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Prince John stared out of the small window and sighed. Well, technically it wasn’t even a window. It was more a missing brick in the wall roughly a foot underneath the ceiling that had iron bars in it to keep him from escaping. As if he could ever manage to get that high up. But if he angled his head just right, he could see a little bit of blue sky.
He didn’t really understand why he was staring at that bit of blue, but in his experience all tragic heroes had to stare out of a window at some point in the play. Apparently, his brother King Richard had seen the same stage productions because he hadn’t had the common courtesy of giving him a real window to stare out of. No. His brother made him lean against the cold stone wall and tilt his head in a weird angle. On purpose! He had not even been allowed to keep one of his crowns with him in his cell. That stupid…. king!
Prince John sighed again and gave up on the staring. It was boring without snarky comments from his left side and he couldn’t see the point of it anyway. He started pacing through the cell instead. Back to planning, back to rescuing his favorite sidekick. Another thing he had learned from all these theatre visits with Rottingham: Heroes always rescued their love interests.
Prince John stopped abruptly in his paces and reexamined his last thoughts. Love interest? A sudden warmth spread through his entire body as he gave his vague feelings a proper description. Unbidden, his mind conjured up an image of the Sheriff of Rottingham in a white shirt pouring a bucket of water over himself in slow motion. Despite the fact that none of this made sense, Prince John started to enjoy the fantasy being played out in his mind. He even saw himself joining Rottingham, being enthusiastically greeted by him. Wide-eyed he looked on as the Sheriff pulled his fantasy self closer and closer into a tight embrace, their faces almost touching. Rottingham’s hands travelled upwards and cradled fantasy John’s face, pursing his soft lips in anticipation and then…
His daydream was rudely interrupted by a soft knock on the cell door.
“Your highness?” came a hoarse whisper from the other side.
“What? Who?” Prince John was flustered and out of breath despite having just stood there. Thinking. His cheeks burned like those of a child with its hand in the candy jar. “A moment! I’m not decent! As a matter of fact, I’m am naked, very much naked indeed!”
He panicked for a moment and ran headless from one side of the cell to the other in complete silence until he spotted the enormous pot of face cream on his makeshift vanity. A present from Latrine that had come a few days earlier. He could hear the key grate ominously in the lock. Without a second thought he dunked his face in the ointment, reemerging just as the door opened squeakily.
“It is me, my liege. I came to rescue you”, said a familiar voice from the door.
“Rotty?!” Prince John whirled around and stared in shock at the door. There he was, handsome as ever. Perhaps a bit worse for wear but most definitely there! “What are you doing here?! I was planning to rescue you.”
A few seconds of silence followed that exclamation, before the Sheriff of Rottingham deflated a bit and answered. “Want again you me do leave to? Order you, beg me don’t I!”
When Prince John reacted with confusion, Rottingham cleared his throat and started over: “Do you want me to leave again? I beg you, don’t order me. I don’t want to go back to Latrine! You don’t know what that woman wants me to do!”
Those few moments were enough for Prince John to find a resemblance of his former princeliness again despite having the ointment slowly dripping off his face. “Well, no. Now that you are already here, you may save me. Please, save me! It is rather terrible here. And I am in dire need of some good news.”
A smile returned to Rottingham’s face and he stepped to the side to let the prince out of his cell. “Very well. In this case I have excellent news for you. I have everything prepared for our great escape. They will never catch us!”
While Rottingham explained his cunning plan, Prince John watched him avidly. Each time the Sheriff talked about them escaping together, being together, his heart skipped a bit ahead and more warmth filled his body.
“This is the conclusion of the plan. I think it is very doable”, finished Rottingham.
“Yes, I think you are very doable”, agreed Prince John and took Rottingham’s hand expectantly. “We should start immediately with this escape business. Like in those theatre plays that we have watched together.”
Rottingham nodded and made to leave, but Prince John did not move. It took a moment, before the prince’s words registered in Rottingham’s mind. “Wait, what?”
The Sheriff looked at Prince John, really looked and the prince felt like he was melting and floating at the same time while simultaneously falling into those dark mysterious brown eyes. But that could have been just a side effect of too much face cream. Only god knew what Latrine had mixed in there.
Nevertheless, a wordless understanding was reached between the two men. Slowly, ever so slowly, Rottingham leaned forward. Prince John’s heart started to flutter like a captive bird in a cage as his counterpart drew closer. He licked his lips in anticipation. In just a second his fantasy would become reality.
Rottingham moistened his lips, too, before he started to whisper in a low concerned voice. “Why is there so much ointment on your face? You do realize that my awful wife is trying to poison you, right?”
And with these words in his ear Prince John fainted.