A Thing You Won't Remember

The Prince turned his head just slightly and rested it against Elitia. She was soft, and he was fully ready to admit he was more comfortable cuddling this way than trying to fall asleep on his own. He always had been, and Lear had been the one on many occasions to help the troubled boy to rest. He still was, asleep next to the Prince.
Romulus gave an approximation of a smile at the news. "That's very good to hear. Calvin is a good kid, and I thnk he and Lily are going to make it." He thought for a moment. Does that mean you've chosen an estate?" His voice was getting quieter, her fingers running through his hair quickly putting him to sleep.
He didn't comment on her child choices, because he couldn't blame her. There were several reasons he'd never intentionally brought a child into the world himself. All those women, and he'd been careful to father nothing. He'd been accused, certainly, people were always turning up trying to get a piece of the royal ife by claiming their child was his, but… Well, Vespasian blood was very dominant. Vespasian genetics are pretty obvious, even at birth, and none of the children had proven to be his once born.
So he knew, without even asking, why Elitia had closed herself off from that option.

Romulus wanted to talk about it, but he was finding his thoughts increasingly harder to order the more she soothed him into sleep.
He was out within a couple minutes.
He did notice her glance at Lear, and he wondered if she was wondering what so many others had wondered. He and Lear had been at the center of a lot of rumors, and if it hadn't been for his conflicting reputation as a man with good taste in whore-houses, he was pretty sure most of the court would consider them together.
I'll have to tell her some stories when I wake up…
He slept fitfully, his addled brain filling in some confusing dreams. Not nightmares, just… not peaceful. He didn't move too much, but a couple of times he twitched, and that hurt. He never fully came awake, but in his sleep, he definitely leaned further into Elitia for comfort.

Romulus twitched awake, and groaned as his ribs complained about the movement. The swelling around his eye had gone down quite a bit, and he could open it finally. It was badly bruised, but he could see it of it, so that was good.
"Pretty eyes?" He asked sleepily. He couldn't tell if she was serious or if she was mocking his current ugly-eyed status.

Romulus had to smile at that. The crushing weight of expectations, the fate of a nation on his shoulders, his entire body in pain, and still…
She likes my eyes!
He swallowed before he answered her question. "Everything hurts, and I'm dreaming funny." His words were slurring badly, whether from sleep or his head, he couldn't tell. "Other than that, not worse."
He frowned just a little. Before he'd gone to sleep, there'd been something on his mind he'd wanted to tell her…
He couldn't remember.

Romulus tried to kiss her back, but he couldn't crane his neck at that angle. He settled for kissing her shoulder, which he happened to be able to reach.
He nodded. "I'll be alright. Just gotta heal…" He was quiet for a moment.
"I keep dreaming my mother is alive." His voice was very quiet. "She's been dead 11 years, and I know that, and when she's alive in my dreams, its happy but… there's something unsettling about it, because I want it to be real, but I know it's not…"

Romulus had an odd look on his face. "I try to enjoy them, but… I have a hard time doing that. I have ever since… well. A while." He trailed the sentence off like there was more to say, but he didn't want to say it. He knew Elitia would understand the weight of grief, and he didn't want to ask her to delve into her experiences to help him.
He suddenly remembered something. "Oh! You were looking at Lear funny, earlier, just before I fell asleep." A small smile quirked his lips upward. "Do you have questions about us?"

Romulus chuckled a little. "You wouldn't be the first." He glanced over at Lear, the tall, thin, dark haired man his opposite in so many ways. "Our relationship was complicated at first." He looked back at her and smiled a bit. "Much like ours, actually." His head twinged, and he paused, closing his eyes to keep the dzziness away, before continuing.
"I had just turned 17 when we met. He was at a brothel, had been sold there after a long time of that life. I went in, as I had been doing for 2 years, looking to check on the practices of the place and close it down if it was bad. It was awful, and I shut it down the next day, as soon as I could. But." He chuckled quietly. "I'd never found myself attracted to a man before. It just wasn't on my radar. Maybe I had been, but never in a context where I had a chance to think about it, and certainly not with anyone where I could have expressed it." He looked back at Lear, sleeping quietly next to him.
"Lear was the first. For me, he brought a side of me to life that I didn't know I had. He was the start. For him, though, I was the end. We were together that night, and he's never slept with anybody since. Including me again. Just the once." He looked up at her. "So despite what anybody tells you, all the nights he spends in here are spent almost exactly like this."

Romulus chuckled quietly. "I won't pretend we've never been romantic, but… well. He's my dearest friend in the world, and neither of us is planning on jeopardizing that for a fling. We draw comfort from each other, and his presence helps me think. Probably because he's so smart." He looked up at her tiredly. "And I don't know if I'd want that threesome, I'd feel so stupid stuck between you two brains." He was drifting, and that made him feel bad, physically and emotionally. He needed to sleep.

Romulus laughed, then groaned as the noise hurt his ribs. "I'm not smart, it's why I have Lear do all my thinking for me. And when I do make decisions, garbage like what happened in Calegon goes down." He shook his head slightly. "No, best for me to keep the dumb reputation in place."
Her gentleness lulled him back to sleep, but the conversation and the knowledge he'd have to be awake again soon had caused his brow to furrow.
He did not have sweet dreams.

The hour passed easily.
Romulus eventually stopped frowning, although he continued to twitch every so often. He was still dreaming weird things, some about his mother, some about his future, anything his addled mind decided to throw together.

Lear slept well, still as the dead, as he always did next to Romulus. He still nightmared occasionally, but never when the Prince was around.
He woke up just before the hour mark, stirring and sitting up, blinking in the lantern light.
"Time to wake him up soon, right?" He looked over at Elia. "Ah, you've found my library. What did you decide to amuse yourself with?"

Lear gave her a tired wink. "You'll be surprised to learn, I do have a heart."
He nodded at her words about the Prince. "He'll heal better once he can sleep a bunch."
He looked down at Romulus, his face pensive.
"Well… it is his fault, in a way." He looked up at her. "That's the responsibility of royalty. Most awful thing I had to learn as his Lieutenant was how many people live and die on his commands." His face softened a bit.
"But even if that wasn't the case, of course he blames himself. He always does. I'll wager he's brought up his mother at some point today?"

Lear nodded slowly, looking down at Romulus with a sad look on his face.
"He doesn't always dream about her, that's likely the head trauma, but… he always thinks about her when he feels excessively guilty about something else." He thought for a moment, before looking up at Elia.
"I'm going to tell you, because if you're going to help, you need to know this." He kept his voice lowered, not really wanting Romulus to wake in the middle of this story.
"When the King came through and took over, Romulus was 13. He didn't approve, though he couldn't have explained why exactly at 13. He just knew it felt wrong. So he wasn't excited when his father came back and told him they had a country now. He told his father that killing all those people was wrong, and they should stay in their place, and serve his uncle, the King in Harad. His father got angry at Romulus's lack of ferocity, and wanted to work the mercy out of him. He told Romulus if he was going to act like a weak woman, he'd make him a weak woman." Lear paused, his jaw tightening.
"He was in the process of emasculating, castrating, whatever you want to call it… he was holding down Romulus and taking a knife to his manhhod when his mother burst into the room and pulled him off. His father backhanded her, just once, before storming out. She seemed ok, but a little over 6 months later, she died." Lear shook his head.
"Romulus didn't process that and come to understand that his father had killed his mother for a long time. He was 20 before he put all the pieces together and saw the full picture." Lear reached down and traced the Prince's cast.
"He's blamed himself for her death ever since, saying if he hadn't been so weak and in need of saving, she wouldn't be dead."

"You're right. No father ever should." Lear said quietly. "But the King did, and does. Which, by the way." He glanced at her. "You threatened Romulus once about cutting off his balls and wearing them like a trophy. This is why he reacted so strongly." He was thinking back to a couple nights ago, outside the meeting tent. She'd made an idle remark and Romulus had actually put a hand on her, for once. Never a good sign.
"As for why he blames himself… the Prince has never had good psychology. Would you, growing up with his monstrous father as yours? So there's that. But." He sighed. "It's also the fact that if he ever fully laid the blame for these things at his father's feet, he's afraid it would outweigh his love for his father, and he'd kill him outright. Romulus probably could… but then he'd plunge at least two countries into war. Venia, because his father's allies would come after him, and the Venians, if they didn't pick sides and oin the fighting, would get caught in the middle. Maybe one of them would make a power grab, which would make things worse. On top of that, Harad would get involved, because his uncle the King wouldn't be able to just overlook his nephew killing his brother. He would have to come after Romulus, and that would be a terrible outcome." He shook his head.
"So he copes this way. Unhealthy, but it keeps his world from war."

Lear looked at her, his expression becoming that hawkish expression. "Be careful what you say. Not because I necessarily oppose the ideas, but because I have sworn allegiance to the Prince and cannot hide what yo usay to me from him." He watched her levelly for a moment.
"But I don' disagree with you. War might be inevitable, especially if the king were to die of causes other than old age… But why do you think Romulus has been trying to gain allies and put his own handpicked people in positions of power for 10 years?" He leaned towards her. "This is why he wants people back in nobility, because if it comes to it, he doesn't want to have to fight the whole court, just those who support his father, and while the Venian nobles may not like him, hey will not fight him to avenge his father."

Romulus stirred just then, and Lear cut himself off.

Lear nodded at her, tabling the conversation for now. He smiled at her compliment to Romulus. "he does have the prettiest eyes, but the ladies never comment on that. They're usually too busy noticing other features of his." He grinned down at the sleepily blinking Prince.

"Usually the scars." Romulus mumbled, smiling up at Elitia. "I'm glad you like my eyes, though." He would have squirmed if he hadn't hurt so badl and been so tired.
"Are you going to sleep now that Lear's awake?"