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Jack hears the rhythmic tapping on the glass of his chamber window, and nearly breaks his legs he tumbles out of bed so fast.
It’s past eleven PM and his candles are already running low, but Jack’s never been one to honor his mother’s ‘early to bed, early to rise’ philosophy. Sleep has never been his number one priority, and neither has adhering to the letter of the law.
It’s the latter of the two sins that’s gotten him into the trouble waiting outside his window now, and the wood floor is cold beneath his bare feet.
“Hi.” Jack can barely see the face of the man hanging precariously from the window’s ledge, but he’d know that voice anywhere. Anyone else who deigns to visit him uses the door like a civilized human being, but Mark thinks himself above petty things like convention and designated entranceways.
“Where the fuck have you been?” Jack doesn’t invite him inside, frowning in the general direction of Mark’s face, hooded by a cloak of some sort. “I haven’t seen you in weeks, and here you show back up at my window unannounced like you’ve just returned from a long journey home.”
Mark grunts uncomfortably. “If you’d let me up I might be able to explain, your highness,” he says through gritted teeth, and Jack waits a beat for emphasis, then reluctantly steps away from the open window.
“You may enter,” he sighs, as graciously as a scorned prince can so near to the middle of the night. “I expect great tales of valor and adventure from you though, if you’re to make up for your absence.”
Mark rolls onto the floor with more grace than should be possible for a man of his class, and stands in one smooth motion, brushing off his trousers.
“Damn, this room of yours is warm—is your mother housing witches in the castle to heat it so thoroughly?” Mark raises an eyebrow at him, and Jack takes in the sight of him after so many weeks apart.
Mark had gone missing abruptly nearly a month ago, after a particularly lengthy rendezvous with Jack in a tavern on the edges of the kingdom. Jack had been devastated at his disappearance, sure that Mark had been arrested by the royal guard for theft or disrespect or carnal knowledge of the fifth royal child of the McLoughlin family.
As the days had turned into weeks, Jack had despaired of ever seeing Mark again, as the self-proclaimed vagrant never stayed away for long without first sending Jack notice of his intentions. He’d been positive that his lover had been killed or captured, and he’d refused to leave his room for reasons his family could not explain.
His sisters had been suspicious, seeing as they were around more often than his brothers or parents, and they’d noticed Jack’s lift in mood when he’d first met Mark so many months ago. Jack hadn’t bothered to try and convince them differently—whatever they thought the truth might be, none of it would matter anymore if Mark was dead.
Looking at him now, Jack immediately notices that in all his time away, Mark has clearly managed to get himself into some modicum of trouble with more than just a highwayman or two. His hair is grown out thicker than usual and his beard has surpassed the rough stubble he usually maintains so carefully.
“My mother would burn a witch if ever she laid her eyes on one,” he replies absentmindedly, and reaches out to touch a deep scratch marring the line of Mark’s cheekbone. “And she would burn us both if she found the likes of you taking refuge in my chambers.”
He’s angry enough at the lack of explanation to avoid wrapping Mark in his arms and insisting he take the bed right away, but not so much that he can keep his hands and worries to himself.
“Tell me where you’ve been,” he orders, leaving no room for argument. Jack has never held his title over Mark’s head, but this isn’t a matter of hierarchy, it’s a matter of safety.
Mark grins and his bottom lip is swollen, bright red and bleeding sluggishly. “Fighting dragons in the valley, my liege. What about you?”
Jack shoves him, irritated, and doesn’t miss the way the other man grimaces slightly in pain. “For serious, Mark,” he frowns. The thief in his bedroom rarely regales Jack with tales of his adventures in any sobriety or truthfulness, but he’s never been away for this long either.
Mark just sighs and drops his smile and his satchel to the ground with a soft thump.
“I was in prison,” he mutters unenthusiastically, shuffling his feet. “Got my ass caught by a band of bounty hunters with a taste for blood money. Tell your mother her kingdom’s well protected from thieves, and that the men she’s hiring are almost smart enough to outwit me.”
Jack just stares at him.
“You were in prison,” he repeats, dumbfounded. “Here, in the castle, just a few floors below me? For almost a month?”
“Don’t look so surprised,” Mark runs a grimy looking hand through his hair and sits down on Jack’s bed uninvited. Jack chooses to say nothing, because Mark stopped waiting for an invitation months ago. “There’s a lot they don’t tell you about what goes on in this place.”
“Did my mother know?” Jack’s throat is tight and dry with fear for a moment, because his mother spares thieves and troublemakers no mercy, and Mark is both of those things right down to the marrow of his bones.
“They threw me in a cell with a bunch of other thugs and forgot about me,” Mark shrugs, fluffing Jack’s pillows beneath his head before making himself comfortable. “I suppose your mother has no time to concern herself with lowly criminals packed together in a cage. No one of import ever saw my face nor knew my name.”
Jack can’t fully embrace the relief that’s settling on his shoulders like a warm cloak, but Mark is here and only bleeding in a couple places and that’s more than he could have hoped for just this evening.
“How did you get out?” he asks, nudging Mark’s bag with his toe, almost afraid to ask what it contains.
Mark huffs out a laugh and it sounds infuriatingly smug. “I bribed my way out with a little help from a cellmate,” he gives Jack a toothy grin, one that reeks of dirty secrets Jack wants no part of at all. “He taught me a thing or two down there in the pit, but I’ve got no intention of going back, not ever.”
Jack leans against the bedpost, suddenly exhausted and warm just looking at Mark, safe and sound in his bed like he belongs there. Maybe if it weren’t getting late and he hadn’t been in mourning for weeks he’d take the time to be angrier at Mark for doing something stupid enough to get him caught and arrested, but now’s not the time.
“You’re going to ruin my sheets, love,” is all he can muster up. He’d gladly sleep on the floor if it meant Mark would stay longer than one night with him, but he won’t ever admit that aloud.
Mark’s grin turns smarmy, and Jack can hear the quip before it even reaches his ears.
“If you want, you can come over here and we can ruin them together.”
Jack sneers at him. “Not while you stink like a dungeon and look like a bleeding Neanderthal. I have an image to maintain you know—everyone will know tomorrow if I’ve been sleeping with a renegade from down below.”
Mark rolls his eyes, but he’s smiling and the urge to do so in return is contagious. “That’s never stopped you before,” he settles further into the sheets and nods towards his bag. “I brought you a treat.”
Jack glances at it warily, and bends down to inspect its contents.
“You brought me dinner?” he asks hesitantly, producing a loaf of bread, a chunk of cheese, and some candied fruits. “You know I could have gotten this myself from any one of the maids, right? I am a prince after all.”
Mark blows a raspberry in his direction, and hugs the pillow childishly. “Yeah, but I had to work to get all of that,” he counters, sounding suddenly sleepy. “It was a labor of love, and you should treasure each and every bite.”
“You’re not actually going to sleep, are you?” Jack is more wry and weary than incredulous, but mostly he’s just incredibly grateful that Mark’s here at all. “You’re still wearing your shoes!”
“Fine, come take them off and lie with me,” Mark mumbles, cracking one eye open. “Are you really gonna kick me out so soon after getting me back? I could have sworn a little birdie told me that the youngest member of the royal house was in mourning, and I can only imagine why.”
“Utter nonsense.” Jack pulls both of Mark’s worn shoes off and tosses them away, uncaring where they land as he crawls into the bed next to the love of his life. He’ll worry about eating later. “I simply gained a particular affinity for the color black while you were gone—someone must have been misinformed.”
Mark laughs softly and rolls to wrestle Jack into his arms, his sweaty cheek pressed up against the prince’s collarbone. “Did you develop an affinity for writing sad poetry and weeping from your tower window as well?” he jabs, shoulders relaxing as his mind quiets in the still air.
“I’m about to develop an affinity for booting your ass right back out the window,” Jack warns, but there’s no threat in it at all because Mark’s not all that far from the truth. Jack had spent more time than he cares to admit sitting at that very window, waiting for some kind of sign that Mark hadn’t been shot dead on one of the kingdom’s back roads, left alone to die.
“I missed you,” Mark murmurs, honest and slurred. “I missed you all that time, Jack.”
Jack presses his lips to Mark’s forehead, hands settling back into the hair that he knows so well.
“Go to sleep,” he tells his thief in a whisper. “You won’t miss me again in the morning.”