Shattered Ice

Read at your own risk!
There are no happy endings here.

Title: Shattered Ice, part 2
Author & email: pharaohs_kitty and surreal
Type (slash/het/gen): slash
Pairing: Tristan/Arthur
Rating: NC-17, rape, domination/submission darkfic
Summary: Arthur takes advantage of Tristan's grief
Archive: Feel free and if you can do better with this idea, help yourself.
DISCLAIMER: I do NOT own in any way, shape or form the characters, setting, original plot or anybody or anything else mentioned. I make no money off of this to pay my never-ending bills.
Beta credits: surreal


Shattered Ice Part 2

Gawain has been watching for several days now and noticed something amiss between Arthur and Tristan. They never looked at each other. The scout and the commander exchanged orders and reports looking at the ground, at the distant trees, anywhere but at each other. It seemed an excessive display of guilt on Arthur's part for having to discipline Tristan's flagrant defiance of his orders. He wondered and waited for Tristan to realize that there were still Knights he could speak to.

Tristan seemed to grow colder, harder by the day and whatever joy or temper he had before evaporated with Percival's death. In the fort, Tristan would care for his mare and weapons, speaking to no one and avoiding eye contact with the other Knights, then promptly disappear into his room. The servants would mutter to each other of a 'mad wolf in his den' when they dared to speak of Tristan at all.

Lancelot would spit and curse the name of the Iazyge thieves and wanderers as Arthur began calling more and more for Tristan to ride and check out this or go with that patrol and tell me what you think.
Arthur calls for him and Tristan goes forth, a hound forced to the hunt from the hand of the master. Tristan goes forth and returns with his prey, offerings to please a master that seems impossible to satisfy.

Arthur waits in the stable for the scout they'd spotted from the walls to stumble in with his horse. Tristan is near the edge of exhaustion now most of the time as Arthur sends him further and asks more from the man. Without Percival, Arthur feels half-blind as the Woads attack Roman farms and villages. Desperately trying to forestall the tide of spilled blood, Arthur keeps pushing Tristan to do more, find out where they are, where they're going... hurry hurry. If a tiny whisper in the back of his head tells him that as long as Tristan isn't in the fort then Arthur doesn't need to think about what he did to Tristan, well... it's only a whisper isn't it?

Gawain hesitates as Tristan rides in. He would speak to the man, if only to try and make him see that he still has brother Knights, but Tristan's face is a wall built of ice. Gawain used to be able to see the leashed humour and suppressed eagerness for battle inside Tristan's still eyes when he shadowed Percival's steps. Now there was only unreadable pain and darkness within. Gawain will wait. Sooner or later, Tristan will be ready to hear him... but that day is far off yet.

Tristan enters the stable with the mare and freezes when he realizes who is waiting for him among the shadows. He swallows back the combination of hatred and fear that rises in his throat. This time he won't let Arthur see how much this torment disturbs him. Backbone stiffens and he stalks inside to free his beleaguered mare of her load, dumping damp saddle on the rail and his gear under it. He'll deal with it tomorrow. Right now, his horse needs all the care he has left in him.

It is when he's stroking the thick hard bush over her withers removing the dirt and sweat from her coat that Arthur moves to stand behind him. Fingers trail lightly over his ear down the side of his neck and he flinches as if Arthur had struck him. He reeks of sweat having slept in his clothes for days without washing and the smell of Tristan wakes the hunger in Arthur's loins.

Arthur's breath violates Tristan's ear as Arthur's fingers weave their way under the bottom edge of Tristan's surcoat and down inside his collar. Tristan shudders in disgust and pulls away, but Arthur grabs onto the collar of his surcoat and yanks him backwards into the circle of his arms. Tristan squirms, but he'd have to HURT Arthur to get away and he's not willing to risk another whipping so soon after the last one.

"Why do I remember how it feels to touch you, be IN you, every time I close my eyes, Tristan? Why?"

Tristan blanches. He remembers too well. The ripping burning fire of having Arthur violate his ass with a cock too deep too fast too wide and unwanted all of it. The thick heavy pain in his belly from bruises where there should be none and the sheer sharp torment of trying to piss over, through the pain in his bladder, trying to shit and ripping open the sides of tender tissues to burning screaming torture that WILL NOT STOP.

Arthur sees the fear and disgust on Tristan's face, but it only makes him want MORE desire MORE. Tristan could turn at any moment and slide his dagger through Arthur's unprotected ribs. It's rather like hanging on to a rabid wolf and Arthur finds his blood heating, pulse thundering.

Arthur frees a hand to pull up the bottom edge of Tristan's surcoat, slides his hand down into Tristan's breeches and fondles Tristan's unresponsive limp prick. Tristan whimpers and Arthur sucks in his breath and clutches Tristan closer tighter as if he would absorb Tristan's body through his own skin. The fact that Tristan's body flinches away and never responds to his touch is exciting him further. The more Tristan denies Arthur, tries to repel him, begs him not to touch with whispered words; the more Arthur needs to bury himself in Tristan's body.

Arthur is sickened by this need to claim, to control Tristan. He wants to let go, to stop but the hunger drives him on. He doesn't understand why, but the more Tristan pulls away, the harder he has to pull him back. He WILL have Tristan, he MUST have Tristan.

A sound just beyond the stable door makes Arthur let loose and step back. He surveys Tristan with bright eyes, torn between excitement and guilt. He wants to take Tristan back to his rooms and DO things to him. He wants to go to the chapel and scream in fear over the appetites that have taken root in his unruly body and beg God to take them away.

In the dark beyond the door, Lancelot leans against the wall sucking in air as rapidly as he can to cool his fury. DAMN that bastard Iazyge! How dare he, how dare he take ... Lancelot closes his eyes and thinks of all the times he's bought women to share with Arthur, hoping that repeated exposure to his body will tempt Arthur into touching it. Arthur always smiles ruefully when Lancelot leans in close or strokes his fingers over Arthur's skin. Smiles ruefully and turns away to fuck the women. How had TRISTAN found a way to Arthur's bed?

Arthur asks for Tristan's report and Tristan gives it, head down and looking slightly sick. For a moment Tristan thinks Arthur is going to demand that Tristan go with him, but Arthur merely nods and starts calculating in his head who will have to go patrol what tomorrow. He tells Tristan to go out after he's rested. Arthur needs to know if the illness that struck the milecastles to the west has spread and whether they have enough fit fighting men at each or need reinforcements. With a distracted stare into space, Arthur avoids looking at Tristan and wanders out of the stable right past a seething Lancelot.

In the morning after the grey predawn has begun, a cold pail of water douses the sleeping Tristan in his room and a cold Lancelot barks at him to get up and go do his job. Tristan dresses, drags himself to his horse and reloads his gear, not checking it because he'd just taken it off his mare hours ago and with the exception of the food and water Lancelot has shoved into his hands, all of it is the same as it was. His mare is fidgeting from the first and it isn't until he's far out on the trail that she shies and tries to buck him off.

Tristan soothed her still and dismounted to find burrs stuck in the heavy woven saddle pad which he picked off with his knife until no barbs were left. In a fit of hunger, Tristan takes out the bread in his bundle of food, bites into it and spits the dirt filled squishy mess onto the grass. Swigging down his water he chokes and vomits it back up. The water has been laced with salt. Lancelot. Tristan closes his eyes in a fit of temper. Damn that arrogant prick!

This is the pattern of Tristan's day. He takes out an arrow and finds the quiver has been stuffed with grease. He can still fire them, but they're sticky and difficult to grab. Tristan unrolls his bedroll and finds the entrails of some animal strewn between. All of his clothes have burrs the same as the saddle pad and there's horse manure inside the legs of his spare breeches.

Tristan rages and curses, suddenly feeling alive again as he daydreams of cutting Lancelot into little pieces. But he can't, Arthur would have to flog him for injuring one of his 'brother' Knights and who knew where that would lead this time? He'd just have to be more careful with his things and find a way to block his door so he could sleep in peace.

By the time Tristan returns to the fort, he's cold wet tired and starving. When he reaches his room the door is in pieces hanging from the hinges and Tristan sags against the wall. He'll have to rest the same as he would in enemy territory, one eye open, until he can get someone to build him a new one that is stronger heavier and with a large bolt.

------------------------------------------------------

Tristan pulls the bandage around his arm tighter. The wound beneath is a dull roar of pain that never ends, but he'll be damned if he'll get it seen to. They'll want to either burn it or clean it with wine and hot water. Either way, they'll end up smearing the sticky salve on it to keep it from getting further infected. Tristan can't stand the acrid smell of the ever present ointment anymore. When someone newly stitched drifts by, Tristan recoils and holds his breath until it's gone. He's made a new batch of his own balm with the scent of wild grasses for his horse so that he doesn't have to have the vile stuff on his hands when he soothes her weary legs.

Lancelot 'accidentally' grabbed him by the arm this morning as Tristan walked away supposedly to tell Tristan a last minute instruction. Between the screaming pain beneath Lancelot's fingers digging in and the sheer exhaustion that had become an everpresent companion from the inability to rest inside the fort, Tristan swayed and nearly dropped to his knees, only catching himself at the last minute. He wanted to kill Lancelot so badly that the flavour of Lancelot's blood was already in his mouth, a sweet metallic tang of anticipation.

Now, all he wanted to do was get his new orders from Arthur and leave the fort as quickly as possible. Tristan desperately wanted to sleep and the only place he could do that now was in the middle of the forest surrounded by blue painted Woad rebels who'd love to cut his throat. He knocked on Arthur's door quickly. Arthur called him in and it seemed that today would be one of the days where Arthur didn't tell him to stand still while Arthur's fingers sought out Tristan's bare skin. Tristan had come to dread those days when Arthur would grip Tristan's crotch or wet his fingers to push into Tristan's ass, making Tristan squirm and softly beg Arthur to 'please don't'.

"Take the quarterly report to the Vindobala legate. Stay there until he replies. It should be a few days and you can rest there." Arthur cleared his throat. "I know I have been asking too much of you, sending you out too many times when there are others who could go."

Tristan's head shot up from looking meekly at the floor between his feet. Surely Arthur wasn't going to stop sending him out! He needed to GO, to leave these walls... to be free of Lancelot's endless trickery and malicious words, to be FREE of ARTHUR.

Arthur's mumble reassured him, "It is only ... if you aren't here Tristan... I..."

Whatever more Arthur would have said remained unworded as Arthur caught sight of a thin trickle of blood slipping down Tristan's thumb. He stood up from his desk, flew to Tristan's side and snatched up the bloody hand. Tracing the blood back up to the wound, Arthur hissed as he unwound the bandages.

"Tristan... this is..."

Tristan tugged out of Arthur's examining hands and tucked his arm behind him as he backed away from his concerned commander. Arthur threw open his door and bellowed for Jols to attend him IMMEDIATELY. Not only did Jols come running, but Lancelot followed him in concern. As Arthur instructed that bandages, hot water, wine and salve be brought, Lancelot sneered at Tristan, "Should have seen to that, stupid barbarian, after you got it. Don't you know enough to tend your wounds?"

Arthur whirled on Lancelot, "When? How long ago?"

Lancelot paled in the face of his commander's intensity.

"Three, four days ago... when he came back from checking the Antonini estate."

"YOU are my second. YOU should have seen to it that he was cared for. I WILL NOT lose any of my men to something as foolish as a scratch that wasn't cleaned."

Arthur ordered Jols and Lancelot to leave. Tristan was against the wall with his head down again. It was with some tenderness that Arthur unlaced his surcoat and blouse before pulling them off to reveal Tristan's broad chest. Which was decorated with large black and blue marks. Arthur touched the bruises softly and asked, "What happened?"

"Fell asleep where I shouldn't."

Arthur could see he'd get no more answer than that.

Taking up a knife, Arthur lanced the wound and sluiced it with the bottle of wine on his desk. Tristan hissed as the wine streamed off his arm mixed with blood and green slime. It would have to do for the moment. The door opened and Jols entered with the supplies. Arthur took up a cloth, dipped it into hot water and pressed it over the wound, forcing the pus to ooze out. It took some time and prying the wound open with a knife so it could be cleansed of the infection. Tris's arm trembled, but he held still as stone as Arthur tended him.

"Why didn't you go to the surgeon?"

Tristan grimaced from his position against the wall and Arthur assumed it was the pain of having the wound cleansed. Tristan bit his lip to keep from blurting out to Arthur that he hadn't gone to have the cut seen to because he couldn't bear the smell of the ointment they used to cover wounds. The idea of having it on his body made his skin crawl. The scent lingered on everything everywhere he turned and the foul odour made him want to puke as it made him relive the horrible moments Arthur had raped him.

As soon as the wound was bound shut, Arthur stood back and barked, "Now strip the rest off."

Tristan shook his head. Already the smell of the salve had invaded his head and brought up the terrible moments when he'd realized Arthur WASN'T going to stop, was in fact... going to fuck him whether Tristan wanted it or not. He trembled and shook his head harder. No, he didn't want that to happen again. Not at all. If Arthur.... Tristan turned his back to Arthur, denying all that had happened, hoping that Arthur wouldn't .... TOUCH ...him anymore.

It occurred to Tristan as he quivered like a coward in the face of Arthur's order, that he could make it all stop. Right now. All he had to do was kill Arthur and leave. They'd never catch him. All he had to do was kill the man he owed Percival's last years of happiness to.

Or maybe not even that. The next time Arthur sent him somewhere, Tristan could just keep going. He could make it to somewhere there were no Romans. They couldn't possibly track him, he was too good at hiding. When he'd been young, there had been NO escape for any of them, but he was older now and the best at what he did. He could go free. All he had to do was abandon Arthur. Let the Woads take him and the others.

There was ice inside of Tristan. He had no one to go to. Isolde was dead. Percival was dead. His family was somewhere wandering the mountains on the other side of the Roman Empire. He'd never get there even if he'd felt the urge to return to them. They were probably dead at the hands of the Koloi by now anyway.

Who would spy out the Woads for Arthur? Arthur the man was a bastard he'd come to dread. Arthur the commander was good and kind and worth fighting for. Arthur the Roman legate was a man that believed he could stop the slaughter of innocents. It always bothered Tristan when they came across whole families murdered in their homes by Woads. The children were so small and ...lost.

He was lost. He had no one, nothing. What was he if not Arthur's Knight? What would he be?

Arthur's voice was reasonable after the harsh demand, "Tristan. I must SEE if you have other wounds. You did not care for this one. I must make sure you are whole."

Tristan's head dropped again. He was so tired...so alone. With a bitter sigh, Tristan lifted his leg and pulled the lace holding his boot tight to his calf. First one boot came off and then the other. His hands fumbled with the laces on his breeches as he looked down at the floor, a kicked dog, tail between his legs. Tristan pushed off his breeches and turned to the wall to lean against it once more. He was weak from pain and lightheaded from the lack of sleep. The room itself swam in and out of his vision.

The feeling of Arthur's hands sliding across Tristan's skin didn't surprise him. The delicacy of the touch did. No harsh fondling of his crotch, no invading fingers prying apart his buttocks, no teeth biting at his neck or steel grip marking black bruises into his arms... just soft brushes of fingertips as Arthur looked him over as much as he would have looked over a horse he was about to buy. Tristan closed his eyes and for a minute he could feel Isolde brushing her fingers just that way through the hair on his chest and could hear her laughingly calling him a fur rug. He trembled beneath the gentle touch and wondered if this kindness, this closeness was worth suffering the other.

"Kneel." Arthur's voice was harsh with lust. "Kneel, Tristan."

Tristan bowed his head. He knelt. It was that or kill Arthur. He accepted that.

Arthur looked long at the naked body before him. He marveled at the beauty of it. His loins grew heavy and full with urgency. Tristan knelt before him, submitted to him and Arthur exulted in it. He could do what he liked with Tristan, anything. His stomach clenched as he considered how insane his craving was to violate Tristan's body. Arthur's breath was hot, his hands fisted and clenched in time with the arguments in his head.

'Take him...let him go.'

Arthur put a hand under Tristan's chin and tilted his Knight's face up to meet Arthur's glowing green eyes. When he was satisfied that Tristan had seen what Arthur wanted to do to him... as if there had been any doubt in Tristan, Arthur thought... Arthur turned away and walked out the door, leaving a bewildered and relieved man kneeling naked on the floor.

---------------------------------------------------

Tristan had always been the silent deadly one of the pair of scouts. Now he became a harvester of Woad lives, taking as many as he could before Arthur could order him to stop. When the order came, he would comply with a snarl and mount his horse frustrated.

Arthur watched Tristan dance through the Woads. The blood spray seemed to excite Tristan and his lips parted every time he killed in a wicked smile that Arthur would have though more likely to be seen on a man sinking himself into a woman. He should call out an order for Tristan to stop, but Arthur likes watching Tristan kill and can't bring himself to end the ecstatic pleasure that paints Tristan's eyes.

It is only when the last Woad falls dead that Arthur remembers they needed one to question. There are none left alive, not even one slowly dying of his or her wounds. Irritated with himself, Arthur snaps at Tristan, jealously erasing the look of climax from his face, "Damn you Tristan! Can't you rein in your need to kill every Woad? We needed one to question!"

Confused, Tristan looks up to his commander on his white stallion. Had he missed the order to stop?

"It's disgusting the way you pleasure yourself with the kill." Arthur bites out the words, more furious at himself for enjoying Tristan's enthralled focus on the destruction of men. "You'll never be civilized enough to know what mercy is, but I expected you to understand that we need information!"

Tristan flinches. No matter what he does, Arthur is never happy with him anymore. Kill too many and Arthur is angry, leave one alive and he's still angry. The other Knights look disgusted with him, too. Lancelot spits on the ground and mutters, "filthy barbarian Iazyge". Other mutters join his and Tristan hears the epithets rise in the air around him. "Mad dog." "Babykiller."

Tristan mounts his horse and follows the others glumly. Arthur hasn't even asked him to ride ahead to clear the trail, but has sent the boys - Gawain and Galahad. Arthur will send for him tonight and he will have to endure yet another tirade on his duty to the other Knights. Tristan huddles into himself. With any luck, Arthur won't TOUCH him this time.

Tristan is wearing down to skin and bones, a gaunt beanpole of a man. He can't rest in his own rooms and must remain vigilant always. Lancelot isn't the only one who torments him now. Following Lancelot's lead, many of the others let their tribal prejudices have sway and treat the homeless Iazyge as less than nothing.

Tristan rarely sleeps, only eats when someone reminds him to, and has taken to not washing in an attempt to keep Arthur at bay. This only works for a few days at a time until Arthur sends Lancelot to make him go to the baths. Which always ends up in an interesting set of bruises for Tristan. Like yesterday. Tristan shifts in his saddle as the bruise from a well placed kick on his thigh reminds him of the forced bath on the day before.

It isn't long before Arthur sends for Tristan, a page hunting him down in the alleys of the town. Tristan had been napping between the stacks of firewood outside the huts. It wasn't the best place to sleep as he was still in the open, but it was better than his room where he STILL didn't have a door and Lancelot could wander in and dump over his bed at any time.

As Tristan trails the page back into the fort to Arthur's room, he passes the dark figure of a brooding Knight who looks at his back wishing a dagger would sprout there. Lancelot calls them back, orders the page to go. He will see to it that Tristan reaches Arthur. They reach the wide hallways of the main building where Arthur's room lay when Lancelot turns and pushes Tristan against the wall.

"YOU are nothing but scum." Lancelot reached up a hand to grab Tristan's chin viciously and is surprised when Tristan shakes and tries to back into the wall. Fascinated, Lancelot lets go his hold and touches the neck below to feel a pulse racing. "I wonder what Arthur sees in you. IS it THIS?" and his hand reached down and grabbed between Tristan's legs. Tristan's eyes meet his and they are full of killing fury.

"I could kill you sometime from the forest. Pick up a Woad bow and arrows and wait for you to come out of the fort. You'd be dead before you saw the arrow in your chest." Tristan's voice was empty hollow flat fact but he doesn't move away from the groping hand.

"Why don't you, Iazyge?" Lancelot leaned in and licked the side of Tristan's face. "Go ahead. Kill me now if you like."

"Arthur forbids me to injure any of the other Knights. Killing you would certainly be an injury."

Lancelot hisses. "Arthur's bed should have been mine."

"Take it then." Tristan's eyes droop, the fight flowing out of his bones. "I'm so tired. Lancelot...I never..."

Lancelot draws back as a page enters the hall. The boy calls to them, "Lancelot, you're wanted in the stable. Galahad's horse bit yours."

Frustrated, Lancelot wheels away. There would be another time to teach the Iazyge a lesson. It doesn't occur to him what Tristan might have finished that sentence with was "...I never wanted it."

Tristan wearily enters Arthur’s rooms and finds that tonight Arthur intends to do much more than TOUCH. When the worst of the pain is over, Tristan moves leaden limbs in an effort to leave. Arthur pulls him back down, with ease and with a gentleness that contrasted sharply with the violent pain he had so recently inflicted, he wiped away the silent tears that his Knight had been trying vainly to hide. Wrapping one arm possessively around Tristan’s chest, and throwing a leg over the thin body, Arthur drew Tristan against him and fell asleep. Tristan wishes desperately he could leave the room, but he’s beyond weary and Arthur is holding him too tightly.

He stares into the fire bitterly reflecting that Arthur’s bed is probably the only SAFE place to sleep. The exhaustion he’d been holding at bay for so long finally caught up with him, and he sank into an uneasy sleep filled with nightmares of Arthur.

---------------------

TBC and all...
PeeK and Surreal

No, we are serious. NO FREAKIN' HAPPY ENDINGS! Continue at your own risk.