Chapter Text
The entire morning feels like a fever dream. So much has happened, is still happening that Proteus' mind can't seem to process all of it. Fighting Sinbad, shouting his frustrations out at him, being kissed by him. The memory still makes shame curdle sourly in his stomach. He had known instantly that he had just ruined what remained of their old friendship and his companionship with Marina in a single moment. Hearing her worry about him had twisted his insides, her attempt at comfort while she didn't yet know about his transgressions had only sharpened the sting of it.
Now he sits on the floor in his rooms with Sinbad in his arms, his hair soft against his cheek, holding him while he weeps and Marina just looks at them calmly, unbothered by their display.
His chest feels like it is filled to the brim with a throusand swirling emotions so bright that no more space is left in his body for fear or anxiety.
Unsure what he should do or say to both of them, he starts with the obvious. “Sinbad,” he mutters “I accept your apology.” His heart urges him to follow up with speeches of forgiveness, with soothing tones and warm words, but the loneliness and betrayal still rankles. Irritation at the both of them. Forgiveness feels wrong yet, unfair in the face of his own struggles.
He keeps silent for a while longer, but tightens his embrace further, less for Sinbad and more for his own benefit. In time Sinbads breathing calms, but he makes no attempt to move away. Proteus looks over to Marina. He knows not what look he expected to find in her face, but the fond softness there takes him by surprise.
Gently he puts his hands on Sinbads shoulders and pushes him backwards a bit. He doesn't look away from Marina, waiting for admonishment, for reaction suited to what she must have surely realised by now is wholly inappropriate behaviour for Proteus. Now that he has accepted Sinbads apology, he is ready to make peace with it. “I apologise again for my rudeness in the past days,“ he starts “now that I have heard you out, you may leave in peace, unburdened by any lingering obligations to me.”
Marina looks taken aback for a moment, then her face sets into a determination he knows all too well. It had always genuinely been a bit terrifying to be the cause for that expression and he can't help but shy back a bit. She is shifting over towards him now and with Sinbad still holding onto his sides he cannot stand up and move away. Then her hands are on the side of his face, her dark eyes locked onto his.
“Prince Proteus,” Marina says, a fond smile on her lips and a glint in her eye “You are incredibly stupid.”
The kiss doesn't really come as a surprise, she moves slowly, gauging his reaction, and yet it is the second most shocking thing that's happened to him since he found them sleeping in his window.
Her lips are a little dry and her hands on his cheeks calloused from months at sea. Around his waist lays the heavy warmth of Sinbads arms. It cannot be real, yet it is happening and by this point he has simply given in to the absurd course they are taking him on.
Her warm breath smells a bit like the sweet fruit from breakfast and when she carefully disconnects from him there is wetness on both their cheeks and he can see tears in her eyes. His own sting a bit and his throat feels clogged with either terror or joy or perhaps both.
“When Sinbad and I were at sea those last months” she whispers “you were missing from our lives so much that we could not bear staying away.” Her hands are cradling his face still and her thumb gently smoothes underneath his eye. His heart trembles in his chest. Proteus feels at once unmade and held together by their touch. She takes one hand off his face to lay it over Sinbads at his back. “You are right. Maybe we do not deserve you after leaving you to yourself to deal with all our consequences here. The political damage is done and we couldn't undo it even if we wanted to now. But maybe, if you'd allow us, we could help you shoulder it. However we can. Will you let us? We would be there for you, however you allowed it. Not because of arranged marriages or old debts. We're asking you for no one but ourselves.”
She has said her piece, he knows it. Sinbad and Marina both sit back a little, giving him space to form a reaction. Their hands lay between them, intertwined. They look at him with such hope in their faces he can almost feel it like a tangible thing in the air. He isn't sure whether it takes him the time it does to finally speak because he doesn't know what to say or because he can't speak around the tightness in his throat or for fear that once he does he might wake up and find himself alone again.
What leaves his mouth when he opens it after a long while is this.
“I can never leave Syracuse. They will expect me to marry one day.”
Sinbads face breaks out into a slight grin. “I was expecting you to say something like 'leave my city be and never return' so that's alright!”
Marina also smiles carefully “We can cross that bridge when we get to it. We're all moving along blindly here, there's not exactly diplomatic protocol for our situation.” She makes to reach for him again, but then just holds out her hand. “Don't you also feel that this is good, though? All of us here, together, figuring it out?”
It's a ridiculous idea, theres no name for whatever this might become if it were allowed to become anything. He has not spoken to Sinbad at length since they were both barely more than boys. So much about him as a man he does not know. Proteus thinks about the fates cursing him to never have a calm moment in his life again. About the honest apologies and the hurt that is still buried deeply in the jealousies and betrayals and promises between the three of them. About duty and freedom of choice and the sea and dreams of Sinbad drowning while he stands at the rail of his ship and looks down into the deep blue.
He takes Marinas hand.
-
Proteus sits at his desk and twirls his fountain pen in his hand. He contemplates the best words to describe the his latest councilmeeting. For Marina, he details a political scandal to contextualize the outragous demands one of the ambassadors has made. She will have a good laugh about it. For Sinbad he lists a row of clothing mishaps and some exaggerated descriptions of the angry councilmen's facial expressions. It will take a while yet before he can deviate from humour that he knows the young Sinbad would have liked. Proteus smiles softly to himself. He will learn this new Sinbad. The older man, who is still boisterous and stubborn and extroverted, but can be unexpectedly quiet as well. Reserved, when he wants to be. Mature in his important choices. Still so immature in the inconsequential ones.
They haven't truly kissed after that desastrous attempt in the sparring pit. Proteus thinks that he might want to. He would be allowed now. It will happen, he has decided, when they have closed a little more of the years-long divide between them. When he knows how to make an adult Sinbad laugh as well as he knows it for Marina. It suits him fine that he has to forge that connection through letters and gifts sent via ships and messager birds. Makes it hard to admonish him for being slow and careful, if slow is the only mode of development their relationship has.
He finishes his letter in a good mood. Comtemplative, yet sanguine.
-
Just as he finishes up in the court hall after a long morning of sitting judge to small squabbles, there is a commotion in the palace entryway.
A cluster of servants and guards shuffle around a huge crate that must have been brought in on one of the merchant ships coming in from far away, judging by the uncommon style of decoration and and the strange locking mechanism on it.
“What is going on here?” Proteus asks. He isn't particularly loud, only puts the expected level of commanding tone into his voice, but a few of them jump violently as he makes his way over to look at the object of their interest.
The crate is so tall it comes up almost to his shoulders and could fit half a horsecarriage into it. There is a slightly unpleasant smell emanating from it, a little sweet, like something rotting. The highest ranking guard in the crowd speaks up. He feels guilty for not rememberin her name, it was something with an M. Or maybe an E?
“Your highness, this was was delivered to the palace for you. Apparently it came on a ship of some highly untrustworthy band of merchants, who were paid mightily to bring it to Syracuse. We were wondering what to do with it. It might be trapped or otherwise dangerous.”
“You were right to be cautious” he reassures the woman. “But I want to be there when it gets checked over. If it is meant for me, I want to witness what dangers lie in it.” And if it's no trap, he wants the option to send them away and have as few extra witnesses to its contents as possible. This much privacy he will allow himself.
The crate is brought into a side room and examined thoroughly by engineers, guards and experts for explosives and poisons. Once the outside is secured, four guards work together to lift the lid up and immediately their faces twist up in disgusted grimaces. The sickly, rotten smell gets stronger. At Proteus inquiry, the guards wave him over. “Don't touch it, your highness.”
He walks over slowly, careful and wary of the smell, yet filled with a strange curiosity.
When he is close enough to be able to peer over the side and into the crate, he lets out an involuntary huff of laughter, before letting his face fall into his hands. In the crate, huge and distorted, in the beginning stages of decay, lies a monstrous head as big as a bull. It has horns and fangs and reminds him of a snake's. But the cause for his little outburst are the two spears diagonally driven through its skull from above, unmistakably reminiscient of the sea creature that he killed together with Sinbad on his ship once. Bound to one of them with a piece of leather string there is a rolled up piece of parchment.
“At ease,” he tells the guards. “I think I know whom I have to thank for this...generous gift. Guard captain, please fetch that piece of parchment for me and then have the head brought away for dissection. I reckon some of the horns and teeth might hold value. Have the rest be disposed of.”
He let's them cut the letter free and immediately leaves the unpleasant scene. If Sinbad and Marina think he will hang the creatures head up as a trophy, they are sorely mistaken.
He cannot help but feel like the unlucky owner of a cat having woken up to a dead canary carefully laid onto his pillow as a gift. Well intentioned, maybe. Repulsive nonetheless.
Every thought that maybe they were just having a good laugh at his expense is snuffed out when he reads their letter in his room alone later.
Their excited tale of fighting the monster has been scribbled down so fast it's almost illegible, such must have been their haste to tell him of it. The entire thing gleams with pride at having slain the beast and it's so honestly and disarmingly charming that Proteus finds himself smiling through the whole thing.
He hadn't lied when he told Marina that his heart belonged to Syracuse, but this, being allowed this glimpse into the wide ocean out there, seeing the world through their eyes... its a joy he never knew possible. He finds himself wondering how things might have turned out had Sinbad written to him like this when they were young and he went to sea. Back then he had been bitter and hurt by his unexpected parting. Now there is the knowledge that wherever those two travel, they find ways to let him know they are thinking of him. Including him in their adventures. It means more than Proteus could ever put into words. He does paperwork and judges trials and argues with the council, but he comes home at night to letters of adventure and the soft words of two people who find no shame anymore in telling him how fondly they miss him.
-
Proteus lets out the longest breath. The meeting with the council had gone on for well past midnight, but now the new contracts are finally set in stone, with everyone involved as happy as they could be with the found compromises. Ambassador Timaios shakes his hand and actually smiles at him. King Dymas sends him only a small look, but Proteus can see the pride in his fathers eyes. A hand claps him on the back and he stumbles a little from the force of it. “Shown us old geezers what an unmarried Prince can still do, didn't you?” he can hear the grin in Ambassador Kanoa's words before he has turned around to slap her hands in victory as well.
“It would not have been possible without your invaluable help, Lady Kanoa. Thank you. Truly.”
She waves away his thanks and yawns. “Too late now for a proper celebration, but you are young still, maybe you will find someone to have a drink with and enjoy the moment.” At the last bit there is a twinkle in her eyes that gives him pause. There is something he's not getting.
Kanoa leans towards him and conspiratorially murmurs into his ear “There's been sightings of a ship landing in one of the lower harbours today. A ship with sails the colour of rust and a wild band of adventurers onboard. The captain is rumoured to have slain the hydra.”
The words hit him like the shock of an egg cracked over his head, the meaning slowly dripping down onto his neck and the trickle of understanding sending a shiver of excitement through him. Kanoa laughs at the face he knows he must make. He tries with all his might to keep himself composed and properly excuse himself from the councilmembers still gathered in front of the door to the hall, but there is a golden pulsing in his chest, spreading out into his body with every second and filling him with a giddy lightness he can't contain.
He does not run to the harbour, but it's a close thing and the sight of the Chimeara in front of him only spurs him along faster.
The light of the ship's lanterns glows orange and illuminates two shadowy silhouettes on the deck who startle when they see him and break out into a full run down the gangway onto the jetty.
Proteus stops short and braces himself and a moment later two bodies crash into him and he's drawn into a bone-crushing hug. He wheezes, laughs and hugs back for a moment, before stepping back to look at them. Marina is wearing her hair in a braid, it comes down to about her chest now and there is a fresh scar on her cheek. Sinbad doesn't look that different, except in all the ways that he does. The things that Proteus can't help but notice now that he's been in steady contact with him for months, writing and sending gifts and reminiscing about their shared past.
Sinbad looks at him and his wide, exuberant grin makes him look like Proteus feels. Light and happy and full of excitement.
Proteus draws him into another hug, just holding onto him. They are both here now. At his side small, calloused fingers sneak between his own.
This is how he truly kisses Sinbad for the first time: light and happy, joy bubbling over in his chest and Marinas hand held tightly in his own.