#i always do edits/cc when i have to get up stupid early the next day rip

[festiveboydanielhowells]

figuring things out (chapter 5)

Summary: Prince Daniel of Eithoia has been seeing Lord Philip in private for years, despite his marriage to Princess Isabella. Up until now, it was never an issue for the three to be together. No one anticipated for the Princess to have an urgent announcement, and now anticipated that it would impact Dan and Phil and their countries as much as it did. 

Warnings: pregnancy, smut, mentions of violence, swearing, vomiting

Tags: fluff, (horribly written) smut, royalty AU, polyamory, pregnancy

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Thirteenth of January

Steeple Palace, Kings

Phil misses Julia.

It’s the first thing he thinks when he wakes up with Dan’s arms around his waist and Isabella’s face buried in his neck. He likes being in between them, they’re both so warm and comfortable, but he needs to use the bathroom. He moves Dan’s arms from around his waist with minimal protests and moves over Isabella and out of the bed.

Isabella makes a noise that sounds vaguely like, “What are you doing?” as Phil maneuvers around her and onto his feet.

“I’m using the bathroom,” He whispers, giving her a kiss by her hair.

“Don’t be long,” She says, her words slurring, before she moves closer to Dan and tucks her head into his chest. Within seconds, her breathing has evened out and her eyes are closed peacefully in sleep.

He gives her another kiss on her hair before heading into Dan’s bathroom.

Being in his bathroom is uncomfortable—his shower has odd knobs on it, his whole bathroom feels much too big for some reason. He supposes that he always gotten a smaller room because he had a “lower” status, but now he’s staying in a King’s room, which means he’s literally at the top of the food chain.

He struggles to get the shower going, but eventually, he discovers which knob is hot water and which knob is cold water. Thankfully, it’s not too complicated, and he gets in the shower within a couple of minutes. He really doesn’t want to get out of the bathroom to grab his bag, so instead, he uses Dan’s body wash.

(He hopes it’s Dan’s body wash—there’s two bottles of similar things, and Phil doesn’t want to smell like honey suckle and lavender despite how good Isabella smells.)

Thankfully, he grabs the correct bottle of wash as he begins lathering his body in soap. It smells like mint and eucalyptus—exactly like Dan. He shampoos his hair and thinks about home—his home. He distinctly wonders how Dan will react if he asks him to bring Julia to the palace. It’s not Dan’s stingy or anything, but Phil still worries.

What if he didn’t like Julia, and so he says no? What if he tells Phil that he can’t allow her to live in the palace because she’s Intoran?

He takes a breath and turns off the water before stepping out of the shower. He refuses to use Dan or Isabella’s toothbrush—that’s disgusting, regardless of how often they kiss—and wraps a towel around his waist to grab his bag.

Isabella and Dan are awake, but they’re not out of bed. Instead, Dan has retrieved his laptop from his desk and Isabella is looking over his shoulder, occasionally pointing at things and saying, “Is that right? I think those are off,” before grabbing her phone and opening the calculator app.

Phil grabs his duffle bag and rummages through it before reaching his bag of toiletries and heading back into the bathroom to brush his teeth.

He skips washing his face, rather choosing to splash his face with cold water and apply his deodorant.

He combs his hair back until he deems it relatively good-looking, and then exits the bathroom to change clothes. When he emerges from the bathroom, Dan has a distressed look, and Isabella’s comforting him about something. “It’ll be fine,” She tells him. “It’ll be fine. This is just a bump, okay?” and Dan nods, giving her a kiss.

“What’s happened?” Phil asks, hoping he doesn’t sound too nosy.

Dan shakes his head. “Boring stuff. Economic stuff.” He mutters, and Phil’s look must persuade him to keep talking, because he does. “It’s just so stupid.” He mutters, “Jobs need to be made but instead, companies are rapidly closing to reconcile with the money loss due to needing to supply their employees with a livable wage.” He puts his head in his hands. “I don’t know what to do. Unemployment is so high and so many companies are cutting down on jobs.”

“What’s minimum wage here?” Phil asks, because sue him, he doesn’t know anything about foreign countries.

“Five-forty,” Dan mutters. “It’s definitely not livable, but it’s close because of the new housing bill and medical care bill.”

Phil shivers, “It’s twelve dollars in Intora,” He says, and then feels like shit for saying it. Dan knows that, Dan knows that his people aren’t able to live, but the big corporations were using Etithoia as a way to get cheap labor for so long and he’ll need to gradually build up to a proper minimum wage.

“Trust me, Phil,” Isabella says, “We’re aware. Our country has been the shithole dumping site of everyone else for so long. Cheap labor is so common and illegal operations too because everyone here is poor and we’re the only ones who have food, at this point.” She says.

“We could put the one idea into operation,” Dan suggests, and Phil wants to know what the ‘one idea’ is but he holds his tongue. “The one with the donations of excess food.” He says.

Phil grabs an outfit from his bag and turns around and lets the towel drop before getting ready for the day. He hears Izzy hum in agreement before saying, “The bill or the operation?”

“Either one, really.” Dan says, turning towards Izzy. “I’ve been thinking about setting the bill into publicity for a while now, but I haven’t really had the guts.”

“You should do it,” Izzy says, giving him a soft kiss on his cheek. “I received an email from the housing units—they say that they don’t have any funding for buying food or clothing. Having companies donate whatever they don’t sell under they law would be pretty helpful for most of them. The biggest needs right now are food, furniture, and clothing.” She explains.

“I got the same email,” He says, “They want to have more reasons for the upper class to support them.”

“Tax write-offs,” Izzy suggests. “Menia has them. If you donate to a shelter you get a portion of your taxes taken off depending on how much you donated that year.” Dan nods, typing down additions to the notepad he has open. “Bring that up at the meeting, yeah?” She asks, and he nods.

“Will do, love.” He opens up a tab for his email and types out a new email to his advisors.

“Advisors” is their title, but their job is to convince Dan that he’s making bad decisions. Dan tends to not listen, and he takes it upon himself to prove them wrong at every opportunity. He begins typing his email.

To: Winston Davidson, Logan Brookes, Kate Ingrid, Taylor Nelson

Cc: Isabella Howell, Emily Howell

Subject: Monday’s Meeting

 To whom it may concern,

 There is to be a royal advisory meeting held on Monday the fifteenth of January in the grand common meeting hall.

The topics to be covered:

-Bill 1197; topics of minimum wage

-Living conditions of citizens below poverty limit

-Introduction and editing of Bill 1198; topics of food, clothing, and furniture donations

-Corporate interference with daily life

 Sincerely,

Prince Daniel James Howell

 He hates the flow of the email, hates the fact that he has to write “to whom it may concern”, and hates the way he has to be just vague enough but also specific enough.

He ignores his hatred of the sentences he wrote in favor of focusing on the fact that he now has a plan for what he’s going to actually say. Every meeting he’s gone to has either been information packed or completely void of any plans, and Dan hates both.

He supposes he just hates his job, really.

Phil crawls into the bed next to Dan, and Dan attempts to give him a kiss, but Phil pushes him away. “Your breath is disgusting. It’s nine a.m., brush your teeth.” He scolds, and Dan fakes offence.

“I will have you know I was doing important business.” He says, but gets up anyways to get ready for the day. He washes himself off in the shower, brushes his teeth, and gets dressed for the day. He ends up wearing a plain shirt and a plain pair of trousers; he doesn’t have to make a presentation, so he will be wearing lounge clothing thank you very much. Dan emerges from the bathroom with soaked hair, before motioning to Isabella to go after him.

“What are you doing today?” Phil asks.

“Writing a bill. And you’re going to go to the doctor’s with Izzy.” He says, completely monotone. Phil can’t gauge whether or not he’s being serious until he looks at his tired eyes and understands. Of course he’s being serious, he has an entire country to transform. If he doesn’t do it to the best ability, other countries look down at him even though they have to hardly do anything. He sighs and flops himself onto their bed. “It’s not like I want to, but ever day without this bill going public is another day of wasted material for the housing units.”

Phil nods in understanding, and falls on top of Dan dramatically, spreading his arms out so that he’s put his full weight on top of Dan’s. He grunts, “Thanks, Phil.”

“No probably. You stress yourself out.”

“So, you’re going to be my human blanket?” Dan asks into the duvet.

“Yep.”

Dan lets out a content hum, before rolling them over and leaning against Phil. “I really do have to write this, but there’s breakfast downstairs in the kitchens. If you want some, you and Izzy can go together. She always needs to eat before she goes to the doctor’s, but—”

“But eating this early always upsets your stomach,” Phil finishes, giving him a slow kiss on the lips. When he pulls back, Dan’s smile is a little more real, and his shine a little brighter than before. “Izzy and I will grab food and head off, you stay up here and work, okay?” Dan nods, and pulls him into another slow and happy kiss before crawling up the bed and putting his laptop on his thighs.

He opens the document he was working on earlier, and hesitantly begins to type as Isabella exits the bathroom and joins Philip at breakfast.

Bill 1198

To go into effect (n/a)

Under the Daniel Howell Advisory.

180 Steeple Drive, Kings, 33478, Etithoia

 The Bill 1198 is to be a solution for the lack of food, furnishings, and clothing available to housing units around the country.

He stares at the sentence, before deleting it off of the template.

House Bill 1198 is a solution to the country-wide issue that housing units have been experiencing since their opening and endorsements. The bill will encourage citizens above the poverty line to donate to said units with compensation in the form of tax write-offs. The bill also aims to provide corporate-donated materials by creating a system where companies can donate unused food, furnishings, clothing, and items to the units in return for government-given tax write-offs.

He looks at the paragraph, which seems much more put together than the simple sentence he’d written out before, and continues to work. He wants to make the bill seem as appealing as possible—the more appealing it is, the more the citizens will accept it.

The goal of the tax write-offs (which are to be provided by in receipts by the units) is to reduce the tax that one has to pay on job income and housing. Should a citizen need to limit their debt to the government of Etithoia—whether it be taxes, student loans, or any other debt—they can provide the receipt on their taxation logs in order to receive compensation for their good deed.

In order to receive a write-off, the citizen or business representative will deliver the products (through mail or personal visiting to the donation site) and receive a letter back with the items the unit received. The unit will keep a digitalized copy of all receipts in order to provide any lost receipts to donors. The amount that the donor donates to the unit will affect the amount taken off of taxes or debts.  

Is that good? Does it flow well? He hopes it does, because he sends the document in a follow-up email to the same group of people. He chooses not to write out a formal email, the subject and the document practically explain themselves, anyways. He signs it and presses send, hoping that they read it before Monday. They hardly ever do, and then end up confused when he brings up whatever document he’d emailed them over the weekend.

He stands up, stretches his arms, and checks the time: twelve-fifteen. He knows lunch will be served soon, but his stomach is heavy with the anxiety of Monday’s meeting, and he chooses to skip out. Instead, he texts Isabella a quick, “where are you? Done with bill xx,” and goes back to mindlessly typing notes into his laptop, feeling semi-productive.

From: Izzy

We’re outside. The snow was super pretty lol

She sends him a picture of her and Phil outside, both covered in snowflakes all over. Phil’s eyes are bright and shining and he’s jumping in the background of the photo.

From: Izzy

we want 2 go out for lunch B)

To: Izzy

Where tho like that’s whats important

From: Izzy

Obviously that 1 diner at the edge of kings

U kno the 1 with the fairy lights :)

To: Izzy

Sure yea id be down

Do u want to take a car or walk

From: Izzy

Can we walk my feet hurt

Will show u pics of the ultrasound at lunch. We’ve got neeeeeeeewssss

He puts his phone down and closes his laptop screen. He puts his shoes on and joins Izzy and Phil outside, “We’ll have to tell someone where we’re going.” He tells them. “And we should probably bring, like, a guard or two.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Izzy says happily. “Drake and Josh?” She says, and Dan laughs.

“Yeah, sure, if neither are working right now.” He says.

 Phil likes the restaurant. It’s pretty, simple, and their food is good. Fairy lights are strung up around the building and the lights are dimmed so that they stand out even more. He ordered a plate of fish and chips and some ice cream and is extremely grateful that he did.

Dan and Isabella split a vegetarian pizza with mozzarella sticks, and Phil turns his nose up to it. He likes cheese on pizza, but this pizza looks too cheesy, and it has at least four cheeses on it according to the menu. The waitress said hi to Dan and Isabella as if they were old friends in university, “Oh! How are you? It’s been a while; I was starting to worry that you didn’t like our food anymore.” But both Dan and Isabella assure her that they would never stop visiting the diner.

Phil learns that Drake and Josh did not mean the television show characters and instead a burly guard with strange resemblance to musician Drake and a tall curly-haired man literally named Josh. He’s sort of disappointed, but upon watching them interact with each other, becomes very happy.

“Drake” (apparently his name is Fergreck, Phil understands why everyone calls him Drake) keeps feeding Josh food and giving him compliments. Phil didn’t know that he would ever wish two bodyguards would date, but right now, he really wants them to just admit their undying love for each other. This must be how the internet feels about Dan and Phil, he thinks.

They eat in silence, occasionally making jokes or talking about their days, but it’s a comfortable silence. Dan’s holding his hand underneath the table and every time Izzy bumps her foot playfully against his he blushes deeply.

Towards the end of the meal, as everyone is taking their last bites of food, Izzy turns to Dan. “So, the doctor found something interesting.” She says, and Phil grows stiff. He completely forgot about it before, but now he’s anxious of Dan’s reaction. “Laurie’s going to have another sibling.”

Dan looks confused, his brain catching up with the words before he squeals and wraps her into a hug. “Twins? Oh my God,” He exclaims, and Phil knows they’re attracting attention, but Dan gives them both long kisses and then begins crying and he’s never been happier. “We’re going to have two of them, holy fuck. I totally called it.”

Izzy laughs, “Yea, yea, you were right all along,” She says lovingly and giving him a quick kiss. Dan drops a kiss onto Phil’s hand and wipes his happy tears away with the other.

“I’m just so excited,” He says. “I—I just—”

Phil cuts him off with a kiss, and he smiles into Dan’s mouth. “Let’s go home, come on.” Phil says, pulling away. “Head out before we get mobbed or some shit.”

They head out, Dan slams a twenty percent tip for the waitress onto the table, and the waitress gives all of them hugs and her congratulations as they leave. Dan’s so happy, he won’t stop talking about names for the babies.

“You can keep ‘Laurie’ but I want to name the other one!” He says, and Isabella gives him a look.

“I’m going to push a screaming watermelon out of my vagina, you have no right to name either of them.” She accuses playfully, and Dan pouts.

“Laurie Anne and Jordan Isabella.” He says.

“Jordan Isabella is ugly,” Phil argues. “Isabella Jordan.”

“No, that’s too close to my name,” Isabella complains.

“What if one of them is a boy and one is a girl?” Dan asks, “Then can we name a baby Jordan?”

She rolls her eyes at his eagerness, “You’ll get your Jordan, I promise.”

He pecks her cheek and gives them both a goofy smile before leaning against Izzy’s shoulder and snuggling into the backseat of the car.