That night, Kurt didn’t sleep. In fact, he didn’t return to his room at all. Instead, he wandered the castle, ending up by the roses in the back. He sank to his knees before them and wept, wishing with all his heart that he had never met Blaine and that he had never given away his heart without even realizing what he’d done.

And now it was broken.

He had been foolish to believe he could ever be with Blaine entirely. Blaine needed an heir, needed to be King and rule the kingdom without question. He needed a queen. And even if he flouted that and took a husband instead, he couldn’t take a peasant. The people would never accept it. Kurt could only conclude that Blaine knew the implications. And Kurt could not live a life where he was used for pleasure only when duty did not call Blaine to another’s bed. He couldn’t bear the thought. He could never lay in his bed, cold and alone, and know that somewhere, his beloved was in the embrace of another.

So he could not make Blaine his beloved.

Resolved to this, and resolved to simply perform his duties until such a time as he could make his way back home, Kurt returned to his rooms and, unable to rest, started embroidering the fabric for Blaine’s garment. If nothing else, he could give Blaine something beautiful before he left.

It was hours later, his fingers tired and aching, when his door opened slowly.

“Kurt.”

Kurt pulled his needle away from the cream cloth he was embroidering, pulling the red thread he’d chosen taut before piercing the fabric with the needle once more. Pierce and pull, pierce and pull, pierce and pull, over and over until the garment was complete.

“Yes?”

“It is my wish that you accompany me to the western fields. I…would like to consult with you on a few matters.”

Kurt sighed and set down his needle. His hands had started to tremble slightly, so continuing the delicate task would be nigh on impossible now even if he hadn’t been exhausted. He nodded and laid aside his things before rising and turning to face the Prince.

“Of course, my lord,” he said, bowing respectfully. He didn’t miss the grimace on Blaine’s face at that, but he couldn’t afford to get any closer to the Prince. It just wasn’t his place anymore.

Blaine led the way out and onto the path heading for the western side of the castle. They walked silently, Kurt trailing half a pace behind Blaine. It was awkward, but they continued their walk without any attempts to ease the atmosphere.

“Here,” Blaine said, pausing when they reached the middle of the path that ran between the inner and outer circles between the two fields that made up the western end of the castle grounds. Kurt looked around—no one was around, and they would be able to see anyone coming long before they could be heard. The perfect place for a private conversation.

“What is it you need to consult me for, my lord?”

“Kurt, stop it,” Blaine said, looking at the ground and shaking his head. Kurt noticed for the first time that Blaine had trimmed his hair—how had he not noticed that last night? “I just wanted to speak to you.”

“I’m sorry, my lord,” Kurt replied, his heart breaking with every word. “I’m certain there is nothing to say.”

“Kurt, please,” Blaine pleaded. “Please listen—I’ve practiced saying this all night so please let me get it out.”

Kurt turned away and held his arms across his middle as though trying to physically hold himself together. All he had to do was wait for the Prince to finish speaking and the he could leave, he could go to the castle and get his things and he could go home…

“I’m sorry for…forcing myself on you.”

Kurt turned his head sharply and snapped his eyes up to Blaine incredulously. What!?

“I know now that it was foolish of me to hope that you would be able to look past my…my deformities,” Blaine continued. “I should not have pushed knowing that I could only repulse you. And I wish to apologize. I will not cross those boundaries again, and I understand if you wish to return home, but—“

“Stop.”

Blaine looked up at Kurt, and Kurt couldn’t do it. It would have been a good excuse—Kurt could just say nothing, go home, and try to heal from his heartbreak in peace. But he couldn’t look into Blaine’s eyes and let him believe that Kurt saw him as anything but beautiful.

“I am not repulsed by you,” Kurt said, facing Blaine and knowing that there was no turning back and the truth would have to come out.

“I don’t…understand,” Blaine said, blinking away sudden tears. “Why—after you—“

“I just can’t be your whore, Blaine,” Kurt blurted out, his own tears spilling down his flushed cheeks. “I turned down Sebastian for that, and I never thought I’d have to turn you down too. I may be a peasant and a servant, and not worthy of a man in your position, but I am better than that. I know what it takes to become King. I know you have to marry, and I won’t be shoved into a room with a secret entrance to yours so that I can sneak in and out at night while your wife lays alone down the hall—I won’t give myself to you only to have it taken away when your duty to the kingdom comes—“

“What makes you think I’ll be marrying some woman?”

“And what else would you do? You need an heir, and you have to have a queen before you can be—”

Blaine was shaking his head, a slow smile growing on his face.

“Kurt, I don’t need to marry a woman to have an heir. And I don’t need a queen.”

Kurt stared and cocked his head. “Wait, what?”

Blaine’s smile took over his whole face now, widening into the breathtaking grin that had so shocked Kurt when it first appeared. “It is perfectly legitimate for a Prince to rule the kingdom. I don’t need to be King—it’s just a title, in the end. And there’s precedent—there have been Princes that ruled without ever marrying before, and they legitimized the throne through a surrogate.”

“But the Lords—“

“—can’t say anything,” Blaine finished. “You don’t know? Lord Nicholas of Westerville is currently in a relationship with a fine young man named Jeffrey. And has been for years without incident. Unless they’re very suddenly against them and against at least three others of the peerage as well that I know of, they will remain silent.”

Kurt was shaking his head in disbelief, hope filling him for the first time. He couldn’t help the smile that broke free from his restraint.

“Blaine, you can’t…you can’t honestly think the people would be okay—“

“Kurt,” Blaine said, taking Kurt’s hands, “I wouldn’t be able to marry you officially; you’re right in assuming the people would accept neither a peasant nor a male as my spouse. We’d have to be content with being as we are. But I would. I would in an instant. And I could never make you into a whore. I meant every word I said last night. I am yours entirely, and I love you now and will do so until the sun turns cold. But the only way I’ll let you walk away now is if you don’t want me.”

Kurt laughed.

“I don’t think the sun is ever going to go cold.”

Blaine smiled, looking into Kurt’s eyes deliberately. “I know it won’t.”

Kurt couldn’t tell if what he let out was another laugh or a sob or some mixture of both, but it ceased to matter as he surged forward, throwing his arms around Blaine’s neck and kissing him for the first time.

Blaine’s mouth was surprisingly soft, his scars only slightly harder slashes across the sweet flesh of his lips. Kurt had wondered what it would feel like, had wondered if it would change things, but he found he didn’t care about the scars one bit as they moved together. He tilted his head, pressing into the kiss more deeply as Blaine wrapped his arms around his waist and pulled him in. He threaded his fingers into Blaine’s curls, shorter now but just as silky, and Kurt briefly wondered if the Prince had cut his hair to make himself look more presentable…just for Kurt.

Had it all been for him?

“I love you,” Kurt whispered, drawing back just enough to breathe out what he had been holding in for so long—the exhale after what felt like an eternity of inhale. Blaine laughed out of pure delight and pushed back in, pulling Kurt’s bottom lip between his own as best he could through his smile. Kurt moaned and sucked Blaine’s top lip, running his tongue gently over the edge.

Blaine gasped, his mouth falling open, and the reaction made Kurt bold. He slipped his tongue into Blaine’s mouth, a quick slip in before pulling back, unsure if it was okay. But in an instant, Blaine was moving in again, groaning and shoving his tongue into Kurt’s mouth. Kurt surged back, reveling in the new sensation of another mouth against his own.

And then the world was tipping. Blaine’s hands were gently guiding Kurt down onto the ground, and he obeyed their press willingly. He lay back in the long grass, pulling Blaine’s lips with his own, desperate to keep them connected. Blaine knelt over him, one hand rubbing circles into the back of his hip as the other drifted up to grasp the back of his head, tilting it back.

“You are so beautiful, Kurt,” Blaine moaned, moving his mouth to Kurt’s jaw, sucking kisses in a hot line down his neck and to his shoulder. He pulled his hand up from Kurt’s hip and laid it over his collarbone, just above his tunic. “May I?”

Kurt nodded, biting his lip and trying not to thrash beneath Blaine. He’d never felt such desire, and it stirred within him and tightened his groin when Blaine unlaced his shirt and pulled it open and off his shoulders, laying most of his chest bare as the wide opening tapered down to his diaphragm. Blaine lowered himself and kissed the creamy skin that was revealed. Kurt clutched at Blaine’s back, fingers scratching against the stretched leather and reaching as far around as he could with his upper arms restricted by the fabric of his shirt.

Kurt was panting, his head thrown back as his skin was kissed and sucked and bitten. When Blaine drew a taut nipple between his teeth, Kurt gasped, arching his back and keening. Blaine immediately released it and rushed back up to claim Kurt’s mouth again, shifting to lay between Kurt’s legs, which spread on pure instinct as Kurt drowned in sensation.

“You take my breath away,” Kurt sighed, finally unable to stop the writhing of his hips in a desperate search for friction. He found it, feeling what he realized, with a shuddering hiss of breath, was Blaine’s cock, hard and straining against his breeches, pressing against his own.

“Oh, gods,” Blaine swore, rocking his hips down in return, whining when they made contact again. “Gods, Kurt, you feel so good.”

Kurt whimpered and struggled, not against but with Blaine, hitching his legs around Blaine’s undulating hips and following his movements, climbing together toward a peak that Kurt could feel rapidly approaching.

“Please, Kurt,” Blaine begged, his arms trembling as they held him up. Kurt nodded, shifting his shoulders so that they pulled out of his shirt, the sleeves falling to his forearms and the collar ending up near his navel. With his arms less restricted, he caressed down Blaine’s back, fingers digging into straining muscles, tapering down and then flaring with the swell of his buttocks. Kurt reached and gripped the high, firm muscles, pulling Blaine in hard against him again and again and again.

With one last, forceful thrust up, Kurt tipped over the edge, arching his back, abandoning all control and crying out his release. Blaine’s hips stuttered a few more times and then he was gone too, his muscles clenching in shallow thrusts under Kurt’s still grasping hands, grunting in a continuous string with his mouth open against Kurt’s neck and his eyes clenched shut until, with a final shudder, he collapsed, gently lowering his weight into Kurt’s waiting arms.

“I love you, Blaine,” Kurt whispered, kissing Blaine’s sweaty curls as the Prince tucked his head into the curve between Kurt’s neck and shoulder. He felt Blaine kissing and nuzzling at his slowing pulse as he came down, his breathing evening out and his muscles relaxing down into the dirt with Blaine’s weight pressing him down.

“And I, you,” Blaine murmured, shifting to the side and wrapping both arms and legs around his lover.

They lay twined together for a long time, simply reveling in being close, unmindful of their filthy state. Fingers twisted into hair, breath traveled across skin, and soft kisses landed on the nearest surface until finally the discomfort of laying outside on the hard ground with come drying in their breeches caught up to them. Together they rose, but as Blaine turned to lead them back to the castle, Kurt stalled him.

“What is it, my love?” Blaine asked.

Kurt smiled at the endearment and stepped into Blaine’s arms.

“I was wondering if it might be unwise for the two of us to show up at the castle together in this state. Someone is sure to figure out what happened.”

Blaine looked confused. “Are you…ashamed? Of us? Of me?”

“No,” Kurt said immediately, reaching up to gently trace Blaine’s scars, his fingers wandering over their strangely smooth surfaces, marveling in the way Blaine’s eyes closed under his ministrations. “I could never be ashamed.”

“Then what is it?”

“I merely wonder if it would be prudent to be…discreet,” Kurt replied. “At least for now. Your position will remain unstable until court resumes and things settle, and…I don’t want to be a liability. And we all know how servants gossip.”

Blaine smiled.

“I understand. If you think it’s best, I will of course take your advice,” he said. “However, if anyone asks me, or if we are discovered, I will not attempt to hide you.”

Kurt ducked his head. “I am grateful for that.”

“Well then,” Blaine said mischievously, “if anyone should ask at our disheveled state, I shall merely inform them that I tripped and fell onto you.”

“Yes, again and again,” Kurt laughed, kissing the corner of Blaine’s mouth lingeringly. And at the sudden darkness in Blaine’s eyes, Kurt realized that they’d have to work on their excuses—quickly.