checked the hallway for others, then knocked on the door to their room. "Liberty," he murmured, in a tone only its inhabitant could hear.
"Come."
Rodrigo slipped inside the room and placed the tray of food on a table, then quickly shut the door behind him and locked it. "Has anyone been here?"
"No," said Carlos, standing up from the bed. He still wore the women's clothes that Doña Ana, the Princess Eboli, gave him to aid his escape from his father's prison. With Rodrigo's return he knew the door wouldn't open again until morning, so he felt safe enough to wash himself with the tub of water left by the innkeeper. Back in the prison, when she first helped him into the dress, he hadn't the faintest idea how it fit together, but they'd been at this for a few days and now he felt more confident taking apart his outfit.
In any case, it was awkward, but as far as he knew his father King Philip II was looking for two men on the run, not a married couple. Between Eboli's dress and the money Elisabeth had given them when she met them at the San Yuste monastery, they hoped they would be able to get to Flanders undiscovered and without starving or sleeping in ditches.
Rodrigo, who had already cleaned off his own road grime before dinner, sat on the bed while Carlos laid the dress carefully over a chair and then began to remove his own clothing that had been underneath it. "We've left the script," Carlos said out of nowhere.
"Script?"
"There you were, dying in my arms, and the next thing I know, Doña Ana's tying me into seven million ribbons and tossing me some bundle of herbs that saved your life."
"I prefer the new version, where we both live," Rodrigo commented, idly watching Carlos remove his pants by the light of the candles.
"I'm relieved and a little bewildered," said Carlos, beginning to wash. "And maybe... afraid."
"That's natural. But we'll help keep each other safe. We always do."
"What if that means dying for each other?"
"I vowed to do that, if I had to."
"And I, too--"
"But I would prefer that you live, and rule Spain more justly--"
"--than my father, yes." Carlos scrubbed his face with a wet cloth. "Rodrigo... you would have died so that I'd live and rule wisely and set the people free... you chose to die for Spain, but you were happy to die to save my life."
"I suppose there's a distinction," Rodrigo admitted. "It did make me happy."
"I nearly saw you go up in smoke in the fire of that happiness." Carlos dipped his cloth into the bucket again and scrubbed more skin. "I know how you felt, because I felt that way myself so many years ago when I took the beating for you."
Images played out in Rodrigo's memory--his shuttlecock veering off course as he watched in youthful terror--Carlos's aunt's livid face as she stormed away, clutching her bruised cheek, to condemn the hit as deliberate--all the youngsters of the palace summoned before the king, trying not to fidget in their nervousness--the king, staring them down with a glare that knew he held half the world in his hand.
Then Carlos! strange, desperate, emotional Carlos, who had begged for his companionship again and again to no avail, stepping forward to claim the crime as his own. They had whipped him, the beautiful boy, the crown prince, and Rodrigo remembered how his own heart felt like it had been squeezed like an orange, sending the juice down through his veins. Since that moment, since that sacrifice, he had seen something in Carlos he knew he needed in his life. "I remember weeping at your feet."
"I didn't even cry, because I looked at you while they were whipping me and it made me feel stronger. It was a sweet pain, because it gave me release for my great warmth for you. But surely there are expressions of love that renew, rather than consume."
Rodrigo simply listened, watching the candle's light flicker across the runaway prince's naked thighs as he bathed.
"Within each fruit on the orange tree," Carlos continued, "seeds wait for the moment they'll be sown and grow the next grove. If the trees burn, the fire is still orange, but it's the end of it all. I know there's a better way. And--this is so unexpected--I've realized it because of Elisabeth."
One eyebrow lifted. "You and she didn't talk about this, did you?"
Carlos shook his head and slipped his shirt back over his head. "No. I mean, she knows I love you, but--I wouldn't--what happened was that when we were younger, and I felt affection for you, I assumed that I esteemed you as an intimate brother. It wasn't until I met Elisabeth and my ache for her matched perfectly the ache I'd already carried all my life that I realized that it was the same thing." He wrung out the wet cloth and draped it over the edge of the bucket. Walking to the bed in just his shirt, he sat down and added, "But the church says--"
Rodrigo reached out and put a finger to the Infante's lips. "My Carlos, how can you look to the church for moral authority or indeed any kind of rational thought after what we've seen? The torture at the auto-da-fé--the Grand Inquisitor--"
Then he stopped talking about the state of the Church, because Carlos's lips were gently working at the side of his index finger. Like the feet of shellfish, their arhythmic softness pressed against him. He, Rodrigo, had waited for this, waited for Carlos, loved him body and soul but vowed to enter this country only if it were the Infante's idea. Carlos might outrank him, but he was delicate and emotional. Yet here they finally were.
Rodrigo didn't need a stronger hint. He dragged his finger down to rest on Carlos's lower lip, where it nudged its way between Carlos's lips to rest its fingertip against his tongue.
An invitation had been given, and the invitation duly accepted. Carlos closed his lips around Rodrigo's finger and kissed it, then began an elegant path of kisses across the rest of Rodrigo's hand. That hand caressed his face as it received the anointment, pressing its palm eagerly against Carlos's worshiping lips.
Then Rodrigo reclaimed his hand and reached forward. Sinking his fingers into Carlos's unruly dark hair, he pulled the Infante's face to his. As their lips met, and then their tongues, he felt Carlos writhe against him in his first abandon.
"Your orange tree is the burning bush of Moses," Rodrigo purred, "for though it doesn't destroy, it's the very hottest of flames." Both his hands slithered up underneath Carlos's shirt to his chest, where he gripped the pectoral muscles and rubbed until the nipples were hard and the man attached to them was moaning.
"Each way you touch me brings more pleasure than the last," gasped the prince.
"I've been looking at antiquities."
"Show me what else you've learned..."
Rodrigo lifted the shirt over Carlos's head and tossed it over onto the far side of the bed. He wrapped Carlos in both arms and bent his head down to tongue at one of his nipples. "Is this the expression of love you need, dear prince?"
"Oh, yes, my own, my own! Don't stop! But tell me what to do, for my love is also great and yearns to ring fulfilled. How will my Rodrigo know he is loved?"
Rodrigo kissed him on the mouth again, then breathed into that mouth, "Let me between your thighs."
"They are yours, if you'll give me this in return." Carlos massaged the stiff erection that was poking diagonally across the front of Rodrigo's pants.
Rodrigo withdrew to divest himself of his clothing, and returned to Carlos with a handful of olive oil from the tray of food. He used the other hand to paint a slick trail across the insides of Carlos's thighs, then began to massage him with both hands. Carlos was startlingly beautiful in the candlelight, his lips full and open and his eyes heavy-lidded with ecstasy, as Rodrigo explored his penis and testicles. There never was anything halfway about the Infante Carlos--whether it be pursuing a friend in youth, throwing himself at the queen who was married to his own father, trying to free the oppressed, or simply enjoying his first explicitly intimate touches.
Strong, idealistic Rodrigo--to be honest, it made him a bit helpless! It would have been easy to die for him, and it was even easier to make love to him.
Taking Carlos into his arms, he slid his erection between the prince's thighs--as he had seen in the Greek art. What the art couldn't convey, of course, was the sheer sensual rapture that resulted. Nor could it have told him how Carlos would start gasping and groaning as Rodrigo's shaft brushed against the sensitive skin beneath his scrotum, his own penis grinding between their sweaty bodies.
Rodrigo kissed and nibbled at every bit of new-scrubbed skin he could catch as they moved together--Carlos's shoulder, neck, chin, his panting lips--even his ear. As he felt himself near climax, he grabbed a handful of Carlos's rear in each hand to steady himself. The orgasm rocked through him and he felt like thunder and lightning.
Carlos began kissing him again but his lips were too slack from the pinnacle to kiss properly. He let the Infante kiss him anyway, and then when he came back to Earth, he took charge. "Lie down."
"I need you."
"I'm not going anywhere." Rodrigo guided Carlos onto the bed, where he lay in decadent repose across sheets that didn't deserve to touch his glistening skin. His erection still rose up in silent need, and Rodrigo answered it.
"What...are you do...unngh," Carlos forgot how to string words together as he disappeared into the wet heat of Rodrigo's mouth.
"Painted on the wall of a Roman bathhouse--" Rodrigo began to explain, coming up for air.
"Blessed Romans! But when you stopped, I feared that it would leap from my body and into your mouth, to live there forever."
Rodrigo didn't waste time responding to that flowery display of excess; he simply granted the underlying request and resumed sucking. There was still olive oil everywhere, flavoring Carlos like some savory delectation. Rodrigo worked on him until the hands that were idly stroking his head instead seized his hair. Then, with a flourish, he let Carlos's penis slip out of his mouth and finished him off with his hands. Hot like a ray of sunlight came the stuff across his face.
Carlos didn't realize where he'd ejaculated until Rodrigo climbed on top of him to kiss his forehead. "I've stained you," he murmured in exhausted concern.
"It's clean because you are. Clean here." Rodrigo put his hand over Carlos's heart. "A true stain would be to cover me in my own blood, not to cover me in my own sweat, as you have. Or in yours."
"So wise... so noble... even with my seed on your lips they speak more dignity than I could muster in a week. I'm to be king and yet I bow to you. I'm in awe of your very being."
"I'm just lucky I finally saw your loyal and generous self, when we were youths, and could then love the true soul behind the prince's shell." Rodrigo kissed his eyelid. "We need to wash. Or we'll be discovered and our lives forfeit for something far less heroic than defying the king's tyranny."
"They already think I'm your wife," Carlos joked. He stood up. "I'm so hungry! What is this?" He poked at the plate of food that had waited patiently for them to finish making love for the first time. "Pork... wine... bread."
"But no more olive oil," Rodrigo pointed out.
Carlos laughed, and then his face grew dreamy. "But plenty of oranges."
"For your everlasting grove." Rodrigo smiled at him indulgently. What a ridiculous poet he was!
"Ours," Carlos corrected him, and began to eat.