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Now with cover art by Winifred0817!
“Friend!” Wyll calls out from his station in front of the lightning lane, “Can you just put your wristband to the scanner for me first?”
The park guest who’d brushed past him looks back with a scowl. Wyll’s heart does a sweet little leap at what he sees: sharp features under a mop of white curls, all of it tucked under a black wide-brimmed hat.
“This is the lightning lane!” Wyll says, the words coming by rote, even as his eyes drift: the guest sports a black parasol, thicker than your average gothic prop piece. It provides deep shade in the wet Florida heat. “If you have a lightning pass for Pirates, you can scan it here! Or you can join us via the stand-by lane.”
He gestures with two fingers—it’s important for cast members not to point with one finger, which is a rude gesture in many cultures!—towards a much longer line, doubling back on itself three times before disappearing into Pirates of the Caribbean.
His smile never wavers. Even though line-jumping is technically a Bannable Offense.
The guest’s lip twitches in irritation. His eyes sweep Wyll’s pirate costume in a way that makes his skin prickle, not entirely unpleasantly.
Then his face smooths out into something simpering. “Oh, this is so embarrassing, but I’ve been rather silly: I forgot my wristband at the hotel. I don’t suppose you could make an exception?”
He steps closer to Wyll until only the rope barrier separates them. His eyelashes flutter behind dark shades.
Wyll’s script falls out of his head. He fumbles for a moment, then lands on: “Do you have the app? You could, uh—”
“Don’t bother,” calls a voice from the stand-by lane. Wyll turns to see…a flock of goths, is really the only way to describe it: six of them, all adults, clustered around a pale man with long black hair. He might be older than the others—his cheeks hollow and his brow lined—or maybe he’s just tall. Every one of them holds a black parasol, jostling the irritated guests in the lane around them.
The tall one smiles with teeth. “Astarion, don’t hassle the poor man. You know as well as I do that you don’t belong out there. You belong here, in the stand-by lane, with your family.” He leans forward over the rope, his eyes flashing. “You have no lightning passes to your name.”
Haha, okay!
“Are you all…big fans of the Haunted Mansion?” Wyll asks Astarion, turning away from the frankly uncomfortable energy one lane over.
It’s important for cast members to end guest interactions on a positive note, even when guests are being a little creepy!
“What?” Astarion says absently, glaring at his…father…? Uncle? Unusually authoritative older brother?
“Your costumes are cool,” Wyll clarifies. “I just figured—are you dressing up?”
“Oh. I suppose so,” Astarion says unenthusiastically. He shifts his parasol so the shadow envelops him more fully. “It makes leaving the house a bit more…bearable.”
“Wow,” Wyll settles on. “Okay! Well, in any case, it looks like you can go join your family in the standby lane.”
“I would listen to him,” the tall one hisses. He sounds like Kaa, luring Mowgli. Like Ursula time-pressuring a deal. Like Jafar being generally Jafar. “Don’t look so glum, Astarion. We’ll be here, in this line together, for hours yet. Won’t it be fun?”
“I hate this fucking family,” Astarion mutters under his breath. And before Wyll can direct him to leave the lightning lane in an orderly fashion, he ducks under the rope barrier. His shoulder brushes Wyll’s, sending a strange jitter down his spine.
***
Wyll grew up on fairy tales: headstrong princesses with nosy godmothers, opinionated mirrors, talking animals threatening to burst into song. His father’s favorite magic trick had been telling the sitter to pop in a Disney DVD whenever he got stuck working late. Wyll would beg to stay up past his bedtime; to watch each movie again and again.
His favorites were the princes. When he was six, he’d decided he wanted to be a prince: to save all the pretty ladies with nice voices and flowy hair. His father had encouraged this, extolling the virtues of bravery and leadership—up until Wyll was about fourteen and still talking about it. Then Ulder had suddenly gotten cagey about paying for musical theater camp, and Wyll had been more or less on his own.
No matter: princes thrive in adversity. He has skills, drive, an American work visa, a university degree from a very nice performing arts school in New York, and the back-breaking loans to prove it. And one day, all the auditions will pay off and Disney will see Wyll for the Prince Charming face character he was born to be.
But for now: he makes the guest experience magical in any way he can! And he tells them to keep their arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times!
“Haunted Mansion!” he greets the white-haired guest the next day when he spots him in line for Space Mountain. He holds out a hand for a high-five.
The guest—Astarion, and is it weird that Wyll remembered his name?—does not high-five him. He squints up at him bitterly, his eyes baggier than they were yesterday. “The erstwhile pirate.”
Wyll takes a moment to parse that, then gestures at his vaguely futuristic button-down. “Ah, yes. Pirate one day, spaceman the next. You never know what you’re going to get around here.”
“Really?” Astarion says dryly. “I rather think I do.”
A high school tennis team shrieks behind Astarion in line, taking pictures with their matching Mickey ears. A child screams in a stroller. Tomorrowland provides ambient beeps and boops on loop. The sun beats down, and the line does not move.
Astarion’s eyebrow twitches behind his dark sunglasses. But at least he’s not trying to jump the line today, which is—as has been impressed on Wyll with some urgency since his very first day—a Bannable Offense!
Wyll finds he’s quite uninterested in getting Astarion banned.
“Where’s your family today?”
Astarion’s gaze turns suspicious, as though such a question could possibly have an ulterior motive beyond Personalizing The Experience, as a cast member is encouraged to do!
“We’re not bound at the hip. I’d be stuck here, in this godforsaken standby lane, whether Father could see me or not.”
“Ah. So he’s not a coaster fan?”
Astarion glances up at the attraction sign indifferently. “Are any of us coaster fans, really?”
“I think so, yes?”
He shrugs. “My… sister is indisposed. My father is…taking care of her. And some of my siblings have been recruited to…help.”
That was an unusual number of pauses for a very normal statement!
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Wyll says, not quite mustering the excited lilt that cast members should aim for at all times. Astarion’s aloofness comes across as strangely brittle. It throws Wyll off-kilter; disrupts his hospitality script.
“I hope your sister gets to ride later,” he settles on.
Astarion barks a bitter laugh. “Do any of us really get to ride? Or are we trapped in an eternal queue, circling some…nebulous promise of happiness like flies caught in a sewer drain?”
“No, you do get to ride,” Wyll assures him. “That’s what the line is for.”
“Oh, well, in that case,” Astarion sneers, and inches forward with the other guests.
***
Wyll gets word at noon that Lakrissa’s come down with some kind of bug. Wonder of wonders, they need someone who knows the steps to fill in as Clarabelle Cow during the hoedown. Pulse racing, he sheds his spaceman clothes in the utility tunnel, dashing towards the handlers waiting for him below Frontierland.
“I can do this,” he assures them as they shove on the fuzzy head, blocking out most of his vision. “You can trust me with the integrity of the hoedown. I won’t let you down. I will, however, let you hoe-down. Wait. No.”
“Just step lively,” the handler says, bored. “And try to engage the guests.”
Then he’s shoved up to the street and swept into the dance.
His fellow cast members yee-haw with delight, blocking off the entire thoroughfare with their line dancing. He joins in, clumsy at first: the steps feel different with the suit on. But it doesn’t matter: he’s trained for this. This could be his big break. This is what it was all for: the fruitless auditions, the endless fucking nay-sayers.
Today, Clarabelle Cow dances as if her life depended on it. Today, Clarabelle Cow is Disney magic incarnate.
A cowboy spins him, and—wonder of wonders—he comes face to face with Astarion.
It startles him enough to nearly knock him off his rhythm. Astarion’s trapped at the front of the crowd, a common pitfall of the flash-mob-style hoedown. He looks, quite frankly, as though he’d rather be anywhere else.
He looks like someone Wyll wants to dance with.
Wyll does another loop around the street. Then, when it’s time for guest interactivity, Clarabelle Cow extends a graceful hand to Astarion. Not the obvious choice, what with Astarion’s parasol, but he can adapt.
“No,” the pale man says, horrified. “Absolutely fucking not.”
A hand clamps over Astarion’s shoulder, and Wyll jumps. It’s Astarion’s father (father, really?), sporting a twisted smile. He plucks the parasol from Astarion’s grip, and Astarion frantically pulls his wide-brimmed hat down over his face. They’re both wearing thick black gloves.
“Dance with Goofy’s whore, boy,” his father commands, and Astarion jerks in place. He takes Wyll’s hand.
Okay, this doesn’t feel as good as Wyll thought it would!
But it’s too late now: the show must go on. Clarabelle Cow leads Astarion gently through the steps. His partner remains rigid, tilting his face away from the sun. His jaw clenches the entire time—humiliation, maybe, which hurts Wyll’s heart.
His father watches from the crowd, cackling. “Dance, Pinocchio! Dance as though you feel no strings!”
A mother scoots her kids away from him surreptitiously.
Wyll executes an unchoreographed half-turn, putting himself between Astarion and the crowd. He leans in slightly. “Wow, he’s a lot. I’ll make it up to you. My name is Wyll.”
For whatever reason, this doesn’t put Astarion at ease. “Alright? Thank you, cow?”
“A cow for the moment,” Wyll says, spinning him carefully. “Does it suit me as well as the pirate did?”
Understanding dawns on Astarion’s face. “Oh my god,” he says in an unconvincing impression of irritation. “You’re following me.”
“Not on purpose. But you can follow me to the Lunching Pad later, if you’d like? For a snack. I go on break at two.”
Astarion is silent for a moment, a contrast to the laughter and cheers around them—the loud country music spurring them on. He peers up to the holes in Clarabelle’s mask, clearly looking for Wyll’s face behind it.
“Could you just…block the sun for me?” he says finally, stumbling for a moment. Wyll catches him. “I have—it’s sort of an allergy.”
“Say no more.” Wyll rotates them again. He lets Clarabelle’s bulk provide Astarion with all the shade he needs.
When the dance ends, the handler takes the Clarabelle costume with no small amount of grousing about Wyll’s square dance improvisation. He hasn’t impressed anyone with his character skills today. That stings a bit, but in his heart of hearts, the guests are more important.
Especially guests who glance back at him like Astarion had when the dance ended: like he was trying to figure Wyll out. Like he wanted to parse a strange language, and had just started picking up the context clues.
“Fetch me my Dole Whip®, boy,” his father demands.
***
The Lunching Pad serves basic American diner food, and as much as Wyll enjoys the occasional burger—really soaking in the local culture—he wishes he’d asked Astarion to meet him somewhere more sophisticated.
He fidgets on the hard chair, coffee in hand. He looks through the wide windows, automatically scanning for litter on the pavement. A cast member must always pick up any trash they find, no matter their role!
It’s one thing Wyll finds rather endearing about the whole system: once he’s a prince, he’ll have to pick up errant trash just the same!
But—dammit, he’s on break. He needs to shake the exclamation points, stat. Drop the customer service script before it scares Astarion off. The chipperness clings like cellophane.
The hour stretches on, and Astarion doesn’t come. Wyll’s about to give up on the whole thing—to try to put Astarion’s white curls out of his mind—when his guest skulks into the diner, glancing over his shoulder like he’s worried about being followed.
Wyll jumps up immediately, pulling out a chair. “Can I get you something? Ice cream?”
“What a gentleman,” Astarion says flatly. He sinks into the proffered chair, gingerly flexing his tired feet.
“It’s really no trouble—fries; a milkshake?”
“Save the prince routine for the experts, darling, we’re drowning in them here.”
Wyll thrills a little to hear the endearment, despite the tone that had carried it. “Not a fan of Prince Charming, I take it?”
“More like I can’t work up the energy to give much of a damn, one way or the other, about someone who doesn’t exist.”
“Prince Charming exists if we decide he exists,” Wyll tells him solemnly. “If we bring him into our hearts.”
Astarion blinks. “You’re not serious?”
Wyll inclines his head, his mouth flat.
“Tell me you’re not serious. You sound like you’re talking about the fucking Christ-child. Wyll—tell me the lunatics who work here aren’t in a cult. It would be far too obvious. Eighties-slasher-movie obvious.”
He’d remembered Wyll’s name! It’s enough to make Wyll want to break character—to smile; give up the game—but there’s a bit more mileage in this joke left to go.
“What is a cult,” he muses seriously, “if not a manifestation of our collective hopes and dreams?”
“It’s a cult, generally,” Astarion says, his lips ticking upward. “Such a pity that snorting pixie dust has left you brain-dead.”
“Come, now! I imbibe the awesome powers of imagination only in moderation.”
Astarion makes a dismissive noise, but he settles further into the chair. He lowers his parasol carefully—Wyll had chosen a table away from the window light.
A thought strikes Wyll and he frowns. “And yet, you are… here. Specifically in the Magic Kingdom, which—usually, guests don’t come to one park for two days in a row unless—”
“Unless they’re slavering lunatics?” Astarion says breezily. “Romantic obsessives, that kind of thing?”
“Unless they’re invested, is what I was going to say.” Wyll shifts in his seat, uncomfortable for the first time in this conversation. He thinks of the long-haired man’s sharp eyes. “So it’s a family member, then?”
“Hmm?"
“Someone in your family must be the superfan. I mean, if it’s not you.”
“Oh, Father just loves to see our reactions,” Astarion drawls. “It really keeps him going. And who are we to deny him?”
Wyll bites at the inside of his cheek. He’s seen his share of worrisome family dynamics at the park, but this really takes the cake. What would a prince do?
“Surely there’s something you like about this place? Something we could do without him?”
“Hmm, well, who doesn’t love endless queues and simpering princesses? Honestly, I don’t think the princesses even like the princesses. Snow White looked ready to cut the next child who asked to touch her dress.”
Wyll laughs despite himself. “Oh, well, that’s Shadowheart. She’s just like that.”
“That’s just—I’m sorry, what is her name?”
Which launches Wyll on a delightful anecdote about Jenevelle, her valiant struggle to secure the right for Snow Whites everywhere to wear smudgy black eye makeup, and an end-of-summer cast party gone awry.
By the time Wyll’s break ends, Astarion’s posture has relaxed: leaning towards him over the table, a sharp grin almost bringing color to his cheeks. “I suppose you have to go back to cleaning up child-puke now.”
“Not my job, but I do have to go.” On impulse, he touches the back of Astarion’s hand. “Do you—would you like to meet me later? I’m working a double today, but I could find you after the fireworks.”
Astarion’s face closes off. “I don’t think you want to meet me after dark.”
Wyll frowns. He’s said something wrong, but it’s not clear what. “I don’t see why not. I could—show you a side of the park no one normally gets to see.”
“I don’t care about the fucking park,” Astarion says very calmly, his gaze distant. “I’d rather never see this park again.”
Wyll doesn’t know what to say to that. Astarion had seemed a skeptic, certainly, but this reaction is rather extreme. At a loss, Wyll defaults to something he knows how to do: run a script for guests in distress.
“Is there any way I can make your experience better?” he asks—knowing, as he does, that it’s the wrong thing to say.
Astarion’s face settles into something like disgust. “Yes,” he says brightly, picking up his parasol. “By fucking off to manage a line somewhere, Prince Charming.”
He stalks towards the door.
“Do you want my number?” Wyll calls out uncertainly. The door closes.
***
Somehow, working the line is harder the next day.
He’s stationed at the Haunted Mansion, wearing a butler’s suit and tails. He schools his face into a haughty glare, flavored with a quirk of humor—inspired, he has to admit, by Astarion. He helps a guest find her lost glasses in the graveyard outside. He breaks character just enough to comfort a screaming child. He takes piles of pictures for flocks of vaguely alt-flavored teens.
He helps people, just like he’s always wanted to, but today it feels put-on. An imperfectly-sized costume. It would all be different—better—if he were playing a prince.
Karlach texts him: “ur goth bf just got off peter pan.”
Wyll’s heart leaps. He’d figured—two days in Magic Kingdom is already unusual, but three? He looks at his phone clock, suddenly antsy: there’s hours yet until his next break.
Another message comes through—cast members like Karlach really should not be on their phones when they’re responsible for the guest experience! But he can’t help looking:
“heard his dad TELL him (???) to get on small world next. weird dude”
Wyll taps his fingers against his phone. The line here is moving smoothly; surely Isobel can manage on her own. He begs family emergency and takes off at a dash, moving through the utility tunnels for speed.
As he pulls off his costume, he begins second-guessing himself: Astarion had left in a huff yesterday, with no sign of wanting to see Wyll again. He shouldn’t push, but—
Well. He’d been so caught up in their conversation that he’d forgotten to give Astarion his gift. He’ll at least hand it over, and Astarion can toss it in the bin if he wants.
He paces beside the stand-by lane into Small World, nodding to the cast members on duty, until he makes out Astarion. He’s hunched beneath his parasol like it’s all his protection in the world, and his back is rigid with strange tension. His lips have gone very white.
“Hello,” Wyll says breathlessly, drawing up beside him. Astarion jumps.
“Dear lord.” He clutches his chest dramatically. “How the devil did you even find me?”
“Pixie dust?” Wyll says, wiggling his fingers aimlessly.
Astarion gapes at him. The line isn’t moving—from the looks of it, the line hasn’t moved for a long time. Wyll wonders, suddenly, how many hours every day Astarion has spent standing in lines in the blistering sun: his feet sore, the sweat pouring off of him. Those thick, dark clothes trapping the heat. The rides would last no time at all, in comparison: a sort of Sisyphean torment, putting him back to the beginning each time. Every day spent at the mercy of the Magic Kingdom and its massive summer crowds.
It'd be enough to make a man long for Blizzard Beach, for Christ’s sake.
“I just,” Wyll says. Then: “Sorry, this was weird of me. I can go.”
He turns away. To his surprise, Astarion jerks towards him—then freezes, as though he hadn’t meant to do it.
They watch each other for a moment: Astarion trapped in the stand-by lane. Wyll standing outside of it, a rope between them.
Astarion makes a dismissive noise, his posture going loose and languid again. “Oh, don’t be in such a hurry, Prince Charming. You’ve already done the stalking bit; no taking it back now that I know you’re deranged. You may as well commit.”
“Well,” Wyll says, his cheeks burning. “I just wanted to give you this.”
He pulls a pair of Mickey ears from his bag. Haunted Mansion themed.
Astarion stares at them, uncomprehending. Wyll pushes them into his hand, and the bewildered expression remains unchanged.
“Don’t tell me no one’s ever given you a gift before,” Wyll chuckles awkwardly.
Astarion pins him with a sharp look, his eyes wild. Suspicious and slightly wondering.
“Oh god. Please don’t tell me that,” Wyll says, more strained this time.
“These are,” Astarion says slowly, “very stupid. I’m not going to wear them, you understand? I’m going to—throw them at a child. Or burn them. Or drop them in the fucking lagoon.”
“Please don’t litter,” Wyll says automatically. “We want to keep the park nice for everyone.”
“Dear lord, it’s like they’ve got you on a little wind-up track. Are you certain you’re not an animatronic, dear?”
A flush of warmth washes through him. Dear.
“I just—we have certain phrases that are very scripted—”
The line starts moving. Astarion whirls around in a panic, his lips going white again. “Shit.”
“Small World isn’t everyone’s cup of tea,” Wyll says, a bit at a loss. “Want to get out of line? I took the afternoon off.”
A half-truth, but, eh.
“I can’t,” Astarion hisses. “I physically cannot leave this line.”
“Er. That seems…unlikely to be true?”
A wild, bitter laugh, strange enough for other guests to edge away. “Just try me.”
He clutches the band of his Mickey ears tightly—unconsciously.
“Okay,” Wyll says decisively. He ducks beneath the rope, feeling a thrill of rebellious energy washing through him. Line jumping is, of course, a Bannable Offense(!)—but something about Astarion makes him want to shed the work persona that cares very much about that kind of thing.
“You’re not going to sit through this torment with me?” Astarion gapes. “Of your own free will?”
“Come now, you’re being a little dramatic. I think the song is quite catchy.”
“Maybe your first time.”
“How many times have you done it?”
Astarion looks him up and down. Then he seems to make a decision—steels himself, and aims for blasé: “Upwards of five hundred, I’d think.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Father insisted. I stopped counting, after awhile. For most rides, the line is worse than the attraction—the cruelty is the point, you see. But this one…” he shudders.
Wyll stops talking for a little while, stunned.
That is so fucked up! That is the opposite of Disney Magic!
The line creeps forward. They come in hearing range of the music, and Astarion looks liable to jump out of his skin—like he’d be pacing if he could.
“Does it…scare you?” Wyll says, trying to be gentle.
“Oh god, don’t talk, don’t—shut up. Just shut up until we’re through. Oh god, their twee little voices, I want to die—”
And on and on like that, until the bar comes down on their laps and they’re sailing together into the dark of the ride. Dolls sing about world peace, blinking down at them beatifically. A carousel of culturally-specific dances; a piercing, needling noise.
“Alright,” Wyll tries, “so it’s not my favorite either—”
Astarion’s knuckles have gone white on the lap bar.
They drift on dark water. A series of dolls do the hula. There’s a giraffe.
“He seems,” Wyll says carefully, “like a right bastard. I get the sense I’m about to say something very stupid, but could you just…refuse him?”
“You don’t know what it was like,” Astarion says as though from a great distance. “There was no way out.”
“Of the ride? No, there’s actually an emergency exit around this next—”
“Once, in the first decade of my slavery, I found a darling boy who I couldn’t bear to bring back to him. So I ran, instead of hurting that…sweet man. After Cazador caught me, the bastard forced me onto this—this fucking stupid ride, as punishment. And…something went wrong. Something broke.”
Wyll’s insides go cold. He swallows down a sudden, terrified lump in his throat. “You’re not saying…”
“The boat stopped dead. The dolls, of course, sang on, because we live in an uncaring universe—their piercing, wheedling, mind-melting song. I was in the boat, all on my own, for an entire hour.”
Wyll takes a sharp breath. He grabs Astarion’s shoulder, caught in the grip of existential horror. “I can’t—I can’t even imagine. God, I’m so sorry.”
“An hour of singing,” Astarion says brokenly. “An hour of scratching my hands raw, trying to lift the lap bar. Wishing only for death. So don’t you ever judge me for doing what Cazador ordered.”
He lapses into silence. Wyll struggles to breathe under the horror of it all—the sheer, unending kitchiness. The fear.
“Wait,” he says. “Sorry, but just really quickly: what did you say about slavery?”
“We’re vampires.”
“Mm.”
They round the bend into Thailand, the dolls singing fondly about the international parochial. Their hats are very nice.
“That does explain the sun allergy,” Wyll admits.
“You don’t sound particularly shocked.”
“I believe in the everyday magic of the world around us.”
“Lovely. Well, believe in Cazador’s compulsion as well while you’re at it. I can’t deny him—I have to do what he tells me.”
“And he’s…using this staggering dark power to make you stand in lines all day?”
“It’s the perfect torment. He barely has to lift a finger. Your stupid magic kingdom”—he scowls in lowercase—“tiered queueing system does it all for him. Man’s inhumanity to man.”
Wyll had never thought about it that way before. Admittedly, no one had thought to stress-test the Genie+ system for vampires.
“What are his exact orders?” he asks. Then, inanely: “If that’s not rude to ask.”
Astarion makes a show of clearing his throat. His hands have stopped trembling on the lap bar, at least.
“First, thou shalt stand in line for attractions that doth not pleaseth you. Second, thou shalt return at midnight to Disney’s All-Star Sports Resort. Third, thou shalt not drink the blood of thinking creatures.”
“What, in that order?”
He waves a hand. “It’s context-dependent. We leave tomorrow, you know—we do the trip semi-annually, or when Cazador finds a really good group discount.”
Wyll’s heart sinks. The idea of letting Astarion go back to that man—go back to who knows how many years of torment—is inconceivable.
But it’s also inconceivable to allow the Magic Kingdom to be used as a torture device. Astarion never wanted to be here in the first place, and a cast member is responsible for ensuring a magical experience for every guest!
No, wait. Dammit. No exclamation point. The hospitality script can’t win this one. That is so fucked up.
The ride pulls up at the disembarkment point. Astarion scrambles out as soon as the lap bar lifts. His Mickey ears are still clutched, forgotten, in his hand.
They emerge into the sun. Looking at Astarion’s pale face—the rigid line of his jaw—an idea crystalizes.
“I want to spend the day with you. Before you go.”
“Fat chance of that. You heard the compulsions.”
“Then come with me to meet the princesses,” Wyll says, taking his hand.
“I—what? No. Absolutely not. I still have my dignity.”
“It sounds,” Wyll says, fighting a smile, “as though the princesses would be an attraction that doth not pleaseth you. So it shouldn’t be a problem.”
Astarion narrows his eyes. If Wyll didn’t know better, he’d think there was a dappling of pink on the tips of his ears.
“Better with company, perhaps?” Wyll tries.
“Fine,” Astarion snaps. “Fine. But if a single princess asks what my dreams are, or to…make a wish, or something, I’m gone. I disappear, do you understand?”
“Understood. I’ll even let you into the tunnels for a faster getaway.”
“The—are you quite sure this isn’t a cult compound? Wyll?”
***
The line into the Princess Fairytale Hall is, of course, very bad. Disproportionately loaded with small children, who Wyll makes faces at when their parents aren’t looking. Astarion might be making faces, too—a child looks at him and starts to cry. Well, baby steps.
“I want to be a prince,” Wyll says impulsively. Astarion raises an eyebrow at him, and he flushes. “I mean a face character. Here, at the Fairytale Hall. I could play anyone they need me to, but…I’ve always wanted to play a prince.”
“Ugh. Really? You want to let children wipe snot on your doublet all day? You wouldn’t be allowed to break character for a moment, you understand.”
“That’s…sort of how it is already? A cast member must uphold the guest experience, no matter their role.”
Astarion clicks his tongue. He looks him up and down appraisingly. “Well, you’ve got the looks covered. And the rabid optimism. You may as well apply. Find your people—sit in a twee castle somewhere and talk about rainbows.”
“It’s more about…helping people. Using your strength for the right reason. Justice, Insight, Strategy, Courage.”
“Oh my god,” Astarion groans. “You abominable true believer. Be sure to leave a note when Tinkerbell takes you away.”
“Do you…Astarion, do you think Tinkerbell kidnaps princes? Who do you think Tinkerbell is?”
“Some kind of mutant Floridian mosquito, I’d wager. In any case, Prince Charming doesn’t exist.”
Wyll nods towards the Fairytale Hall. “Then why is he in there right now, and why will I be him someday? I think you’ll find that’s checkmate.”
“Incorrigible,” Astarion bemoans. His shoulder brushes Wyll’s.
The line inches forward. The sun dips behind a cloud: temporary respite from the worst of the heat. Maybe it’ll rain tonight.
“I have applied,” Wyll finds himself clarifying. “Er. I do regularly.”
“You mean they’ve turned you down?” Astarion says with a refreshing level of disbelief. “You should be their poster boy. Saccharine, squeaky-clean—”
“It’s a competitive gig! It’s—you need a stroke of luck. And hard work and perseverance, of course.”
“Oh, I can attest that you’re completely lacking in perseverance,” Astarion says scornfully. His complimentary sarcasm sends a pleasant tingle through Wyll’s chest. “Why keep trying if they don’t have the sense to take you? I have to stress, again, that it sounds miserable anyway.”
They cross the threshold into the Hall. The walls are paneled in a rich golden-brown, hung with sparkling drapery. Intricate embellishments curl through the carpet. All around them, families chatter in anticipation: they’re going to meet royalty. Or something much better than royalty: a symbol. An archetype. An avatar of tenderness in the face of a world gone mad.
Wyll swallows. It’s silly, but he can’t visit this building without feeling a bit overcome.
“I just think,” he says, “there’s something here, beyond the plywood and the polyester costumes. Something…it’s like the edges of a kinder world. Worth building towards. I want to be a part of that.”
Astarion hums, his nose wrinkling. But he doesn’t say a word.
Emboldened, Wyll adds: “Besides, this place—the park, all of it—is sort of the best home I have right now.”
An inscrutable reaction flickers across Astarion’s face, gone as soon as it arrives. Levelly, he says, “No one-point-five siblings to return to? No fetch with the family dog behind the white picket fence?”
Wyll flushes. It’s a shock, really, that he’s let this much slip. He doesn’t like to burden other people with his problems. Especially not as a cast member, who has a responsibility to—!
Who needs to—!
Who doesn’t get to—!
He shakes his head, clearing out the exclamation points. “Um. It’s just that I haven’t been home in awhile.”
“Family troubles?”
“You could say that. Nothing compared to yours,” he hastens to add. “But my father…he’s the traditional sort. And he hasn’t been the biggest fan of my career choices thus far.”
Understating it, maybe. Ulder had tossed Wyll’s tap shoes out the door behind him.
He smiles gingerly. “Ah, but I’m sure he’ll come around. Maybe, once I’m a prince, I’ll invite him to the park. He can see for himself how I’ve made it my home!”
Astarion’s cheek twitches. His eyes skitter from Wyll’s face to the front of the queue: to the outline of princess tiaras just coming into view. He does something that surprises Wyll, then: he spins on the spot, arching his neck to take in the entirety of the Hall. Taking in all of Wyll’s hopes and dreams.
“I think,” Astarion says, “you ought to put less stock in the opinions of people with poor taste.”
“That’s…not entirely fair. My father’s just a bit set in his ways.”
Astarion gives a high, derisive giggle. “Oh my, I wasn’t speaking of your father. I would never!” His eyes glint impishly. “But if these people—these…banal, middle-American taste-makers…don’t want you as a prince, well. Stop giving them the time of day.”
As though it were as simple as that.
“Because really, darling, they’re only proving that they’re idiots who wouldn’t know Prince Charming if he fucked them up the—”
Wyll slaps a hand over Astarion’s mouth, stifling inappropriate laughter. They turn the last corner, and find the princesses there: kneeling to talk to children, posing for photos, complimenting everyone’s Disneybounding dresses.
Their princes stand beside them.
Wyll watches them studiously. He takes in the grace and ease with which each prince makes everyone’s day brighter. Florian’s light touch to Snow White’s shoulder; Prince Charming’s beaming smile.
They are, at the end of the day, human. They’ll take off their costumes and bitch about the worst guests and do too many shots at a grimy club. (Snow White—Shadowheart—looks on the verge of starting early. Her eyes go just slightly wider when they meet Wyll’s, a semi-sarcastic code for save me. He grins.)
But for a moment, the princes are something more. They’re ambassadors from a kinder world.
Astarion passes Florian with barely a glance. His face pinches like he’s smelled something hideous when he passes up Cinderella’s prince. But at the far end of the room, there’s Phillip, and Astarion stumbles when he sees him: just a little half-step that shouldn’t be there, his face going blank. Wyll wouldn’t have believed it without seeing for himself.
“Phillip!” Wyll says, low by his ear. “Good choice. He always seemed to have a touch of humor about him. Balances out the heroics a bit.”
“I’ve no idea what you’re on about,” Astarion sniffs—but his eyes keep drifting back to Phillip’s red cape. His big brown eyes.
“Aurora’s a lucky lady,” Wyll grins.
“Oh, please. He just surprised me, being here. That film came out when I was all of thirteen, and I’m sure I don’t need to spell out for you how long ago that was.”
“You liked prince-types when you were thirteen, then.”
“Dear lord,” Astarion scoffs, pushing Wyll’s face away. “I don’t want to talk to you anymore.”
Phillip: sweet, a bit silly, but willing to take action to protect the one he loves. Not a bad choice, though Wyll prefers being a prince to romancing one. In his secret heart of hearts, he’s always preferred Dimitri: the con artist with a heart of gold. Someone who doesn’t belong at Disney World at all.
***
They endure all the worst lines until closing, until their feet ache and their backs are sore. Once there are no lines left to stand in, the compulsion seems satisfied. In the hours left before midnight, Wyll sneaks Astarion back into the park and onto the teacup ride—not spinning, of course, god no.
They sit knee-to-knee inside pink porcelain, talking. It’s been nice, showing someone his home.
“I’m just saying,” Astarion sniffs, “it’s inhumane of them to make you run the script all the time. How would you be kind to, I don’t know, a teenager in the midst of mooning the entire line?”
Wyll thinks for a moment. “I would remind them that we want to make this experience a good one for the kids.”
“Are you serious?”
“Well, I mean, I’d call security. But in the meantime—”
“You’ll try appealing to their better nature,” Astarion sneers. “What a crock.”
“Sometimes shame works if nothing else does. And that would be a Bannable Offense. We do have those.”
“What if I were to run up and down the lightning lane, draining all the children dry as I went?”
“I’d kick you out of the park. For line-jumping, I mean. I don’t think we have a rule against the other part.”
Astarion cackles, throwing his head back. He’s pretty like this, all aglow in moonlight. “Good. It’s not really your house unless you can toss someone out on their arse.”
Midnight ticks closer.
Wyll picks up Astarion’s Mickey ears. Places them, like a blessing—like a sweet little kiss of pixie dust—atop Astarion’s head.
“Intolerable,” he grouses, straightening them.
“I just—is there really nothing I can do to help?”
Astarion’s face pinches, annoyed. Then his expression smooths out, and he touches the back of Wyll’s hand. “I can’t fight him. It’s not worth it. And it’s not like you’ve got any power over him, either.”
“I’ll be here,” Wyll says on impulse. “The next time he brings you.”
Astarion’s lip twists—a little derisive, maybe, or sad. His eyes glimmer strangely in moonlight. “I’m not sure you should be, truly. You deserve a real home. Somewhere you can get off-script.”
“This place will do in the meantime,” Wyll says stolidly.
Astarion opens his mouth to argue, but then his phone alarms.
“Shit,” he hisses. “Shit, I have to go. The—I need to call an Uber. Something fast. It’s nearly time.”
He trips his way out of the teacup like he’s due to turn back into a pumpkin any minute.
Wyll grabs for his wrist. “Wait—”
“Leave it!” Astarion says, voice shaking. “Just—forget about this. Leave me alone.”
The Mickey ears fall to the ground.
“Hold on!” Wyll calls, stooping to pick them up. But it’s no good: Astarion’s left at a run. In the distance, dark figures wait for him. Their eyes glow red.
***
Astarion doesn’t come back the next day. Or the next.
For the rest of the summer season, Wyll manages the lines. He takes pictures for families and tells jokes to children. He helps improve the guest experience any way he can!
His attention drifts, sometimes. He sees a flash of white hair and his heart kicks up. He sees a black parasol and his heart swells.
He researches vampires, at first: tries to glean their weaknesses from tawdry paranormal romances. They need an invitation to enter a home, they have to count things, they have to—
Well. It doesn’t much matter, since Astarion never told him where he lives. He’s not even on Insta, for Christ’s sake.
There’s no fortress for Prince Charming to charge into; no dragon to slay. No way to save everyone.
No way to save Astarion. The exclamation points dissipate. The princes’ clothes start looking more like polyester. They feel like it, too, against his skin: he dresses as Naveen one stormy night in mid-October, ready for a rare on-site audition after the park closes.
He huddles with the other hopefuls in the Fairytale Hall, trading anecdotes. The casting director’s eyes glaze over him, as they always do. Wyll looks at the glitter-glue drapery, the tacky chandeliers, and wonders if his father’s gone to bed yet.
Maybe…maybe he could give Ulder a call. Maybe he’d answer if Wyll took a different tack: if he were to ask, as though merely curious, whether his childhood bedroom’s been painted over yet. If Ulder might consider paying for a plane ticket out of Florida.
After all, it’s a little childish, isn’t it? Trying to be a prince.
A crash from around the corner, near the entrance: the telltale sound of someone tripping over a rope stanchion. A rising voice, panicked. “—told me he’d be here. I just need to talk to him, just for a moment—”
Wyll’s heart skips a beat.
“Astarion?” he calls, startling forward. The casting director snaps at him, he's up next, but it doesn’t much matter because by then he’s taking the corridor at a run.
Rain lashes down outside. Astarion’s arguing with a coordinator at the entrance to the empty guest holding room, her clipboard held up between them as though in self-defense. She sees Wyll across the room and leaves the two of them alone with clear relief.
It can hardly be a fragment of the relief thrumming through Wyll’s chest: a crashing wave of it. Hercules, seeing Megara alive.
“Astarion,” he repeats. Then, stupidly: “Guests aren’t allowed in the park unaccompanied after closing.”
“Jesus Christ,” Astarion snaps, charging into the Hall—through a maze of rope barriers that are empty, for once, of guests.
He ducks under the last rope and pulls Wyll into a kiss. It’s hard and a little frantic, Astarion’s body not so much slotting against Wyll’s as making himself fit. Making space for himself.
The auditions the next room over feel suddenly a world away. Light sparks through him, and pixie dust.
“It’s good to see you,” Wyll says, dazed, when they break apart.
“Yes, fine, but we need to leave now, before—”
“This vampire bat, this inhuman beast!” a voice cackles from the darkness outside. “He ought to be locked up and never released!”
Cazador steps out of the storm.
His eyes gleam red: redder than Jafar at full power. Redder than the Horned King chasing down Princess Eilonwy. How could Wyll have ever mistaken him for human? For a guest?
Astarion grips his wrist. He snarls at his master—a spitting, toothy thing—but his eyes are wide and terrified.
“Silly spawn thought he could run. Like Simba eschewing all responsibility for his father’s demise.” Cazador props his foot on a stanchion. Pushes it over, sending a rope barrier crashing to the ground. He steps over it, into the Hall.
His gaze sweeps Wyll. “I’m beginning to see who might have put such ridiculous ideas in his empty head.”
“Stay back,” Wyll warns, trying to position himself in front of Astarion. It doesn’t work very well, given that Astarion is in the middle of trying to do the same thing for him.
Cazador smiles. “You’re hardly in a position to give orders.”
He pushes down another stanchion. Steps over another rope. Astarion flinches.
“Do you know,” Cazador says—low and lilting, as though he’s telling an excellent but off-color anecdote at a dinner party—“why I am a lifelong fan of The Walt Disney Company?”
Wyll’s fists clench. “I…admit I don’t have any leads on that front.”
“Perpetual copyright.” His eyes gleam. “The visceral drive—the animal urge—to protect what is yours.”
He crooks a finger, and Astarion stumbles forward.
“No!” Wyll grabs his wrist, and Astarion cries out as though burned. He moves like a zombie, shuffling and broken, but he moves, tugging at the limits of Wyll’s hold.
His head hangs. He doesn’t look back.
“Just get out of here, Wyll. There’s nothing you can do.” Astarion gives a broken laugh. “I tried. That’s more than I’ve ever managed before.”
Cazador kicks over another stanchion. Steps ever-closer. Astarion is a deadweight on Wyll’s arm—leaning forward like a drifter in a headwind. Eric compelled by Ursula in disguise.
“You can’t do this!” Wyll snarls.
“And you’re going to stop me, cast member? You have no power here. You never did.”
He can’t be powerless. He can’t be. Not with Astarion’s freedom on the line. If he were a hero—if he were a prince—
“You were truly insufferable,” Astarion says softly. “Nice knowing you, Prince Charming.”
Cazador kicks down the final rope barrier between them. He runs a sharp black nail down Astarion’s jaw.
“Line jumping,” Wyll says faintly.
Cazador doesn’t acknowledge him. He laces long fingers between Astarion’s.
“Line jumping,” Wyll says again, stronger this time, “is not permitted in the park.”
“Let it go, Wyll.” Astarion’s voice is wet. His head hangs down, nearly pressed to Cazador’s chest.
“No,” Wyll says, gripping Astarion’s wrist all the harder. “No, I won’t. Because line jumping is a Bannable Offense.”
Cazador startles. A strange, electric jolt.
“You have been warned,” Wyll says, gaining speed. “If misbehavior persists you will be removed from the park.”
“What do you think you’re doing?” Cazador spits, derisive—but his shoulders have gone rigid, and he watches Wyll with an animal intensity.
“Unauthorized access! Guests aren’t allowed in the park unaccompanied after closing. That’s another Bannable Offense!”
“Oh please, you really think your little rules will stop me? You’re nothing!”
“I am a cast member, and I am responsible for the guest experience!”
Astarion whips his head around, his eyes gone very wide. “You are fucking kidding me,” he says, low and hopeful.
Lightning flashes outside. There’s movement from around the corner: fellow almost-princes, the coordinator, the casting director. Drawn in by all the shouting.
Heedless, Cazador surges forward again, grasping Astarion’s shoulder. His eyes burn into Wyll’s. “You are a member of the service industry! You are completely and utterly beneath me! I am a guest!”
“You are not a guest,” Wyll thunders, “because you have abused your welcome! You have put yourself outside of the ancient rules of hospitality! You have violated the terms of service!”
This time Cazador staggers backward, grasping at his own chest. “What—what are you doing to me? This shouldn’t work! This is a fucking theme park, not—”
“My home?” Wyll grins—his breath coming tight and fast. “Let’s test that theory. I have it on good authority that it’s not really your house unless you can toss someone out on their arse. And I believe you need an invitation.”
Astarion wrenches free from Wyll's grip, only to seize his hand properly. All traces of compulsion are gone from him. He’s muttering, a frantic stream: “You beautiful idiot; you naive, stupid, incredible sonofabitch—”
“I’ll kill you!” Cazador shrieks. He sways where he stands. “I’ll feed your entrails to hyenas, I’ll drop you off a cathedral, I’ll gut you with a ship’s prow and leave you to drown—”
“Threats of violence!” Wyll roars. “Bannable Offense! You have been warned!"
Cazador screams—pain, fury, everything all at once. His body contorts at terrible angles. He rises into the air.
“Holy shit,” Astarion says.
“My god!” the casting director cries out, reverent. “All this time, I’ve been searching—he’s finally here! The Disney Prince!”
Wyll holds Astarion’s hand harder than he’s ever held a hand in his life. He bellows, “I revoke your invitation!”
Like crashing through an airlock into the vacuum of space, like launch on the Tron Lightcycle Run, Cazador shoots at stunning speed out of the Hall and into the storm. His scream trails into the distance—fading, dissolving, gone.
The rain comes down.
A stunned silence permeates the Hall. Wyll feels as though he’s floating—as though Astarion’s hand is the only thing keeping him pinned to the ground.
“You launched him,” Astarion says faintly. “Like a fucking bottle rocket.”
“Like popping a balloon animal,” Wyll agrees.
“Do vampiric invitations even work that way? You can just…revoke them?”
“Well. It felt right in the moment.”
“My liege,” the casting director says, taking a knee. “What would you have us do?”
The other actors stare at Wyll as though in a daze. The coordinator sobs into her clipboard, overwhelmed. The candelabra flickers above them: electric light, but courtly nonetheless. Magical.
Wyll grasps, on instinct, for a script. The right words.
The right thing to say to reassure everyone! To wrestle the world into kindness and sense, the way! A! Prince! Should!
But Astarion’s hand is firm in his, and solid. Real.
The vampire leans in, his lips brushing Wyll’s ear. “Prince Charming,” he says, and there’s no trace of condescension to the words. Wonder, yes—a shock bordering on stupor—but no disdain. No diffidence.
Then he says, “Are you going to tell these tedious morons to fuck off, or should I?”
A laugh escapes Wyll: a startled, barking thing. Once the first is free, the others follow: a torrent of laughter, unrestrained. Ugly, unscripted sounds. He leans on Astarion, who keeps him upright.
“My liege?” the casting director says, concerned.
“Stand down,” Wyll says. “I have something more important to do right now.”
Then he grabs his bag. He pulls Astarion by the hand into the utility tunnel, and they leave the Hall together. Keeping out of the rain.
***
The utility tunnels are…utilitarian, an endless stretch of concrete flooring. Here and there a bit of paint livens up the walls: whimsical signage directing cast members to each zone of the park.
The tunnels are a necessity. They hold up the magic. They do what needs doing, without all the flourish.
“He’ll be out there, you know,” Astarion says softly, walking beside him. “You don’t have to come with me. Not much of a life, is it? Hiding, running.” His lip twists. “Trying to figure out how the fuck to kill him.”
Wyll studies him in profile. Astarion’s curls are in a lovely state of disarray, tumbling around his ear. Laugh lines grace his cheek. His eyes are deeply shadowed—like a man who’s gone sleepless. A small, disbelieving smile occasionally graces his lips. A private thing. Like he doesn’t know he’s doing it.
For a moment, Wyll second-guesses himself: maybe Astarion could stay in the Magic Kingdom forever. Wyll has power here, clearly, and could keep him safe.
But even the happiest place on Earth can’t make someone happy forever. At some point, you do have to go back to Florida. Or wherever.
You have to make a real home for yourself. That goes for everyone.
He must’ve let the silence stretch out too long, because Astarion adds, “Plus, you appear to be some kind of Christ-figure? I assume they’ll try to drag you back at some point.”
“We’ll figure it out.” Wyll slows to a stop; turns to face him. “Can’t be too hard if we’re together.”
Astarion’s nose wrinkles under the sheer force of Wyll’s sincerity. His gaze flickers down Wyll's chest, and he tuts. “You realize you’re still wearing your costume?”
“Ah. I was going to change—”
“Come here,” Astarion says, exasperated. Deft fingers unfasten his coat. “If you insist on cosplaying, at least let me make you something of better quality.”
“It was just for the audition. But…you can do that?”
Astarion shucks Naveen’s coat from his arms in one violent downward tug, standing very close to do it. “Oh, who am I kidding? You don’t need a prince costume. Look at you.”
And…maybe he doesn’t. In banning Cazador, he’d started from the script—the rules, the Bannable Offenses—but the real power had come from the words welling up inside of him, all his own.
Maybe he’s graduated the costumes; the situationally-inappropriate exclamation points. Maybe being Prince Charming has very little to do with scripts and casting calls.
“Oh!” Wyll says, rummaging in his bag. “I forgot.”
He plonks the Mickey ears back on Astarion’s head.
Astarion recoils like an offended cat. “Dear lord, you were carrying these around with you the whole damn time? For months, Wyll?”
“Of course,” Wyll tells him seriously. “How else was I supposed to find the mysterious gentlemen who left me that night at the teacups? I was going to ask everyone of marriageable age in the kingdom to try them on.”
“You’re absolutely dreadful. I’ve made a terrible mistake, letting you tag along.”
Astarion takes the ears off very quickly. But he clutches the band tightly as they follow the exit signs together, towards a marginally more magical world.