The Palace Guard (MxM)

IV

He expected this day to be like the last. He expected it to go like nearly every other day went, aside from the whispered questions he got in his ear all during training from Edgal.

Nikkol didn't even know what to think when Prince Setial met his eye in the hall.

It had been a day like every other, training, standing guard for hours, when the prince decided to go to the throne room. But as he passed, his eyes moved, looking straight at Nikkol, but he never stopped, just continued on.

As soon as he was a few steps past, Nikkol's mind started racing. There were many reasons why he'd look at him, most of them scary, but those few explanations, the ones where the prince wanted to do what they did again, it gave Nikkol hope. Maybe he'd get that endless rush of excitement again, maybe his routine would be broken again, maybe his life could become interesting again.

His nerves only grew when he heard shouting once more, too muffled to make out, but there was a chance that the shouting would make Prince Setial angry with his father, which might make him seek out his company once more.

From what he could hear, the shouting was about this mysterious brother again and something about a mission or quest. Whatever they were speaking of, Nikkol couldn't hear anything about him so he felt much safer in that.

When the doors were thrown open, Nikkol nearly held his breath in anticipation. The pounding of his feet against the floor matched the rhythm of his heart that was in his ears. He really wanted the prince to take an interest in him again. He wanted a permanent change to his boring life, he wanted to feel alive again instead of going through the motions.

He had to hold back a smile when a familiar hand grabbed his and started pulling. He didn't even hesitate, just followed along with him straight to his room.

As soon as they were inside, the prince didn't waste any time. Before the door was even closed he had brought Nikkol's face down, their lips meeting aggressively, the guard responding immediately. He clumsily threw off Nikkol's helmet and his fingers found their place knotted in Nikkol's hair before removing from it to take off the rest of his metal armor.

Prince Setial pushed him towards the bed, Nikkol falling back on it and away from the prince's lips once the backs of his knees hit it. The prince climbed right on top of him, legs straddling Nikkol's waist and continued kissing him, Nikkol reciprocating eagerly.

Caught up in the excitement of the kiss, Nikkol barely realized the warm splashes of something against his face. But when he did, he opened his eyes and looked to see tears coming out of the prince's eyes, which were still closed tightly as he moved his lips and his hips against Nikkol's. The guard cautiously brought his hand up, gently putting it on Prince Setial's shoulder.

The reaction was almost immediate. The prince sat up, still on Nikkol's body, and looked down at him. He did this for about a second before more tears started rolling down his face and he buried said face into his hands, silent tears turning into all out sobs.

Nikkol sat up, which was difficult with the prince sitting on him, and wrapped comforting arms around the prince, which made him put his hands down and cry into the soft cloth covering Nikkol's shoulder.

He was stunned, never would he have expected the prince to cry, didn't know he could. Whatever happened in the throne room must've really affected him.

Unsure of what to do, and knowing that he'd probably get in more trouble for this than sleeping with him, Nikkol just held him tighter, trying to ease whatever was upsetting the prince. "I-I'm sorry... but I ca- I can't, I just, I don't know..." the prince tried getting out, struggling with his words, very obviously thrown off guard by his own emotion, apologizing to a guard and all that. Nikkol started to subtly rock them back and forth, one hand stroking the prince's hair and the other rubbing soothing circles on his back.

Never in a million years would Nikkol have ever thought he'd end up sitting on the prince's bed, comforting him as he cried.

It took several minutes for the prince to calm down. When the only sound coming from him was shaky breathing, he straightened up out of Nikkol's embrace and wiped his red eyes, taking a few deep breaths to calm himself. He looked at Nikkol then shook his head, as if resetting back to what he was, and swung one leg off from around Nikkol and sat next to him, his eyes closed and his breathing still deep. "I would appreciate if you forgot this happened." Nikkol nodded, although he knew the prince couldn't see him. "I don't, I don't normally, well, I've actually never acted like this before, it's just my father, he's so..." He took another deep breath and brought his legs up to his chest, hugging them there tightly. Although Nikkol knew that he was around the same age as him, actually probably a few years younger, he couldn't help but compare the man to a child in that moment, so small and vulnerable looking. "Tell me something about you." The prince said, changing the topic of whatever he was going on about.

Nikkol knew that since it was an order, he had to answer. He didn't mind speaking though, he'd wanted to say so much over the course of their interactions together. But now that he had the opportunity to speak, he was limited to only talking about himself, probably the most boring topic there was. "There isn't much to say."

The prince looked up at him. "You work in the castle, there has to be some fun story."

Nikkol thought about it. "I met my best friend on the third day of training to be a guard." He spoke after a few seconds. "The first thing I ever saw him do was trip over a pile of wooden swords and that caused him to cut himself in several places."

"And?" The prince urged on, his tone tired.

"That's pretty much it."

The prince sighed. "Not really a storyteller, are you?" Awkward silence grew between the two until he turned more fully towards Nikkol and reached out, hand touching his arm. "How'd you get this?"

Nikkol looked down to see an old scar across his bicep. "First time we worked with real swords in training, was nervous because it was my first time and that made me make a mistake, too slow to block."

The prince nodded, his hand traveling down to his wrist. "And what about this?"

"Fell off the roof when I was a kid, cut myself on a sharp stone on the way down."

His hand moved back up, fingers barely touching Nikkol's skin. The guard didn't know why he was doing this, none of his scars held any particularly interesting stories, nothing about himself did, except maybe what was happening now. If the prince wanted to know about every scar, they'd be there for a while, between training and him being incredibly accident-prone as a child, he had many. His hand continued traveling up, Nikkol tilting his head to try and follow it. "This one?" He asked as his hand stopped at just above his eyebrow.

"My best friend knocked me over the head in training." His head tilted down again to see the prince looking at his chin with confused eyes, his hand moving down to a particularly wide scarred area underneath it. "From training, they would make us wear this chest plate with spikes coming out the top of it so we could practice holding our heads right. All the guards have that one." That's one of the reasons why their helmet strap came up the way it did, to hide the ugly scars littering all the guards chins.

To his surprise, instead of looking for more scars or asking more questions, the prince leaned in to the scarred area, kissing it before moving to his lips. Nikkol was too shocked by his reaction to respond immediately.

Prince Setial reached out, pulling Nikkol's shirt off before breaking away. "And this one?" He asked, fingers running up one that stretched across his chest.

"Forgot to secure my chest plate properly early in training, fell off and dug in." Because of the prince's attack of kisses and sucking on his neck that his voice wasn't steady and he was breathing heavily.

The prince took off his own shirt, pressing their bodies closer. For the first time, Nikkol compared their bodies. While his was covered in scars and decently built, Prince Setial's skin looked nearly untouched and had a lot more muscle. He couldn't bring himself to feel self-conscious though, not with the way the prince traced every line on his body.

He couldn't help but to admit that even though it hurt at first, he enjoyed himself more than he'd ever had before that night.