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autisticlancemcclain · 1 year ago

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There is, honest to God, a coathanger butler and a duster French maid.

“Well, that confirms it,” Lance says, clapping his hands together. “I fell off my horse on the way here and I’ve gone insane.”

“I think you’re just smart, kiddo,” Shiro says, amused. “Perceptive.” He has yet to stop his tour, hopping along rather quickly as Lance follows.

Lance opens his mouth to deny that particular claim – Lance is many things and smart is sure as shit not one of them – but there’s a bellowing shout that interrupts him before he can.

“Ta-kashi!”

Shiro-the-candelabra startles, then goes pale, which is a hilarious thing to witness in a face of wax.

“Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck,” he curses. He makes an effort to hop behind a random sidetable placed against one of the farther walls of the massive corridor, but he’s not nearly fast enough. Rapid, angry clanking sounds precede the appearance of an ornately carved grandfather clock, the face – literally and figuratively, man this castle is fucking weird – twisted in a heavy scowl.

“Takashi,” the clock hisses again. “What part of ‘united front' is hard for you to understand?”

Caught completely red-handed, Shiro straightens himself up and attempts to look dignified. “You were busy with Keith! What was I supposed to do, let this one wander around? I was –”

“You were supposed to wait for me, Takashi! Last time –”

It would probably be prudent for Lance to continue listening, as any information he learns is for the better. But as soon as Shiro says Keith’s name, Lance’s ears check out, the world in front of him goes blurry, and he starts to feel like he’s deep underwater.

It hits him, all at once and intensely, that this is really happening. He is, sometime in the frighteningly near future, going to meet his future husband. His future husband who is known across the country to be one of the most vile men in temper ever to exist, who is impossible to love. His future husband who has money, money that Lance can send back to his family that can never manage to get food on the table for every mouth on every day of the week. The future husband who Lance cannot leave, unlike the people before him, because if he does then the family farm will sell and everyone will be homeless and it will lie on his shoulders.

If he fails, his family will never look at him again, the shame will be so strong. The kids – they’ll be uprooted if they have to sell the farm and move away. He can’t do that to them. And yes, his family’s betrayal still aches like a gaping wound in his chest (they didn’t want to keep him Mamà didn’t want to keep him only three wanted to keep him and he doesn’t know who they sent him away the town sent him away his family sent him away everyone he’s ever known decided they were better off without him), but he doesn’t – he can’t let their saving grace slip between his fingers. If he fails then his greatest fears are confirmed – he is the failure that he’s always known he is.

But If he succeeds, he will be locked for life in an enchanted castle that feels as if it doubles as a tomb.

Suddenly Lance is sick to his stomach.

“–ance? Lance? You okay, kiddo?”

Lance shakes himself from his thoughts, eyes focusing on the concerned faces in front of him. He clears his throat, straightening his shoulders and plastering a smile on his face.

He will not fail. He will not. It is the lesser of two evils, to succeed, so he must.

“Yeah, sorry. Just remembered something, is all. I meant to look for something to feed my horse when I came in here, there’s no hay in the stable, but I forgot with all the –” he glances at the clock and candelabra, wondering how to phrase the clusterfuck that is now my life tripped me up, my bad delicately – “the… hubbub.”

Hubbub.

Alrighty. That’s the word he’s going with. That’s fine. He’s totally cool with suddenly becoming a bitter senior citizen loudly complaining about the youths. All is well.

Despite his strangeness, the two people (??) in front of him visibly soften.

“Sorry, dear,” the clock says. He clanks forward and extends one of his arms – shiny, carved gold decals of the sides of a grandfather clock – to shake. Lance does. “My name is Adam. I imagine you must be exhausted. Would you like to see your room?

That sounds excellent. Lance sags at the suggestion, shoulders slumping forward and sigh escaping his lungs without his position. His own room in the castle…what will that look like? He’s always shared a bed with someone, back home. And sometimes he is kicked and sometimes people snore and sometimes people squiggle around and hog blankets and talk in their sleep. Sometimes people even pick their toes, completely unconscious, and refuse to believe him when he complains about it in the morning. Such is the life of a large family in a small house.

Lance will have a bed to his own, now. A room, even! It’s almost unfeasible. He’s expecting something huge; giant windows making up a whole wall at least to let the sun it, impossibly high ceilings, a bed as big as his house once was, with a canopy over the sides of it. As plush as goose down and soft as Kaltenecker’s – his favourite of their family’s cows – fur. Cream walls, maybe, prime for him to paint.

Paint! He’s sure he’ll have paint here. The richest of colours, even, and paintbrushes he doesn’t have to make from kinky horse hair. And he’s sure he’ll have time, here, outside of whatever chores he’s expected to do, to ride Blue around the grounds. Maybe, for once in his life, he can enjoy his day outside of fleeting moments with the animals, or Veronica, or the twins. Maybe there will be more time outside of fleeting minutes when he watches the sun rise. Maybe he will have freedom here, to explore what he likes, and in luxury, no less.

Wait.

His brow furrows. Freedom…he won’t be free. He may be surrounded by more opulence than he ever expected to see in three lifetimes, but freedom is still a luxury he can’t afford.

“What about Ke –” he stumbles over the name – “the Prince?”

Shiro and Adam exchange the least subtle look Lance has ever seen on a human, let alone a grandfather clock and a candelabra. It would be funny if it weren’t so troubling.

“What about him?” Shiro says carefully.

Lance blinks at him. “Is his royal highness too busy to meet the guy he’s literally about to marry, or…?”

“We just figured you would prefer to settle yourself, first.” Adam says it quickly, practiced, obvious; confirming Lance’s suspicions.

There is something afoot.

“I’m pretty settled, actually. All good in the hood. Checked off most of the list, tick tick tick. I just need to meet Prince Temper-tantrum.”

Both royal attendants laugh nervously.

“Ah, we’ll get there,” Shiro assures. He hops forward, pointing his candle to the hallway, indicating that Lance should follow him. “We have time, no? It’s late. Dinner will be ready soon. No need.”

He and Adam are very persistent, all but shoving Lance out of the front entrance and to a massive staircase. One of them must have sent the word of Lance’s arrival, because one of the branched-off hallways of the staircase – a wing? Is that what it’s called? Why must rich people label stupid things – is illuminated, clearing the path Lance is meant to take to his new room. The other is as dark as the rest of the castle, cold and isolating, reeking of angst and cowardice and a smidge of superiority, too, because reputation or not, what kind of jackass doesn’t at least introduce themselves to their future husband?

Suddenly, it all kind of boils over. Lance roots himself in the middle of some grand marble hallway and, ignoring Shiro and Adam’s frantic pleading, cups his hands around his mouth and shouts: “Hey, Prince of Darkness! Is it too beneath you to say hello to your future husband, you beastly man?”

His voice echoes throughout the castle, shout bouncing off the carved stone walls and getting louder, somehow. Lance stands, glaring at the dark hallway, fists clenched at his sides, fury still lighting up his veins. But then a minute passes, and another, without so much as a peep of movement, and rage starts to trickle out of his body in favour of something like regret.

He has one job, here. He is to make nice and play the silent husband so he can get funds back to his family, and no one goes hungry. He is supposed to avoid Prince Keith at any and all possible moments, keeping his head down and living his life as separately and as well as he can given the circumstances. And Adam and Shiro were perfectly happy to let him do so, too, guiding him to his room before he even had to breathe in Prince Keith’s direction.

Him and his big fucking mouth. Clearly, there is more than one person in this castle with a temper.

He turns to the candle and the clock. “Sorry,” he mutters, averting his eyes. Hopefully they don’t call this whole thing off. He doesn’t think they will – from what Shiro implied, they seem kind of desperate – but still. He shouldn’t push his luck.

When Shiro and Adam don’t respond, he looks up, expecting to find them disappointed, but instead finding them not looking at him at all. He frowns, taking in the way their faces have dropped, the way they’ve both gone pale. As pale as bloodless things can be, anyway. He follows their line of sight, shifting his body to face the farthest end of the dark corridor, and squints, trying to make out what they’re so white about. It takes him a moment to pick it out, but eventually he sees it, almost glowing in the darkness – a pair of large, yellow eyes. And…

Teeth?

Lance blinks. He rubs his eyes. He looks again.

Where the mouth would be, under the eyes, are massive, fang-like teeth, glowing white in the dark shadows. They are not human. They are not even animal. Lance is not sure what they resemble, aside from monstrous. A chill runs down his spine.

Slowly, silently, the way a wolf might stalk towards prey it knows it has trapped, the shrouded face comes closer, slinking in the shadows. Lance follows it, head tilting higher and higher as he begins to realise how tall this face sits on a still-invisible body; how large this…thing, animal or man, truly is. Closer and closer it steps, until Lance can hear its breaths, until Lance can feel the heat from its body from where it stands, in the last stretch of the shadows.

Lance swallows.

“Who are you?” he asks. His voice is surprisingly steady, although his hands tremble.

Finally, the figure steps out into the light. Dark purple fur is all Lance can see; covering the figure in thick, uneven swaths; large brow drawn tight over his slitted yellow eyes, mouth twisted in a snarl, fangs pushing out from his lips, clawed hands clenched in fists, talons clinking on the floor as he steps closer. Ornate clothing covers his body, heavy red cloak draped over his shoulders, materials Lance can recognise as sturdy and well-dyed and rich.

The figure bends low, close to Lance’s face. “I am as you say, dear future husband.”

“You’re a – an actual –” Lance stammers.

Prince Keith growls, low in his throat.

“A beast.”

———

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