Archive of Our Own

It’s been said by palace staff that the queen of Orane may murder her son today. She woke up with a foul expression and gave sharp commands to her staff as she readied for the day. One servant passed the word to another, who passed it to another, and the rumor continued to gain speed and exaggeration until it finally landed on the ears of the doomed prince himself.

“You may want to consider abdicating,” Manaow suggests. She’s flat on her back on Team’s bed, a mirror in hand so she can appreciate her reflection. “Your mother’s going to throw you out a window and say you jumped.”

Team gives her a bored glower from the window seat where he’s sitting in a defiant hunch. “Maybe I’d let her,” he says. “I’m not marrying anyone.”

“You have to.”

“I don’t ‘have to,’” he says, mimicking her voice in a somewhat less than flattering falsetto.

She puts the mirror down and looks over at him. “There are plenty of options left,” she says. “Just meet with a few of them, find one you like, and get it over with. The longer you drag your feet, the faster the good ones’ll all be taken. One of them by me.”

Predictably, Team ignores her. He’s in a terrible mood, much like he’s been all year, but Manaow has known him since long before they could speak, so she knows not to take offense. She’s got her own marriage issues to face, and they often take solace in bitching about their struggles to each other like this.

“She keeps suggesting women,” Team mutters.

“Well, it is usually easier to get an heir that way,” Manaow says. “She probably thinks you could get it up long enough to produce one or two.“

“Could and would aren’t the same thing. My uncle did that and he’s miserable.”

Manaow rolls onto her front and yawns. “You’re not doing yourself much good staying holed up in here is all I’m saying. You’re gonna have to marry someone. Or, y’know, do what I suggested and abdicate.” She waves a dismissive hand at the window. “Go become a hermit somewhere in the mountains. Marry a goat.”

Team finally makes eye contact with her, judgment heavy in every fiber of his being.

She makes a heart with her fingers and winks at him. “Shame you missed your chance with me, pretty boy,” she says.

Months ago, when a newly appointed minister zealously approached her and Team with the idea of marrying each other, they broke into nearly identical fits of laughter that didn’t abate for a solid twenty seconds. Hours later, some of the older ministers formally apologized—“we’ve explained to them that that avenue has been a closed conversation for many years”—and no one’s brought it up since.

Team says, “Like I’d spend the rest of my life watching you seduce yourself in the mirror.”

“You’d be so lucky,” Manaow says.

A sharp flurry of knocks at the door interrupts Team’s next retort.

Outside, a frantic minister hisses, “Your highness!”

Team lets his head fall back and smack the wall. “Manaow, kill me,” he says. “I don’t even care who does it anymore.”

“Your highness!” Another burst of knocks. “The queen is—”

“Teerayu.”

The voice of the queen, low and dangerous and commanding, has Manaow raising both of her eyebrows, pointing at the window, and mouthing, Jump.

Team glances at the door, then peers down at the ground, thoughtful.

•

The queen gets her way, as usual. She’s arranged a “casual” meeting to discuss a few new potential marriage candidates, and Team is to attend and be cooperative. Team agrees to attend, but he refuses to feign any kind of interest as the farce begins.

Today’s participants in Annoying the Prince have all gathered in one of the open-air alabaster sitting areas just off the courtyard. When Team arrives there with the queen, seven court officials are already waiting for them, seated on plush throw cushions and looking desperately uncomfortable with such an informal atmosphere for such a crucial discussion. Team knows they’re only putting up with it under duress and the queen’s direct orders, and it gives him some solace to know he’s not the only one who doesn’t want to be here.

In the courtyard, the terraced stone fountain provides a lulling backdrop of rushing water to zone out to, but Team suspects that that was actually a key part of why his mother chose this area in the first place. To make him drop his guard. To make him easier to manipulate.

Everything about this situation is repugnant. The queen’s even forced the fountain to become an unwilling conspirator.

Minister Bak greets the queen and prince formally, expresses some pointless platitudes, and quickly gets on with presenting today’s candidates.

Smart. Every other time they’ve tried this, they lost Team’s attention early on and never got it back.

“Princess Delta,” Minister Bak says. With a deferential bow of his head, he hands the file to the queen, who hands it off to Team without even glancing at it. Nice to know they’ve rehearsed this without him. Team pointedly puts the file face down and stares at the fountain behind Bak instead. The minister has a copy of his own. Waste of paper making one for Team, too.

“Princess Delta of Baora. Twenty years old, born under the fire sigil, talented in playing the zither.” He continues for another paragraph that Team doesn’t listen to.

He knows Del. They know he knows Del. He’d sooner marry Manaow.

So he keeps his mouth shut.

Until his mother smacks his shoulder for an answer.

“No,” Team grits out. He gives her a mutinous scowl.

Minister Bak picks up the next file. Another pass to the queen, who passes it to Team, who puts it on the floor on top of the first.

“Prince Aood of Sourea. Twenty-two years old, born under the water sigil, interests involve the theatre and classical mu—”

“No.”

“Princess Aum of—”

It goes on like this for another six candidates, all of whom Team has either heard of or met in person. All of whom are women, except for Prince Aood.

Alex? Really? That’s their plan? Alex?

When silence stretches on for a while, Team raises his eyebrows at his mother.

“If you don’t pick one to meet with,” she says, loud enough to be easily overheard by every official present, “I’m going to call off preparations for your birthday.”

Team wants to call her bluff on that. His birthday is two months away and enough money has been put into the celebration preparations that to cancel it at this point would be a scandal in itself. Still, it’s the only event on his calendar that he’s actively looking forward to right now, so he sighs.

”Fine.”

“Once more, please, with a little more respect.”

“I’ll meet with Alex, even though literally nothing is going to come of it, Mother.”

“Thank you.” Her lips quirk as she leans forward to tuck a bit of hair behind his ear. “Now go have lunch before you change your mind and make these poor men cry. They spent a very long time finding candidates you haven’t already rejected.”

Team rubs his face, groans, and leaves the area with only about a third of his dignity left.

Alex.

Fuck.

•

The farce rises to incredible levels a week later as Team walks into the garden pavilion where his meeting with Alex is set to take place.

One glance at the lavish display of flowers is all it takes to make him turn around, his gut twisting. Manaow gets her own look, barks out a laugh, and follows Team into the garden behind the building. “Oh, no,” she moans, clutching her stomach, “it’s too funny. Are they trying to embarrass you into marrying him? Look at all the flowers in there! Call all the public parks—see if anyone from the royal household stole everything they have overnight.”

Team drops into a crouch and buries his face in his knees. He’d rather sprawl on the lawn and wait for death, but he doesn’t dare get grass stains on his formal clothes.

Manaow rubs his back for a few quiet moments, then says, “Do you want me to marry Alex, honey? I’ll marry Alex. I’d be genuinely happy to marry Alex for you.”

Team says, “Stop talking about marrying Alex before I puke.“

As the silence stretches on, the air between them changes, and Manaow says softly, “I don’t want to be the one to say it but—”

“Don’t.”

“Okay, but—”

“Manaow.”

She sighs, “I know, I know,” and drops it.

A full minute or so passes this way with Manaow crouched in her heels and daily stunner of a dress and Team slumped in sandals and formal clothes he hates. The garden’s meticulously shaped trees, lush lawn, and joyful birdsong just make Team feel ever more nauseated.

“Uh, Team,” Manaow whispers. From the cadence of her voice, he guesses they’re not alone anymore.

With his best attempt at normalcy, Team stands up and turns around to confront the rest of this breathtakingly horrible day.

Alex has the decency to ignore formalities. He’s as handsome as usual, possibly even more so in his country’s formal dress, but his ever-present entourage is absent. He offers Manaow a vague smile that she returns with sunbeam enthusiasm.

“Hi, Alex,” she purrs. “Have a nice ride over?”

Team covers her mouth in one swift move without needing to look—a skill he’s earned from years of practice. “Ignore her,” he tells Alex. “Please.”

Manaow punches him in the back, but he’s used to that, too.

Alex offers Manaow a half-hearted smile and says, “It was nice, thank you. I was told you’ve been staying here as a guest for quite some time.”

Manaow pries Team’s hand away and smiles. “Oh, yes! For nearly a year now while I attend university. It’s lovely weather in Orane all year round, you know. You should visit more often.”

Team gives her a sidelong look of exhaustion. “Did you forget that he’s here to see me?” he asks.

She giggles and winks at Alex, then hisses into Team’s ear, “I’m saving you.“

Team flattens his expression. “I can do this without you,” he says. “Go on, I’ll find you later.”

She examines his face with visible doubt, and only when Team takes her wrist and gives it a gentle squeeze does she sigh and say, “All right. I’m going into town for snacks. I’ll bring some back for the three of us.” With another coquettish smile for Alex and a rippling trill of her dress, Manaow leaves them alone in the garden.

“Sorry about her,” Team says. He’s about 60% sure her goal of ”saving” him from Alex are self-motivated, but it’s kind of sweet. Sort of.

Alex says, “It’s fine,” and sinks his hands deep into the pockets of his tunic.

The formal clothes of Team’s country don’t have pockets, which has always been a source of frustration for him, so he settles for folding his arms.

“If you don’t mind,” Alex says, “I’d rather not use that room they set up for us.”

“Oh, good,” Team says. “Me neither.”

I’d rather not do this at all, Team thinks.

The silence between them slowly curdles.

Earlier today, in the middle of lunch, a minister announced to the queen and her son that Alex had arrived with his entourage. Rather than prolong lunch for the queen and her son, Alex requested food to be sent to their guest quarters, so Team knew then that he wouldn’t see Alex in person until they had to meet to talk about…this.

Despite the hours since then and the days he’s had to prepare since agreeing to Alex as a marriage candidate, Team still doesn’t have a single word to offer.

Eventually, Alex quirks a humorless smile at him. “You don’t want to marry me,” he says. “I know.”

Team doesn’t deny it, but he grimaces. “Don’t just…say it like that.”

“You don’t, though, do you?” Alex says. He takes his hands out of his pockets and rolls his shoulders back, easing into the moment now that the obvious has been said. “Everyone knows who you wanted to marry. I’m not your type.”

Visceral anguish sets Team’s nerves on fire. “I don’t want to talk about that.”

Alex raises both eyebrows at a glacial pace. “Team,” he says, “why did you ask me to come here?”

Team scowls down at his toes. “I didn’t have a choice,” he says. “They made me pick someone, and you were the only guy on the list.”

“Wow,” Alex says, flat. “How charming. You’ll have to tell me over dinner how your previous engagement lasted so long.”

Team grits his teeth. “Don’t —”

“Ugh, Team,“ Alex groans. “I don’t care what happened between the two of you. I don’t care why it ended. I’ve heard all the gossip, I’ve heard every single potential reason from every minister and council member in my court over the past year, and frankly, all of it sounds equally boring. The point is, you shouldn’t call people to your country under the guise of marriage if you’re just going to act like a petulant brat when they arrive. Placate your mother on someone else’s time.”

It’s all true, but Team clings to the tendrils of his fury anyway. “Why’d you even agree to come then?” he asks.

Alex exhales in a vocal gust. “Well, this isn’t to encourage you to do this to anyone else, but I’ve actually wanted to see the theatre in your country for quite some time, and this seemed like a good opportunity.” His lips curve in a smirk. “I figured we’d get this nonsense out of the way on the first day and then I could spend the rest of my trip treated pretty nicely by everyone you’ve embarrassed by rejecting me.”

Team grimaces. “That’s…pretty oily,” he says.

Alex tips his head to one side, neither agreeing nor disagreeing. “You invited me,” he points out.

And, well.

He did.

Team gives up on the grass stains and sinks down with a defeated thump onto the lawn. “Fuck this,” he sighs, rubbing his face with both hands.

The long ensuing silence seems to indicate Alex’s departure, so Team squawks and jumps back when Alex sits in front of him, their knees close but not touching.

“I always appreciated your viewpoints on a lot of things, Team,” Alex says. His eyes are fixed on the grass rather than on Team. He runs the blades between his fingers, his voice quiet when he adds, “Part of me might have hoped you meant it.”

Team opens his mouth, then closes it.

Finally, enough remorse builds in his chest that Team has to say, “I’m sorry,” and bow his head.

Alex pats his knee with a dry, awkward laugh. “You’ve had a rough year,” he says.

Team lets his eyes close and rests his face in his hands, his elbows propped on his knees. “I should’ve married him,” he admits in a whisper.

For a year, Manaow and his mother have tried over and over to make him talk about his failed engagement. The one that got far enough along in the process that commemorative wedding memorabilia were created and sold in their honor. The one that Team devotes 85% of his waking hours to ignoring. The one that hurts as much today as it did the day it ended.

Alex has gotten him to talk about it in five minutes.

“He hasn’t married yet,” Alex offers. “He’d probably still be up for it, if I know anything about him.”

“Can we…not talk about this anymore?”

“Of course. Sorry.”

Ultimately, Team is only in his formal clothes for about an hour. He spends the rest of the day hiding from his mother in his room with Manaow, eating the snacks she brought back and listening to the stories she picked up while in town.

•

Team manages to avoid his mother for two whole days. She must know there’s been no formalized engagement, but she wouldn’t expect him to agree on the first day anyway. He’s free to go about his day without seeing her, making careful adjustments to his schedule so it won’t overlap with hers at any point.

On the third day, however, she plays a devious trick on him and takes a nap in his bed while he’s buying books in town with Manaow.

She wakes up when he opens the door, and he has two and a half seconds to bolt that he’s too surprised to take.

“Oh, good,” she says. She’s dressed in her usual clothes of state, which make her mussed hair and her whole presence on her son’s bed in the middle of the day even more ridiculous. “Your bed is far more comfortable than mine, you know. I thought we got our bedding from the same supplier.”

Team walks in and closes the door behind him. “What are you doing here?” he asks.

“Checking in with my precious offspring,” she says. She stretches her legs out with an elegance instilled in her from her many years of formal dance training, then sits on the edge so they’re eye to eye. “Come sit,” she says.

Slowly, he does.

Years ago, before the king died, their country struggled to provide security and food to its people. Their flatland borders were often crossed by their two neighboring enemies to the east and west, and annual droughts plagued their agriculture. After the king’s death, the queen took merciless military action against their enemy to the east, gambling on the intensity to intimidate the one in the west as well. It worked, and through staggering negotiation, she managed to arrange a marriage between Team and the middle prince of their enemy to the west.

No one expected their engagement to go so well.

Thus, no one expected it to end so poorly, either.

To this day, tensions continue between Orane and their neighbor to the east, but the failed engagement seems to have embarrassed Orane’s neighbor to the west into a temporary standstill.

Team rubs his hands together in his lap, focused on the length of his fingers and losing the fight against the memory of how much longer his fiancé’s had been.

“I presume your meeting with Alex didn’t lead to a happy union,” the queen says.

Team huffs. “No.”

She nods. “I see.”

He senses her eyes on him, but he doesn’t look to confirm it.

“Team,” she says, quiet, “it’s been a year.”

He sets his jaw and focuses on breathing evenly. He’s refused to talk about it all this time—he’s not giving in now just because Alex somehow got him to say stupid things from his stupid heart.

“If you still want to marry—”

Team says, “Please,” and surprises himself with how rough he sounds. “Stop.”

She’s quiet for another few moments, then she stands. “Give Alex a chance. Maybe go with him to a show or two. You’ve never spent real time together. He may still grow on you. That’s how it went last time.”

Team doesn’t say anything to that.

Last time was different, he tells himself. I loved him from the start.

•

Team was too young to fight when the wars were fought in his country, and his duties in peacetime are much fewer than what his mother has to do (though apparently one of those is taking naps in her son’s room so she can ambush him), so he usually has more free time than he’d like. Having Manaow around is nice, but when she has to go to classes, he’s back to square one.

So he does as his mother suggested and approaches Alex. It’s been over a week since their conversation in the garden, and apart from polite conversation at mealtimes, they haven’t spoken again since. One afternoon, Team searches for Alex until he finds him in the courtyard reading a play aloud to himself—portraying both roles.

“You would never know the agony I’ve lived with,” Alex says, his face creased with imaginary pain.

Then, like a wrinkled sheet pulled taut, he changes to a face of pure nonchalance. “I don’t care to hear about it.”

“You must! Take responsibility for this dagger in my core, you treacherous—”

“Uh.”

Alex snaps the book shut and offers a smile about two degrees too wide. “Team! Good afternoon.”

Team grins. “Having a bad day?”

Alex’s smile becomes more of a wince. “If you’re only here to laugh at me—”

Team says, “No, I’m not. I actually wanted to ask if I can come with you tonight. To the play.” It’s alarming how easy it is to say.

It’s easy to ask if you don’t really care what the answer will be, he thinks.

“Oh,” Alex says. “I guess I can make space for you in the box, sure.”

“Great,” Team says.

Alex stares at him with mild interest for a second, then gives him a cautious grin. “Want to act opposite me?” he asks.

“Definitely not,” Team says.

“You might be good at it.”

“I’m more than a hundred percent sure I won’t be.”

“How can you be more than—”

“Trust me. I’m doing it right now.”

Despite his teasing, Team stays to watch for a little longer. He has to admit, Alex isn’t that bad of an actor.

•

When Manaow hears that Team is going to attend The Theatre with Alex, she invites herself along. With enthusiasm, she inserts herself between them, gleefully hanging on Alex’s every word whenever there’s a break to stretch their legs.

As far as Team is concerned, Alex’s polite exasperation is ten times more entertaining than the play.

•

The next day, Alex invites Team to walk with him in the garden. They talk about the play for a bit, then when it becomes clear that Team only paid attention to half of it, they segue into talking about the upcoming festival that falls on different days in their respective countries. They argue playfully over whose festival date is more accurate, and eventually agree that probably neither of them is right.

The day after that, Team brings out a strategy game and challenges Alex. He’s surprised by how badly Alex loses, and when Alex reluctantly admits that he’s never played before, Team spends the rest of the day explaining the rules and strategies.

Three days later, Team and Manaow bring Alex along on a hike to visit the nearest mountain temple.

By the end of the week, Alex’s presence is expected on daily excursions, and Team’s almost forgotten why he’s here in the first place.

•

One night, two weeks after Alex’s arrival, Team’s opening the windows of his room to let in fresh air when a firm knocking calls his attention to the door. He frowns, considering and eliminating who it could be in rapid succession. His mother wouldn’t knock, a minister would have announced themselves by name—

“Team, open up.”

His eyebrows surge up.

…Dean?

Propelled by sheer curiosity, Team crosses the room and opens the door.

It is, indeed, Dean. Impeccably dressed, as handsome as ever, solemn like everyone he’s ever loved has died.

…Also normal, for him.

“D-Dean? What are you doing here? Is there a war?”

He’s only half kidding. War is common.

Dean skips pleasantries altogether and says, “Win’s outside,” and with that, Team’s world loses all meaning.

After a moment of terrible confusion, Team realizes his jaw is trembling. No one’s said that name to him in over a year. He clenches his teeth together to try and control his body’s visceral reaction as slow-dawning horror fills his veins.

“Why is he here?” Team asks. Smoldering embers, never fully banked, begin to glow behind his ribs.

Dean’s expression finally comes to life with a hint of exhaustion.

“Go talk to him, please,” Dean says. “He wants to see you.” When he seems to realize that that won’t be enough to persuade Team, Dean adds, “He’s been staying with me since your engagement ended, Team.”

It’s a struggle to keep from reacting to that. A year is a very long time, and Dean’s country is very, very far from Win’s.

“Listen,” Dean says, ”we’ve been traveling all day, and I’m very tired. He’s been bitching about Alex for the last ten hours, Team. Even if all you do is tell him to fuck off, at least it’ll be something definitive between you two and he might be quiet for the ride home tomorrow.“

Team has only known Dean for a couple of years, not nearly as long as he’s known Win. He can’t just tell Dean to fuck off.

So Team finds himself asking, “But why is he here?” in a small voice.

Dean’s mouth quirks to one side. “I couldn’t do the whole speech justice, honestly,” he says. “He’s the one who’s been practicing for hours.”

Team frowns. “What kind of speech?”

Dean says, “Go find out,” and with a last meaningful look, he heads off down the hall toward the area where Alex is also staying.

•

The first time Team formally met Win, he was fourteen years old and Win was sixteen and the pavilion they were introduced in was stuffed full of flowers.

Team walked in determined to like Win for the sake of peace between their countries, but the moment their eyes met, he forgot why he was there altogether.

He’d already been nervous. Faced with the reality of Win, he was terrified.

•

Team hesitates in the hallway leading to the courtyard. He can’t hear anything except for the water spilling down the terraced fountain and some scattered insects chirruping in the garden beyond the walls. Throughout the journey from his bedroom to this spot, Team’s mind has summarily rejected what he’s doing. If he lied to himself now that he just imagined Dean showing up at his door, Team could probably just go back to his room and hide there until morning.

Win probably wouldn’t come as far as his bedroom. He was always respectful of the customs and boundaries set in place for their engagement, and even now, he sent Dean rather than go himself.

He still won’t cross those boundaries, even with their engagement broken a year in the past.

Suddenly, there’s only a rough tangle of sore muscles where Team’s heart used to be.

Before he’s ready, Team exhales and strides into the courtyard.

But then…he was never going to be ready, was he?

He’s not at all ready to see Win sitting on the wall of the fountain, staring directly at Team like he knows Team was standing just out of sight like a nervous kid hiding from his nightmares.

Team stops in the center of the courtyard with the stars overhead and his ex-fiancé regarding him with fire in his eyes.

He can’t make his mouth work.

It’s horribly, gut-wrenchingly unfair that the first word Win says to him in over a year is, “Alex?”

Team’s body locks up, his mind flooded with equally strong urges to turn around and leave and also to walk forward and shove Win into the fucking fountain.

Spurred by an urge to deflect, Team says, “So? What do you care?”

Win jerks back like he’s been hit, his mouth open in indignant silence. “You can’t be serious,” he says. Suddenly, without Team noticing when or how it happened, Win’s off the fountain and they’re in arm’s reach of each other. “What do I care? What do I care?” He takes a step forward, and his voice drops in volume. “You broke it off, and you never told me why. For a year, I’ve been—”

Team says, “Dean told me. Y-you’ve been in his country.” He could take a step back, but he doesn’t.

Win nods. “I thought…” He jerks his head to the side, staring furiously off at nothing. Then he says, even more quietly, “I thought maybe you’d tell me. Eventually. And we could fix it someday. But you never did. You never even answered me when I wrote to you.”

Team swallows. He has the letters, every single one Win’s sent since Team ended their engagement. All of them remain unopened.

Manaow knows about them and has threatened to read them on multiple occasions, so Team had a chest built to lock them inside and store them under his bed. The key to that chest is on a chain under his clothes right now, as he stares at the person who wrote all twenty-seven of them.

Win waits for Team to say something, and when Team can’t, Win just sighs.

Once, when Team was very young, before the worst of the wars between their countries, he saw Win at an event for the first time. They were both in formal clothes, but Win had a wicked smile that made him look exciting and fun. Later, after they were engaged, Team saw a lot of that smile.

There isn’t even a trace of it now. Nor any of the life that’s always made Win stand out in any crowd.

Team’s never felt so small.

He thought Win would look the same as he did the last time they saw each other, but he’s changed. Physically, he’s sharper. He doesn’t move with the same lazy grace. Emotionally…—

Team flinches when Win meets his eyes again.

“And then I heard you’re engaged,” Win says. “To someone else. To Alex. You barely know him!”

With his heart beating rabbit-fast, Team blurts, “So you traveled ten hours to ask if it’s true?”

“No,” Win says, and he takes a step back. The flash in his eyes suggests that he knows how maddening it is for Team. “I traveled ten hours to ask you why.”

“‘Why’ what?”

Win snorts. “Pick a thing. Why you broke it off. Why you’re engaged to him. Why you wouldn’t write back to me. Pick a thing.”

“I’m not engaged to him!” Team yells. “I’d never marry Alex! I’m not marrying anyone!”

Maybe not the smartest thing to yell in an open-air courtyard, likely close to wherever Alex is sleeping for the night, but this is what happens with Win around: Team’s understanding of restraint ceases to exist.

Win folds his arms. “Not what I heard,” he says. His shoulders aren’t so tense anymore, though.

“He was a candidate,” Team admits. “But I’m…not—I don’t want—”

Win never breaks eye contact. “What do you want, Team?” he asks. “I don’t think you knew last year. I think you do now.”

Team’s throat closes up around his answer.

“Win, that’s enough for tonight.”

Team stares up at the sky, willing his eyes to stay dry as Dean walks into the courtyard. Win makes an irritated noise in the back of his throat.

“I’m not done,” Win says. “Let him answer.”

“C’mon,” Dean says, his voice pitched only loud enough for the three of them to hear. “It’s late, and there are at least five people eavesdropping on the second floor.”

Team immediately scours the balconies of the halls on the second floor, but whoever Dean’s talking about has either hidden themselves well or made themselves scarce when they heard Dean’s voice.

When Team drops his gaze, Win is already staring at him.

Team inhales as evenly as he can.

“Fine,” Win says. He doesn’t move, doesn’t look away from Team. “May we talk tomorrow, then?” He asks like he’s talking to a foreign dignitary, someone he barely knows.

“Fine,” Team says, stung.

“Fine.”

Team watches Dean pinch Win’s sleeve between his fingers and lead him away.

In retrospect, Win probably asked like that to annoy him into reacting.

It’s infuriating to be known so well.

•

When Team was thirteen, the war between his country and Win’s finally ended after a year and a half of devastation on both sides. He didn’t hear about the marriage agreement until after his mother had proposed it to Win’s father.

His mother sat him down in her bedroom and explained to him that marrying Win could lead to a lasting peace for Orane, and to please consider it as an option. “The wedding itself wouldn’t happen for a long time,” she says. “You’d be engaged to him for a few years first. When you’re sixteen, you’ll be free to decide when you want to make it official with a ceremony.”

During the worst of the wars with their neighboring countries, Team saw fire take the gates of the palace. Heard terrified screams when there were distant noises in the night. Smelled blood from the streets beyond the palace walls. At thirteen, he only vaguely remembered the peacetime of his youngest years, and any chance to return to those hazy pastel memories made his heart race.

But—

“Can I…stay here, or do I have to go there?”

His mother’s smile appeared like a glancing touch and then vanished. “Of course you’ll stay here, sweetheart. And Win will stay in his country. We’ll arrange for meetings in a neutral territory on our borders while you get to know each other. And when you meet with him, you’ll always have someone with you to protect you. You’ll be as safe as you can be.”

Team had a rough idea what a marriage like this would be like. His own parents had married for advantageous reasons and had functioned rather amicably until his father’s death. It wouldn’t be romantic, but he’d never considered romance a priority. He wanted to spend days outside the palace walls again. He wanted his mother to look young again.

So Team said, “Okay.”

•

Back in his room, Team grapples with coherent thought.

Win’s here.

Somewhere on this same floor, probably.

Maybe asleep. Maybe awake, like Team is.

It hits him like a rock to the jaw that this is Win’s first visit to the palace. As far as Team knows, Win’s never been this deep into Team’s country before, and this is not how Team dreamed of it happening.

With his mind still absorbing the events of the last hour, Team doesn’t even consider sleeping. Instead, he brings the chest of Win’s letters out from under the bed, wipes off the layer of dust with his hand, and stares at it.

Every time a letter arrived from Win this year, Team checked to make sure the seal was unbroken, then hid it away. When Manaow started looking nosy, he had the chest custom made and began to lock the letters inside. To this day, as far as Team knows, no one has seen their contents but Win.

After a long time spent persuading himself to do it, Team pulls off his necklace and holds the key near the lock of the chest, ignoring how his hand shakes.

•

The first time Team actually spoke with Win was years after his first glimpse of him and a month after their first formal introduction. They met in the port city of Fauri on the border of their countries, and were accompanied at all times by attendants and ministers.

Team doesn’t remember what they talked about that first time. He was fourteen and nervous, and Win was sixteen and already growing into an almost legendary beauty.

When Team returned home, he met with his mother and reported on how it went. “He seems to like you,” she said.

Team had no idea how she’d gotten that impression from what he told her. From his perspective, Win was just being polite. But the thought of Win liking him made their eventual marriage sound more fun, so he didn’t say anything more to change her mind. He didn’t want her to validate his own doubts.

Months later, before Team left for his second meeting with Win, his mother said, ”Remember, Win is the middle son, so he’s less of an asset to his family line. That’s why they’re allowing him to marry another boy. But he’s still a strong political piece, even without natural heirs. We want Win to be not only your husband, but Orane’s ally as well.”

Team asked, “Wouldn’t he be both anyway?”

His mother’s smile was quick and cold. “Not necessarily. One is on paper, one is in blood.”

The ominous chill of that conversation hung over the entirety of his second meeting with Win.

He doesn’t remember a single thing they talked about.

But as Team and his entourage prepared to leave, Win gave him a letter and asked him not to read it until he was on the boat.

•

Teerayu,

First of all, please don’t show this letter to your mother or to anyone else. It’s nothing bad. I just want to have some way to tell you some things in private. I hope you don’t think that’s too forward of me. I’m sorry if it is.

I know your birthday is next month, and we probably won’t meet up again until afterward, so that’s why I was able to give you this letter when we parted ways. I told my attendants that it’s birthday money. That kind of thing is common in my country, so I also included a few of our coins. They were made recently, actually, so they should be shinier than the coins you’d normally see.

I’m looking forward to seeing you again. I know you can’t spend the coins in your country, so try and save them for the day when you can come to mine.

-Win

Win’s never signed any of his letters with his formal name, but back then, he always used Team’s. To a fourteen-year-old prince, that seemed like the height of romance.

Exhaling, Team closes the letter, the first Win ever sent him, and puts it back into the bottom of the chest.

After a small pause, he reaches for the next one.

•

A week before Team turned sixteen, war began again. A country to the north of Win’s quietly and coyly expanded into their territories, and Win’s father reacted swiftly and harshly, bringing his two older sons along for the brutal campaign.

Win had been trained to fight from birth, but he confessed to Team in a letter that he’d never actually fought another person with the intention of harm before. Win never outright admitted it, but Team inferred that he didn’t enjoy it.

Win sent Team regular letters from the campaign, and Team wrote back as quickly as possible, sometimes asking the messenger to wait while he wrote a reply in the same room. As familiar as Team was with the distant sounds and smells of war, he didn’t like the idea of Win being even closer to it.

The first letter Win sent to Team was friendly, like most of his letters before the campaign. He talked about the march north, about the nature and wildlife they’d seen. Team suspected Win was avoiding the darker and heavier aspects of the march.

The second letter, a month later, was a little less careful. A little more tired.

The third letter, handed to Team only two weeks after he’d sent his response to the second, began,

My sweet Teerayu,

I’m sorry if this is sudden, but I thought I should confess something after all this time. I’m really looking forward to being married to you someday, if that’s what you decide.

From there, it segued roughly back to the neutral tone of his past letters, as if Win had read through the opening and didn’t know how to continue. But that unexpected blush of romantic intent, the first since the day they were introduced, had Team rereading the whole letter over and over, his fist covering his mouth.

He was sixteen. He had the right now to refuse or accept Win as his husband.

He didn’t know what to say. He might’ve had a better idea, if Win had been with him. It seemed strange to decide something like that with Win so far away.

Team doesn’t remember most of what he wrote back to that particular letter, but he spent hours agonizing over how to address Win in return. He only remembers writing,

My maybe husband,

in the hope that Win would find it funny.

On the back of Win’s fourth letter, Team noticed that the seal had been broken and then carefully resealed. Before he could think too deeply about it, however, he read Win’s letter, which began, My absolutely husband. Team forgot about immediately about the seal.

But the same was true of the fifth letter as well. Nauseated by the thought of anyone else seeing Win’s honest thoughts meant only for him, Team wrote back, I think someone’s been intercepting your letters to me, and forced himself to seal the letter without adding any of the personal news he’d wanted to share.

Only after the letter was gone did Team realize he hadn’t told Win to be safe.

He’d done so in every letter until that point, and he’d grown somewhat superstitious about it.

Team spent the next two months without a letter back. He woke from constant nightmares in which Win fell, cut down by a sword because the only thing protecting him until then had been Team’s written wish that he stay alive.

When Win’s fifth letter arrived, Team didn’t even check the seal. He tore open the letter in front of the startled messenger, saw the word, Team, at the top, and inhaled like he hadn’t breathed in a year.

Win had never called him that before. It marked the turning point of him using only that.

Below Team’s name, he wrote, I don’t care who’s reading them. I think I have an idea who it might be, though. It’s not something we can help, unfortunately.

Which could only mean it was Win’s father.

When Team told his mother at dinner, she nodded. “He’s checking on you. Making sure things are going advantageously.“ She added a small eye roll to show what she thought of that. “He could always ask.” Then, with a cloyingly sweet smile designed to irritate her son, she asked, “How is Win?”

Team continued to receive Win’s letters, rereading every word and committing them all to memory. But he was made sick every time he saw that broken seal. How much of Win’s words were real, now that they suspected that his father was reading them?

It had been over a year since they last met. The campaign had gotten more complicated now that their northern enemy had involved some unexpected alliances with stronger ground forces, and the battles seemed to drag on endlessly. Despite Win’s attempts to glaze over the worst details, Team read closely enough to spot grave indications that the campaign wouldn’t be ending any time soon.

One night, Team approached his mother reclining in her bed with her own correspondence. He held Win’s letter by his side and said, “We should help them.”

She glanced at the letter in his hand as though she’d expected this, and said, “No, love.”

“If he dies, you won’t be able to marry me off to him,” Team pointed out with all the certainty of a boy on the cusp of turning seventeen.

“He has two brothers,” his mother said.

Team stared at her, his jaw trembling.

“Their army is strong,” she said. She offered a pale smile. “Your Win will be fine.”

“I can’t keep reading these and doing nothing for him,” Team said.

His mother sighed and massaged her temple, the length of the day taking its usual toll on her in the form of a migraine. “Our military hasn’t recovered enough to fight a war on the scale of the one they’re fighting,” she said. “The reason you’re marrying Win at all is to ensure that we stay at peace. At least until we’ve amassed the forces and strength to defend ourselves again the way your grandfather was able to.”

She continued talking. Of strategy. Of history. Of their country’s future.

But the reminder of why you’re marrying Win—that no matter how much this felt like romance, it would never be purely love—had filled Team’s head with ice.

He returned to his bedroom and sat in the dark with Win’s letter, his only connection to the man he was realizing he might have already loved long before this.

Team signed his next letter, Your Team, with a defiant hand.

Win wrote back, Your Win, and Team wanted more than anything for that to be true.

The seal was broken on that letter, too.

They didn’t meet again until the war ended a year later. They met in Fauri a week before Team’s eighteenth birthday, at the same palatial oceanside residence where they’d spent their other meetings in the years past.

Accompanied by attendants and ministers as usual, Team had to act as he was expected to act, and fight down every urgent fiber in his body screaming at him to run into Win’s arms the moment Win walked into the room, smiling softly and only for Team.

He still regrets that he didn’t.

Team has never kissed Win, never even held him, and that would have been the perfect time to try.

•

When Team reaches the first unopened letter, received over a year ago, the sky is pink with sunrise and his face is wet.

His heart beats heavily, exhausted and overtaxed. Ever since the end of their engagement, Team has tried to put Win out of his mind as much as he possibly can, but reading Win’s past letters, knowing he’s so close now, has brought it all back. And somehow, everything is stronger.

Team drags his sleeve over his face as he breaks the seal, marveling with bitterness how rarely he’s been able to do that with Win’s letters. He’s expecting a lot of words, and unsurprisingly, there are indeed a lot.

His hands shaking from lack of sleep, Team begins to read.

Team,

I wish I knew how to start this. I don’t understand what happened with us.

I guess that’s how I’m starting.

My father won’t read this. Now that I’m home, I can send it with someone I trust. He’ll make sure it gets to you unopened. I’m sorry I couldn’t do the same while I was away.

I don’t understand what you’re thinking right now. I thought we’d figured each other out pretty well over the years. I thought I knew you. No, I still think I do. I can think of a dozen reasons you’d want to break off the engagement. It was never your choice, for one thing. It was our parents who decided it.

That’s it, isn’t it?

I’ll admit, I objected when my father first told me about you. I had a lot of prejudices about your country back then. I was fifteen and sort of single-minded, and nothing I believed then has survived to this point, so I won’t bring it back here. What I’ll say is that I didn’t like the thought of my father marrying me off to a stranger to gain an advantage over a country we’d just fought against, even though I’ve always known that political marriage is all he’s ever planned to use me for.

I want you to know how quickly that changed for me.

The first time we met—not at the introduction, I mean in Fauri—I actually forgot why we were there. It was just like spending time with a friend. It was exciting to be outside my own country on my own for the first time, and being with you made it feel like we already had our own small country all to ourselves.

You’ve always made me feel that way. Like we’re on our own side, against everyone else.

I don’t know why you ended it. I told you I’d respect your choice. I meant it. I still mean it.

I just can’t sleep recently, so I thought I’d write this and ask one last thing of you. I hope you’ll let me.

Why?

-Win

Team rereads it once more, his eyes glazed and barely sighted before he’s made it halfway through, and when he blinks, he has to move his hand before his tears dash the letter.

Another twenty-six unopened letters remain in the chest, all of them different bulks and sizes. All bearing thoughts and emotions Win must have thought Team was receiving all along and choosing to reject, rather than just remaining silent out of ignorance.

Team’s not sure which is worse.

Leaving the lot of it on his bed, he smears his sleeve over his face and leaves his room.

He walks the halls by memory despite the dark, and when he’s almost to the room he thinks Win would be given, Win himself steps out of it.

Even when Win was sixteen, there was something unique about him physically, beyond merely how attractive he was. His clever eyes saw everything, and his smile hid secrets. Now, six years later, he’s very much the same and likely an enigma to everyone else, but Team has been trusted with some of those secrets.

Some.

But he wants all of them.

Team sees in Win’s eyes the moment he understands that something between them has changed, and Team goes to him without considering anyone or anything else. He grabs Win’s wrist and hauls him back into the bedroom, closing the door behind them and locking it for good measure.

“Were you crying?” Win asks. He twists his arm out of Team’s grasp and reaches for Team’s face, his eyes wide.

Team ducks past him and crosses the room to shut the curtain over the window as well. When he turns around, Win’s eyebrows have risen.

“Team…?”

“Wait,” Team says, “let me just—”

For the last six years, Win has been just out of his reach, and it’s twisting Team’s heart now to have him so close. He should have brought just one letter so he could have something to hold onto while they talk about this.

“Ever since the moment we met,” Team says, struggling to keep his voice even, ”we’ve never once been alone like this. Even last night in the courtyard, there were people eavesdropping on us. Dean was listening to us. My mother planned all of this from the beginning, your father read our letters, and you’re right, I didn’t get to choose this, not really. I’ve never even kissed you. Nothing—nothing about us has ever been ours. We didn’t make any of this ourselves.”

His voice shakes even though he’s too angry to cry.

“I didn’t want you to be a strategic move my mother was playing,” Team says. “I didn’t want this unless it was a hundred percent ours, and I didn’t think we’d ever have that. That’s why I broke it off. But I never, ever didn’t love you.”

Team’s never said it out loud. Not to his mother, or Manaow, or any of the ministers who demanded answers for the years of planning and negotiations he’d dashed in the mud with one dark afternoon. He’s certainly never said it to Win.

While Team spoke, Win’s expression shifted through emotions Team recognized—sympathy, concern, annoyance, understanding—but it settles on one Team has never seen on him before.

Fear, he realizes.

It’s easier than Team expected to close the distance between them. There’s no one watching them now, and Win doesn’t move away. On the contrary, when Team circles his arms around Win’s back, Win holds on to Team’s waist just as tightly.

“Team.”

Throughout years of falling like a stone for this boy, Team never knew that Win’s arms could hold him so securely, like there’s nothing at all outside the circle of them. He never knew how Win’s warmth smelled. Never knew the rhythmic pressure of Win’s chest rising against his own. How soft the skin of Win’s neck is, where Team hides his face.

“You were crying,” Win says. His lips are so close to Team’s ear, the heat of his breath touches Team’s skin.

“You won’t be a political marriage for me,” Team says. It’s half-smothered against Win’s neck, but judging by the way Win’s body shifts in his arms, Win understood perfectly. “I just read that letter, by the way,” he adds. “But anyway, I swear, you’re not a game piece to me. You never have been.”

Win doesn’t react, not physically or otherwise, for about ten seconds.

“You didn’t read my letters?”

His voice is absent, like he’s in another reality altogether.

“I was afraid to,” Team says. He holds on tighter. “I’m sorry.”

After a frozen second, Win drops his head on Team’s shoulder.

Team winces. “Are…you okay?”

“I think I’m relieved,” Win says. “Check back with me later. You brat.”

For the first time in perhaps a year, Team laughs without the shadow of grief.

•

An hour later, Team opens the door to the queen’s bedroom and shouts, “I’m marrying Win!” loud enough for half the palace to get the news all at once.

She’s in bed, cup of tea held to her lips, reading glasses perched on her nose.

Her beautiful, stubborn son stares at her with insurrectionary anger across the gap separating the door and the bed. Beside Team, Win visibly struggles to uphold his usual composure. She suspects part of his challenge stems from Team’s iron-tight grip on his hand, their fingers laced very intimately in front of his fiancé’s mother.

“Oh,” she says. “Hello, Win, I’m glad you arrived safely.” The sip she takes, with the addition of this new information, is even more satisfying than the last.

It wasn’t easy getting news of Alex and Team’s adorable day excursions up to the palace Win’s been holed up in all year, but when one’s network is broad, one can work miracles.

Team isn’t mollified by her politeness to Win. “We’re going to the mountains,” he says. “For a week. Alone. And no one’s coming with us.”

“Interesting,” she says. “Which mountains?”

Team scowls. “Mother!”

“Passionately in love or not, you’re a nineteen-year-old prince with a twenty-one-year-old who is not only a prince as well, but also a foreign guest of this Royal House and apparently your fiancé again,” she says. “Either you go to the mountains with accompaniment, or you try and find your privacy somewhere in the palace.”

Team narrows his eyes. “What if I abdicate and become a hermit in the woods?”

Win glances at him, his face full of silent judgment.

Team notices and pretends he hasn’t, tilting his chin higher.

“You can try that,” she says. She doesn’t bother hiding her amusement. “I think if you want to keep Win, though, you’re going to have to provide a slightly higher class lifestyle than eating bark in the woods.”

Win very adamantly doesn’t deny this.

Undaunted, Team says, “Fine, but the accompaniment has to stay in a separate building. And I’m staying with him.” Her son lifts Win’s hand as if she could mistake who he means.

“You’ll have to discuss that with them,” she says. “Is that all?”

Team blinks at her. “Y…es,” he says.

“All right,” she says. “Congratulations on your re-engagement. Please don’t upset Alex or encourage Manaow to comfort him.”

“Deal.”

•

The moment the door to the queen’s bedroom is shut, Team gives Win a beleaguered scowl. “Why do I get the feeling she planned this too?”

Win lifts his hand to Team’s face and strokes his cheek with his thumb. “Do you care at this point?” he asks.

Team tries and fails to quell a smile. “Maybe…not this one time,” he says.

•

To His Royal Highness Prince Aood of Sourea,

Your presence has been very helpful these last few weeks.

As a symbol of our gratitude, you shall find included with this message a written agreement with the Orane Theatre Royale for lifelong complimentary access to the Royal Box.

May you enjoy a safe return to Sourea.

Yours in allegiance,
The Royal House of Orane