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Princes don’t get friends. Or at least, normal friends. That was one of the first things that Steve learned on his own. His parents chose his friends.
They set up lunches and outings to the gardens with Tommy, the firstborn son of Steve’s Father’s favorite Duke, and Carol, the girl that had already been arranged to marry Tommy at their births. Steve always hated it. He wanted cool friends, like the kids that he saw on his rare trips outside the walls of his castle and into the city of his family's kingdom.
The kids looked free and like they were having fun, real fun - the kind of thing the young prince could only dream of. Steve wasn’t allowed to roll in the mud, or throw stones across the bubbling creeks that he could peak at on carriage rides, and he most certainly was not allowed to rough house.
So, he spent his life bored, and waiting for the day he could slip away. Or the day his parents would trust him enough to let him leave with them - instead of how they left without him everywhere , leaving him in the care of his servants that shouldn’t have been expected to raise a future king.
King Steven, he would be one day, but at the time he was only Prince Steve. Prince Steve, who spent his time in lessons, daydreaming of adventures and friends, and also learning how to perfectly style his hair - he wanted to look good, sue him.
It all changed when he turned seven. His father, the current King, had decided that he was old enough to learn how to use a sword - no prince would be allowed to not be able to best people in the art of sword fighting. So, his days had a new schedule. Before lunch, he would be in the gardens with his new teacher.
What he hadn’t expected was that his lessons would be joined by not only his teacher, but his teacher’s nephew.
Edward Munson was the first real friend that Steve ever got. Eddie, he liked to be called, but Steve would call him Eds sometimes, and Eddie always called him Prince or Steve or Stevie. Never at the same time or even Prince Steven, like Eddie’s uncle Wayne called him.
Steve would spend have of his lesson learning from Wayne and the other half “practicing” with Eddie in fits that led to giggling and rolling around with their wooden swords tossed to the side and their clothes getting progressively more dirty - Steve always had to spend time scrubbing at his hair to get rid of the mud, but he never complained.
Eddie’s hair was never styled, and it hung shapely around the curve of his cheeks and jaw, falling into a mess of finger-broken curls that never stayed in place. Steve thinks that he likes Eddie’s hair anyway.
Steve’s eighth birthday came before Eddie’s ninth. Steve’s parents were off making a deal with some neighboring kingdom, so Steve spent his birthday alone.
Well, alone meaning without his parents, because as a birthday present, he had been allowed to invite one person of his choice to stay the day and night.
It hadn’t taken any thought to ask for Eddie, and he’s glad that's who he chose.
Eddie teased = him over how a prince could “have such a boring room” but after dinner, there was a small cake, and Eddie sat in the chair closest to Steve. In the middle of a bite of chocolate and icing, Eddie pressed a paper into his open palm.
“What’s this?” he had said through a slightly full mouth, taking a quick sip of fresh cow’s milk.
“Y’gotta open and read it,” Eddie rushed, pressing it further into Steve’s hand, “Cmon cmon, hurry.”
The parchment unrolled easily in Steve’s hand, out falling an iron ring with a dull black stone inset into it. The ring was too large for the hand of a boy, much more akin to fit around the finger of a man. A matching smooth iron chain fell with it, though.
“Obsidian,” Eddie started, taking a deep breath with a nervous grin towards Steve, who responded to his friend with a wide smile, “I have a matching one, see?”
At Eddie’s pointing finger, Steve saw the necklace that he wore did indeed have a matching ring. He unrolled the paper further and caught sight of pencil lines. Once it was fully open, he saw the most beautiful pencil drawing of a ship.
“It’s beautiful.”
“I'm gonna have one like it one day and - the ring, the ring is because the captain and his right-hand man gotta have something to match.”
He had held the items in his hands like they were precious, looking up at Eddie and realizing that Eddie was the first to ever want to be his friend, and the first person to ever want him. “I’d like that. Me and you, Eds, forever?”
Eddie smiled one of those smiles where his lips pulled tight and his eyes crinkled - the smile that Steve was sure was just for him.
The two talked until it was late enough that the night maids were spooked by their laughs, and then they went to their separate rooms.
Before slumber, Steve thought hard about Eddie, and wondered about the warmth in his cheeks around the other boy. He held the ring in his hand and then he pressed his lips to it, quickly - a fire ignited behind the skin of his face, and he thought about how Tommy had once confessed to kissing Carol, and said that her lips were soft. Would … would Eddie’s be soft?
Steve fell asleep soon after, dreaming of the salt and the sea and innocent kisses.
It was just over four years later when Steve thought again about kissing Eddie. They were both twelve, and getting taller and older. And Eddie - Steve thought that Eddie was getting really pretty, with how the sun freckled him, and his jaw sharpened, and his eyes became dark like the sea but bright like the reflection of the moon.
They were pressed into the branches of a large garden tree and Eddie was in the middle of talking about a spider he had seen in the forest, when Steve pressed forward, his hands settling onto Eddie’s face and pressed his lips to the other’s.
And Eddie pressed back, and Steve could feel how the warm and soft lips against his curled into a smile, until they both pulled away giggling and breathless - Eddie asked Steve if he would do it again, and so he did, pressing his hand into Eddie’s and his lips against Eddie’s made him realize that holding hands is a kind of kiss, similar to the ones their lips share.
With his age growing, he's allowed to do more, so having Eddie over for more than just his sword lessons was common.
Kissing Eddie was common too - kissing him everywhere he could; the gardens; his room; empty hallways; the barracks; the armory; the dining room. It made twelve year old Steve wonder why he had never kissed Eddie before.
It was almost winter, and the leaves of the trees around the castle that Steve had slowly come to hate were turning golden and slowly orange. And Eddie was staying the night.
Steve couldn’t sleep, and he woke up from a nightmare about an empty castle collapsing in on him. So, without much thinking he rolled out of bed. His sleep attire wrinkled, and padded across the cold floor to the door, and down the hallway to the room that Eddie had been allotted to stay in. He didn’t have a candle or oil lamp, but he was comfortable enough that sliding a hand along the wall and following the bumps and ridges of the wall and doors till he was at Eddie’s was enough guidance.
He knocked on the door, and Eddie barely opened it, before Steve was let in.
They clambered into the bed together, and Steve let himself be pulled into Eddie’s arms. For the first time, Steve felt like he had a place in the castle that he fit - right there in Eddie’s arms, with his cheek pressed to the cotton of Eddie’s shirt, and listening to the soft beating of Eddie’s heart that seemed to quicken the more he nestled closer.
And there, Eddie pressed a tentative kiss to the top of his hair, and that made Steve feel like a king. Maybe that's what being a king is about - love. Maybe it’s why Steve had never wanted to be one before, because he’s never had so much love in his bones or in his heart before then.
Steve pressed a kiss to the place where Eddie’s heart beat in his chest, and then fell into a soft slumber.
Looking back, he wishes he could freeze the moment - stop the time from changing and capture all that sweetness in ice or a painting or a magic spell. Anything to let it stay and not leave with the ebbbing and weaving of fickle time.
But then again, the first lesson Prince Steven had learned was that Princes don’t get friends.
And he does not get Eddie, because when he awoke the morning after, he was alone. And on the days he was supposed to have sword lessons, Wayne and Eddie were both nowhere to be found.
Eddie ran, and Steve was left behind - with an empty castle and dreams of the sea.
That was years ago. He’s twenty one now, and knows enough of the world to not speak of Eddie or the kisses or how he thinks he was in love with the boy. And he was engaged just three short years ago, when his wife-to-be Princess Nancy, ran away too. But he found new people.
There was Dustin, they had met when Steve was seventeen, he doesn’t really understand much about how their friendship came to be, but it all worked out and the kid is like a brother to him. And Robin, a girl from the city who Steve had once thought would be a good potential for a courtship - it was not because at the start of him trying to tell her his wishes, she told him that she would rather like people like Tammy Thompson, a bard from the city, and Steve knew.
Robin told him of girls, and he - he told her of Eddie.
The only one who knew about him and Eddie, besides the two who were involved, was Robin.
And now, Dustin is just shy of sixteen, and is telling Steve he will be leaving.
“Steve,” Dustin says, the forest around the two of them making an enchanting and cozy scene that makes Steve wish he was an artist so that he could sketch it.
“Hm?” The prince questions, turning his attention from the trees and plants and flowers to his younger companion.
“I leave on a ship next week. I’m - I’m going to be a pirate.”
And Steve almost laughs. He almost tumbles to the ground with great hearty giggles that he is sure would only dissolve into tears because he’s going to be left again. For the third time, he will look past every wall, look out every window, and spend seconds and minutes and hours and days looking at every stranger and wondering, if it’s the person missing from his heart.
“A pirate?” He asks instead, to which Dustin nods. Continuing with his story, the boy takes a deep breath, “Hellfire docked at the Wharf a few days ago. They’re looking for new men and I - we have been accepted. We leave Saturday morning.”
“Today is Thursday, that is not a week. Pirates - Pirates are outlaws, they are freaks. You want to be one of them?” Bitterness claws at his throat, and Steve thinks about how he had wanted to be one of them - he had wanted to be the right-hand man of a future Pirate Captian for fucks sake, and yet here he is judging.
Dustin’s shoulder’s sink, “I’m leaving, Prince Steven. I would stay for you, but I am not sure you are ever even really here.”
Steve knows what he means - he floats off often, stares too hard at the distance, where the sky meets the ground or the ocean, and knows that he is in the water with salt and ocean spray.
In his heart, Steve feels like he is in the ocean that he knows Eddie must be in - was he a captain yet? Was … was Steve replaced as his right-hand man? - because when Eddie left, his heart was taken with, leaving a greedy and cold place in Steve’s chest.
He can feel Dustin turn to leave, and realizes that he had disappeared from his own mind again. “The Ocean is a land of its own. Each ship, each crew, is its own kingdom. You can’t be an outlaw when you make your own laws.”
And with that, Dustin is gone. Ringing in Steve’s ears is his correction of I to we . Who else would be leaving him behind?
The answer to his question comes on Friday, when he makes a trip to the city and sits next to Robin outside the porch of her house. It’s on the edge of the city, and away from the major prying eyes of the city folk - soon his city folk, as his father is getting older and the throne will pass to him when his father passes. The thought gives him hives.
She looks up at him, not with pity - Robin has never pitied him, something that Steve thinks of when he feels pitiful like he does now - but with remorse. Steve’s breath catches in his throat and it’s like there’s death clawing at his insides and painting him in an ugly color.
“I’ve fallen in love,” she whispers to him, too small for the bubble of energy that the prince is used to. She leans into him, head falling onto his shoulder and pressing against his vest. He leans back, letting their heads rest on eachother, and he understands. He is not angry, or mad, he’s not even bitter. Robin deserves love - and if she has found it on a ship that very well might never again dock in his city - he will support her.
With a deep breath, he smiles, and forgives Dustin. Dustin - Dustin deserves freedom, and the sea, and the wind.
“And you’re leaving,” he responds, just as quiet, but more watery. It’s like damn has burst in him when she nods back, and he cries.
For the first time in the life of Prince Steven, he is held while he cries.
And isn’t that just a blessing - to be held, and loved, even if you think you will soon be gone from the other?
Maybe that’s why Eddie left. Maybe holding Steve was the last blessing Eddie could give to him.
Steve tries not to dwell on it too long, and instead dries his tears.
He tells Robin that he will see her, and that he will be there when the ship leaves.
Steve is home before knows it, and collapses into bed, kindly asking the staff to relax and gently asking to not bother him much. He wakes before the sun rises, and pads to the kitchen, and gets some bread and butter. It’s a small breakfast but he’s not too sure he can eat. The ship leaves just after dawn, and he must get to the wharf before then.
He bathes in his basin, and then gets dressed. Only he knows of the scars hidden beneath his shirts - the ones from swords, that he acquired in fights that he shouldn’t have taken.
Only Steve knows of the chain and ring that presses against the skin and flesh above where his heart beats.
He does not take a horse or carriage, but tucked to his side is his satchel, and his other side sits his scabbard.
In the fresh morning air, the dew makes him think of Eddie. The fading moon reminds him of Eddie’s eyes, and the darkness of the night that slowly turns a handsome and deep pink makes him think of Eddie’s hair and how the curls would hide blistering pink cheeks - whether from an affliction of the sun or something Steve had said or done.
He makes it to the Wharf safely, just before the sun breaks the horizon that he can see on the edge of the water. Only a few people send him odd looks he realizes are from vague recognition.
The people on the docks are quick at work and soon, the sun is rising to create a gradient of the most beautiful organes that Steve has seen, and he thinks that today might be a good day. Even if he will have a loss, and will lose his two favorite people - who could hate such a pretty morning?
Steve sees Dustin and Robin out by a ship, talking to a figure he doesn’t recognize - but then Steve doesn’t get the chance to walk closer because he thinks there’s a knapsack thrown over his head and -
Then he’s asleep.
Then he’s awake with a start at the sound of frantic yelling voices and before he can even realize what is truly going on, he is up and is on the defense - or maybe the attack, he’s not sure.
What he is sure of, though, is that he is not on land. The gentle swaying of his feet and tilt of his mind make him realize that only a split second before he sees the ocean. In every angle he can see.
His body straightens from the fighting stance as a lean figure stalks towards him, in nearly all black with the subtle tinges of red. He can’t see their face, as the tilt of their large hat- decorated with an even larger feather - obstructs the sight. But he can see silver glinting on their fingers and small chains on their pants, and dark hair hanging in broken curls around their shoulders.
It is only when the Pirate leans over Steve and straightens his hat , in a towering way despite their similar heights, that Steve can see who it is.
“It’s been a long time, Your Highness,” The older, but still recognizable, Eddie Munson says with a smirk to his lips. Steve feels his face erupt with flames and he thinks that his heart is burning with it.
He does not say anything back, instead he lunges with the intention to wipe that smug look off of the pirate's face.
So this is where Eddie had run to - away from Steve and towards the dream they had once shared, leaving Steve to empty castle halls and empty gardens and Tommy and Carol as his only friends.
Steve has his hands gripping the front of Eddie’s shirt when he is wrenched back by familiar - and unfamiliar hands - right before he feels the press of a wooden pillar behind his back and rope tying him to it.
Shit.
“Looks like we’ve got ourselves a prince,” a cheery voice says, and. No. No, no, no.
Steve must be in some kind of fucking noghtmare because there is no way in hell that there’s a runaway princess on this fucking ship, but there is. He looks to the side and stares heavily at the girl, and fuck. Yeah, it’s his ex fiance.
Holding her hand is Robin.
Life is just … full of surprises.
He’s acutely aware that there’s still Eddie staring at him, and Steve lets his head fall back and thunk against the wood before leaning it back up to watch as Eddie turns away.
“So this is what you’ve been running off to all these years, huh?” Steve spat, anger infiltrating the tone of his voice. He wanted to struggle against the ropes but they were too tight around his arms and hips to move.
Eddie turned back around, movements sharp as he got closer to the prince. His brows are furrowed deeply and Steve can’t help himself but to admire how kind the years have been. Eddie is just as beautiful as he was when they were kids, if anything more handsome now. His shirt is open almost half the way down his body and Steve only looks back up when Eddie is too close for any further inspection.
It’s then when he realizes there’s anger on Eddie’s face, Steve isn’t afraid.
“I did not run away!” Eddie’s voice is harsh and gravelly and Steve traces his eyes over the sharp edges of Eddie and wonders where his best friend had disappeared too - right before Eddie’s face crumples. There’s still tension in his brows, but he looks younger then. More recognizable.
Sadness hints in his eyes but it just makes Steve want to leave this binding to hold him.
“I’m sorry,” his voice is soft. It grows louder when he addresses the rest of the crew, turning away from Steve. “Alright. Release the anchor and then the prince. Hellfire has new recruits, and the sun is fading fast. You shits ruined our departure, so we mustn't get too far from the port. We can still have our celebration, sunset is soon, and we shall party.”
A breath catches in Steve’s throat and he thinks that Eddie is alive.
Eddie is alive and his energy is so bright that Steve feels he must be burning.
A pirate captain. It fits him well. They’re both older now, supposed to have grown out of their dreams - and yet, Eddie grew into theirs, and Steve’s longing to do the same.
It’s like ivy is spreading in his veins, as quick as quicksand. And Steve is slowly getting used to wanting but this is an entirely new desire. He’s not looking for something to take the ache of loneliness away, no.
He is released and he finds himself sitting in a corner, watching the crew interact and laugh and have fun. Steve wants to stay. The ship is beautiful, from what he can see. And from the few glimpses he got before being kidnapped. Just like the one Eddie wanted.
The necklace against his chest makes him feel like it’s burning into his skin and he wonders if Eddie has got a Quartermaster yet. Steve thinks that he’d rather walk a plank than hear he’s been replaced.
After all, when they were kids, Eddie said that he’d want to be in love with his right-hand man.
Steve hadn’t made the connection of course, but now he is realizing that any one of these people could be the match that Eddie was looking for.
His chest burns hotter, more painfully, he pushes the thought away.
Next to him then plops Robin, she looks nervous.
“So … pirates.” He says to try and break the air.
“Yeah, pirates.”
Steve smiles at her, “I’m happy for you, and for Nance. You both deserve happiness, okay?”
“You do too, Steve.”
“I know.”
The conversation fades away and Robin wanders off. Dustin brings him food as the sun goes down. Stee busies himself with thinking of Eddie. He tries eventually to talk to the crew, but he can’t focus enough. He’s distracted by how comfortable he feels. It’s weird. He wants to stay, more than anything. He barely knows the people on here, besides from the two ghosts of memories past and two of his best friends. But he thinks he could come to find his place. If there was a spot for him. Who knows. Maybe, Steve doesn’t get to stay. Just like he didn’t get to have Eddie stay.
Maybe Steve is meant to be in a lonesome castle, and meant to marry a girl he won't love because his heart will forever be on a ship, and meant to be a king.
Maybe he doesn’t want to be a king. Dustin compared a ship to its own kingdom, and here, it is Eddie who is the king. Steve isn’t royalty here. He’s just Steve.
The conversation falls easy for him, and he laughs at jokes. Steve drinks shitty whiskey from a cup and he converses and he feels more like a human than he ever has before.
He looks over the shoulder of one of the men he’s talking to - Gareth, is his name, Steve thinks. There, sitting at the bow of the ship on a bench is Eddie.
Steve waits for a pause in the conversation before he slips away, walking quietly towards someone that had disappeared in the night, running away from him.
“Eddie?” Steve asks and his voice is almost swallowed by the crashing of waves into the side of the ship. The night is alive and behind him, the festivities continue. He continues forward, sitting next to the man that he had known so long ago. It’s laughable, thinking about how Steve had been without Eddie for longer than the two had been friends, but the time doesn’t feel so large when they’re sat next to each other. The moon is turning Eddie into a stunning sight, and they’re so close that Steve think’s their hands could be brushing if he were even a smidge closer.
“Hiya, my Prince,” Eddie speaks into the air of the night, turning to press his face close to Steve’s - and he can’t think straight, not with how Eddie is all up in his face and there’s warm breath fanning against his lips and shit.
Steve yearns to press forward and connect their lips, to see if they fit together just as perfectly as they did nine years ago. Instead he says what has been buzzing on his mind and his tongue since he realized he was on the ship and that Eddie was too: “I don’t want to go back.”
Eddie is looking at him incredulously. Steve wants to devour him.
Steve wants to press his cheek to the chest that peaks from the open billows of Eddie’s shirt to hear if his heart sounds the same as it did the night before he was gone.
“You don’t want to go back.”
Before Eddie says anything more, Steve is pressing his hands to the buttons of his vest, and loosening his cravat, and then taking the first buttons of his shirt and undoing them.
And all the maybe’s in the world don’t exist because this isn’t just some throw away thought, it’s everything Steve has ever wanted and more. And Steve may not be a king or royalty but right now, here, he is a prince. And he is a coward. But he is Steve, and he is the same boy he was on his eighth birthday, wanting to be next to Eddie - forever.
“Steve, why are you getting undressed in the open on my boat?” Steve stares at Eddie, trying to dissect the strange expression on the other man’s face before he instead just brushes it to the side. With his clothes no longer blocking his necklace, Steve reaches behind his neck and under the curls at the places where his hair reaches his neck to unclasp the jewelry.
It then falls into his hand, mentally weighing Steve’s hand hundreds of pounds compared to the measly ounces it probably truly was.
“I don’t want to go back. I know where I do want to go, there’s this - this Pirate, and he’s captain of his ship,” Steve sucks a deep breath in his teeth, hissing out slowly before letting himself continue. “I’m hoping he still needs a First Mate.”
The unreadable expression is back again, with the moon shining off of Eddie’s dark eyes. A hand presses against Steve’s own and he feels the ring being pulled from the chain it had hung on for so long, and then he feels it being pressed onto the ring finger of his left hand, matching Eddie’s. Eddie is closer now, his forehead pressed to Steve’s and their noses brush each other the same way their knees and hands do. The wooden bench beneath them is solid ground as Steve uses his hand to prop himself up, only pushing him and Eddie closer.
It’s times like this that make Steve wish he wasn’t such a coward - people can and will say the opposite, but if Prince Steven was truly as brave and lionhearted as people thought he was, then he already would have kissed his pirate.
From beside his hand, Eddie’s hand moves, the coolness of finger tips to a scar just below his sternum alerts him to where the hand moved to.
“We match,” the air from Eddie’s words tickles Steve’s lips. “Sword fights, huh?”
Steve chuckles, “Yeah, sword fights.”
A comfortable silence passes over them, and Steve can feel the ache to kiss Eddie growing stronger so he breaks it.
“I still hate you for running, by the way.” The hand on Steve’s body ghosts upwards, tracing his collarbones and then pressing flat to Steve’s chest. He hopes Eddie can feel the race of his heart.
“Hate me all you want, big boy. I’m never leaving again. Not when I need my right-hand man so much.”
Steve’s lips stretch full into a large grin and he feels so giddy that he doesn't know what to do with himself. But here he is.
He’s on a pirate ship, miles away from an empty castle, and a kingdom that would have been his one day - he feels not even a bit of remorse or sadness for what he is leaving behind.
Steve knows now why Dustin wanted to go and why Robin wanted to go because it’s so freeing to be here - because, in the air of salt and sea, Eddie finally kisses him.
And as their lips meet in remembrance, Steve feels like a king.
(“I think I still love you.”
“Oh, sweet prince, I have loved you since the day you kissed me.”)