zaubra | FIC: Paying the Price

Fandom: UK Politics
Title: Paying the Price
Ship(s): Peter Bone/Chris Bryant
Word Count: 511
Rating: PG
Content: Strapping, masochism.
WARNINGS: THE BONE.
Summary: Peter has a proposition for Chris. For this prompt at the meme.
Disclaimer: This is a creative work of fiction, composed of fictional characters inspired by the public personas of living people. No injury or disrespect is intended to the persons named. If you've found this by googling yourself or someone you know, stop playing on the Internet and go run the country.

Paying the Price

“You want me to what?”

The first time Peter approaches Chris – or Bryant, as he still thinks of him then – the results are not serendipitous.

“I need to be disciplined,” Peter says, mildly, ignoring the incredulous brows and wide eyes of the man in front of him.

“And you came to me because why, exactly?” Bryant asks, folding his arms, indignance radiating from every pore.

Peter turns his hands upward. “You posed on the Internet in your undergarments. I thought you might be less bound by convention.”

“Fuck you too,” Bryant says, and stalks off in high dudgeon.

~//~

Two weeks later, Bryant sits down at Peter’s table in the Members’ Dining Room. Philip suddenly remembers something he’s forgotten to do in his office, and makes his excuses.

“So,” Bryant says, after Philip’s scuttled off, “what would this entail, exactly?”

Peter resists the urge to look around. He trusts his own ability to keep the topic opaque.

“If you think that I have made an error in the Commons, or that I am mistaken in my views, you would be at liberty to seek to correct such failings.”

Bryant pushes at the food on his plate. “And what if I think you’re mistaken on a daily basis?”

“I would be surprised if you did not,” Peter says.

~//~

Bryant studies the strap without speaking for several long minutes, turning it over in his hands. “I assume,” he says, keeping his eyes on the strap, “that you get off on this?”

Peter presses his lips together. “That is hardly your concern.”

“That’s what I mean,” Bryant says, and meets his eyes. “I have a partner. What you do after I leave will not be my concern, and I want to make that clear.”

“Understood,” Peter says, a little stiffly.

Bryant hands him back the strap. “Until tomorrow, then.”

~//~

Chris brings the strap down.

Peter relaxes into the pain, feels its blossom send a thrill up his spine. He has made a good point in the Commons, and angered Labour, and now he will pay the price. He is always willing to pay the price.

Down comes the strap again.

Peter closes his eyes, so that Chris will not see the bliss in them. He has learned the hard way that people are unnerved by those who find pleasure in pain.

And again.

Peter’s hand is on fire.

“That’s enough, I think,” Chris says, from somewhere outside of Peter’s bright bubble. Peter hears the sound of the strap being set on his desk.

He makes a small sound of distress.

Chris is instantly at his side, pulling his hand up to look at it. “Have I hurt you? You should have said!”

“The point was to hurt me,” Peter says, opening his eyes.

Chris meets them - and, after a moment, drops his hand. “Well then.”

He turns to go, and for a moment Peter isn’t sure whether he’s lost him, whether he’ll have to begin this entire agonising process over again.

“Until tomorrow,” Chris says, over his shoulder, and Peter lets himself smile, at last.

~//~

The hon. Member for Wellingborough is a very naughty boy and I shall see him afterwards. – Chris Bryant, 27 October 2011

~//~