The royal, as Alfred had decided to call him because, really, he couldn't tell them apart if someone offered him a 'get out of jail free card' which would have really come in handy, considering the situation. Anyway, the royal was not very big. He had no need to be, he was smart enough to get away with being physically disadvantaged. He was, like all the royals, very beautiful, it was in their blood, had been for centuries. They were very strange, the royals. They lived mysterious, secretive lives, and ruled things from behind a very thick curtain. They weren't bad at it, no, not at all. Actually they were the best suited to the job, which was probably why the country put up with it. It was just that nobody had any clue what they did in their own time.
This royal, the crown prince, due to inherit his mother's crown in just a few years, was the second son of the third queen in the dynasty. The reason that he was the second son and not the first, was that the first had very helpfully gone and gotten himself killed a few years before. Of course, Alfred didn't know that because he couldn't tell them apart, it was just like him to go for the most important one, just on instinct. It was such a typical thing for him to do, but he didn't have time to think about it, because he was still in the process of breaking out of jail, which was a lot harder than he'd first presumed.
There were others, naturally, that could of chosen, another three that he could of declared his, more royals.
It really was strange that he couldn't tell them apart, it wasn't like they resembled each other in any definite way, especially since the one he grabbed was the only one with blond hair. And he was the smallest, despite being the second oldest, and his eyes were the most startling shade of green that Alfred had ever encountered.
When he had first seen them, mid parade, it had made sense to him to go for the smallest one, as he was, at least physically, the weakest. He also didn't exactly want to go for the third brother because he was holding the fifth and he didn't want two, and he didn't exactly want to go for the forth because he looked like he could've wrestled the bear.
So he went for the one with the startling green eyes.
The second son, the one that Alfred had chosen and was standing completely undisturbed by the whole event, wore his military uniform, as did the third, as they were obliged to do at these sorts of occasions. He had been a military strategist and political engineer during the war, which, of course, Alfred didn't know, he didn't even know what a political engineer was, he probably figured it was someone who tinkered with the robot minds of politicians, who, Alfred was really quite convinced, were actually mechanical. This wasn't true, but he speculated nonetheless. The other two were just in their royal attire, which probably cost more that a house with a pool and a fully staffed kitchen.
The older three, as well, wore their crowns, which had been fashioned just for them when they had come of age. They, unlike the royal attire of the younger two, wouldn't have cost a small fortune, but actually, a very large fortune. Unfortunately for Alfred, who had just come into the ownership of one, nobody would buy them because everyone knew whom they belonged to.
Thankfully though he didn't need the money, he had the royal for that, whom he had fastened to his chest by hooking his handcuffs around his neck and pressing the gun he had stolen from one of the young man's guards to the side of his head. He had been able to slip unnoticed through the crowd surrounding the parade quite easily, far more easily than he had thought.
It was quite a large event, for, as previously stated, the four princes really were quite beautiful, in a staggering sort of way, and people liked to see beautiful people, especially if they happened to also be quite beloved, pleasant, and not as cruel as the previous royals they had all been told about in their childhood fairytales. And in events such as these, people tend to dress up in their favorite costumes, as if it were Halloween, so with a few well placed smiles, and a few imitations he was able to simply pretend to be the escapee he really was.
And now, here he was. With his arms around the royal, threatening his life, and having the guns of the royal guards pointed at him, at least three of them were going to loose their jobs over this. A joyous grin spread over his face, he was having such fun. Even if he went back to jail, he already had a life sentence; there wasn't a lot more they could do to him. They royal calmly raised his gloved hand; don't shoot.
Alfred couldn't see his face, but he could guess what expression it held, one of complete relaxation, he could guess, he wasn't even stiff, not scared at all. Like he had done this all before. Well, he was the crown prince so he probably had. Alfred looked around, gazing over the panicked faces of the other princes, the confusion of the crowd, the gritted teeth of the guard. He had to admit; he felt a little bad for the other princes, for they really appeared concerned, as he would as well, for his brother.
They stood there for a moment, the royal and him, and he ducked around just in time to see the royal give his second youngest brother starting towards them with his hands extended and a murderous expression on his face a hard look, his expression changing just slightly from one of indifference to one of warning.
"Stop that," he said sternly. The younger brother's guards were calling him, one of them was gripping his arm, half heartedly trying to keep him back, and yet he only seemed to stop his stalk when his older brother told him to. He looked about seventeen, maybe eighteen, big enough to probably overpower Alfred, but not quite old enough to know how.
To emphasize the royal's point Alfred cocked the gun that was still pressed to his head, and he felt the royal stiffen slightly in his arms. He was scared, the convict realized. His grin broadened.
He was feeling just a little bit sadistic today. The royal slipped quietly back into indifference, though now it was slightly less sincere.
"Now," he said slowly, as not to frighten anyone. There was no need to get both him and the royal shot. "Here's how this is going to work," the crowd was being waved away from the scene, most of them peering over the shoulders of the summoned policemen to see what was happening. "One of you fine gentlemen are you going to get me a car, with a full tank of gas, and then you are going to leave the keys in the ignition and allow us to board." Alfred paused to think of some unpleasant threat. "And if you fail to do as I have asked, I shall have to splay the good prince's brains out on the asphalt, do you understand?" This time, his royal didn't stiffen, but Alfred heard a quiet intake of breath and saw his ear twitch and that was enough.
His royal nodded to the guards, giving them permission to do as Alfred said. Which one of them did, rushing towards the cars that had come along for the parade, just a little way down the road. The next few minutes passed quickly, the other three brother's being tugged away from the scene, but not before the third son shared some words with the second. The third had been the one carrying the child, the fifth son, whom he had swiftly given to his nanny who come scuttling out of one of the vehicles behind them.
They had mostly being comforting words from the second one, and some passing requests to the brother that seemed quite a bit more sensible that the forth, knowing to keep a few feet away so that Alfred didn't feel any more threatened than he needed to. And more importantly, he had asked his guards to restrain his younger brother, probably having more authority than him anyway.
And their conversation went something like this:
"Keep my saving account open while I'm gone. Don't terminate my card."
"I won't."
"Keep Alistair safe, and don't let Scott spend all his time with the nanny, and continue his learning."
"I will."
"Tell them I love them everyday, and that I'll be back in a little while."
"Of course."
"And don't go though my things."
"No promises."
And then the third prince had to be coaxed back from them because the car had pulled up and the hard part was about to begin. Alfred leant his mouth down to his royal's ear and whispered:
"Do you know how to drive?"
The young prince flinched, unable to suppress the instinct fast enough for Alfred not to catch it, but then he realized what had been said and he bristled.
"Of course I can drive," he said indignantly, too indignant to lie. Alfred immediately felt that he had made the right choice.
For the most part, his royal was quite calm about the whole affair, or at least he appeared that way, which would've been more than Alfred could've managed, if their positions had been reversed. He would of lost his shit the moment that the gun was pointed at him.
"Good, then you will."
Somehow, after much maneuvering and vague threats resulting in the second youngest prince needing to be restrained, and his royal continuously failing to stiffen the way that Alfred would've liked him to do, they found themselves sitting in the front seats of a security vehicle. Which was lucky too, because had it not been a security vehicle Alfred wouldn't have been able to issue one last threat. He picked up the small, walkie-talkie like thing and said into the speaker:
"We're going to leave now," he informed them, his voice booming outside, "and let me assure you, if you decide to follow us, I will have our young prince charming tied to a chair, brutally tortured, and left for dead before you can start your engine. And don't you go doubting me," he continued, "look at my file, it says I'm violent and volatile and willing to use that to my advantage." It didn't, in fact, say any of those things, but it would help him out if they thought it did. And then he lowered the speaker from his mouth, stopped pressing the button, looked up at the prince, who had put on his seatbelt, and still had the gun pointing at him and was looking a bit blank about that and said: "Drive."
The royal drove.
They twisted down the streets, going at the correct pace until they had lost the crowd and were rejoined by the flowing traffic, to which Alfred ordered the royal to drive into.
You see, Alfred was on the run from the law, not only because he had just kidnapped the crown prince, whom he didn't rightly know the name or that he was the crown prince, but also because he had just broken out of jail for the third time that year, and he was determined to finally get it right.
Or just enjoy the sunshine for a little while.
One of the two, he didn't really care to figure out which.
Either way he ordered his royal to continue driving to a small car dealership on the south side of town. The gun continued to be pointed at him, low enough so that it couldn't be seen from outside the car, and Alfred had snatched the crown from a top his head so that it wouldn't be all that obvious that he was the stolen royal. His royal had given him an annoyed look for that.
"Why aren't you scared?" he questioned, as he felt about around the car to the tracking device they had surely placed. The issue was, with the royal guard, that they just weren't very smart.
The royals startling green eyes flickered over to him.
"You need to reevaluate how scary you think you are," the royal answered coolly, with just a bite of bite. Alfred grinned. "What are you looking for?"
"A tracking device," he said as he found it, tucked away under the dashboard with a piece of gum. He threw it out the window and heard a satisfactory crack as it was run over by a car. "And I have a gun you know, for most people, that's scary enough."
"So do police officers."
"Yes, but mine is pointed at you."
The royal gave him a doubtful look and didn't respond.
They drove in silence, the royal all flickering eyes and composure, the convict all foul words and uncouth sayings.
"So how would you like this to play out?" The royal asked after a while, knowing without looking that Alfred was looking at him, and still had the gun cocked in his direction.
"How would you like this to play out?" Alfred threw back; he was having such a good day. He was playing verbal catch with an increasingly interesting member of the royal family, he wasn't in a cell, he was on the run; this was great.
The royal's eyes flickered to him again. They were always flickering, never looking at him for an extended amount of time.
"I really cannot stress just how much I would like not to get shot."
Alfred laughed and the royal didn't, completely serious. Alfred knew that he had a pretty good reason to be serious, a gun was pointed at him, and as far as he knew, the person in nonofficial ownership of the gun was "violent", "volatile" and "willing to use that to his advantage". The seriousness was inescapable.
"That could be arranged," he said. He really was sorry about having to give the royal way eventually, he liked him, he liked the way he spoke, and held himself, as if he knew exactly who he was and dared anyone to say otherwise. He looked as though he did not think himself above you, but as if he were viewing you from a great height and needed to squint to make sure you were there. It made you want to join him, on whatever other realm of reality he operated at. Alfred liked that, and he didn't necessarily want it to go away.
Of course, the issue was Alfred wasn't actually entirely willing to kidnap the man. He had never intended to shoot them when he had held the gun to his head, never even intended to cause him any bodily harm, he had just used his status and Alfred's wonderful ability to make himself look a little bit manic to his advantage.
And now that he had escaped and it didn't appear that they were being followed and he had just kidnapped a royal, he really felt that something was going to need to happen at this point.
The royal didn't respond, but Alfred continued to speak regardless.
"So I can either drop you off and you can go on your merry way, or you can get all heroic because I kidnapped you, it's up to you."
The flickering happened again and the royal took a moment to pause, turning a corner.
"I never did like heroes," he mentioned slowly, and Alfred lowered the gun, and tucked it between his thighs, so that he could reach it if he needed it, but also so it appeared not threatening. The royal visibly relaxed, sinking into his seat. "But," he said, and Alfred got ready to grab the gun, "But, I have to request that you tell me if you intend on hurting or stealing from my people."
That wasn't what he had been expecting and really had to think about it. The royal turned a corner beautifully as he did.
"I don't think I want to hurt anybody or anything, but I might have to steal from them a bit. Only enough for a plane ticket back home." At least he was honest, he might have been an otherwise despicable person, but if you asked him a question he would always give you the truest answer he had.
The royal took a moment to pause thoughtfully and Alfred took this as a chance to ask the question that had been killing him this whole time.
"So which one are you?" He asked.
"Pardon?"
"Which prince? I can never tell you apart."
The royal raised his eyebrows at him.
"I'm Arthur," he said blankly, "I'm the crown prince."
"What's that mean?"
"It means I'm going to be king when my mother retires."
"Oh."
And then he started singing the lion king song 'I just can't wait to be king' which made the royal, Arthur, very irritated. Though, in his head he was freaking out, because, holy shit, he just stole the future king!
"Very well then," the royal said, when he was done, "I'll make you a deal." They were making deals now? He was still the one with a gun; he was still a criminal. And still scary.
"My older brother-"
"I thought you're older brother was dead." It was all coming back to him now.
"Oh, well, not so much. Don't tell anyone, he'll vaporize me," well, that was an odd thing to say, "But my older brother lives in Scotland and I would like to go join him. And if you get me there, I will give you enough money for three plane tickets and you won't have to steal from anybody."
Alfred blinked at him and the royal continued to drive. He should probably starting calling him Arthur now that he knew his name, but it would take a few moments of getting used to it first.
"How do you know I'm not, like, a mass murderer or something?"
"I don't," the royal gave him a long narrow eyed glance, "and don't get me wrong, I don't like you, I don't appreciate you, or think you're any good, but the sooner you get out of my country the sooner you'll stop being my problem. And considering that I've been in need of a press-free holiday for a while now, I think we could work together."
Alfred turned back to the windshield was a most startled expression, but then smirked at the art of the insults. This could work out just fine, just fine after all.
"Right then. To Scotland."
Author's notes:
Just, to confirm suspicions this is totally and utterly inspired by this wonderful art work: post/66991969027/theworldthatismine-pixiv-id-39421102-member-%E5%9B%B3
Credit to the artist, because damn! Someone sold their soul for art skills.