The Majesty of Choice

Pulling

"This is the biggest fucking room I've ever been in," Pete says. "Well apart from Giantville. This is the biggest fucking elf, human, or anything within that height range, room I've ever been in."

"Do you think that's real gold," Patrick asks, pointing to golden patterns inlaid into the walls of the drawing room where they've been ushered into.

"Of course it fucking is, it's the castle," Gerard says, annoyed with the very idea that someone wasted all that gold by putting on the goddamn wall. That wall could feed Gerard's entire town for a year.

"Does this guy look like me," Pete says pointing to a portrait above a fireplace that has also been decorated with an obscene amount of gold. The portrait is of a former King, though which King, Gerard has no clue. He's old, white haired, very much dead, and looks nothing at all like Pete. Pete messes up his face to have the same expression as the man in the portrait though, and Gerard can feel Patrick's heart pounding through his chest. Love makes you oblivious to when people are idiots. Or possibly, love makes you fall even harder when people are being idiots.

"You're ridiculous," Gerard says. He grabs the letter he wrote and walks it over to the huge double doors that lead into this unbelievably huge drawing room. He opens one of the doors very sheepishly, because the door itself stands about twice his height, and the door knob looks to be made of some fine gem stone. Gerard wonders how much of the decadence is for show and how much of it is because royalty really are just pretentious enough to need a doorknob worth more than Gerard's entire ancestry combined.

He peers out of the door into the entry hall that is definitely bigger than the drawing room, but since it's a hall he doesn't know if it's technically a room, so Pete's statement still stands. Gerard looks for the knight that had showed them into the room, only to see Alex standing guard right there. He gulps to himself, because he knows it's ridiculous, but there is something very worrisome about someone standing guard over a room he's in. It feels kind of like a prisoner situation, which is idiotic because obviously he was invited in here by the Prince, and he's a guest. Still, someone is guarding the room he's in. When you're from a place where you'd never even seen a knight until about a month ago, it is suddenly very strange when they are protecting you.

"I, uh, I finished my, uh letter, for... you know," Gerard says, and he hands it out to the knight who he wishes he knew better. With a grim, and stoic sort of expressionless, he holds his hands out to take the letter from Gerard, but there's nothing remotely like hostility there, maybe just awkwardness. Gerard supposes it's hard to adjust to how your supposed to treat the future King's lover when said lover has a dick. He doubts they went over that in Knight school. "Thanks." Gerard gives him an uncomfortable smile, and Alex's eyes soften. He's not so bad. Gerard just needs to get to know him better, that's all.

He takes a deep breath as he closes the door, which doesn't make a creaking sound at all, which is weird, because Gerard thought all doors creaked. He walks back into the room to see Pete still hasn't started his letter and Patrick is on page nine or ten of his. They are two drastic opposites, Gerard notes quietly to himself.

"What do you think the food is like?" Pete says. "Oh my god, I bet it's to die for."

"Aren't you going to write a letter, Pete?" Gerard asks, because he's doing nothing but pointing out various things in the room and hypothesizing about various castle things. He supposes he could see how someone, namely Patrick, could be attracted to someone like Pete. He simply exists in the world that he lives in. He's kind and has such a unique way of thinking. Now to be fair, he can see way more things that could make someone attracted to Patrick because Patrick is his best friend in the entire world. Patrick is wise, if there was any one word you would use to characterize him, it would be that. Patrick is kinder than a world as shitty as this could possibly create but somehow, he's here.