A/N: I don't own the Queen's Thief. Happy birthday MegMarch1880!
Eugenides had been reliably informed that he had a very punchable face.
As evidence for this assertion, he had years of his cousins threatening to, attempting to, and occasionally actually managing to do exactly this. He also had the incident when he'd enraged the magus into striking him. More recently, his wife had thrown his inkpot at him.
In other words, while his plan to reduce the guard had many difficult and risky elements, the part where he got Costis to hit him shouldn't have been one of them.
And yet.
His first attempt had been the direct approach. He'd insulted Costis himself. Admittedly, he hadn't expected a single insult to do the trick, not on a guard as trusted as Costis. He'd worked up to it - mangling Costis's name, making vague negative comments about the guard in general that applied to Costis in particular, and eventually building up to the coup de grace, an insult that combined negligent superiority and a vicious personal attack.
He was proud of that insult. He'd spent all evening perfecting it.
Costis's jaw had twitched. That was it.
Eugenides resented that.
He tried playing up his general personal obnoxiousness. No luck.
The worst part was, there wasn't anyone to complain to. Irene wasn't aware of his plan, so he could hardly go sprawl across her bed and whine that one of her guards was refusing to hit him. She would make him explain, and his plan would work better if her reaction to his planned incident was genuine.
His increasingly delayed incident. Costis was messing with his timeline.
He resorted to arranging little inconveniences in Costis's day in the hopes the guard's general frustration would bleed over onto him.
It hadn't worked yet.
He could, Eugenides supposed, switch his target. Telus was going to grind his teeth to nubs if this kept up for much longer.
Unfortunately, he had no confidence in that plan working. Teleus was more likely to martyr himself than let gratitude color his feelings for the king.
Considering Teleus did give him another idea, though. He tried insulting the captain.
One of his other guards nearly punched him, but Costis? No.
About the only thing keeping him from marching into Costis's room banging pots and pans at midnight in the hopes that a sleep deprived Costis would at leas throw a pillow at him was that he would then have to explain to his queen what he was doing there in the first place, and while he did think his explanation was likely to make Irene pardon the poor guard out of sympathetic exasperation, it would rather undermine his plan if Costis knew he was provoking him at this early stage.
Eugenides really needed someone to complain to. He could pray, he supposed, but one "stop whining" was enough, thank you.
Besides, if he complained that no one would punch him anymore, he was rather afraid that the response would be more physical than he would like.
He tried stealing Costis's ring. Unfortunately, something about becoming king seemed to give other people selective amnesia about him being the Thief of Eddis, and Costis didn't think to blame him. He just frowned a lot and tried to look around for it surreptitiously.
Eugenides ended up sneaking it back into Costis's room.
"You know," he told the ring seriously, "everyone used to blame me. Even when it wasn't my fault at all."
The ring didn't answer. Eugenides sighed and placed it jauntily on the pillow.
Then he went to spar with Ornon in a suitably desolate part of the megaron.
Ornon, he supposed, he could complain, except then Ornon might realize he was up to something, and he tried not to let Ornon know that just on general principles.
Still, he couldn't resist letting at least one comment drop when Ornon managed to get a hit in.
"You, at least, are still willing to hit me," he grumbled. He had not perhaps anticipated just how a great of a deterrent his new crown would prove to be.
Ornon raised his eyebrows. "I am sure I am not the only one who would like to. If your plan to train with the guard goes through, I'm sure they'll leap at the opportunity."
"True," he admitted. It was not, however, quite what he needed. It was not treason to land a blow during a sparring match.
Still, he brought it up again with Teleus the next day. And if the comments he overheard made him tetchier than usual, well, he wasn't about to apologize for it.
It was actually something of a surprise when Costis's fist came flying towards his face. After all this time, it wasn't even a planned jibe that got him?
The shock passed quickly. Fortunately, the pain hit at the same time as the euphoria. Otherwise, he might not have been able to stop himself from leaping to his feet and crowing.
After the sparring match that won Teleus over but before he sent Costis to the Medes, he found himself once again on a rooftop. Costis had once again been fetched although he seemed less concerned than last time.
"At least this time you aren't drunk," Costis said practically.
"I decided to take pity on my attendants."
Costis looked skeptical.
"And I wasn't ready for another hangover," he admitted.
Costis looked more prepared to accept this line of reasoning. He also looked rather exasperated.
He was expecting to hear an argument for his descent. He was not expecting Costis to say, "Were you really trying to provoke me into hitting you?"
Oh, yes. His confession in the baths today. "Yes. You should feel proud," he added. "It took weeks to find something that worked. I was starting to wonder if it ever would."
Costis took a deep, slow breath and closed his eyes. "And if the queen hadn't pardoned me?"
"You did still commit treason," Eugenides pointed out.
"Deliberately provoked treason." Given the way Costis's hand was clenching and unclenching, he'd very much like to commit more treason now.
"I wouldn't have let her hang you," he said more seriously. "After your rather heroic restraint, it would have seemed a bit unfair."
"And you care about fairness?" Costis asked doubtfully.
"There's so little of it going around that it seems valuable for its rarity, if nothing else, and thieves do hate to lose anything of value."
And in this court of vipers, someone as honorable and, alright, likable, as Costis had far too much value to waste.