He'd heard! He'd heard! The smile returned to Lancer's face, and, without even thinking to check what the weather was to day, he sprinted from the castle doorway to his bike. He'd heard! He'd heard every word I said! Lancer thought, practically breaking the doorknob as he opened the shed.
His bike was nowhere to be found. The sweat poured on Lancer's veins. The shed was empty, opposing his version of how today would be. With a furrowed brow, and with a heartbeat climbing mountains with each second, he closed the door.
Where could Steed be? He was certain he'd put it in the shed that night, just before his father discovered where he'd been. But that was alright. His father was right. He deserved it
And he deserved his bike being missing….
He heard a clompity, clompity, clompity, clompity CLOMP CLOMP behind him. Whipping his head around, taking down the icy, fiery fortresses that so often surrounded him, he chuckled
All of a sudden, the grass seemed to turn a few shades brighter, more vibrant. The birds' tweets seemed to resound to some of the farthest parts of the castle.
"PRINCE!" Huffs came up, once every second. Running something with you that heavy wasn't easy at all. "I, BESTOWED, THY, VEHICLEST, TO, THE, FRONTETH, DOOR…"
He stopped, put both hands on his knees, unwittingly dropped the bike. "However, sinceth thou werest not abiding there, I absconded herest…"
Rouxls. Dear Rouxls. He was always bounding down the hill with a smile, a crazed conglomeration of what Lancer thought his father should be and the mess he thought was his father's mood swings. He never wore a belt, and if he did, never even moved his hands to take it off. He let Lancer eat whatever was in his house in his duchy, still reeling in funds despite someone else, for the majority, taking over the duchy since Lancer was born.
"Don't worry, it's alright!" Lancer said, his jollity forced out the slightest. He moved to the left, shook Steed the best he could for his 4 foot 7 form, and didn't see loose gears bouncing around in it. He moved to sit on Steed, running his hand up the paint just to say hello. He'd heard through TV and books that this was what people did to their horses just before they went off on a ride. He almost, almost ignored his throbbing legs and ankles, the stabbing just starting to return to his arms. He leaned forward, almost thinking he could defy both gravity and weakness, when his chest and stomach lit on fire and he groaned just a little bit. Just a bit. He still wanted to be strong, just like Dad, didn't he?
"Art thou alrightest?" Rouxls had just finished combing his hair from the run, but it was still being tangled in the wind.
"Yeah, I-" He shifted his legs to the pedals, his calves screaming to him. He almost wanted to scream back, to tell them to be quiet, but he just stared at the dashboard in order to distract himself. He wanted to move and get his Led Zeppelin for all the world to hear, but he felt as if Rouxls would approach him and actually look under his sleeves. Which would be an unforgivable crime. A shame. A shame that didn't deserve prison. Nobody whose hands didn't even move to unbuckle their belt deserved prison.
"I'm just going out to town. Tell Dad I'll be home by dinner, alright?" He noticed he'd forgotten to start the vehicle, pulling, pulling, pulling, almost falling off of the now- gone- rogue Steed, until it finally started, the heat from the rear tires almost singing Lancer's hood before he sat up again. The new movement to his torso made him have to bite his tongue, but it was alright.
Rouxls became very interested in the grass, staring at his 14- karat boots, shifting his weight back and forth, back and forth. All of the faded whimsy was gone, all of the transparency occluded. He was… staid, almost. "Melodramatic" would be what Lancer's father called it, but Lancer himself would be calling it "staring at his boots like they were lions."
Lancer looked back, Steed puttering impatiently. Lancer kept his eyes on Roxusl, shouting, "C'mon, lesser dad, you've gotta tell greater Dad! You're staring at your boots like they're lions!"
If Rouxls looked back up, he didn't pay attention. If Rouxls knew his bike was sputtering up a storm, drowning all noise, he didn't notice. If Rouxls knew that Lancer's father was still asleep, he didn't say. Rouxls knew all sorts of things… how to conjugate fluently in Latin, how to tell a peregrine falcon from a gyrfalcon, how to conduct an entire Mass despite the fact that Lancer's path was paved on laymen's roads… but on the things that mattered, or at least mattered to Lancer, he was sometimes taciturn.
It first came out as a mutter.
"Please speak up!"
A half- choked phrase.
"Please!"
Mirroring Steed, not quite saying anything, his face paling as if he were a hand touched to a runaway snowball.
"Sil v'ous plait!"
It had changed from a peddle- thudding language to a bird- tweeting language, and this bird tweeting coaxed Rouxls back up.
"Alright. If thou insistest, monsieur. Just… be careful, alright?"
"That's it?!" Lancer asked, turning on Steed's headlights to start.
Rouxls' eyes darted to the side.
"And you can always talk to me, no matter what happens."
Lancer revved up the engine. "I'm talking to you now, aren't I?"

He could have gone to visit Ralsei on the other side of the kingdom or made a few boils of mischief elsewhere by himself, but he didn't. He could have just lay prostrate, relaxed on one of the alley walls, blaring his Led Zeppelin for all the unawakened world to hear, but he didn't. Instead, he went over to a hotel over in a duchy that, for the most part, wasn't too steeped in Rouxl's authority. Lancer didn't know why. Maybe the bruises on him would sting a little less that way.
Sans was waiting for him, but he seemed to be panting a little, his identically colored hoodie as wrinkled as Lancer's smile was that morning. He almost smiled again as he looked down at his hands and noticed the makeup hadn't quite come off.
"Morning! Oh, gosh, I shouldn'tve just left you there. How're you doin'?"
"Feelin' fine."
But the words came out in the same huffs Rouxls had when he'd run down the hill, little half-puffs outside in the cold December weather of the Dark World.
"Sahn?
When did you get here?"
"Whatta you talking about? I've been here since last night. You took me here, remember? Heh…"
Lancer cut off Steed's engine, gave it a little pat just for good measure. He inhaled, decided to drop the subject. Rouxls had done this to him a countless amount of times, just as he had done the same to his father countless amounts of times.
"Alright, alright. But I'm in the mood for some breakfast, Sahn! Plus… we need to talk about a few things."
Sans, without another word, turned back to the hotel and muttered, "Breakfast? A big ol' palace, and they don't even- he doesn't even-"
Lancer had mentally prepared himself ever since he'd met Sans, mentally prepared himself for anything he had to say. Anything borderlining blasphemy, or even being blasphemy itself, he taught himself to react in the same way he would if Sans told him he liked puppies and rainbows. Even if that didn't work, he would still turn off his ears the same way he did that night. He found that skill helped him, especially with finding what he needed and wanted to find in a person, below the layer of all the cursing, all of the chatting, all of the insults.
As soon as the people started pouring into the hotel, the smell of warmed coffee and pancakes, the taste of browned sugar, the laughter of the people inundated with nostalgia, flooded into Lancer's ears to the point that they started to rang. So he got out his MP3 player, struggling to yank it out of his pocket, and shuffled to the Led Zeppelin folder, almost by default. He was almost ready to apologize, but he found that Jimmy Page and Robert Plant taught him how to communicate much more effectively than years of Rouxl's classes did…. at least without words. He snatched the menu, bounced his bruised legs updownupdownupdown in excitement when he found the blueberry pancakes with the hushpuppies beside it, swimming in maple syrup.
Sans' mouth moved, but if they were saying anything. Lancer didn't know. After the second time, he heard a muffled, "Whatul'uu?"
Lancer took off one headphone, the chatter returning to him once again. But it felt slightly better now that someone else was talking to him, someone familiar and warm, like the coffee they sold at the hotel, so he took two headphones off, Robert Plant shutting up for now.
"I asked what you were listening to, kiddo," Sans said. "Ordered for ya, too."
His father had told him about this before. About being dependent on other people, and how terrible it was to stretch into the double digits without being independent enough to fend for himself. He almost considered leaving right then and there, but the promises of someone being interested in what so many other people shunned kept him there. Alright, and the smell of blueberry pancakes.
"Um.. I'm listening to Led Zeppelin… you probably won't like it, though. I don't have any pop music or anything like that, so…"
"Hey, hey, hey, that's fine. Can I have a listen?"
"No. No, I don't think that'll be a good idea. You see, um… the headphones! Yeah, the headphones! If I try to stretch the other end all the way out to you, it'll break!
"It's alright. You can just put it on speaker, can'tcha? I bet it'll be some bonafide stuff."
Oh, jeez.
Lancer unplugged the cord, turned on the speaker so he could barely hear Jimmy Page having fun with the guitars, the solos yelling out ballads of love and loss to a hotel that didn't want to hear them.
Finally, the both of them could hear Robert Plant's voice streaming through the dark blue MP3 case. "And as we wind on down the road, oh, oh, oh, our shadows taller than our sooooooul, bam- BAM!..."
"You… probably don't like it. I… I think I should turn it off now."
But Sans was in a world, a dimension all to himself, bought and sold to himself within the minute, sunk into the chair, head nodding to the beat of Led Zeppelin's war- drum heartbeat. He even nodded off, almost fell asleep, until Lancer had to flick his nose, or at least where his nose should be, before Sans laughed awake. Robert Plant went silent, overthrown by the blueberry pancakes and the hotdog that had come to the table.
"A hotdog?! C'mon, Sahn, it's breakfast!"
"Who says we have to eat breakfast food for breakfast?"
Fifteen minutes later, and all of the food had disappeared, and three customers had been quite fed up with the three songs that came from Led Zeppelin. But if either of the two boys cared at all, they didn't show it.
An entire conversation, and "prince" or "your highness" hadn't been mentioned even once.
Lancer turned back to Steed, washing it… no, him… off with a damp rag and a little bit of hotel- bathroom- soap- that- smelled- like- burnt- marshmallows. Sans, without any preamble, started helping, spreading a little on himself, sneezing out a few bubbles, and making Lancer howl in laughter.
"Heheheh, yeah, that was pretty funny…. listen, kid. I'm gonna be stayin' here for a long time, okay?"
"How long?" Lancer had just finished going over the headlights, noticing the puddle that had sprayed him the previous night had dried up instead of freezing over.
"I'm not sure. But however long it is, y' can always talk to me. Alright?"
Lancer nodded, although a little slow this time, as if the gears to his neck had rusted.
"Alright. Well, I'm going to Ralsei's, Sahn, so you're free to come with me if you like. I know how boring it is just to stay in one place, and with Steed with my side, the two of us can get anywhere!"
"Ralsei? Who's he?"
"What, Son of God, don't know him?"
"I mean… I mean, I should, but… kid, I dunno what happened-"
Lancer noticed. He'd been taught to notice these things, to notice the way people shifted their weights back and forth, lost their eye contact, stood upright when they had once been slumping, swallowed with just a little bit more difficulty.
"You're hiding something, arentcha?" Lancer's eyebrows furrowed, but he stopped when he felt some of the foundation peeling off. He'd have to refill in some alley once he'd started off to the other side of the kingdom.
Sans didn't say anything. How could he? And how could Lancer react?
"Well, Sahn, guess I'll just have to find out myself! Seeya!"
"Anytime, kiddo. Anytime."
Steed's engine rustled back to life.
Lancer de le Pique, the Prince of the Dark World, the Ace of Spades, was determined to find out what one could possibly hide about Ralsei.
The new thought put more purpose into Steed's engine.