Work Text:
A long, long time ago, in a faraway kingdom, there once lived a handsome prince. Though the prince was very lonely, his life changed when he met a frog…
❦
Dimitri’s gazing into the well when he sees it. It’s a small and slimy-looking murky blue thing, with a long teal stripe running down its back and matching teal splotches on its tiny arms.
“Hello, Sir Frog,” he says pleasantly, because princes must always be gracious and kind, and the strength of a kingdom relies on the bond of mutual respect between its royal family and its subjects, even if the subject in question happens to be of the amphibian persuasion.
“I hope you don’t mind me sharing your space for a brief moment. No one knows I’m here, and I must confess I find the solitude quite freeing.”
The frog stares at him with uncanny focus, looking up at him with large, round eyes.
“Ah. Perhaps you don’t speak human. My apologies.” He clears his throat and does his best imitation of a frog's croak. The first one comes out terribly, so he tries again and manages a semi-decent grock!
The frog gives him a thoroughly unpleasant look, one that makes Dimitri feel as if it's looking into the deepest parts of him and judging him inadequate. But a king can never look away from his subjects, so Dimitri finds himself locked into an uncomfortable staredown with the tiny frog. It’s beady black eyes bear into his as he tries to outstare it. He loses.
“I’m sorry, I’m afraid my tutor isn’t fluent in frog,” he says sheepishly. “So I sincerely apologize if I offended you.”
The frog turns around and hops into the well, and Dimitri hears the loud plop! of a clean dive.
“Goodbye, then! I hope to see you around!” He says, because in addition to being gracious and kind in the face of impudence, a ruler must always be courteous and open to further dialogue.
His only response is the susurration of soft, echoing waves.
❦
The next time he sees the frog, Dimitri’s admiring the finely-forged dagger he snuck out of the royal armory, holding it up to the sky and admiring how the gray steel seems to cut through the sunbeams. Then a dog barks somewhere in the distance and he fumbles the blade into the well.
“Sothis's bones,” he says mildly. Catherine and Gustave will both throw separate fits and he’ll never be allowed to enter the armory again.
He leans over the lip of the well and squints into the darkness, hoping without much real hope that he’ll be able to see the dagger. As his eyesight adjusts to the murky depths, he begins to pick out individual textures, patches of lighter gloom and deeper shadows, the faint dancing gleam of what must be water lapping at the walls of the well, and— the same little teal-striped frog. It’s stuck to the side of the well, feet splayed and gripping the interior of the well as it climbs upwards.
“Oh, it’s you,” Dimitri says in surprise. “Hello again.”
The frog startles and pushes off the wall. There’s a telltale splash somewhere out of sight.
“I’m sorry,” he calls tentatively into the well, “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
Of course, since frogs can’t talk, this one doesn’t respond.
“I don’t suppose you could get that for me,” Dimitri sighs, talking half to the air, half to the frog. Though his tutor would surely have a fit if he were to see Dimitri talking to himself, there’s no one around to hear it.
So it’s a shock when a sharp, masculine, undeniably human voice echoes up the well towards him. Dimitri jumps in a very unprincely manner.
“In case you haven’t noticed, I’m a frog.”
“Yes,” Dimitri replies hesitantly. “I suppose I have noticed that.”
“And you nearly sliced my arm off with that sword you dropped,” the frog says dourly.
“I’m sorry,” says Dimitri. A dagger would seem like a sword to a small frog. “I can—”
He’s not sure what he can do for a frog that’s insinuating that the crown prince tried to kill him, other than lock him up in the dungeon, but the frog saves him from that by interrupting.
“I’ll get it for you,” the frog says, “if you promise to marry me.”
Dimitri doesn’t think twice about agreeing. It’s just the silly little whim of a frog: what harm would it do to agree? It probably wouldn’t really be able to get the dagger out of the well, and even if it did, he can't be expected to uphold agreements with animals. Anyway, he’s far more afraid of what Gustave might say when — if — he finds out about the fact that the Crown Prince has lost a priceless, three hundred year old relic from the royal armory.
He’s thinking about the last time Gustave lost his temper when the frog crests the well with the dagger clamped firmly in its mouth, its tongue wrapped around the hilt. Dimitri starts a little, then reaches toward the frog.
“Thank you,” he says, gingerly taking the dagger by the blade and wiping the slimy hilt off on his sleeve, shearing part of it off in the process.
The frog's not actually going to ask him for his hand in marriage again, is it? Dimitri does his best to angles his body subtly away, but his shoulders are stiff with tension and he's not sure he's doing a good job of it. To his dismay, the frog hops closer and settles next to him, looking up at him expectantly.
It's got a long mouth, Dimitri notices, and some funny little holes that he assumes are nostrils. He's never really paid attention to frogs before, but this one is... maybe cute, in a strange, bugeyed way, if you can get over the tangible sliminess of the thing. Not cute in a marriageable way, but surely the other frogs would consider it a catch. Maybe he could suggest that, gently? Before he can open his mouth, though, the frog beats him to it.
“I like swords,” the frog says. “Let me see it.”
“Of course,” Dimitri says, relieved. Compared to marriage, this is an easy request to grant, especially for a dagger that he’d otherwise have lost forever. He brings it closer to the frog, though this time he is careful to keep a firm grip on the hilt. A dazzling droplet of sunlight slides down the blade.
“Very nice. It’s not a Zoltan, but the steel is sharp.”
“You know about swords?”
Maybe he can distract the frog with conversation. With any luck, by the time he manages to back gracefully out of the conversation it will have forgotten about his offhand promise.
“Do I look like a peasant?” the frog snaps in response. “Of course I do.”
On top of being... not human, this frog is also inexplicably rude. Dimitri has a sudden vision of bringing it home to meet his parents: scooping it up, cradling it in his hands, and introducing it as his betrothed. Father would disapprove of its frogliness, but Stepmother would throw a fit over its manners.
“Ah. Well. I didn’t know they taught about swords in… frog… school…” Dimitri trails off as he realizes the absurdity of the statement.
“Well they do.” The frog narrows its eyes at him. “Any other offensive preconceptions you want to get out of the way?”
“Oh, no.”
“Good. Now kiss me.”
What? Oh, no.
So it hasn't forgotten after all. The frog looks expectantly up at him with its big, glassy eyes.
“Are you sure you’re not… poisonous?” Brightly colored amphibians are normally poisonous, right?
The frog croaks in what Dimitri can only assume is dismissive laughter. “Yes.”
“Yes you’re sure, or yes you’re poisonous?” Dimitri hedges.
“I’m not poisonous. Now kiss me.” The frog hops closer to him. Dimitri can’t help but notice the wet frog track on the stone of the well, a strange wet six-pointed star.
Father and Stepmother always encourage him to mingle with the commoners and nobles alike, and remind him often that the wisest and most important trait of a ruler is to be gracious to all regardless of standing, but… Stepmother also gets upset when he tries to feed the “stray” castle cats, despite the fact that he would have caught whatever diseases they carried long ago if they really were plague-carriers.
He’s pretty sure this frog, poison or no poison, has some kind of disease. Now that he looks closer, it’s got little warts on its butt.
“I— ah, I’m,” Dimitri stutters, thinking about the warts but also about the frog’s tangible sliminess, “I’m not, I’m, uh—”
His etiquette tutor never prepared him for situations like this. Dimitri finds himself at a loss. What does a prince say to a talking frog who's bullying a kiss out of him? Young Men of Quality has multiple sections for dining and declining maidens, but no sections at all about magical animals. Will this frog curse him if he refuses outright?
“We’re getting married, aren’t we? Married couples do a lot more than just kiss.”
“Well,” he flounders, because in all honesty his tutors didn't include interspecies sex in the curriculum of his admittedly meager sexual education, “That’s true.”
“So. Kiss me. I’m waiting.”
Nothing for it. He screws his eyes shut and puckers his lips and leans down, feeling very foolish. Every sensation is magnified in his embarrassment — the prickling of his bangs against his forehead as he leans down, the quiet lapping of water far below in the well, the dampness in his armpits — as he presses a gentle kiss to the top of the frog’s head.
Just as he expected, the frog’s head is not only cold but also has a strange viscous gooeyness to it. He can almost feel the string of slime connecting his lips to the frog as he pulls away and cracks his eyes open warily.
The frog is staring up at him angrily.
“Not there, you boar,” the frog says.
“Ah… where, then?”
“My lips, of course.”
“What?” Dimitri recoils. The top of his head was bad enough, but the lips? Dimitri is eighteen and a prince, and this very rude, very warty frog has just asked for his first kiss.
“I won’t say it again,” the frog says in clear exasperation.
“But…”
“Fine,” the frog says, and disappears. Before he can really register what's happening, something cold and slimy stamps his mouth.
Dimitri gasps belatedly and lifts his hands to his lips. As expected, there’s a slimy residue. He wipes it off surreptitiously and looks around for the frog but the frog’s not there and —
There’s a naked man mooning him. His arms braced on the lip of the well, his long, dark hair flowing over his shoulder and into the well, and his bare buttocks pointed directly towards Dimitri.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, Dimitri notes that they really are quite shapely buttocks. The rest of his mind very carefully averts his eyes and prays to the Goddess to save him from this pervert.
“Your Highness? Your Highness!”
Though he’s never really believed in Sothis, he’s pretty sure she’s sent him an angel in the form of Gustave’s voice. Dimitri breathes a sigh of relief as he scrambles to his feet and takes off.
Though the frog disappeared, oddly, Dimitri can still hear his voice behind him as he runs. “You... swindler! Come back here!”
He picks up the pace. There's no way a frog could make it to the palace, much less find him in it. It's not the most graceful of exits, nor is it very polite, but it's better than the alternative of hanging out with a flasher and marrying a frog.
“I’m so sorry, but I must go!”
In his haste, Dimitri forgets the dagger.
❦
He’s pushing a cloud of tasteless, mushy peas across his plate at dinnertime, listening with only half his attention as Father and Stepmother discuss something — the upcoming knight’s tournament, he thinks — and thinking about how the green of the peas is distinctively amphibian. The congealed coating of gravy on the peas gives it an even stronger visual of viscous frogginess, and every time he forces one into his mouth takes him back to the feeling of the frog’s damp slime on his lips.
Now that he’s calmed down in the safety of the castle, he wonders what happened to the frog and the pervert. He’d run off in a panic at the sight of that man’s… butt, and then Gustave had discovered him on the outskirts of town immediately. In his frantic relief at finding Dimitri, he hadn’t noticed the dagger’s disappearance at all, but his subsequent anger at Dimitri’s disappearance was nearly just as bad. The resulting two-hour lecture and punishing set of lance drills to complete had distracted Dimitri from his debacle of an afternoon, but the texture of the peas keeps calling his mind back to the frog and then, by association, to the pervert.
“What did you do today, dear?” Stepmother's question jolts him out of his woolgathering. "Did you make any friends?"
Ever since the social season started Stepmother's been hounding him to make friends, but truth be told, the sons and daughters of the court are all so dull, more interested in brown-nosing, matchmaking, and gossip than weapons and sparring. Spending more than twenty minutes at a time enduring their fluttering and false cooing is nigh insufferable. In comparison, the brief conversation he had with the rude frog was practically riveting.
"Darling?" Stepmother prompts. Dimitri lifts his eyes from the plate and opens his mouth hesitantly.
“He snuck out and gave Gustave the palpitations,” Father says, casting Dimitri a stern look.
“Ah. Yes,” Dimitri says, abandoning the amphibious peas altogether and bracing himself for the conversation. He’s learned from experience that owning up to it results in a lighter punishment, and perhaps admitting that his peers hold no appeal to him might get him out of some of the worst social events. “I—”
There’s a sudden scuffle outside the door, a muffled shout, and then the doors to the royal dining chamber crash open and a lean man with flowing dark hair bursts in. Dimitri's up and out of his chair, his sword drawn in an instant, and out of the corner of his eye he can see that Father's sword is also unsheathed and at the ready.
“There you are,” the man says, seemingly oblivious to the alarm in the room. “Pretty rude for you to just up and leave, after what we agreed upon.”
Dimitri freezes. That voice… and this man… they’re both strangely familiar. The voice is harder to place, but the appearance of the man is easy. It’s the pervert. Earlier, he'd only caught a glimpse of the man's side profile, as he was distracted by the man's other features, but the long eyelashes, the haughty forehead, and the sharp nose are all unmistakable.
“Dimitri,” Father says quietly. Though Dimitri can hear the echoing clanks of panicked guards outside the room, the air inside is still and thick with tension. “Who is this?”
“I’m his future—“ the man begins, but Dimitri cuts him off in a panic.
“I have no idea,” Dimitri says, because feigning innocence is better than admitting that a strange pervert had mooned him in the commoner’s district. Said pervert shoots him a scathing glare.
“Have you already forgotten your promise? Perhaps I should keep this, then?” The strange man holds the royal dagger up. Father frowns.
“You—“ Dimitri says, cutting himself off in bewilderment. He obviously picked the dagger up after Dimitri dropped it, but how did he know to come here, and why is his voice so familiar? And why does he feel, instinctively, that he can trust this strange pervert?
He realizes in an instant that if he wants these questions answered, he only has a few moments to maneuver the situation. Trustworthy or no, the pervert did just break into the royal castle. The instant the uncanny tension in the room is broken Father will have the man in chains.
“Like I said,” the man says, “I’m his future—"
“My future guard!" Dimitri interjects, his voice full of affected recognition. He locks eyes with the stranger, doing his best to signal him to play along. "I offered him a place after he did me a great service. He saved me from some thieves earlier today. My apologies. I didn’t recognize you in this lighting.”
Father raises an eyebrow. “I see you were not entirely honest with Gustave about today’s adventure, then.”
“Yes, I apologize.”
“And how did this man come into possession of a royal dagger, then?”
“Ah. I… lent it to him, as a token of my goodwill.” Dimitri says haltingly. "I suppose I didn't think things through. I should have given him my seal instead."
“And you say you promised him a spot in the Prince’s Guard?”
“Yes… he’s talented with a sword,” Dimitri lies. It’s true that the man must have some level of talent, given that he either snuck in with minimal alarm or incapacitated half of the royal guard on his way through the castle. But the exact talent is a useless mystery — after this frantic tangle of lies, the trespasser will have to prove himself, or he'll be exiled or thrown into the dungeons after all of this is over.
“I see,” Father says, sharing a thoughtful glance with Stepmother. “What do you think, dear?"
“Let’s put him to the test,” Stepmother says. “If he’s as talented as our sweet Dima suggests, it would be a shame to turn him away. I’ll have Gustave arrange a bout.”
“Fine,” the man says with disdainful confidence, wrenching the door open and ignoring the groaning guards on the floor. “Lead the way.”
Dimitri hustles to the man and tugs him away from the dining chamber and in the direction of the barracks, leaning in and muttering hurriedly under his breath.
“Look, you have ten seconds to explain how you got that dagger before I unveil your farce.”
The man splutters. “Farce? If it weren’t for me, you would have lost that dagger twice over.”
Twice over? “What do you mean?”
The man looks at him in outrage. “Don’t you remember nearly killing me with that thing?"
He doesn't. He doesn't recall interacting with the man at all, actually, only turning and fleeing after catching sight of too much skin.
"You weren’t very grateful when I went and got it for you, either. After I nearly drowned trying to pull it to the surface.”
Dimitri stumbles over his own feet trying to decipher this incomprehensible statement. The first time he’d met this man was today, when their meeting wasn’t so much a meeting as an… unwanted private viewing. And what does the man mean, drowned ? He was in no danger of falling into, much less drowning in that well. But it was true that someone – some animal – had pulled the dagger from the water for him…
It made no sense. It couldn’t be. But—
“You’re… the frog?” Dimitri’s voice squeaks on the last word.
“Felix, actually.”
“Felix, the frog from earlier?”
“In a sense, I suppose. And you’re Dimitri. The prince from earlier.”
“Yes,” Dimitri says. “But how are you a human now?”
“It was a curse,” Felix the man says, “to be cured by true love’s kiss.”
“True—“ Dimitri splutters, then composes himself. “True love?”
“Isn’t that what we have?” Felix looks sourly at him. “You did promise to marry me.”
“Yes. About that,” Dimitri says hesitantly, then wilts as Felix turns the full force of his scathing expression on him. It's an inconvenient moment to notice how beautiful his eyes are, mahogany and sharp with irritation, his glare made harsher by his long, dark lashes.
“Er. Well.”
“You agreed,” Felix says bitterly. “I didn’t take the prince for a liar.”
“I’m not— I didn’t lie, exactly,” Dimitri hedges. “Only… no one will accept a mysterious stranger as the prince’s consort.”
“Hm,” Felix says.
Now that he’s hit upon a reasonable path of thought, Dimitri picks up steam. “And just think, at least this way you can build credibility with my family. And perhaps we could… get to know each other a little more? Before we officially get married?”
“Hm,” Felix says. “I see. You’re right. Credibility is important.”
Dimitri breathes a sigh of relief as they round the corner into the training yard.
❦
Dimitri doesn't want to admit it, but the man is breathtaking with a sword. Felix trounces four different guards in close combat, defeats a lineup of progressively larger and larger halberdiers, and is finally defeated by the collective powers of Gustave and Annette when he takes a cluster of Saggitaes to the back. Despite losing his weapon and getting knocked onto his face, he stumbles to his feet and into a ready stance before Gustave calls the bout. Annette takes to him immediately after that, fluttering around him like an excited mother hen and plying him with her battle ration of cookies. Even Father and Stepmother, though doubtful of his origins, approve of him joining the Prince's Guard on probation, though they insist, reasonably, that Felix is always paired with another guard.
Felix proves to be not only a competent guard but also an astute escort, equally skilled at handling a sword and at deciphering political affairs. Though he’s rude and stormy on the outside, Dimitri actually enjoys Felix’s company. There are only two problems.
The first, that Dimitri finds himself enjoying Felix’s company a little too much. Felix is abrasive but he's honest, which is more than can be said for the majority of his peers, and despite Felix's nonexistent social status, he doesn't reflexively defer to Dimitri, which is refreshing. In truth, not only does Dimitri adjust to Felix's candor, but he also comes to realize that he enjoys it. Aside from the emotional comfort Dimitri receives in a companion whom he can trust to be honest, Dimitri is unexpectedly delighted when they discover that they share the same hobbies: weapons, training, and physical activity — and Felix never restrains himself when they spar. All of these factors taken together mean that though Felix is functionally part of Dimitri's retinue, he becomes more of a friend than a guard.
His unforeseen fondness for Felix is smaller issue, one that Dimitri can convince himself is due to the loneliness and isolation of being crown prince.
The second issue, which makes the first one worse, is this: Felix seems to be neither a true frog nor a true human. And the trigger to maintain his humanity is a kiss.
They discovered this on the first day of Felix’s official appointment as Dimitri’s guard. Dimitri had woken up to a very disgruntled frog on his pillow, shrieked (quietly), and fallen backwards off his bed.
There had been a lot of finger pointing that morning, mostly from Felix towards Dimitri, accusing him of not loving Felix enough, which was a conversation Dimitri ultimately managed to postpone with a slightly sticky kiss as compromise.
For their second kiss, Dimitri was prepared for the sudden spectacle of a naked man, though it was a little jarring to see the pervert from the well on his bed. But then Felix turned to glare sullenly at him over his shoulder, and Dimitri had been mesmerized by the little mole on his bare shoulder, framed by the drape of his long dark hair.
Somehow, Dimitri finds himself thinking of that mole often. Like now, as he watches Felix with a wary eye as they circle each other on the beaten dirt floor of the sparring courtyard. Felix’s hair is up in a ponytail today, but the long ribbon of it snakes around his neck to fall softly down his shoulder, reminiscent of a heat wave off summer-baked earth.
Felix lifts his sword and darts towards the right. Over the last few weeks, Dimitri’s come to read all of Felix’s tells in battle: the tiniest shift in stance, the tightening of his grip on his hilt, the way his frown deepens when he’s feinting. Like now. The furrow in his brow is all Dimitri needs to see to know to lift his lance and parry to the left.
Felix frowns as their weapons meet in a cacophonous clash, his eyes flicking up to meet Dimitri’s.
He’s struck by the liquid amber of Felix’s eyes, shining clearly in the winter sun, and the slant of his scowl, magnified by the deep lines under his eyes. He’s never seen a man who looks as beautiful as he looks disgruntled, nor has he met a man whose beauty shines even more strongly because of the deep annoyance in his expression.
… Or despite the ghastly greenish warts pimpling rapidly across his forehead.
“Wait, Felix,” he gasps, as Felix’s sword grinds against the handle of his lance with bone-jarring force, “stop, stop.”
Felix eases off, eyeing him cautiously.
“This isn’t a trap,” he says, framing the question as a sentence, frowning harder.
“No, I’m serious. Your, ah. Warts are coming out.”
Felix curses through gritted teeth and sheathes his weapon.
“Come on, then.”
He grabs Dimitri by the wrist, towing him towards the resting nook, where he leans Dimitri’s lance carefully against the weapon rack.
“Have at it,” he says, lifting his chin up expectantly, his eyes already closed in anticipation.
“Here?"
Felix cracks an eye open and squints at him.
“Ashe's looking the other way, and everyone else is busy. Go on.”
Dimitri can feel the flush rising up his face. He knows Felix views kissing only as a means of reversing the curse, but… Felix makes it sound like he wants to be kissed, just for the sake of kissing. And the way Felix is looking at him, face upturned, his one open eye dark and piercing under his long lashes, sets his heart skipping.
This isn’t normal, is it? Felix is a frog. He shouldn’t be getting so flustered about kissing a frog.
Dimitri takes a deep breath, leans down, and pecks Felix’s mouth quickly. When he opens his eyes again, Felix is glaring at him from under stormy brows, looking for all the world like he’s swallowed a nasty bug. The warts are receding from his face already, and within seconds, his forehead is smooth and bump-free again.
“Finally,” Felix grumbles, casting his gaze away and thrusting Dimitri's lance back towards him. Did he misread the situation? Was kissing him that unpleasant? Dimitri's heart sinks as he studies Felix's frown. Perhaps... perhaps he's been reading Felix wrong, and he's been imposing upon Felix's feelings by viewing kissing as something romantic.
Felix raises an eyebrow at him. “What's the holdup? Let’s get back to it.”
Dimitri grips his lance and follows Felix back onto the arena, feeling for all the world like a fool.
❦
Dimitri can’t quite put his finger on how time passed so quickly that it’s tournament season again, but he supposes that the days have been eventful since Felix became his guard, and for that he is thankful. Today, though Dimitri can’t quite grasp why, Felix is fully a frog, sitting in the palm of his hand as they watch men trade blows from lance to sword, sword to ax.
“Dimitri,” Felix says, “kiss me.”
They’ve done this so many times now that Dimitri no longer even hesitates, not even in clear view of the hundreds of spectators gathered to witness Fhirdiad’s annual tourney: he lifts Felix up gently, then brings his lips to Felix’s. The novel feeling of Felix’s slimy body slipping past his fingers is unusual, and he’s not sure it’s ever felt like this before, but the strangeness is overshadowed by human-Felix’s expression: a strange compound of soft anticipation, a departure from his usual sullen look. Somehow, Felix is fully clothed. Dimitri files that away as a detail for later, even as he’s caught up in the intensity of Felix’s eyes.
The moment is broken by the announcer, who heralds the beginning of a new match.
“His Royal Highness Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd!”
Dimitri smiles ruefully at Felix and vaults over the fencing and into the arena.
“Felix the Frog!”
Dimitri glances back in shock at the title, only to find Felix smirking at him from outside the fence. He follows Dimitri onto the pitch, settling into a ready stance, one eyebrow quirked tauntingly. The strange warmth of his expression has been tempered with something more familiar: bloodlust.
“Draw your swords!”
In an instant, the torches ringing the arena flare up as one, and Felix is on him.
Just like their kiss, the way Felix’s blade clashes with his is strange yet familiar. This, too, is something they’ve practiced over the months. There’s nothing Felix loves more than a good fight, and Dimitri is happy to indulge, finally finding someone who can withstand the brute force of his crest. They move back and forth across the field in near silence, neither side giving more ground than it takes, until Dimitri buckles under a particularly forceful swing, falling to his knees.
Felix closes in on him like a leopard ready to pounce on its prey, but instead of lifting his sword to Dimitri’s throat, he keeps it steady at his side and steps closer, closer, until his face is inches away.
There’s a light in his eyes, tender and wild, that sets alarm bells off in Dimitri’s head. He kicks the pole of his lance into Felix’s stomach, buying himself a few moments to roll sideways and to his feet.
Something isn’t quite right here. Dimitri, lanceless, backs away carefully.
“Felix? Is everything alright?”
Felix ignores him in favor of stalking closer, his blade glinting sharply and his expression sharper. Dimitri’s back hits the rough-hewn wooden planks of the arena fencing.
“It’s just— I, I don’t know. Something feels off today. You’d tell me if something was wrong, wouldn’t you?”
Felix tosses his sword aside with barely a glance, despite the fact that it lands sharp edge first, clattering loudly in a way that warns of nicking, and that’s the first true indication that something is deeply off.
“Felix—"
Felix pushes closer and though they’ve never touched like this before, his warm body and its peculiar solid weight of muscle and bone against Dimitri’s feels so oddly natural. Felix sighs and tangles his cold, wet hands in Dimitri’s hair. His icy hand against Dimitri's neck is a shock of sensation that startles Dimitri into making eye contact.
The second warning that the situation is not right: the molten light in Felix's eyes, kindled with something new and unfamiliar, burns hotter than the torch at Dimitri’s back.
Dimitri freezes, his whole body stiff, his nerves brittle as quenched steel.
“Dimitri,” Felix says, and as he shifts his body upwards he brings his hands down from Dimitri’s hair and settles them around his waist instead. Dimitri takes the movement like a jolt to his soul. He opens his mouth one more time, but Felix seals it with his own.
He’s never kissed Felix without a clear reason before. The first thing he thinks, which is why? is quickly replaced by the overwhelming sensation of Felix’s warm lips on his, unbearably soft and sweetly floral. Felix holds him up as his knees buckle, and Dimitri can feel the smile on Felix's lips as he brings his arms up and wraps them around Felix’s back.
Then a warm, wet thing swipes across Dimitri's lips and forces its way inside his mouth. Dimitri opens his mouth and pushes his own tongue out to protest, but his tongue, against his will, keeps going and going and going, and Felix gets larger and larger even as his face gets farther and farther away.
A black smudge twitches in the outer edges of his vision. Something pulls his tongue out of his mouth, snapping with uncoiled tension, and Dimitri watches in detached horror as a long pink thing unfurls into his peripheral vision and rebounds just as fast. It's his tongue, clamped around a buzzing, winged insect.
As the bug’s leg crunches in his little slimy, froggy mouth, suffusing his mouth with an unfamiliar nutty sweetness, he hears Felix’s ghostly sigh, whisper-soft.
“A curse to be cured by true love’s kiss…”
Dimitri jerks upright in his bed, heaving in alarm. His shirt, damp and clammy, sticks unpleasantly to his skin.
“Dimitri? Is anything wrong?” Dimitri can detect a tinge of annoyance in Felix’s calm, steady voice. The familiarity of Felix's displeasure, so unlike the strange disposition of his dream self, is grounding. Dimitri can see him now: standing guard behind the door, hand on the hilt of his sword, an irritated slant to his fully human face.
“Ah,” Dimitri starts. How could he begin to explain his dream, when he himself isn't quite sure what it means? How would Felix, who frowns every time they kiss, possibly take it?
“No, everything’s fine. I was just… startled by a bad dream.”
“I see,” Felix says. “Get some rest, then.”
“I will. Thank you, Felix.”
Dimitri settles back onto the sheets, but it takes him a long time to fall back asleep.
❦
The next day, he can hardly bring himself to look at Felix. Their morning training session becomes a nightmarish exercise of staying alert to the movements of Felix’s body while simultaneously not looking at any parts of Felix’s body. He gives up on searching for a safe body part to look at when he’s so focused on Felix’s earlobe that Felix nearly cleaves him in two.
It only gets worse from there. Everything begins to remind him of that dream. Father announces, with unbridled delight, the formalization of a new trade agreement with Brigid, and serves large, tough-carapaced sea insects for lunch. The lobsters, apparently a Brigid delicacy that were shipped on ice through the new trade route, resemble nothing more than colossal crickets with mutated mallets for forearms, and require specialized tools in order to eat. As Dimitri cracks one of the spindly red legs, he’s reminded of the crunch of the bug in his dream.
After lunch, Father forces him to endure the court and its petty machinations, and Dimitri sits with increasing disquiet as the main troublemaker this season, dressed in a murky shade of green that mirrors the underside of a frog’s belly, tries with varying success to evade accusations of fraud. By teatime, Dimitri is so queasy that even Gautier cheese has no appeal to him: the dewdrops of condensation on a hunk of hard cheese evoke froggy warts. At the end of the day, just looking at Felix sends Dimitri into a tizzy of panicked embarrassment, and, mortifyingly, mild arousal.
So Dimitri does the sensible thing and avoids talking to Felix, going near Felix, or doing anything that’s whatsoever related to Felix.
It all makes him feel very foolish, but what’s the alternative? To fall in love with Felix, for real, and turn into a frog?
So he avoids Felix, and one day turns into two, and two days turns into two weeks. And then the day of the annual tourney arrives, and Dimitri finds he can avoid Felix no longer.
❦
His luck holds out all the way up until Felix bests the seventh man in a row and glares straight at him from across the field. Dimitri pretends to double-check the match lineup, though he’s already looked at it five times in the process of avoiding Felix’s gaze.
Though the members of the royal family have never needed it, every year the tournament organizers seem to try to weight the matches in their favor: they’ll stagger the tourney rounds in such a way that veterans and anyone who looks vaguely threatening (as Felix does) has to fight through up to twelve challengers, while Dimitri himself only has to fight two or three challengers before being crowned the victor. It’s a little embarrassing and frankly, Dimitri considers it insulting, but every year Father only laughs and brushes his concerns off.
As expected, Felix has finished defeating everyone in his way except for Dimitri. There are only a few matches left, and the one they’re about to begin is included in the tournament almost as a formality. No one expects a mere guard to seriously try to defeat his own employer, much less when the employer is the crown prince. But Dimitri knows better.
Despite Dimitri’s best efforts, their eyes meet across the field, and Felix mouths, you’re next. Dimitri’s heart hammers like a caged, wild animal.
Felix glares at Dimitri the whole time he wipes himself down, then, in a strange echo of Dimitri’s dream, vaults over the fencing and stalks to the center of the arena.
“Your Highness?” The umpire looks uncertain. “It’s time for your match.”
“Ah,” Dimitri says, then stutters his apologies as he walks into the ring towards Felix, who frowns as he approaches. Up close, Felix is devastating, his top buttons completely undone and a sheen of sweat across his face, the effect of his proximity intensified by the two weeks of distance Dimitri tried to put between them. Felix notices his distraction, but the moment their eyes meet, Dimitri looks away.
“Dimitri, what is wrong with you?”
“Er, it’s nothing.”
“Nothing, my ass,” Felix says, frowning harder as he draws his sword.
“I just haven’t been feeling well,” Dimitri responds vaguely, drawing his own. Though he’s better with the lance out of necessity, today’s tourney allows only swords.
“Not feeling well? For two weeks?”
“Yes.”
“Yet you haven’t gone to the palace doctors once in these two weeks.”
“Ah… it comes and goes.”
“It comes and goes. Whenever I come and go, right?”
For a split second, Felix’s eyes look almost glossy with wet light. Then the torches signaling the start of the match spark and flare and Felix is upon him like a sudden seething strike of lightning.
“It’s not–” Dimitri says, bringing his sword up to parry Felix’s blade. He gasps at the weight of the blow; though all seven men that Felix fought were born fighters, built like bulls, Felix doesn’t seem to have tired at all. “It’s not–”
“Shut up,” Felix says, knocking Dimitri backwards with the flat of his blade. Before Dimitri can recover, Felix’s sword is cutting through the air and it’s all he can do to lift his blade to deflect. Felix forces him into the defensive, pushing him backwards across the field. Vaguely, Dimitri registers the crowd cheering intermittently.
Time passes in a flurry of clashing metal, and Dimitri nearly forgets himself and his caution around Felix in the physical joy of combat. It doesn’t matter who wins, really, until Felix has him knocked on one knee, the steel of their swords vibrating jubilantly. Dimitri braces the flat of his sword defensively in his hand as Felix grins savagely and bears down on him.
“Is this all you’ve got?”
The words spur something in Dimitri and he rallies, his crest activating unintentionally and knocking Felix to the ground. The crowd murmurs. Crests aren’t allowed during regular tourney matches, and the fact that Dimitri has activated his, unintentionally or not, casts a poor light on him.
“Your Highness,” the umpire warns.
“I know. I apologize. Felix, are you alright?”
Dimitri offers his hand, but Felix frowns and stands on his own.
“You may begin any time,” the umpire says, then backs out of the ring.
They lock eyes on him and circle each other on the field once more. Dimitri feels as if he’s been jolted outside of himself, somehow: the accidental activation of his crest, something that hasn’t happened in years, is unnerving.
“Scared now?” Felix taunts even as he keeps distance. Dimitri isn’t fooled, though – Felix is fully in control of the situation, and his attitude is akin to that of a hunting lynx shadowing its prey.
“Hardly,” Dimitri huffs, though in truth he does feel a little uneasy, at his crest, at his own feelings, at the way Felix looks at him like something untamed.
Felix calls his bluff. “Then why have you been avoiding me?”
He knows it’s a trap, but Dimitri can’t help but lunge towards Felix. “Avoiding you? Hardly. See?”
Felix laughs. “You’re so clumsy,” is all he says before he disarms Dimitri entirely and has him on his back before the entire audience. Felix levels his sword in front of him, the point hovering just above Dimitri’s sternum, leaving just enough air for the rise and fall of his chest.
“If you’re tired of me, just say so. You don’t have to avoid me like this.”
“I’m not—” Dimitri starts, but he’s cut off by the raucous cheering of the crowd, which is loud enough that the umpire gives up on trying to announce the winner. Instead, he crosses the field, allows Felix to help Dimitri up, then holds Felix’s sword arm up in the air.
The spectators erupt into cheer again, loud and long enough that the umpire’s bright smile begins to slide off his face.
“Perhaps we could just… wait it out somewhere private,” Dimitri suggests, and the man nods gratefully and ushers them off the field.
Dimitri is fully intending on sneaking away, but Felix clamps a firm hand on his wrist the moment they exit the arena and all but tows him to a hidden nook beneath one of the stands, then backs him into the corner.
“If you’re not tired of me,” Felix says, caging Dimitri in with one hand on the wooden support behind him, “explain the last few weeks."
“I,” Dimitri stutters, “I don’t know how to explain it, only that it doesn't affect you.”
“Wrong answer,” Felix snarls, leaning closer. Though Dimitri can feel the vibration of stamping feet and the hooting of the crowd all around him, suddenly, in this dark alcove, this tiny, dusty little bubble, the only thing he can focus on is Felix.
He could push Felix away, run out of this overwarm situation, but something in Felix’s eyes stops him.
“I,” Dimitri tries again. “I just had a lot of thinking to do.”
Felix leans in closer. “And what did you conclude?”
“I, uh,” Dimitri says, squeezing his eyes shut. He cracks one eye open, hoping that Felix has eased off, but Felix is still there, somehow looming menacingly despite being a full head shorter.
He takes the plunge.
“IdreamedwekissedandIturnedintoafrog.” Dimitri pushes the words out in one hurried breath.
“What? ” Felix says, startling out of Dimitri’s personal space.
“IdreamedwekissedandIturnedintoafrog.”
Felix stares at him for a long moment, then the corners of his mouth twitch upwards and he’s bending over in full body, ringing laughter.
“You— you dreamed we kissed,” Felix manages between peals of laughter, “and you— you, you turned into,” he braces a hand on the dirty ground, “into a frog?”
Dimitri, standing upright against the wooden structure, suddenly feels rather sheepish in the face of Felix’s mirth.
“It was a terrible dream,” he insists weakly.
“We’ve, we’ve kissed, dozens of times,” Felix forces out, wheezing.
“It all felt very… real.”
“The curse only works one way,” Felix adds as he clutches his stomach.
“Yes, well… this all makes me feel very foolish, now.”
Something in his voice gives Felix pause, and he takes a moment to pick himself off the floor and muffle his laughter. He doesn’t do a very good job of it, because the corners of his mouth still twitch every time he looks up at Dimitri, but somehow Dimitri appreciates the effort anyway.
“So you spent two weeks avoiding me because of a nightmare?”
“Please, Felix. Don’t mock me.”
Felix must see some kind of distress in his face, because his laughter settles remarkably quickly.
“Well, do you want to try kissing again, just in case?”
Now Felix’s eyes are grave and fierce. Despite the very human din and the stomping vibrations in the air, it almost feels as if their entire world only exists under the dusty stands, just big enough for two people.
"But you don't even like kissing me," Dimitri complains, feeling lost and utterly foolish in the odd intensity of the situation.
The remnants of Felix's smile dissolve instantly. "What are you talking about?"
"You always frown when we kiss, even though I try to make it quick." Dimitri says plaintively. He never meant to bring this up, but now is as good a time as any, since Felix's opinion of him can probably fall no further. Felix stares at him for a moment longer, then, inexplicably, the corners of his lips start to twitch upwards again.
"Dimitri, you are such a boar. I look displeased exactly because—"
Felix cuts himself off so abruptly that it's worrying, and Dimitri's hands reach out for Felix's face on instinct. He furrows his brows and scrutinizes Felix's face for any discomfort, but other than his normal peeved expression, Felix looks fine. If he had to say, the only unusual thing is that Felix's cheeks feel hot—
Felix is blushing. Dare he hope?
"Because?"
"Look, I won't ask again. Do you want to try kissing one more time, just in case?"
“In case I turn into a frog, you mean?”
Felix sighs, his face now bright red. “Yes. That. But you won’t.”
The situation is overwhelming. Dimitri stares down at him, mouth agape, unable to find the words to express himself, or even any words at all.
“Do you want to kiss me? Yes or no, Dimitri.”
Dimitri’s breath hitches. The way Felix is looking at him now, in the dry warmth under the stands, with the cheering crowd all around them…
“Yes,” he breathes. After two weeks of separation, Felix exerts an extraordinary pull on him. Even more so now with his face aglow. “I do.”
“Took you long enough,” Felix says, then puts his lips to Dimitri’s.
This time, the kiss is dry, chapped, and hesitant, but it lasts a lot longer than any of their other kisses, and by the end of it, neither Felix nor Dimitri are frogs. There’s a little shocked noise when their lips separate, and Dimitri realizes with no small surprise that the sound came from himself.
Felix laughs.
“Like I said, took you long enough,” he says, and leans in once more.
❦
A long, long time ago, in a faraway kingdom, there once lived a handsome prince. Though the prince was very lonely, his life changed when he met a frog. The frog, though alarmingly warty, was a gifted swordsman, a trusted confidante, and an excellent kisser ⟿
❦
“Stop that,” Felix says, batting the pen out of Dimitri’s hand. “That’s historical inaccuracy.”
“Is it?” Dimitri says, rescuing the parchment from Felix’s wrath and looping an arm around Felix’s waist. “Should I say you were exceedingly warty?”
“I don’t dispute the warts,” Felix admits begrudgingly. “But the part about kissing is embellishment. Completely unnecessary.”
“But accurate,” Dimitri says, nudging Felix playfully. “What else will remain in your legacy, if we don’t preserve your talent at kissing?”
Felix sighs and makes a token attempt at wrestling himself out of Dimitri’s grip. “They’re on the page already. A gifted swordsman, a trusted confidante—”
“And an excellent kisser,” Dimitri repeats triumphantly, a twinkle in his eye. “Unless you’d like to prove me wrong?”
❦
A long, long time ago, in a faraway kingdom, there once lived a handsome prince. Though the prince was very lonely, his life changed when he met a frog. The frog, though alarmingly warty, was a gifted swordsman, a trusted confidante, and an excellent kisser ⟿ after his curse was lifted by true love's kiss, the two of them lived the rest of their lives side by side, happily ever after.