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“Do you think I could fly, if I really put my mind to it?” A croaky voice asks her from beneath the duvet disturbing her reading for the fiftieth time that night.
“What? Tedros I swear on the storian if you keep disturbing me I'm going to ditch you and go read in the bathtub.”
“You wouldn’t dare ‘nd i’m only awake because of how obnoxiously bright your reading light is.” His voice is muffled from his head being buried under his pillow in an attempt to block out her ‘blinding light’.
She just sighs and turns the next page trying to get reimbursed in the book she’s currently tackling a collection of old Camelot poems (surprisingly depressing) which her brain is getting too tired to comprehend but out of spite to Tedros and her determination to finish the book she has to complete it tonight. Ok so page 215…
“I’m ‘eing serious i ‘ean you can literally turn into a ‘ird, why is it ‘mpossible for me to fly a me.” A familiar grating voice appears in her ears again. Agatha sighs, closes her book in defeat and removes her reading glasses, placing them gently on her bedside table.
“I hope you know none of that was coherent.”
Tedros pokes his head out from under the pillow.
“Where are your reading glasses? I can't have you getting any more blind. I mean you're basically an old woman. ”
“I’m twenty-five.”
“Exactly.”
“We're the same age,” She deadpans. “Anyway, you can’t sleep tonight and I won't know peace till you do,so tell me what’s up with you?”
He sits up in bed next to her and she attempts to smooth out his very messy bedhead. His eyes look weary and tired and his expression shifts to attempt a smile before eventually settling on an exhausted sort of frown.
“Will you believe me if I say it's your light?” He tries slightly raising his eyebrows.
“Nice try but I know you got desensitised to it years ago, tell me what’s going on?”
She takes his nearest hand in hers, interlocking them and gently rubbing her thumb against his pulse point. She looks at his eyes, forcing him to keep eye contact and also trying to read his mind a little bit.
“It was just something stupid with my father’s portrait dredged up feelings I haven't felt about him before.” He tries to play it off nonchalantly mumbling through most of the sentence but Agatha has learnt to read him and she can tell it's deeply troubling him.
“Mm,What kind of feelings?” Agatha says calmly, wrapping an arm around tedros and gently playing with his hair as lays his head on her shoulder.
“I don’t know, it was weird but I didn’t feel immense pressure or dread. I looked at him and I just saw my dad. It felt weirdly peaceful,peaceful but sad.” He goes quiet for a moment as he figures out how to express his thoughts. “I had asked for the portrait to be in a section of the castle where I could easily avoid it but someone had moved it right in the main entrance probably assuming it was moved as a mistake or something. When I saw it I expected to be set off on a downward spiral but it felt sort of peaceful so I left it there. It was weird. I don't really know why it’s keeping me up .”
She stays silent a moment running her fingers through his hair.
“I think that means you’re healing.”
She’d seen it herself he no longer shuffles uncomfortably when he's referred to as the king of camelot he doesn’t look weighed down by his crown anymore instead he carries it with pride and it suits him. Peace suits them. It’s not perfect, far from it, but it's theirs and they’ve earned it.
He stays quiet considering her statement “Hm,i didn’t expect healing to be so anti-climatic.”
“What did you expect?”
“Some cake,a few balloons,a card, maybe a few presents.” His voice seems lighter and she can practically hear his grin.
“Sounds like a birthday party to me.”
“We should have a party right now then.” He turns excitedly smiling at her.
“No, It’s 2AM. I'll have some cake though, get me some cake.” She could do with something sweet right now but she can always do with something sweet.
Instead of declining the offer and going to bed Tedros’ face brightens even more and she can see an idea forming.
“We could always make a cake instead!”
Neither tedros or Agatha have the slightest clue how to bake. Yet here they are in the castle kitchens at two am in the morning, giggling like little kids as they attempt to bake a chocolate cake.
“Ok so I think we need flour, sugar, chocolate,eggs…” Agatha says, squinting as she tries to make out the name of things in the ridiculously big and cold castle pantry.
Tedros had been scandalised to discover that Agatha who is constantly preaching about the importance of life skills has not a single clue how to operate in the kitchen. In her defence, if the only thing you grow up eating are various reptilian soups, your food ranges from edible to biohazardous.
“Cakes have eggs?” Tedros interrupts calling out to her from the kitchen where he’s lighting candles.
“Are you being serious?” She says in disbelief, staring at him from the pantry doorway.
“I’m joking, I aced the surviving fairytale unit on magical foods. Leave this all up to me my darling,” He says grinning and following her back into the pantry.
Agatha tries to bite down her smile with a scowl,rolling her eyes at the nickname but he looks adorable in the low candle light with his pink dressing gown and bedhead.
“I would love to, but I want our cake to be edible,”She responds, passing tedros a carton of eggs. He adds it to the wicker basket that’s holding their ingredients.
“You wound me my love,” He says, grabbing a sack of plain flour from the top shelf.
“Deeply, deeply sorry. Can you get the sugar?” He nods, plopping the sugar into their basket. “Thanks.”
“You should be my self esteem might never recover,” he looks around the shelves “Agatha can you see the-”
“-chocolate?” She finishes his sentence effortlessly, dumping two chocolate bars into the basket.
“How much flour should I add?”
Tedros shrugs. “I don’t know a good amount.”
“Wow thank you so much Mr ‘let me handle this’,” Agatha responds sarcastically, shaking what feels like too much flour out of the bag and into the bowl.
“Were married so that would make you Mrs ‘let me handle this’ so you just insulted yourself then,” he says extremely smugly as he haphazardly chops the chocolate into chunks.
“Fine, then I want a divorce,” Agatha says flatly, throwing a handful of flour in his face.
“WHAT?” Tedros gasps barely registering the flour, “Don’t say that, are you crazy?”
He crosses his arms and pouts at her his face-covered in a light dusting of flour. He looks ridiculous. Ridiculously adorable.He’s clearly unimpressed with her but she can barely hold in her giggles.
“Oh, is something about our failing marriage funny to you Agatha?” He keeps trying to act mad but the quirk of his lip and the softness in his eyes betrays him instantly.
“Absolutely hilarious, but I think you have something on your face…” She says breathlessly before dissolving in laughter again.
“I think you have something on your face actually,” Tedros says innocently, reaching up to caress her face. He then reveals his handful of flour by tossing it onto her face.
“BETRAYAL!” Agatha gasps, grabbing a handful of flour. “This is war, whoever wins gets to keep Camelot in the divorce.”
“What? No! Can we stop with the divorce narrative? You're stressing me out,” he gets dusted in a cloud of flour. “Plus I would obviously keep Camelot.”
“You don’t know that, what if we had a child and I used them to dethrone you?” flour falls onto Agatha’s hair settling into her curls, she laughs coldly. Then uses both her hands to take a huge lump of flour and dump it atop tedros head. Leaving him looking like a dusty snowman,
“MY HAIR!” He gasps and Agatha laughs genuinely at the flowery mess her husband currently was. “ Also, how do you know our hypothetical child would take your side? And I don’t think you could kill me even if this coup was successful.”
Agatha considers his argument carefully, slipping a chunk of chocolate into her mouth.
“You’re right I couldn’t kill you but that’s why we have assassins. Also our hypothetical child would a hundred percent take my side because I would be in the right,” Agatha says matter of factly the flour war long forgotten.
“Yeah you would be in the right,” Tedros says quietly, giving Agatha a sweet smile.Agatha feels herself melt a little and tries to decide if she’s won the argument enough to give in and kiss him. “I would probably give you Camelot if you asked me nicely enough.”
He interlocks their fingers swinging their arms together absentmindedly.
“Wow you're a real sweet talker,” She says jokingly, smiling back at him.
“Is it sweet talking if it's true?”
“I don’t know if it's true, you tell me. Can I pretty please have the entire kingdom of camelot?” She says sarcastically,giving her best Sophie impression and batting her eyelashes at him.
“If that’s what you want my love,” He responds without missing a beat, with a sincerity which catches her off guard. A sincerity that sends warmth rushing through her and leaves her throat unable to form words for a few moments.
“What I want is to eat some chocolate,” she says with a sigh, picking up another piece and leaning her head on his shoulder.
“What happened to the cake?” he asks, wrapping his arm around her shoulder automatically and placing a light kiss on top of her head.
“It's too much work,” she mumbles, closing her eyes, her drowsiness returning. The kitchen had become a flowery mess during their fight and looking at it was giving her a headache.
“What if I made the rest of the cake?”
“By yourself?” She laughs lightly. “See I would agree but I don’t trust that you know how to light a gas oven without burning this whole castle down,” she says playfully, bumping him with her hip.
“I would be offended but it's really hard to be mad at you when you're in my shirt,” he gives her a shameless once over, winking at her and Agatha rolls her eyes. Her husband will forever be a shameless flirt.
“Hmm.. how about instead of ogling me you could make yourself useful and help me clean up?” She says teasingly, readjusting their positions so she’s standing between his legs leaning her elbows on his knees where he's sat on the marble countertops.
“Ogle you?” Tedros gasps in fake offence, “I would never. I was simply loving you with my eyes.” He leans closer so their faces sit inches apart, his eyes impossibly soft as he gazes at her. Tedros has always had unfairly long eyelashes, which stay golden and miraculously untangled at all times. She loves her husband's quiet beauties, the small ‘imperfections’, the things that remind her that before he's the king he’s hers. The pale freckles that cover his face. The sleep in his eyes in the morning when he wakes up. The soft smiles he reserves just for her.
“Loving me with your eyes are you?” Her voice is barely a whisper as Tedros gently rests his hands on her hips. She places a hand on his face a motion she has done a million times before, Tedros leans into the gesture every time.
“Mhm,” he replies softly, their faces impossibly close and he gives her a tender smile. The kinda smile that makes her insides all gooey and stomach flutter.
“I have some other ideas on how you could love me,” Agatha whispers playfully, giving him a toothy grin.
“Wow Agatha, in the kitchen ,” he jokes back laughing quietly, the sound feels like bathing in sunlight. “Have some decorum.”
“Sorry I’m just really into dudes that wear fluffy pink dressing gowns,” She says fiddling with Tedros’s collar.
“That’s so crazy I know a guy who would be just your type,” he replies bringing their faces impossibly closer.
“Wow really? What’s his name?” Their noses were essentially touching now.
He scoffs gently, “Can you just kiss me already?”
“Kiss you? but we only just met-”
She’s cut off by Tedros gently pressing his lips against hers.
They both forget about the cake after that.