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Richie is still in disbelief that he managed to get this job.
Ever since Prince Edward cracked an actual smile at the gangly young man and insisted he become his personal bodyguard, the weeks rushed by in a haze of awkward jokes between training in the royal protocol that all guards received. Not that he was complaining. After all, he got to live in the palace and spend almost all day with an actual prince, who turned out not to be as stuffy as everyone thinks. Richie found Eddie to be nothing like his strict, easily angered mother, who did little to conceal her distaste for loud, hyperactive boys constantly trailing her perfect, pure son and tainting his mind with his filthy jokes and terrible table manners. Though she was originally opposed to the idea, her advisers convinced her to allow (force) them to stay together as much as possible, even letting Richie sleep on the window seat of Eddie’s royal bedroom, in hopes that the young men would quickly get sick of each other.
It didn’t work.
In fact, Richie would go so far as to consider them friends. Eddie really tried his best to keep up an air of sophistication, at least in public, but he’d given up trying to conceal his amusement when Richie threw out lewd jokes or terrible impressions of royal advisers late at night when they couldn’t sleep. There were times he feared his humor crossed a line, but Eddie could keep up perfectly and come back with a snappy one liner and a satisfied smirk that totally did not make his stomach flutter a bit. Richie reveled in the way he could make Eddie’s eyes light up with a joke, even when he was trying to maintain a professional persona.
He was having more fun than ever with his new royal best friend, but Richie knew as well as anyone he had work to do. After all, he was still a palace guard now before anything else, with real training and everything. Damn, there was that disbelief again, but this was definitely real, or else there wouldn’t be some uptight guy standing in front of him giving him directions for the upcoming visit of foreign royalty that he just couldn’t manage to focus on.
“Tozier! Are you even listening to this?”
No, I tuned out after you started talking about ceremonies and shit because I could feel myself getting nervous even thinking about standing still for that long. Also has anyone ever told you your moustache looks like you glued cat hair to your face? “Yes, sir.”
The uptight guy who Richie had already forgotten the name of raised his eyebrows suspiciously, “Alright, then repeat what I just told you back to me.”
Shit. “Um… Something something about special ceremonies for the visitors. Diplomacy good, whatever the opposite of diplomacy is bad. Be on the lookout for. Y’know. Stuff. And. Things…”
Nasty moustache man pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed with exasperation, “Jesus Christ, kid. Do you think this is a joke?”
Kinda. “No, sir.”
“Listen, Tozier. What exactly do you think your job is here? What do you think all this training is for?”
To bore me out of my fucking mind on a daily basis? “To protect the prince, obviously.”
“Protect him from what?”
I don’t want to think about that. “I don’t know. I protect him! I stand next to him with a big sword in cool armor and people don’t fuck with him.”
Moustache looked like he wanted to tell him to watch his language, but he just sighed again. Richie didn’t know the guy well, but it seemed like he had been training jackasses like him for a long time. “I know it seems like that’s all it is, but you’re more than just a deterrent, kid. His life is on your hands. Look, I know it’s been a decade since the last assassination attempt, but-”
Richie tuned out again.
Assassination? He supposed always sort of knew that it was something that could happen, but he never truly thought it was possible. Well, of course it was possible, but it felt like a locked option. Like there was no way in the universe something like that would happen to Eddie. If they were together- not together, watch your phrasing idiot- if he was with Eddie, nothing bad would happen. Why else was he there?
But of course something could go wrong. Here they were, opening up the palace to diplomats and royalty from somewhere else. It would make the prince a perfect target, of course they were upping security. Maybe not even upping it enough. They needed everyone on high alert or else something could happen. Something like what?
“We’ll go over this again tomorrow, Tozier. Why don’t you go rest and think about why you should take this seriously for once?” Richie nodded silently. His legs carried him to his window seat without him being fully aware of it, even as he laid down clutching a frilly pillow to his chest and tried to nap.
As he closed his eyes, images flitted through Richie’s mind just behind his eyelids, going too fast for him to catch more than a snip of each increasingly terrible scenario.
Eddie bent over at his waist, vomiting black blood and violently coughing from a poison slipped into his drink.
Eddie gripping Richie’s sleeve in shock as an arrow strikes him in the chest, causing him to keel over in pain.
Eddie falling to his knees as a red stain grows on his best jacket from the dagger stuck between his shoulder blades.
In every scene, Richie was paralyzed and forced to watch, unable to even hold his prince when the light he grew to love drained from his eyes, no matter how much Eddie called out to him for help in a choked chant of Richie.
“Richie”
“Richie?”
Richie woke up from the nightmare he had slipped into, hyperventilating and digging a shaking hand into his hair, his pillow had rolled off to the side in his thrashing and he was searching for something to hold on to, even if it stung his scalp.
And there was Eddie, standing over him, the door to his bedroom wide open. It was unlike him not to close it behind him for some semblance of privacy, so he must have rushed over without thinking. His brows were furrowed and he was licking his lips anxiously, assessing Richie with extreme focus. Hands steady as a surgeon, Eddie gently took his wrist and untangled his hands from his hair, stroking his thumb over Richie’s knuckles. And he was safe. They were safe. There was no blood stain or stench of poison in the air, just the sound of Eddie calling his name not with fear but with concern.
“Bad dream, Rich?”
Richie considered cracking a joke, he couldn’t stand Eddie boring holes into him with that worried stare, but he just nodded.
“Do you… want to talk about it?”
Richie shook his head for a moment, paused, and nodded reluctantly.
Eddie seemed unsure of if he was doing this emotional support thing right, but he kept pushing forward. “What happened?”
Richie’s breathing picked up again just thinking about it, but Eddie’s touch on his wrist kept him grounded. “I’m scared about the visit next week.” There was a moment of silence before he continued. Richie hated these sorts of heavy silences, it just made opening up all the more difficult. “Things have been really great, but sometimes I forget that this is more than just a friendship.” Eddie’s grip tensed for a moment. Phrasing, Richie. For fuck’s sake. “Not like that! Like. Your life is on my hands. I’ve never had so much fucking pressure on me before. I almost want to quit,” But I would lose you. “But I like it here. It feels like home already. I can’t just walk away.”
Eddie sighed and looked at his guard with a sympathetic smile, “You know this isn’t all on you, right, Rich?” Ah, another thing that totally didn’t make Richie’s stomach flutter. The nickname. “You might be my personal guard, but you aren’t working alone. And as much of a jackass as you can be, you wouldn’t have made it this far without having some legitimate talent at this. I’ve seen you train. You’ve got great reflexes, and you can swing a sword like nobody I’ve ever seen. And where did you learn to ride a horse? Because I’m fucking hopeless at it no matter how hard I try. Maybe you can teach me? I don’t know.” He was starting to ramble the same way Richie did when he was anxious. Richie wasn’t sure if he imagined the flush on Eddie’s face as he talked about watching him train, but he wasn’t sure if he minded either.
“My point is,” Eddie huffed, realizing he got sidetracked, “I trust you, Richie,” He spoke with such tenderness that Richie swore he felt his heart try to jump out of his chest. Eddie sighed as his tone became more serious, though he continued speaking gently, “But I understand if this is too much pressure for you, and I wouldn’t want you to stay here if you’re unhappy. You always have the option to go.”
Richie detached his wrist from his grasp and placed a hand on Eddie’s shoulder. “Then trust me, Eds. Because I’m not going anywhere.”
And yeah, maybe Eddie’s warm, hopeful smile made Richie’s stomach flutter a little, but he could figure out what that meant later. For now, it meant he was staying, and that was enough.