Averet was beside himself with anger towards the prince and it was making Dashiell happier than it should have. Isandros was digging his own grave, he was losing the trust of his two best guards. “How can he do that! You’re not well enough for that yet!” Averet had yelled when he’d stepped into Dashiell’s room that afternoon. “I will talk to him. He can’t do this to you!” he’d said, and Dashiell had to beg him to stop. “That will only make it worse, and you know it. I’ll be okay!” Dashiell had told him. And he would be okay. It might be painful, but he would do it if it meant that Averet and Erat would be free of trouble. He could do it, he just hoped that Barret wouldn’t lose interest in him once he saw his back. He will either be disgusted by it or just tell me to keep my shirt on. Everything was going to be okay. He had to believe that.
Erat was angry too, but he never said anything about it. Dashiell could just see it in his eyes. He was taking extra good care of Dashiell’s wounds while assuring him that nothing would happen to him again. “We will always be close by, Dashiell. We won’t let anyone hurt you,” he’d said one day while cleaning his back, applying some healing ointment to the scars to make the skin, or what was left of his skin rather, more flexible again. Dashiell hadn’t seen his back yet. He was too afraid to look, he knew it would make him feel even more uncomfortable in his own body, and he knew that there would be more scarring than actual skin. He didn’t understand how Erat and Averet could touch him. Touch it. It must feel disgusting to run a hand down over the uneven skin.
He would not want to touch it himself.
Averet was pacing back and forth in Dashiell’s room. It was his last night before he had to go back out there, and it was making the captain uncomfortable. Dashiell was sitting on the bed with his back carefully against the headboard, reading a book. He looked up from his book and raised an eyebrow.
“Now I know how Erat felt,” he sighed, closing his book and looking up at the captain. Averet came to a stop and gave him a questioning look.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“I mean,” Dashiell said as he stood up from the bed, “it’s impossible to concentrate when someone is pacing the room like that.”
“I just don’t like this.” Averet crossed his arms over his wide chest. “You still have a hard time walking around for too long, and now you have to travel across the town? And I don’t even want to think about what you’ll have to do when you get there!” he growled. “Don’t take any other clients than him, Dashiell. You need your strength.”
“Don’t worry about it Averet. Usually, I just have to lay on my stomach and pretend that I like it. I can easily do that,” he smiled at Averet. “Most people will probably run away from me quickly when they see my back anyway.”
“I did that to you.” Dashiell thought Averet was about to hug him as he stepped closer. “How can you still look at me?”
“The prince did this to me,” Dashiell said firmly, “not you! And I can look at you because I see you too.”
Averet smiled at him and gave a small nod. It wasn’t enough to convince him that Dashiell didn’t blame him, but it was hopefully a start.
Dashiell walked out onto the balcony and Averet was at his side. They both enjoyed the beautiful view for a little while before Dashiell broke the silence. “You liked me from the start,” Dashiell said, looking over at the captain next to him. “Why?”
“It’s a long story,” he said with a little laugh, but Dashiell could hear the sadness in his words.
“We have time enough,” he pressed on. He wanted to know because it made no sense to him. It made no sense that someone would ever care for him. Especially not someone like Averet. Guards would always keep their distance from prisoners, they wouldn’t just let them in under their skin. But Averet did. He proved it when he forced Eudon to stop touching him. When he stationed guards around him after the rape. When he stopped the second rape and had Eudon sent away. He proved it when he carefully cleaned the wounds on his back or caressed his hair. Averet took a deep breath, staring blankly into the thin air.
“I was like you once,” he mumbled. “My parents died when I was 7, so I and my older brother were left alone to fend for ourselves. Both of us had to try and earn money to get food. He was 13 at the time. He did his best to spare me from all of it… but a lot of people liked that I was so young. I had no other choice than to let them have me.” Dashiell was shocked and horrified. He never expected Averet to have such sad beginnings, he thought that he came from some noble family. That there was someone to take care of him. “My brother tried to stop it. But I told him that it was okay. Shortly after I turned 14, my brother died, and I was completely alone. I continued to whore myself out. I had no choice.”
Dashiell stepped closer to him, taking his hand.
“That’s why you don’t like sex?” Dashiell asked gently as he entwined their fingers.
“No, I never liked it or needed it rather” Averet said, “but I had to do it. I reached a point where I just couldn’t anymore. I had to find a way out.”
“So you became a guard?”
“No! I began stealing,” he sighed. “One day I was caught by the owner of one of the shops.” He pulled his hand away from Dashiell and began opening the jacket of his guard uniform. “I knew that he would have me thrown into a cell for it. That I would probably rot in there for the rest of my life or get executed.” He let the jacket slide slowly of his shoulders to the ground. “But he made a deal with me instead.” Averet lifted his shirt up as he turned around. Dashiell froze when he saw the ruined skin, that looked identical to his own. “I could let him punish me for what I did, let him hurt me, let him fuck me whenever he wanted to. Or I could be locked up and maybe even executed.” He pulled his shirt back down and picked up his jacket. “I took the deal.”
“Averet,” Dashiell whispered, tracing his fingers along Averet’s shoulder. “I am so sorry.”
“Don’t be,” Averet said. “That man was the most sadistic person I’ve ever met. You and I both know that there are many insane people out there. I let him hurt me for four years. And then I killed him.” He looked straight at Dashiell and gave him a bleak smile.
“How did you end up here?”
“The prince helped me. I was locked up and awaiting execution, but he saved me. He told me that he saw something good in me and that he wanted me to work for him…I couldn’t refuse. I didn’t want to die,” he said, turning away from Dashiell’s gaze. “I trained hard, I wanted to make sure that I would never be on the streets again, and then I ended up becoming captain of the royal guard.”
“I would never have guessed any of this. It’s horrible.” Dashiell knew he looked shocked but Averet was such a good person. He didn’t deserve that life.
“I’ve never told anyone this before. Only Isandros knows all of it,” he sighed.
“Then thank you for trusting me enough to share it.”
“Dashiell, all of this is why I tried to convince you to work for him. I thought he would be kind to you too. But after what he did to you… the fact that he forced me to hurt you, the same way as I had been hurt… I never saw that coming.” he said pulling Dashiell into a hug. “It wasn’t just a punishment meant for you, it was his way of punishing me too, for standing up for you.”
“You shouldn’t stand up for me then. Don’t do it again! Maybe he’ll tear the skin of your back the next time. I don’t want that to happen.”
“Dashiell -”
“No, just don’t do it again!”
“I can’t and won’t promise you that,” they pulled away from each other and Averet’s cheeks turned slightly red again as he pressed a careful kiss to Dashiell’s forehead.
They spent most of the night in silence, there wasn’t really any more to say. They just were. Dashiell felt tired but he didn’t want to sleep. If he did, it would become tomorrow way too fast and he wasn’t ready for it. He thought about running away again. They were letting him out of the castle grounds, which meant freedom. He could enter the brothel and just climb out a window and run away. He sighed deeply, clenching his hands into fists. It wouldn’t be a possibility. If he tried something like that then Averet and Erat would pay for it.
He laid in his bed, staring at the ceiling while Averet sat in the chair opposite him. He could hear Averet yawn a few times.
“Come and lay down” Dashiell said as he moved over to the side to make more room for Averet.
“I can’t.”
“Yes, you can! You’re tired and you should get some sleep too,” he argued. “I’m not going to run away. I would never do that to you.”
“It’s not a good idea, Dashiell,” Averet mumbled.
“My ideas are never good, but some of them work out fine anyway.” He tapped the side of the bed with a smile. “And honestly, I’m nervous about tomorrow. I’m scared to go back… I just want someone to hold me for a while. Someone who doesn’t want anything from me.” Averet looked fairly skeptical, but he got up, removed the jacket once again, and laid down on the bed. Without saying anything, he pulled Dashiell close to him and made him rest his head on his chest, wrapping his arms around him.
“It’s going to be okay. I’ll be there if you need me,” he promised. Dashiell nodded and closed his eyes. Averet’s heart was racing, but it calmed Dashiell. He liked the way it felt being wrapped in someone’s arms, being held without having to be fucked first. Not that it had ever happened before, this was a first. It didn’t take him many minutes to fall asleep.
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