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Jeremy had always been fond of the Advisor.
To be fair, there wasn’t much to dislike. The Advisor was creative and knowledgeable. The Advisor was prompt with his service. The Advisor was sharp of wit and tongue in a dry sort of way, and complemented King Reich’s exuberant style nicely.
Best of all, the Advisor had eyes that followed Jeremy as he made a fool of himself on the stages of the King’s courtrooms.
His attention was rarely commendatory. Still, it was attention all the same, made sweeter when the Advisor would force his focus away as soon as he caught himself staring.
Jeremy watched this occur in his peripheral vision enough to remember every detail of the Advisor’s face as he did so.
His heavy lids would settle low as he looked off to the side; his tongue pressed against the inside of his bottom lip in some unknown frustration. Then it was only a matter of time before he gained this posture of… reluctance, perhaps, and grudgingly swept his eyes back towards the jester.
It was as if he had no say in the matter. Jeremy revelled in it.
This dance of flickering lashes became a game to him over the years. Exactly how long could Jeremy retain the Advisor’s notice? What best captivated him? What acts flustered him the quickest?
The process of discovery was borderline alchemic. But when one of his experiments succeeded —when he wore the right tunic or told the right jokes, and caught the ghost of a smile on the Advisor’s lips, or even a full glimpse of his dark eyes on him before he looked away?
Jeremy experienced a high like he’d taken a drink of something years in the making.
Losing this process made Jeremy almost regret becoming King.
The Advisor had become his. He had no choice but to look upon Jeremy and smile and accept his demands as he made them.
Gone was their dance of un-noticing; they spoke clearly to one another now.
Still, if Jeremy had known that a simple ploy in a Jester’s game would lead to his Advisor’s eyes following him into bed …
Well. He would have become King much sooner.
His King’s Bedchambers were nicer than anything Jeremy had ever had before. The mattress he lay upon now was thick and plush, bolstered by four posts in the corners and a headboard against the wall. Strewn around the chamber were oil lamps approaching their empty, though their flickering lights were strengthened by the near-evening sun shining through a small window on Jeremy’s right.
About a dozen paces from the footboard was the main exit, which Jeremy rarely bothered with. The service door was directly to the left of his bed, and thus far more convenient for him—and anyone else, hypothetically—to enter through.
This was the door Jeremy left ajar as he unbuttoned his surcoat, pulling his shirt over his head with a shaky sigh. It was what he kept his eyes on while he reached into his pants and palmed his dick, lying his head back on his pillow with a soft moan as he began to fuck into his own hand.
Just when he figured he’d overshot his gamble, he watched a familiar shadow obstruct the hallway light.
Jeremy’s voice was raspy with nerve—which was ridiculous, he knew exactly who stood outside—when he called out, “Hello?”
Just as he’d hoped-expected-prayed, Advisor Paul of House Refereeno stepped into the room and shut the door behind him. The man’s eyes were wide as he stared at his King’s discarded robe and the askew expression upon his face.
“Please, could,” Jeremy began carefully, before swallowing and trying again, hoping not to scare him away. “Advisor, I request your assistance.”
The plea had barely left his lips before his Advisor stepped forward and knelt on the mattress by his side. “I am here to serve, Your Majesty,” he whispered, and placed his two hands on the palm Jeremy held out to him.
Jeremy smiled and did not show his relief as he yanked him close.
The sky beyond them had gone purple by the time Paul lowered his head to drag his lips along the ridge of Jeremy’s jaw, pressing open kisses to his dimples. “Are you aware-” he muttered breathlessly, freeing his hands from Jeremy’s grip and immediately working away at the buttons of his trousers, “that Kings are—oh, right there—”
Jeremy had decided against removing Paul’s uniform and impatiently shoved his right hand down the front of his pants instead. He dipped his fingers beneath the waist of Paul’s underwear, traveling down until he’d passed the mound of hair and made contact with the smooth skin at his base. “You were saying?
“Kings are—unh, hardly encouraged to kiss their advisors when they copulate,” Paul said. In response, Jeremy leant back in to kiss him, and kissed him and kissed him until he felt his Advisor’s lungs go empty. “Fuck—”
Jeremy laughed and let Paul push him away to gasp for air. Carefully, he plucked Paul’s hands away and pushed down the Advisor’s outer trousers.
With less of a barrier between them, he nudged his left hand against Paul’s groin and let him grind against his palm from within the confines of his underpants. Half-curious now, Jeremy asked, “Does copulation happen often?”
“Customarily. Only with the good kings,” Paul made a low sound as Jeremy’s right thumb made contact with his tip and rubbed it in soft circles. “Or the terrible ones.”
Jeremy hummed, continuing to graze Paul’s dampening skin. “Is that so. Well, which would you say I am?”
“Neither,” answered Paul immediately. He looked up at his King with candor in the flecks of his irises. “You’re a Jester.”
Jeremy stilled and extracted his right hand from where it held Paul beneath the fabric of his underpants.
“Truly, Advisor?”, he asked, and the man’s face fell minutely. “Is this the opinion you hold of me still, after all of your talk of mercy and goodness? After I did the favour of reminding you of my station earlier this day?”
He shoved his left hand roughly against Paul’s crotch, feeling the man’s chest stutter as his breathing expelled in bursts. “I’m- I apologize, my King,” Paul whispered, his face strangely open. Perhaps he thought he’d sensed some sincerity on Jeremy’s part. “I did not mean to… that was not what I’d intended to impart.”
Jeremy scoffed at him and at the notion that Paul had touched a nerve. “Again you retrace your course!”, he exclaimed. In one quick motion, he wrapped the fingers of his right hand around Paul’s cheeks and jaw. “Advisor, really. I will not begrudge you your opinions.”
Paul recoiled a little, staring at Jeremy with bewilderment in his dark eyes. “Mmph-”
Jeremy shushed him and grazed his thumb against Paul’s lower lip. The precum he’d gathered on his fingertip smeared across the pink skin, leaving a sheen that he wished he could lean in and taste.
Instead, he leaned in close to whisper, “You may hate me as much as you wish. You may think that I am unfit to rule this land, or even that I am misguided in reprimanding you in the ways I have done.”
As if by impulse, Paul wet his bottom lip with his tongue. Jeremy took the opening to push his thumb further into his mouth, and Paul took it with something like eagerness, sucking his cheeks in around the finger.
Jeremy swallowed hard, attempting to keep his eyes on Paul’s slow blinks and not on the way his tongue curled to lap up his own taste.
“But if you lie in my quarters, Advisor,” he continued, doing his best to keep his focus, “with your tongue lolling and mouth agog as you wait for me to fuck you? You’d best remember that I am still your King, and you are mine to own.”
Paul let Jeremy’s thumb slip from his mouth with a quiet pop. “Yes, your Majesty,” he whispered, his voice hoarse and humid.
“Tell me you understand.”
And Paul made this face as he thought it over, as if he knew he was agreeing to more than what they had started here. He shut his eyes and nodded. “I understand.”
“Good.” Jeremy shook Paul’s face once before releasing him, cupping his right palm beneath his lips. “Now spit.”
Paul did so messily. Half of it dripped down his stubbled chin, catching the glow of the lights around them. He grimaced and shifted his arm up, as if to smear it off, but Jeremy caught his wrist and leaned in to lap the remnants off with his tongue.
He tasted of salt and rainwater and spilt wine. Jeremy had not imagined it before this moment, but found himself filing the flavour into all of the other traits he associated with his Advisor; he felt as if the flavour of his skin, wet with spit and precum, was the most natural addition in the world. Jeremy wondered idly what that said about him.
He pulled back slowly, waited for Paul’s shaky eyes to meet his, and spat into the same hand.
“Legs apart,” Jeremy commanded quietly. Paul nodded and sat with his back against the headboard, separating his knees and leaving enough space for Jeremy to move and kneel between them.
Jeremy kept his own trousers on, but carefully pulled Paul’s underwear down, watching with some satisfaction as his swollen dick sprang upwards and rested against the hair of his stomach. It seemed he really, really enjoyed being reprimanded, despite how he flushed as he turned his head away.
A little rush of triumph rushed to Jeremy’s head. Here was the game of cat-and-mouse he so sorely missed. Here, they were even-footed, albeit on plush and quilted ground.
Jeremy tilted his palm and let the mix of saliva in his hand splatter down onto Paul’s dick, dripping down the sides of his length. He reached down to close his fingers around him, and Paul shuddered at the contact like he’d been burned.
It wasn’t difficult to find a rhythm that suited Paul best. Jeremy focused on twisting his hand around the entire length before spending a few seconds concentrating entirely on the tip.
He drew such cries from Paul, who lurched from his core each time Jeremy squeezed his edge and pulled off, calming only when his hand returned to his base and began the process anew.
He asked for him to go faster, and Jeremy did. He begged for more, and Jeremy obliged, licking the middle finger of his left hand and working it slowly into Paul’s rear to rest against his prostate.
With each passing cycle of denial, Paul’s gaze fell upon Jeremy harder, desperation leaking from the corners of his eyes.
How alluring his Advisor looked, his back arched in gratification and his tunic half-discarded. The start-stop heartbeat of his gratification devastated the King. Jeremy felt his blood thud harder in his ears each time Paul shuddered and moaned and went slack with no relief, losing count of how many times he’d done so.
With each new intake of breath, air ragged and hot, Paul’s wet lips came together and fell apart again. Jeremy watched him to pick out how he formed increasingly creative variations of “god,” and “fuck,” and “please,” and “my King,” that all began to blend together to him-
-until thought he heard something different in the mix.
“Hold on,” Jeremy said, letting go of Paul and slowly tugging his finger out of him. “Don’t touch yourself.”
Paul made an unintelligible noise, the closest to anger Jeremy had ever heard from him, and grasped the collar of his robe to wedge their lips together.
Jeremy closed his eyes, letting Paul’s pliant mouth work his own apart, until-
The main door shook with knocks once more.
“Hello?”, called someone- someone- “King Culhane, are you alright?”- the old king, Jeremy realized, and felt his heart nearly stop with shock. He pulled away to exchange glances with Paul, but the other man had already leaned into his neck, drinking in the sweat and flush of his exertion.
A small laugh rose in his throat. Perhaps the Advisor did not know who stood outside the door. Perhaps he did not care.
“I’m perfectly alright,” Jeremy responded loudly, and felt a cool hand squeeze his. “There is nothing for you to worry about.”
“Your guests, they worry… one of the guards mentioned you left of a stomach ailment-”
“If the guests are bored, entertain them!” he snapped back. Paul kissed his collarbone and curled Jeremy’s fingers inward. He settled, and said quieter, “That is your duty now, isn’t it, Jester Reich?”
There was silence on the other side of the door—Jeremy held his breath and prayed—and then, blessedly, the sound of footsteps echoing down the hallway. Jeremy let a sigh of relief flow from him, feeling his forearm shift somewhere beneath the deafening rush of adrenaline.
“Madness, isn’t it?”, he said with a shake of his head, turning to where Paul rested forward on his shoulder and planting a small kiss on the dark crown of his head. “Of all the times…”
But Paul did not respond—or, rather, he did not respond coherently.
In that moment, a long, low moan tore itself from his throat. Violently, he trembled once, twice, and then panted against Jeremy as if a great fire had gone out of him.
“‘ms ore…” he mumbled in garbled tongue, over and over.
Jeremy coaxed Paul off of his shoulder and nudged his back against the headboard. A confused sort of affection bubbled on his tongue as he watched him pant for breath… but whatever sentence Jeremy had begun to formulate was interrupted by the feeling of hot spunk trailing down the ridges of his fingers.
He blinked and looked down. Paul’s hand was still curled around Jeremy’s right fist, shifting it up and down on his dick and helping him ride out the last of his climax.
Impulse grasped him around the shoulders, now; Jeremy leaned back, opened his left hand, and swung. His palm connected directly with Paul’s cheek and slapped his head to the side.
The cracking sound hung there. “I’m sorry,” Paul whispered again, but in a tone of voice Jeremy never expected to hear from him.
In lieu of barely-concealed anger or tears, there was a lazy lilt of bliss to Paul’s words.
And when he turned his face back to Jeremy, he had a spark in his eye brighter than the King had ever seen from him. His free hand touched the side of his reddened face with a sort of euphoria.
“Really, my King. I apolo… I apologize.” Another small burst of cum leaked from his tip, and Paul had the audacity to look down at the mess he’d made of himself and smile.
Jeremy felt something sharp rise in his lungs, and he carefully loosened and extricated his hand from the growing puddle before asking quietly, “Did I not command you to-”
“To not touch myself, yes. I remember, my King.” And Paul looked at him, his heavy lids low and his tongue pushing against the inside of his bottom lip, and god Jeremy had not realized how close the expression was to a grin until this moment. “But I think you’ll find it was your hand wrapped around me .”
The cum on the King’s fingers served to be more than sufficient to stretch out his Advisor’s hole. When that dried up, Paul—who Jeremy had forced to kneel, pushing his head against the mattress—dug into the pockets of his tangled tunic and produced a small vial of oil.
He handed it back to Jeremy with a brazen smile. Jeremy did not ask where he’d taken it from as he grabbed his dark hair and turned his head forward.
“What, are you so averse to my face now? After all the commotion you caused this morning?” Paul asked with a cheery smile. “Or is it that you prefer my displeasure? I can frown if you would prefer it.”
Jeremy ignored him as he undid his trousers and slicked his hand with oil.
“I can even ask you to stop. Please, my King, I’m sorry, just end it! ” Paul gasped in a mocking pitch and laughed. He turned his head once more to watch Jeremy slide his palm over his dick. “Not that you would. Not that I would want you to.”
Jeremy bit back a groan as he closed his hand around himself. “Quiet.”
Paul hummed at him. “Be quiet? Or what? You know, I am of the opinion-” He grunted when Jeremy shifted closer and lined himself up, but kept on talking. “I don’t think you know what to do with me. At least not in any way that matters, King Culh- oh, fuck- ”
Jeremy pushed into him as slowly as he could, less for Paul’s comfort and more for the satisfaction of hearing his name die in his mouth and watching his head fall back onto the mattress.
“Have you considered the possibility that perhaps I’m fond of you?” Jeremy asked once he’d bottomed out and regained his breath. “Maybe- hah- maybe I want to do what attracts your attention best. Maybe being King lets me do so without reproach.”
Paul had no intelligible response as Jeremy began to move back and forth slowly. It was ungodly, the way he felt. Like he was the warmest, tensest thing Jeremy had ever touched. A bottle of expensive spirits set alight.
As their figures meshed in the small space, he felt almost separate from his own body, alternating between shutting his eyes and watching Paul react to an increase in speed.
The way Paul’s knees shook with each thrust. The way he had no choice but to let himself be driven into the mattress. The way he tilted his head to whine and gasp for air before burying his face back into the plush quilts beneath him…
He pulled back on Paul’s hips to lodge himself as deep as he could, and Paul’s mouth went slack with lechery. Jeremy had to pull out to prevent himself from coming.
“Shit,” he whispered and leaned his head back, staring out the window. The stars had come out. Jeremy didn’t know when it happened. “Fucking- shit.”
Paul slumped forward, sprawling out on the bed.
“Advisor?” Jeremy asked, too exhausted and concerned to add any royal cadence to his voice. Offhandedly, he wondered which one Paul preferred. “Are you alright?”
Paul let out a long groan in response. Then, with obvious exertion, he turned over to look Jeremy in the eye. “You- your Majesty?”
“Yes, Advisor?”
“Please don’t tell me you became King just to fuck me with no repercussions.”
Jeremy found the energy to let out a small chuckle. “I became King because I wanted to, and because the opportunity presented itself,” he answered tiredly. He lay down to face Paul, trying to ignore how he still pulsed with want. “I—what did you call it?— copulated with you for the same reason.”
“Ah. So, is this not punishment for my earlier actions?”
Jeremy grunted and shifted away from Paul’s unbearable eyes. “Must we discuss this now?”
Paul reached a hand out and gently tilted his head back in place. “It’s customary to discipline defiance, especially from your most trusted of servants,” he whispered, squinting at him.
His other hand travelled downward, cupping his fingers around Jeremy’s dick.
“And punishing insubordination with… well, with a good fuck… it can’t exactly be called King-like.”
Jeremy preened as the compliment. “I understand, Advisor.” He reclined and stretched his arms behind his head, giving Paul more room. “How would you recommend proceeding, then? Customarily, of course.”
“Given the dissent I exhibited this past evening, as my King, you are obligated to put me to death in order to eliminate the shame I have brought upon your kingdom.” Paul stated, and then paused moving his hand to look at Jeremy’s bewildered face. “You think I jest?”
The joke came to Jeremy easier than anything. “Of course not, Advisor. That is my job.”
“Was,” Paul corrected. “Was your duty. Therein lies the problem, my King. And I say this with the utmost respect: you have let my transgressions go too far. Earlier, when I allowed you to kiss me. Then when I called you by your old title. Finally, when I had you… finish me, I suppose.”
“I had not realized that you’d planned that last one.” Jeremy said, raising his eyebrows at him.
Paul flushed but pressed on. “I broke every single rule an Advisor must follow, and you perceived not one of them.”
In one swift movement, he lifted himself up to straddle Jeremy, squinting down at him with his hooded eyes.
“Do you know the things you could do to me if you had noticed?” Paul asked, incredulous and high. “Do you even know how much power you wield?”
Jeremy’s mouth went dry at the sight of his Advisor atop him. “I. Uh.”
Without a second glance, Paul shifted himself atop Jeremy’s dick and sank down hard upon it. Jeremy exhaled roughly, his eyes fixated on the spot where he disappeared inside of him.
“What the fuck,” he groaned.
“Have you not always said that politeness is weakness?” Paul asked, raising himself back up on his knees before sinking down again. “I’m sure you must hate seeing me atop you like this, my King. Of all the times, you should not let yourself be weak now.”
Jeremy could not drag his eyes away from the muscles flexing and contracting in Paul’s thighs as he fucked himself on his dick. The sight eliminated any semblance of an answer he could have given in response. He felt himself get stiffer inside of Paul and lay his head back.
Unlike before, Paul was rather quiet, with only a few hisses and huffs of air alerting Jeremy to his pleasure. He tilted his head back, exposing the line of his pale neck to the open air. Jeremy felt rather displeasured at how bare he looked. He tightened the grip of his hands around Paul’s hips as he thrusted into him.
God, he was hot. His dark eyes sucked in the waning light of his room and shone with something approaching triumph as he looked down at Jeremy.
Was this what the Advisor wanted, then? To teach his dim-witted King a lesson? To give him a taste of the medicine he had no hope of mastering?
Paul’s eyes narrowed at him once he noticed Jeremy’s reverence. “Are you not- hn- going to do anything in retaliation?” Paul spat. “You are weaker than I th-hought, Jester.”
Jeremy furrowed his brows and let his eyes rove down the movement of Paul’s body: his chest expanding with breath, his stomach shifting as he grinded, his dick back to full mast.
He’d barely gotten his hand around him when Paul shoved his arm away. “I have no- desire to be treated with- with tenderness, Culhane. I- mppgh- I have made myself deserving of penalty. And you need to remember your station and fffucking give it to me.”
Jeremy felt a moment of lucidity hit him at the words and realized that he had no words to say, not really. He let Paul look upon him, watching as his advisor took in what must have looked like concentration and regret and mostly a relentless uncertainty scrawled upon his face.
“I can’t,” Jeremy said. He hoped Paul could see that he meant I can’t bring myself to hurt you in the way that you need and I don’t know if I am capable of being what I must be and I gave what I could but if now is when I fail, then so be it.
Something behind Paul’s eyes tore in two, and he leaned forward and cupped Jeremy’s face with his hands.
“I’m sorry,” Jeremy said, and meant nothing more by it.
Paul’s fingers trailed down his face, pausing against the lids of Jeremy’s eyes, the bones of his cheeks, the curve of his upper lip… before settling on the heartbeat that shook within his neck.
“Fuck you, Culhane.” Paul whispered, his hooded eyes squinted with fury. He pressed his trembling hands around Jeremy’s throat and squeezed. “You are a disgrace.”
Jeremy felt the blood pool behind his eyes and, embarrassingly, moaned aloud. “Fuck, you- you really want me to be a good king, don’t you?” He gasped, scrabbling for purchase at the mattress beside him. His hips thrusted of their own accord.
“Good kings, terrible ones, they’re- hnnh- they’re all the same. You have the- the freedom to be any King you want, just so long as-” Paul gasped as Jeremy hit his prostate particularly hard, and tightened his grip before continuing. “Just so long as you treat your subjects as thhhey deserve. Give them no more and- no- less. It’s the only way to- hah- to keep them in line.”
Treat ME like I deserve, Paul did not say, and yet Jeremy heard it buried in his desperation all the same. Even if it kills me. As long as it is customary.
As his vision blurred, Jeremy wondered what exactly it was about him that Paul despised. If it was his unpredictable nature or the way he’d once goaded the Advisor from the stage.
All of it was based on the customary Jester’s desire to be seen. Back then, Jeremy would beg for anyone’s attention and receive it readily. Still, there was a ceiling; there would be people he could never win over, places he could never afford to be.
Becoming King was an automatic win state. He could afford the company of anyone and anything. Only his own Advisor—who should have been his greatest devotee!—was left aggrieved by the same behaviour that once defined Jeremy.
And yet, here Paul was. In his bed, taking Jeremy’s dick like an alley whore. Fussing about royal duties as well as any well-read noble. On Jeremy’s side, most importantly, despite choking him out at the moment. Serving him no matter how far Jeremy pushed him.
It didn’t matter that Jeremy was in his own end game with no true impulse for greatness. To Paul, his King had endless potential. He knew exactly how to keep Jeremy succeeding. He was an invaluable resource that Jeremy wasted by being as unruly as possible and antagonizing him as much as he did.
Based on what? Some old Jester’s grudge?
Jeremy felt his own lips grow cold and his arms grow heavy. Paul faded to a blur above him.
Perhaps the Advisor took pleasure in the ceiling of his role as much as Jeremy once despised his own.
And if being disciplined customarily was truly what his Advisor wanted, perhaps it was in Jeremy’s best interest to give it to him.
With one last gasp of energy, he clawed his fingers beneath Paul’s grip and tore his hands away. He wheezed for breath as Paul stopped moving to watch Jeremy’s next move.
“Okay,” Jeremy said, lifting and pushing Paul off of him. He threw him face-down onto the bed roughly, grabbing his ankle when he began to slip off of the mattress. “Okay. You wish me to be a fair King? I shall be the fairest, Advisor.”
He fumbled for the vial of oil and slicked himself, shoving himself back into Paul with a groan.
“I shall treat my subjects with impartiality-” he dug his nails into Paul’s thighs as he pulled him back hard onto himself, “-and give this castle all of the benevolence it needs.”
Paul’s incredulous laughter died as Jeremy reached down and grabbed hold of his exposed dick. In no time at all, Paul was shaking as he came, his second orgasm spilling onto the long-wrinkled sheets. Even still, Jeremy did not falter.
“You shall be the exception, Advisor.” Jeremy fucked him with an aggression that felt a lot like competitiveness. “I shall allow you to advise me of diplomacy and all other noble matters… but because of your actions this day, the only open hand you know from me will be the one that strikes .”
Paul, who’d repressed as much of his noise as he could, let out a sob-like moan from where his head hung off of the bed. Jeremy slowed the movement of his hips to pull his hand up and snake it around: he slammed his palm over Paul’s mouth and pulled his head back.
“Not to worry, Paul,” Jeremy whispered, as close to his ear as he could get. The Advisor quivered at the sound; he’d never heard his name like this before. “I’ll treat you with the fairness you desire.”
Paul let out a muffled sound behind his hand. Jeremy waited for him to finish moaning before shifting his arm over. “You- you swear it?” Paul choked out, the words almost vulnerable.
“I do.”
“Okay,” Paul said, and nudged his face back into Jeremy’s hand.
The King reached his climax not too long after that. Feeling Paul’s breath against his palm was just enough to push him off the edge.
Still, he fucked his cum deeper into his Advisor until the sensitivity sent waves of discomfort up his stomach. Only then did he pull out, wincing as the head of his dick brushed against Paul’s dampened ass.
“I’ll-” panted Jeremy, turning Paul over and pulling him fully onto the bed. “I’ll have you hold me to that promise, yeah?”
Paul, though dazed, looked into Jeremy’s eyes and gave a satisfied nod at what he saw there. There was no doubtful laughter this time. “Yes, my King,” he said, breathing hard. “In the- in the meanwhile, may we call this my first of many punishments?”
But Jeremy shook his head, wiping himself clean on Paul's tunic before turning and bending to retrieve his clothes. He squinted—the light of the oil lamps was all but extinguished—and pretended to ignore how Paul stared at his ass. "Unfortunately not, Advisor. I believe that this would be too kind of a justice. Especially for a state actor who attempted murder upon his ruler, don't you agree?"
Paul stared at him blankly, and Jeremy tilted his head up to display the bruising imprints of the man's fingertips. "Oh, shit," Paul muttered, and laughed to himself. "I apologize, my King. I had not expected to affect you as such."
"I would very much appreciate if you refrained from laughing, Advisor. I feared for my life." Jeremy did not even crack a smile as he pulled his striped robe back over his shoulders. "It will be the dungeons with you, Advisor. We shall see if your behaviour has improved after a short period of time."
He paused, looking back at Paul as if this were just political affairs as usual. Paul looked back with an inquisitive raise of his eyebrow.
"Perhaps a week or so spent chained against those stone walls shall be satisfactory?"
The perfect advisory smile Paul put on was undercut by the obvious gratification in his hooded eyes. "Beginning at this very moment?"
Jeremy took the sight of Paul in—his clothing discarded, his hips bruised by Jeremy's hands, his face rapturous and hungry— and thought of rainwater and spilt wine. The craving overtook the King, and he found himself striding over to press his lips against his Advisor's in one last moment of tenderness. "Yes," he murmured, once they'd broken apart. "And then I shall call you back to my side, where you belong."
Paul wound a hand through the King's collar, but did not pull him close. In this moment, he understood what they were to be. "I'd be glad to see you visit, my King," he said quietly, his eyes roving over Jeremy's face.
"Of course I will. Penalties are greatest when delivered personally." Carefully, he helped button Paul's tunic and placed his trousers by his side before standing. "Your services shall be put to good use in due time. Dress yourself and go."
As customary, the Advisor went where he was ordered.