Funnily enough, Ronan's attention was so focused on Amir and his movement – he had stalked toward the carriage the moment the prince reached for the sword – that he noticed Amir's reaction before he registered the words behind it.

Except it wasn't funny at all, really.

Ronan watched as if in slow motion as Amir's whole body seemed to seize for a split second, watched the aborted half-turn of his head as if his first instinct was to glean Ronan's response to the revelation, and thought, belatedly,

Oh.

Of course.

Because it made sense. So much sense that when Ronan winced, it wasn't out of surprise, at least not the sort that came from learning something new. Instead, it was the somehow more familiar, somehow more shocking hurt of having been lied to.

Then he winced again, because Amir and the prince – Amir and his brother, Rainer and Nicholas, the prince and the prince – had skipped the formalities that Amir so insisted on whenever they sparred. Metal struck metal, and time sped back up.

An awful slicing sound tore through the early morning as the sword's downward arc caught against the curve of Amir's knife and the blades slid apart. Amir jumped back, but Nicholas followed him savagely, lunging into a thrust that just about stopped Ronan's heart. Amir barely sidestepped; the sword chased the movement.

Ronan knew at once that this was nothing like the last time he'd watched Amir raise a knife against a sword. This man was leagues above the guard they had faced the night of the Van Doren heist. The dagger Ronan had grown fond of, curved and wide with scratches in the steel, clashed with a broadsword he suspected bore the words SOW PRIDE, REAP PROSPERITY. And from where Ronan stood, it looked like the sword was winning.

Amir wasn't giving ground, but he wasn't gaining any, either. The disadvantage was clear: Nicholas had range on his side, and he was slashing too widely for Amir to get close. Grinning all the while, like this was still just a game and Amir stood no chance at all.

Ronan's blood boiled. He wanted to shout – at Nicholas for underestimating Amir, at Amir for going on the defensive–

A sharp clang harreled the fight into a half-second pause. Ronan saw his own shock mirrored on the prince's face as a new weapon entered the fray, seemingly from nowhere. He could have cried out his relief at the sight of a second knife in Amir's left hand, drawn from the opposite side of his belt without anyone noticing. Its blade was peculiar, split into three. A trident dagger, Amir had explained after their night at the castle.

With the sword caught between two of the prongs, Amir was able to slip in close, and the fight shifted.

With speed that had Ronan blinking out of focus, Amir darted in and out, launching quick jabs and slashes from his right hand and parrying on his left. Nicholas' smirk slipped with concentration, but the challenge only seemed to spur him on; his attacks became more precise and strategic. Immovable force, meet impenetrable wall.

Ronan struggled to track the movement, bracing himself each time the sword came too close for comfort, clenching his fists whenever the trident dagger clawed just right and he thought the prince would be disarmed.

All he could do was react.

Amir swiped at Nicholas' legs. Nicholas hissed and jumped back with little more than a tear in his pants. Ronan's fingers squeezed around the bag. Nicholas swung down; Amir crossed his knives to catch the blade before it could sink into his shoulder. Ronan tasted blood where he had bitten his lip. Amir landed a kick to the knee and Nicholas teetered off balance, but the prince recovered so quickly that Amir's follow-up almost landed a sword in his side. Ronan's lungs burned and he gasped out, realizing he'd been holding his breath.

He felt so worthless.

The fight couldn't have lasted more than a couple of minutes, but it felt like years. It felt like it could go on forever. The sounds of the forest were drowned out by shuffling feet and low grunts and clashing metal. All of that was swallowed – at least to Ronan's ears – by a wounded cry.

A broken yell tore from Ronan's throat as Amir's first dagger fell to the ground. His shirtsleeve rapidly soaked red.

It had been a risky move, slashing at the outside of Amir's strike, but Nicholas had timed it perfectly.

His shout was triumphant as he surged for Amir's unarmed right side, only to be parried yet again. Amir had switched his remaining weapon to his injured hand.

The prince cackled. "Oh, give it up!"

Amir staggered out of reach, gripping his forearm.

Nicholas didn't immediately follow him. His eyes wandered past Amir, and a terrible shock buzzed down Ronan's spine as their eyes met for the first time.

"Guards," Nicholas spoke without turning, handsome face disfigured by a sinister smile even as his chest heaved. "I think it might be time to acquaint ourselves–"

Amir hurtled back into action, and Nicholas almost didn't react in time. The force of the strike had him tripping backward, attempting to get into stance.

Amir didn't let him.

If he had been a beast before, he was a demon now. The trident dagger wasn't meant for offense; he bore down furiously nonetheless. With the blades retracted, he wielded it like a sword, throwing his weight around, fighting fast and reckless.

The prince cut outward to bully him back but Amir met his strike. Only this time, his dagger sprang open at the last second, catching the sword mid-swing as Amir's momentum drew him forward, into his brother's space. He swiped his foot, making Nicholas stumble, and wrenched his knife-hand just so.

The sword twisted out of Nicholas' grip. In the blink of an eye it had been kicked away, and Amir held his brother's wrists behind him in one hand and the dagger in the other. The blade dug into the pale column of the prince's throat.

"Drop your weapons!" Amir roared. "At my feet, now!"

This time, his order was met with reluctant compliance. Two rifles skidded across the grass. He kicked them both behind him. Nicholas had gone very, very quiet.

Amir half-turned his head to say, "You need to run," so Ronan caught the pained look on his profile when instead of running, he raised two fingers to his lips and whistled.

Still, Amir returned his full focus in front of him. "All of them."

The last sword joined the pile.

"Leave," he commanded.

At this, no one moved.

"I have no want for a hostage," he said, dangerously low. A spidery chill crawled its way along Ronan's nerves. "Start moving, and I will give back your prince."

The coachman tried for reason. "Rain– Sir, I'm certain we can come to an und–"

"Do you think I'm fucking joking?" Amir shouted viciously. It was animalistic, halfway to a snarl. The prince made a choked sound as the knife pushed harder, almost too hard.

Ronan shuddered.

The coachman flicked his whip, and the horses started slowly down the road. Amir waited several seconds, then dragged his brother after them.

"Faster!" he barked.

The carriage picked up speed.

When he was satisfied, Amir practically tossed Nicholas toward the guards, who immediately crouched to help the prince onto the back of the carriage.

Amir retreated as it continued down the road but didn't turn his back, even once he'd gathered all of the dropped weapons and the spot of purple faded in the distance. Only when Bandit appeared above them did he turn so Ronan could fully see him.

Ronan remembered thinking he had looked like a nightmare the first night they met, when he had cornered the Merry Men wearing a shotgun and a sword and his black scarf over his face. What, then, could he call the sight of him now – his ragged breaths as he carried two guns under one arm and two swords in the opposite hand, dripping sweat and blood?

The real nightmare, though, was his name.

If Ronan thought about all of that right now, he was going to pass out. Amir looked like he was already halfway there.

So Ronan wordlessly offered a leg up. After one last glance at the road, Amir left the weapons in the grass at their feet.

They didn't speak as they took to the sky, or during the short ride back to the city, or for the walk through the alleyways to Ronan's front door. Old escape instincts took over, and for the brief journey, his mind was mercifully blank.

The door shut behind them, and Ronan said, "Why didn't you tell me?"

He went straight to his room. The question floated between them unanswered as Amir trailed him, and with every second the residual shock and fear gave way to something brighter.

"I am so sorry," Amir finally spoke up. "I was going to tell you, I swear– it wasn't supposed to happen that way, none of that was supposed to happen."

His voice faltered when Ronan threw his bag down by the bed and all-but ripped open one of his drawers.

"Who are you," Ronan said. Amir hesitated at the top of the stairs.

Another infuriating silence, then, "What?"

"Who," Ronan whipped around to face him. "Are you?"

He wanted to hear it directly.

Amir looked like he'd had the wind knocked out of him. "I am...Rainer, third son of Queen Nazia."

Ronan breezed past him with a clean shirt slapped over his shoulder. "Looking good for a sickly prince," he huffed, jogging down the stairs.

"That was always a hoax." Amir hurried behind him. "A ruse to cover up the birth of an illegitimate heir."

"Must've gotten a real laugh watching me and Vito fall out over a plan that was never possible to begin with."

He had reached the kitchen. He snatched some washcloths from the shelf, then the nearly-full bottle of whiskey Amos had gifted him after his first month of work.

"No part of that was funny to me," Amir said tightly. "Why would you say that?"

"Why would you lie to me?"

The pot on the hearth rattled as Ronan's hand came down on it. He had raised his voice; it seemed to echo. "I understand," he tried to school his tone and mostly failed. He was relieved to find the pot wasn't empty. "Why you might've at the start, when I lived at the house."

There was no telling what Vito – what any of them, really – would have done with that information. As long as Ronan had been one of the Merry Men, he'd been a threat.

But he hadn't been one of them for months.

Quietly, Amir said, "Your dream is to leave this island. You need money to do that."

Ronan froze and nearly dropped the pot. "Are you fucking serious?" Water swished when he turned. Amir's face was shadowed with guilt. "After all this time, you think I'd sell you out?"

Amir grimaced. "No! No, that was– yes, maybe, for a while, but then I was just..." Distress darkened his eyes as Ronan stormed past him toward the living room. "I was scared. I thought you would turn me away the second you knew."

Ronan dropped to a kneel before the wooden chair, sending water splashing. "I am so tired," the whiskey bottle clinked as he roughly set it down, "of people keeping the truth from me and acting like it's some great show of devotion. There is no affection in taking away my chance to choose for myself."

"You're right, I'm sorry, I was going to tell you–"

"When?" Ronan seethed. "Why is it I only find out these things when it's my ass on the line? Sit down," he demanded, then mumbled to himself, "I'm such an idiot."

"You aren't."

"I am! Fool me once, fool me twice– Christ, I thought I knew you. Sit down."

Amir's voice wavered with a fear that wasn't there before. "Of course you know me."

Ronan gave a humorless laugh as he swiped the shirt from his shoulder. He slipped two fingers into his boot for his knife and made a cut centimeters from the hem. Digging his fingers in, he tore until he had a long, white loop of linen. "I am starting to think I could spend a lifetime trying to know you in vain."

Ronan hated being lied to. He ripped the loop into a strip.

"Don't say that," Amir pleaded. "Please don't say that."

"For the love of God, sit down."

Amir planted himself in the chair and Ronan took his arm without preamble. Blood had never made him queasy, but seeing it on Amir was nauseating. His sleeve was sticky with it.

Unlike his tone, Ronan's hands were gentle as he pushed the sleeve away, rolling it up to the elbow. Amir tensed when it stuck to the edges of the wound. Through gritted teeth, he said, "I really was waiting for the right time to tell you."

"Quiet," Ronan muttered, dipping a washcloth into the pot.

Amir started to draw his arm away. He didn't get very far before Ronan's hand around his fingers held him in place. Ronan felt a deep ache in his chest at the way Amir's voice came out next, like a lamb to the slaughter. "I know I messed up, but you're scaring me."

"Stop talking," he ground out. "You'll bite your tongue."

Chastised, Amir fell silent. He hissed at the press of the cloth against tender skin and torn flesh. Ronan tried to be as careful as he could, wiping away sweat and dried blood with the lightest possible touches, but there was nothing he could do about the pain. He was relieved, at least, to find that the wound looked worse than it was. The cut was long, and so close to striking somewhere dangerous that bile rose in Ronan's throat, but not horribly deep. The bleeding already seemed to have let up some. Ronan paused once the area was clean, giving Amir a break and allowing himself a moment to close his eyes, pull a long breath through his nose, and thank God.

"This isn't going to feel good," he warned before drizzling whiskey onto a second cloth.

Amir's knee kicked up involuntarily at the first contact, nearly knocking Ronan's chin.

"Breathe," Ronan instructed softly. "Just breathe."

Eyes screwed shut, Amir tried for a deep breath. It cut off when the alcohol dabbed against his skin again. He gripped the armrest and tipped his head back and kept trying, drawn-out inhales that stuttered when it was too much. Without realizing, Ronan began to rub soothing circles into his wrist with his other hand, and they made it through like that.

By the time Ronan was satisfied, Amir's forehead was beaded with sweat. Despite what must've been burning pain, Amir spoke up the second the washcloth dropped to the floor.

"I need to focus," Ronan said before he could get a word out, looking anywhere but his hands as he wiped them clean.

Amir's face crumpled. "We need to talk about this."

"We can talk after."

"We can talk now!"

"Amir!" Ronan snapped, because he couldn't talk about this right now, not if he was going to do a half-decent job dressing the wound. "Can you just– give me a moment? To get my bearings and process whatever the fuck just happened and pretend, for a second, that the only things true in this world are that you are hurt, and I can help you. Can you allow me that?"

He didn't know why he said it. Something nasty must have possessed him to take Amir's words and wield them so differently. Amir clearly heard, because before he smiled, he recoiled. He still did, though. Smile. Like it was worth the sting to know Ronan remembered something he'd said months ago.

"Let me know if it's uncomfortable."

They had been in the same exact spot then, only flipped. And Amir had taken care of him.

"You told me you wouldn't risk my safety," Ronan whispered once he was finished, and layers of cloth were wrapped tight from Amir's wrist to his elbow. "But someone shot at me today."

Amir lowered his head. "I know. I know, I– I let you down, and I'm sorry, but," his uninjured hand curled tight. When he looked up at Ronan, it was from beneath his lashes, a stare so intense Ronan couldn't look away. "There isn't a chance in Hell that I'd let anything happen to you. If you haven't realized by now," his voice was taut with barely-held frustration. "I would kill for you. I think, if it came to it, I might just die for you."

After hearing Amir's feral shout as he pushed a knife into his own brother's throat, he believed it. A wave of fear had passed over everybody at the road, including Ronan. Especially Ronan, who hadn't, in that moment, recognized the sound of Amir's voice at all – hadn't known whether to call it a bluff or brace for the sight of royal blood drenching the grass.

"I don't want that," he muttered. "I don't want any of that."

"Then what do you want?" Amir implored. He sought out Ronan's hand, squeezing tighter the longer he waited for an answer. It was starting to hurt when Amir seemed to realize what he was doing and eased up with a grumbled curse. "Tell me," he said. "Because all I've ever wanted– never mind."

Ronan squeezed back. "No, say it."

"I can't."

"What do you want?"

"It doesn't matter!"

"Can you not be honest with me even now?"

Fiery eyes snapped up to his face. "All I have ever wanted is to love you, if only you'd let me."

It was strange, the way a person could wait for something so long they forgot they ever wanted it, so long it became a non-thing, a nonexistent. It was strange; after a lifetime seeking the level of adoration Amir had just declared, the sort of love written clearly in his eyes – as close to tangible as something like love could get – Ronan's first thought was still, that's not possible.

And his dazed words were, "You never told me."

"Perhaps we have different opinions on love," said Amir, bitterly. "But to me, 'I love you' is a promise, and you asked for none of those."

So Ronan had done it to himself. That, at least, was familiar.

"But I'm selfish," continued Amir. He said that so often. "So I told you anyway. I told you every morning."

Ronan frowned. Amir was gone before Ronan ever opened his eyes in the mornings.

Unless–

The briefest lapse in his rest every time Amir rose from the bed. Sounds of shuffling feet, kisses pressed to his face, words whispered into his dreams–

Though the memories were hazy and barely-there, dreamlike, it had happened enough times to know, once he thought about it, that it was real.

I love you, promised in his sleep.

He had never heard, but that was the point.

"Will you stop looking at me like that?" Amir sounded crushed. "Like I've just told you the worst possible news?"

Was that what it said on Ronan's face? The reality wasn't nearly so straightforward. It was a heart swelling to fill his chest while plummeting to his gut, it was the warring urges to fall into Amir's lap and run out the door. It was knowing at once that Amir was the best and worst thing to ever happen to him, because it felt wonderful to be loved, but devastating to be loved in the wrong lifetime.

"I don't even," Amir started, choked up, started again, "I don't even need you to love me back. I never did. But I think you want to, and that's worse, because you won't even allow yourself to try."

Ronan's eyes shot wide, disbelieving. "Allow myself? Like it's within my control? I wish it were that simple! Then I'd have a choice in the matter, and I'd have the strength to say no, and this–" he dropped Amir's hand to wave indistinctly, "would be much easier. But I'm not strong, Amir, I– I keep track of time by counting the hours until I will see you next. I woke up in your arms once and it ruined me, and I have woken every morning since hoping to turn over and see you there and you've never been there, and I..."

He felt his voice begin to break and let that train of thought die. "I have always longed for freedom. When I was a kid that meant getting out of this shit house with my ma, and then I got a little older and the dream got bigger and yeah, you're right, for years I have fantasized about leaving this whole shit island behind. I used to close my eyes and see faraway lands.

"But now..." His fingers dug into the material of Amir's pants. His face felt blotchy, hot with bitterness and embarrassment. "Now all I dream of is loving you in broad daylight. You ask what I want – what good is it if you kill for me, or die for me? I want you to live for me."

Just once, Ronan would like to realize he was in love without an immediate, overpowering sense of dread.

He dropped his head when the mortification was too much and he couldn't stand the shattered look on Amir's face, sinking onto his heels. "Because I live for you, and I am– scared, for when you're gone." he finished lamely.

"Don't say that like it's inevitable," Amir protested. "Fuck, Ronan– what will I do then?"

Such a small voice seemed at odds with a man so vast. He pried Ronan's hands from his pants to hold them in his lap.

"I am– Ronan– your smile is branded behind my eyelids, your name stains my tongue, I am useless when you are not around," Amir said breathlessly. "But then, I'm not any better when you're near, am I? The moment you appear in my periphery I am thoughtless – you have reduced me to the most basal form of man, and I don't even want to fight it, I..." He folded forward and flooded Ronan's senses; even bloody and sweaty, he still smelled good.

He gave the slightest tug and Ronan went easily, boneless against the pull of him.

"Everywhere you touch me leaves a bruise." Amir lifted Ronan's hands to his cheeks, as if to say it hurts, but I don't mind. There was hardly space left between them for talking; Ronan wasn't sure which of them had done that. He couldn't think on it much with Amir so close. "I wear them proudly."

Ronan didn't know who closed the gap, either. But he curled his fingers tight against Amir's face, letting out a wretched sigh when Amir's hands wrapped around his forearms to keep him there. It was a glorious feeling to kiss him, this man whom he loved and who loved him.

And so tragic to pull away.

Amir's forehead pressed against his as he asked, "Why?"

"Because." Ronan didn't open his eyes right away. "I don't know you." 

"Stop saying that."

"After all this time I still cannot trust you. And I've tried. I don't know how anymore." Ronan stood for his own sake. "Every time I think I've finally seen your face, you shed another skin and reveal a new one underneath, and– the masks are beautiful. But I wonder if there's anything real beneath it all."

Partially facing the door, he couldn't see Amir's expression. But he could see, at the edge of his vision, the way he slumped forward in the chair, dropping his head into his hand.

"That was a cruel thing to say," Amir said, eventually. "And you are not cruel. So what is it, really?"

It's possible you don't know me, either, Ronan thought, because even if it was cruel, he meant every word. But Amir knew enough, at least, to sense when there was more left unsaid.

So Ronan admitted, "I cannot have you. You aren't mine to keep."

"I am yours in every sense of the word."

"You are not!" Ronan squeezed his eyes shut when all at once they started to burn. "I'm not so foolish to think I can compete with the crown. They will take you back– if all that luxury doesn't call to you first. I have done this before, Amir!"

"Why would I choose to go back to a place that would rather see me dead?" Amir countered, and Ronan jolted at the tone of his voice, raised in the small space. He turned and found himself, for the first time, the subject of Amir's anger.

"My father wanted to have me killed, Ronan. The moment he saw me! My mother begged for my life only to give up on me five years in, and he spared me under the condition that I would never be seen, and I think he's regretted it ever since.

"Sometimes," Amir deflated, quieting down, "I regretted it. You have no idea what it was like living there. I had no one. Not even my brothers– they used to challenge me to spar just so they could beat me into the mats. And I was better than them, but I never fought seriously because I wanted so badly for them to like me, or even– I don't know, even pity would have been alright. You are not the only one who has sought love from someone above his station, so tell me, why must I be punished for your father's misdeeds?"

Shame curdled like oil in Ronan's gut. He watched his boot, toeing at an uneven floorboard.

"I'm sorry," he said. Careless, careless, careless. "I shouldn't have said that. I...wish you had never gone through that."

Just like that, Amir's voice softened. "I am at peace with it." It led me here followed, unspoken.

"What did you even do to have them after you like this?"

"I didn't do anything!" Amir laughed, and for a second Ronan wondered if he had chosen an incredibly inappropriate time for a joke, but there was a scornful curl to his lip. "I couldn't stand living there any longer, so I swore silence and pleaded for autonomy – to unalign myself entirely from the crown and live as anyone else. And when my father refused me, out of paranoia or spite I still don't know, I took to the tunnels and I left.

"Do you understand now? I stole some weapons I suppose, but my worst crime was my birth! My mere existence threatens the image the monarchy has upheld for centuries, and for that alone I am a fugitive."

It had been easier when Ronan believed Amir to be a criminal, someone authorities would lose interest in over time. Someone he could relate to.

"I'm sorry." Tears pooled despite his best efforts. "I'm sorry for the life you've lived, and I'm sorry that I can't– I can't deal with this. I can't live looking over my shoulder, and I can't wait for you to be torn away from me."

Amir stood, frantically shaking his head. "I'll be careful."

"You were," Ronan cried. "You were so careful, and the one time you slip up this happens–" he heard the whistle of the bullet again and shivered. "If that isn't a sign, I don't know what is!"

He had a long history of ignoring those. It was about time he learned his lesson. 

"There is no running from your past. I tried," he gestured around himself, "and I ended up right back where I started."

Amir stood right before him. His hands dropped to his sides; Ronan hadn't noticed him reaching out. "So, what? The odds don't look great, and you give up? Is that it?"

Ronan hugged himself instead. "Don't say it like that," he said miserably. "Like I'm some coward."

"What are you, then?" Amir bit back.

Ronan met his glare and didn't waver. "I'm trying to protect myself for once."

Amir was the one to look away first, out the window, but Ronan didn't miss his left hand darting up to wipe beneath his eye.

"It is nearly dawn," Amir said.

Ronan shut his eyes as they blurred and felt himself cry. He nodded. "You should take one of my coats. Your sleeve's all bloody."

"It's rolled up, and it's still dark out."

"Right," Ronan said, hoarse. He reached around his own neck for the black scarf and didn't open his eyes to see Amir's face as he offered it back to its rightful owner. "Cover your face."

Selfishly, he wanted to keep it.

Smooth fabric slipped from his grasp. He heard footsteps, then the front door opening and closing. Ronan crumpled to his knees right where he stood and wept into his hands.

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Song for this chapter: Illicit Affairs by Taylor Swift

one of the first songs i chose for this story and my absolute favorite