Eins x Ernst | The Prince's Chambers Continuation

Continuation Part III

*fourth day*

Eins was spewing forth words faster than a god could.

‘Disaster diaries’, he remembered his little brother Leonhard called them. An appropriate name.

Eins had locked himself in his room after that…     ‘incident’, which he hoped none of his family ever got word of, for about twenty hours now. Meals had been delivered to his door - no doubt Ernst’s doings, he figured - and he'd secretly stolen them and eaten them. He had burned the accompanying notes that said Are you alright?

“Why…      why me…      why did I do it…      why…” Eins mumbled, writing in his tenth spare notebook. These were the words he had repeatedly written.

Still he wrote them again and again.

*four hours later*

Eins had fallen asleep, slumped over his desk. Ernst quietly opened the door to the prince's chambers, a quiet sigh of relief escaping him when he realized Eins was asleep. A quiet sigh of exasperation when he realized that Eins had used up all of his spare ‘journals’ (twelve total - and to the very last page!). They'd have to spend more money to obtain more.

There was a rule he and Eins had made when they were young: If either of them was locked away alone, the other could only go and find them after twenty-four hours. Even now, both if them still remembered the rule.

“Can't you sleep on the bed?” Ernst quietly laughed to himself as he closed the door. Smiling, he lifted Eins into his arms - despite the purple-haired prince weighing almost twenty-two kilograms more than his High Steward - and laid him on one side of the bed. Ernst laid down on the other side of the bed.

It was habit for when they were young. They would lay down, facing each other, and stare at the other. (Often in chibi form)

Ernst stared at sleeping Eins now, watching the rise and fall of his breaths. He took Eins’s hair in his hand. It was always tied up, always, except when sleeping, and in the mornings when Ernst had to tie it. Since Eins was sleeping now, he slipped the tie off, putting it on his wrist for later use. Eins’s thin dark hair fell over his shoulders and onto his back and on the bed. Ernst gathered it up in his hand and held it gently, absently stoking and finger-combing the purple strands while thinking.

Suddenly Ernst was acutely aware of narrow blue eyes looking at him. “Why is my undone hair in your hand.” Eins’s tone of voice was flat. “And why are you in my room.” He stared at Ernst. “For that matter, why are you in my bed.”

“Ah, I found you dead on your desk and thought I'd put you somewhere more comfortable.” Eins smiled and laughed, still holding Eins’s hair, which was now curled over the prince's shoulder. “And old habits die hard.”

“And you figured that you would undo my hair for the pleasure of holding it.”

“Mmhmm.” Ernst pecked Eins on the cheek and smirked as he turned red.

“What was that for.” Eins stared at Ernst, as if unaware his cheeks were betraying him.

Ernst was definitely caught unprepared when Eins buried his blushing face into his shoulder and clung to him.

Eins laughed quietly as his free hand trailed up Eins’s back. It stopped at the small of Eins’s back, the other hand still caressing Eins’s undone hair.

“Well, actually I figured that if you sleep with your hair undone, then I should take your tie out.”

“...”

“Eins?”

“...Ernst…”

“Yes?”

“...kiss me.”

Ernst laughed, still stroking Eins’s hair. It's so soft, he thought. “Of course, princess.” He pressed a kiss to Eins’s lips, breaking apart after a few seconds. It is really hard to kiss in this position, with the two of them on their sides and Eins pressed up against his High Stewart.

“...princess?”

“Yes, princess.”

“I am not a-”

“Shush Eins.”

Sighing, Eins allowed himself to be shushed and his hair to be played with and - there was no other word for it - cuddled. He'd never admit it, never, but he loved it when Ernst cuddled him like this. It reminded him of when they were young, when Ernst - still with that ridiculous hat - was the taller of the two, and they used to lay about together.

They stayed like that for a while.

Eins felt a weird in his chest, an unknown feeling, like his heart was fluttering. He would write in down in his ‘disaster journal’, but then he remembered that he had used up the last of his notebooks.

Tomorrow, they'd have to go out to buy more.

Word Count: 774