Chapter Text
In faraway lands and far away from each other, we meet our intrepid Prince and Princess.
Chris packed up the last of his boxes, largely personals from the bathroom, the remainder of his clothes, notebooks and other necessities from the desk that he used regularly enough that he’d want them before he came back. Early tomorrow morning, he’d be on the train down to his parents’ for one last summer back home in LA.
Cho rapped his knuckles on the open door, leaning against the frame with his car keys in hand. “You all set?”
“Yeah, man, just about,” he nodded, pulling open the nightstand drawer. Hastily tossing the wadded up tissues inside, hopefully leftover from his last cold, he gathered up a group of beat-up paperbacks, including a forgotten, now overdue library book, a comp book and his journal from the drawer and piled them on the bed.
“You could still stay,” Cho poked at the door latch, feigning nonchalance.
“Aww, I’ll miss you too, Pookie,” Chris teased. Cho was a sap, but it did suck to leave. They’d been best friends since the fifth grade, the Dynamic Nerd Duo, breaking hearts together for years (well, Cho had, Chris cheered him on). But Cho had a decent job and a girl here now, so it made sense for him to sublet Chris’ room in their tiny off-campus duplex for a few months. They’d shared it since they made their great escape from the dorms, and it would be a pity to lose it when they had to be back for one more year.
Chris didn’t have to go home for the summer, but seeing as it would be the last one, it was too good an offer to pass up. He wanted his mom’s home cooking every night, one more summer of tinkering on the ’68 with his dad, and if he was honest, he wanted to be the family baby and shirk adulthood while his parents still let him get away with it. Plus, it would really help him out financially to save what he earned working rather than lose it all to rent. In a few months, he’d have no time for slacking off.
“Welp,” Chris slapped his denim thighs, getting his feet, “I gotta leave at the asscrack of dawn, so I’m gonna hit the sack.”
“Yeah, I’m gonna go over to Kerri’s,” Cho lumbered over to give him a tight hug, slapping him hard on the back. “So, see you in a few months. Unless your white knight sweeps you off before then.”
“Fuck off,” he pushed him away by the shoulders. “I’m always white knight in the story.”
“Yeah, well, you’re white, for sure. Maybe pull your nose out of your books and go outside once in awhile, dude, get some actual California sunshine,” Cho grinned with a wink, “Text me when you get in.”
“Yeah. Hey,” he sifted through pile on the bed, finding the library book and holding it out, “Will you return this for me on your way?”
Cho took it with a smirk, thumbing through the book’s surprisingly gory pictures of witches and ogres, “I’m not paying the fine.”
“It’s on my card, genius,” he retorted. “They’ll hit me in the wallet next semester, I’m sure.”
Cho waved with the book and left, calling through the house, “Nighty-night, Prince Charming!”
He heard Cho slam the front door before he could respond. He sifted through his pile again, seeing the leather-bound journal. Shuffling through the box to find a pen, settled back on the bed to open it to a fresh page.
May 30.
Dear Diary,
It’s on like Donkey Kong, baby. I am officially a Senior at Berkeley.
One more year. Two more semesters. If I keep on a tight schedule, I might even graduate early. Hopefully I can submit for my diss and get it done within a year after that, or even less. Greenwood is still iffy, but really, how many people have really dissected the oral traditions laid down by Grimm? Aesop? Andersen? Okay, Tolkien did, whatever, that was 80 years ago. Someone has to do it as a response to modern day storytelling, film, TV. Disney and the dumbing down for today’s brats, sterilizing them until all of the fear is gone and little kids grow up believing their perfect prince will come if they only wait in a magical castle, that love comes with a single kiss, and what that’s done to our society. I’ll write it, defend it, submit it to literary journals, and then!
God, I want to travel. England, Germany, Scandinavia, Turkey, Russia, see where all the great old folktales came from, and preferably get paid for it, give talks at all the major universities all over the world. I can’t wait. I wish I could just make it happen faster. Dad says I should put it off and travel first, journal along the way. Maybe I should. I’ve got two jobs lined up over the summer, so hopefully I’ll be able to put some decent money away. But I have to finish first. I have to finish.
So no fucking around anymore. Once school starts, no parties, no distractions, no girls or guys. I can’t afford it, financially or mentally. I have to finish, so I can get started on the rest of my life. And that’s no fairytale at all.
Shutting the diary, Chris locked it—old habit, Cho snooped—tossed it on the pile and stuffed it all into the box, putting the top on and tying it shut to ride next to him on the train down to LA. He shucked his clothes, turned out the light, scooting down under his sheets in his briefs and crossing his arms beneath his head with a sigh. If he stayed disciplined, then in a couple of years, maybe, just maybe, he’d be boarding a plane, on his way to seeing real castles, harbors with tall ships and mermaids, old forests with witch’s cottages, orchards of magical fruit, princes and princesses…
He giggled to himself. Okay, so maybe not. But it was as close as he might ever get.
+
Zach came sluggishly into the mouth of the guy blowing him whose name he couldn’t recall. Some unrelentingly British C-name: Connor, or maybe Callum. The guy leaned over to spit into the toilet, smiling up at him apologetically, “No offense, Majesty.”
He reached down to shove the guy aside and tuck himself back into his jeans, buttoning up. “Don’t call me that,” he pushed past him out of the stall and to the sink to splash his face and wash his hands. A delicate knock sounded at the door before it pushed open a few inches. “Sorry, sir?”
“It’s a pub toilet, Anton, for fuck’s sake. Only you would knock.”
Slipping inside, Anton’s eyes darted briefly to the guy now swiping at the damp knees of his jeans with a wad of toilet paper in front of the stall, then fixed his gaze on the innocuous paper towel dispenser, clearing his throat. “We’ve been made, sir. There are about twenty photographers outside.”
Zach frowned. Typically, there were only two or three. He hadn’t done anything warranting more than five in a few months, not since the incident with that cage dancer in Amsterdam. London’s paparazzi were somewhat more relentless, however, they didn’t always need a reason.
“Is it me?” Caleb asked, wrapping his arms around Zach’s shoulders and necking at him, “Will we make the Daily Record or The Sun, d’you think?”
Anton rolled his eyes, pulling the door back open to leave.
Zach turned around and kissed him, searching his own taste over the bite of thick dark beer and cigarettes. “Ideally, we don’t get papped at all.”
Corey pouted, “That’s no fun.”
Zach dragged him back out to the bar, thirsty for another drink. With the World Cup qualifier ran on the TV mounted above the bar, it was packed, and a rush of indignant noise erupted from the pub patrons at an interruption of a breaking newscast. It took some time for the uproar to die down enough to hear the report.
“… press conference just concluded with the Danish Prime Minister informing the European public that the Crown Prince of Denmark, His Royal Highness Prince Edvard Valdemar of Glücksborg, has died. He was thrown from his horse during today’s Copenhagen Polo Open, and while he was rushed immediately to University Hospital, he was declared dead of his injuries upon arrival.”
Zach shoved Colin off, his heart in his throat, pounding in his ears above at the sudden quiet of the pub surrounding him as the news report continued.
“…still awaiting official word from the Danish Royal Family, however, as it stands in the current line of succession, the station and duties of the Crown Prince and eventual King of Denmark will now fall to His Royal Highness, Prince Zachary John Quinto de Monpezat, Edvard’s second cousin, son of—”
As the report detailed his blood relation, a photograph of Zach replaced the Danish Royal Seal on the television; not one from a tabloid, thankfully, but during an official event a couple of years ago. He dragged both hands over his mouth, a cold shiver going down his spine to hear himself newly styled. His Royal Highness.
“This is a heartbreaking day for all of Europe. We’ll now return, of course, to the World Cup qualifying match; once again, the Crown Prince of Denmark, Edvard Valdemar of Glücksborg is dead, aged twenty-four.”
The screen abruptly returned to the football match, eerie quiet submersing the pub in its wake. Then came the whispers, the stares, the clicks and flashes of cellphones pointed at him, and Anton excusing himself urgently through the crowd before his curly head emerged. “Sir,” was all he said, offering a mobile in his hand. Swallowing, Zach nodded, taking the phone and following him to the exit. His voice shook as he answered it, “Yes?”
“A car is being sent to collect you,” the frosty voice of Queen Rosalind informed him. “You are to return immediately to Copenhagen to assume your new position.”
“So nice to hear from you too, Auntie Razz, it’s been too long,” he bit off, halting in the relative privacy of the pub entrance, his voice a little ragged. “I was under the impression you would have had the Acts of Succession altered by now.”
“It isn’t entirely out of the question. The King isn’t dead yet,” she retorted, and there it was, a pained, weeping crack in her typically icy tone. “But… my son is. Edvard is gone.”
Zach held his breath behind trembling lips, remembering back when they were schoolboys, stealing away on the grounds of their boarding school at night to swim naked in the lake or play chicken with the guards, always causing trouble. Eddie always had a penchant for a good time too, with his fast cars, dangerous sports and beautiful women.
“I’m so sorry,” he whispered, quietly and sincerely into the phone. It was answered with a click and a dial tone. He handed the phone back to Anton, his eyes wide, shocked and sad. Zach merely nodded, taking a deep breath against the lump in his throat and they pushed out into a waiting crowd of paparazzi, shouting and snapping at him as they worked their way through to the car.