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happi-tree · 6 months

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(i will) stay for you

“Fighting is - that’s my job, okay?”

“Okay,” Taylor grumbles, not sounding convinced in the slightest.

“Plus,” Lincoln adds before he can stop himself, “Most of my scars are just training wounds - from when I acted too slowly or imprecisely, or I got too distracted, or…”

Lincoln trails off as he notices the way Taylor’s eyes rove over his figure, like he is attempting to picture the map of pockmarks and scores that lie beneath his armor. He feels oddly exposed, uncomfortable in his prince’s burning sight.

“May I see them, then?” Taylor asks.

Or: Prince Taylor, his loyal knight, and their musings on scars and devotion.

ao3

Royal/knight dynamics are so, so very important to me, and as a Swiftli enthusiast, it was only a matter of time before I wrote something about it! Here's some Prince Taylor, knight Link, and a truly ungodly amount of mutual pining. Hope you enjoy!

“Link,” Taylor says quietly, contemplatively. Even with his voice hushed as it is within the haven of Lincoln’s humble quarters, it echoes off the stone, bouncing off the rough-hewn masonry to resound in his ears with inaudible overtones and harmonies.

“Yes?” Lincoln brings his gaze up to look upon his charge, hands stilling from where they smooth over the cloth bandages around the prince’s forearm. He has been uncharacteristically quiet ever since Lincoln brought him here, pliant as he led him through the maze of servants’ passages, patient as Lincoln rummaged about for his poultices and ointments and wrappings, obedient as Lincoln asked him to submit to the disinfecting.

Though the young prince is a good deal shorter than him, he looks down at him, a focal point amid the drab spartan keep of his cot. The way he looks upon Lincoln now, flint-dark gaze appraising as he takes in the way Lincoln’s dark, calloused hands rest in stark contrast with the ivory cotton bandages, makes Lincoln feel like a small, delicate thing rather than the armored knight that he is.

Those eyes, burning like heated coals, travel the lines of his body, slowly, carefully, and for once, Taylor lets the silence hang in the air for several moments.

Lincoln briefly wonders if perhaps his charge has been bewitched or hexed, though, of course, that could not be, because Lincoln does not leave his side apart from sleeping.

“How often have you gotten hurt?” Taylor asks, just as softly.

“What?”

“You know,” He says (Lincoln really doesn’t), gesturing vaguely with the arm Lincoln isn’t holding. “Cuts, scrapes, bruises, the like. It just seems like you’re used to this,” He nods at Lincoln’s handiwork. The bandages are neatly wrapped about Taylor’s arm, by some miracle - thank goodness for muscle memory, or else Lincoln knows he would have been a fumbling, sloppy mess tending to him under his discerning watch.

“You really don’t need to know about that,” Lincoln says, feeling rather shameful. As his fathers have often said, Lincoln had shot upward like a weed in his youth, and his sudden height had made him a clumsy, bumbling fool more often than not. And with swordplay and squiredom being thrown into the mix, well - Lincoln has his fair share of cuts and scrapes, even if most of them had been earned long before his tenure as prince-guard.

“Yes, I do!” Taylor exclaims, and Lincoln jolts at the sudden return to his regular volume. “Of course I do.” This is softer, gentler, as if his charge is attempting to comfort him with the sound of his voice alone (and it works splendidly, for Lincoln would love nothing more than to wrap himself in the dulcet tones of his timbre and never re-emerge).

“You’re my favorite person,” Taylor says (sending an arrow of fondness-melancholy through Lincoln’s chest in the process), “And if you’re getting a bunch of badass scars behind my back, or whatever - I need to know!”

Link chortles apprehensively at his prince’s fervent enthusiasm. “They’re not really that, uh, badass,” He attempts to explain, ghosting his hands along the pale cotton absentmindedly. “They’re actually kind of... awful-looking.”

“Ha!” Taylor exclaims, “So you do have scars!”

Lincoln feels ill. Is it drafty in here? Or perhaps not drafty enough?

“Anyway,” Taylor says imperiously, nodding once to himself. “As your Prince, I order you to tell me who so permanently injured my right-hand man so that I may have them executed swiftly. Or fight them myself!”

“Woah, no no no no no,” Lincoln says, stomach dropping and veins filling with icy dread. “Absolutely not. You are not fighting anyone unless you have to, okay? Or executing them.”

“But - but I must slay them for your honor!” Taylor says, aghast.

“My prince,” Lincoln reminds him gently, “I am common-born. There is no honor for which you need to fight. My sword is your weapon, my shield is for you. Besides, I’ve only just started to teach you to defend yourself.”

And that has not been going well , Link finishes in the privacy of his own mind, glancing down briefly to the cloth-obscured cut on Taylor’s arm as his abdomen roils with guilt.

“Fighting is - that’s my job, okay?”

“Okay,” Taylor grumbles, not sounding convinced in the slightest.

“Plus,” Lincoln adds before he can stop himself, “Most of my scars are just training wounds - from when I acted too slowly or imprecisely, or I got too distracted, or…”

“May I see them, then?” Taylor asks, looking up at Lincoln through his short, dark lashes, and Lincoln feels heat lick up his throat and warm his cheeks at the shameless question.

Lincoln’s mind is a swirling maelstrom of fragmented thoughts because this is his prince, the young man he would lay down his life for, asking him to bare the shameful parts of himself to him, and he must refuse, he must, but there is a traitorous, treasonous (or perhaps a most loyal?) part of Lincoln that wants to do exactly as he asks, that quivers in delight at the thought of laying down his heavy armor and mail until he rests before Taylor in his softer garments in the quiet of his cramped room, and -

And what? Lincoln thinks, even as his mind conjures up images of the two of them entwined together against his meager bedsheets, warmer than he has ever been, even as another part of his mind shouts Answer him!

“No!” Lincoln exclaims, and his voice sounds rough-edged and raspy and dangerously desperate to his own ears.

He clears his throat. “No,” He tries again, “That’s… improper for a prince to see, and. Well, you wouldn’t like what you would find, anyway. They’re not impressive, and they’re kind of ugly, and-”

“Sir Lincoln Li-Wilson, you listen to me ,” Taylor says, voice every bit as regal and commanding as his station.

Lincoln’s gaze snaps up to meet his face again (when had it strayed to look at the cobbled floor?) and finds Taylor’s expression open, soft, vulnerable before him, all the things Lincoln has been told he must not be (all the things his heart yearns to be, when he is at his side - which is always).

“No part of you could ever be ugly,” Taylor says, resting his free hand atop Link’s own. “Not in my eyes.”

And oh , how the hushed night of Taylor’s midnight-dark gaze, the furrow of his regal brows, the upturned corners of his lips send a fluttering feeling in Lincoln’s chest, feather-soft and warm and all things good and lovely.

“You’re the most beautiful person I’ve ever laid eyes on,” Taylor continues, “And that’s with you almost completely covered in armor!”

Taylor’s voice is so full of sincerity and conviction that Lincoln has a hard time remembering his prince’s upbringing. From his birth, Taylor has been paraded among the most handsome lords and winsome ladies, an endless barrage of pretty and polished nobility, so surely he’s exaggerating. There is no chance that Lincoln, with his ungainly height and unruly curls and calloused hands and uneven dirt-spattering of freckles and work-worn scarred-bruised-bandaged body, could ever reasonably catch the eye of his future king.

(Lincoln knows, of course, that Prince Taylor’s heart is every bit as unreasonable as his own, though he cannot fathom why or how.)

“I’m sure every part of you is just as pretty, even if you don’t believe it,” Taylor plows onward, unaware of just how thoroughly his words have unwoven the fabric of his brain. “Even if they’re parts of you that I haven’t seen. Could -” Here, his charge fumbles, grasping for Lincoln’s hand in a distinctly un-princelike manner as he struggles to find his words.

Lincoln, as always, takes hold (even as he feels unmoored himself) and listens for him (even as he dreads the words that will leave his lips next).

“Can you show me,” Taylor finally asks, carefully, “One of your scars?”

Lincoln cringes, and Taylor notices.

“Not if it makes you uncomfortable, of course! Just… please? I want to show my gratitude to you, for bearing injuries in order to be at my side.”

Gratitude is the last thing Taylor should offer him, Lincoln thinks, especially after today’s sparring session ended so poorly - due entirely to Lincoln’s own negligence.

Taylor’s thumb brushes against Lincoln’s, and without the coverings of their respective gloves, the touch feels far too intimate, sends sparks alight beneath Lincoln’s skin, and Lincoln can scarcely tear his eyes away from the sight of their hands conjoined, palm to palm, brilliant gold to deep bronze.

“And,” Taylor adds, “You said so yourself - nobody will find us here. It’s just you and me, here, and I - I don’t mean to pressure you, of course, but this is important to me, please…”

Taylor looks at Lincoln pleadingly, and, gods, Lincoln knew what he would do as soon as the first request left Taylor’s mouth, even though his heart is thudding louder than a war-drum against his ears and attempting to crawl up into his throat.

Lincoln sighs, a breathy, shaking noise as he leans back against the wall, allowing the cool stonework to soothe his heated thoughts as his eyes slide closed.

Lincoln hears the sad, aborted noise Taylor makes as he slips his hand from his prince’s grasp, followed by the sound of his sharp inhale as Lincoln’s hands find the clasps of his cuirass and begin to unlatch the plated metal from his torso.

Lincoln opens his eyes to find Taylor watching with intense curiosity, a rosy blush sweeping across his cheekbones as he stares. Lincoln cannot bear to see how he looks at him, so he instead focuses on the fastenings, undoing first his shoulder pauldrons, then his cuirass, then his gauntlets with practiced ease.

They fall heavily onto the cot, clanking against each other, and Lincoln distracts himself further from meeting Taylor’s searing gaze by fidgeting with the sleeves of his blouse.

It’s a simple garment, off-white and sweat-stained from their sparring and wrinkled from its metal-bound confinement, but the fabric is soft and breathable and doesn’t scratch at his skin like a thousand insects the way that some other shirts do, and the sleeves are pleasantly flowy, and the neckline of it is high enough to keep the metal of his armor from chafing against his collarbones.

Lincoln spares a brief glance at Taylor and forces himself to look back down immediately, for if he lets himself fully take in the look of unabashed awe painting his prince’s expression, he will surely lose his nerve.

Instead, he silently hikes up the shirtsleeve of his right arm as far as he is able, letting Taylor see the discolored river of scarring that wraps around it.

Lincoln keeps his gaze trained on the mortar in the cobbled floor at his feet, hyper-aware of the way his heart rattles against the confines of his ribs and stops up his lungs, desperate and small and animalistic. Lincoln knows what Taylor sees - though he hasn’t ever been one for vanity, Lincoln has glimpsed at the scar, knows the gnarled, ragged path it has etched into his shoulder, twisting like an angry vine around his bicep to end in the vulnerable hollow of his elbow. As old and faded as it is, the lighter color contrasts starkly against his skin, a lightning bolt amid a tempestuous sky, awful and horrible and damaging.

“Does…” Taylor swallows - out of regret, clearly, his voice wrung-out and raspy. “Does it hurt?”

Lincoln chuckles mirthlessly. “No. Not one bit.” As much as he wants to look upon his prince, he knows that he would only read pity-disgust-horror there, so he keeps his head down, eyes sliding shut as hot shame festers in his stomach.

Then, something warm wraps about his wrist, holding it aloft, palm-up, gentle and soft and uncalloused, and Lincoln opens his eyes in surprise, turning to look at his charge.

“Then… could I…” Taylor breathes out a fragment of a request - one that doesn’t need clarifying, not when his thumb strokes against the side of Lincoln’s wrist, not when his other hand hovers over his scarred flesh.

Taylor has never, ever been patient, never been one to ask for permission, headstrong and confident and downright reckless, but his hesitance now speaks volumes - especially when combined with how his onyx eyes fixate upon Lincoln, cataloging his every tell, deep and dark with wanting.

Gods above, this breathtaking boy will be the death of him, his salvation and his undoing.

“Yes,” Lincoln replies almost inaudibly, because not one cell in his body could refuse him anything at this moment.

His prince touches the discolored flesh on his arm, mapping out its path slowly and steadily as he trails the pad of his forefinger upward with great care. His every touch sends tremors down Lincoln’s spine, fills him with a buzzing, thrumming, restless sort of energy.

Touch is… rather hard to come by, in the palace - friendly touch even more so. Sure, Lincoln will be nudged and cuffed around playfully by his fellow knights, and there are times when Taylor will brush up against his side in a purposeful attempt to get accidentally-too-close, but even then, such affections cannot permeate through the glimmering metal of his armor, the tough leather of his gloves.

Lincoln can scarcely remember the last time someone has successfully done so.

And never in all his years has Lincoln been touched with such attention, with such awe and care and reverence - it feels almost worshipful, the way that Taylor traces along every twisted snarl of years-old damage, the way he focuses solely on dutifully following every slight deviation.

For someone to treat him so delicately, so lovingly - and for that person to be his prince, who he reveres and guards above all else -

Taylor stills his ministrations, looking to him, worry furrowing his brow.

“Are you alright, Link?” he asks, so softly, so considerately, and his finger has stilled against the pale bramble of his scarring, and everywhere he touches singes with a mirage-shimmer, and -

Lincoln makes an ungodly sort of choked whine in the back of his throat, face heating for lack of a proper response.

“I’m no physician, but there might be some damaged nerves here?”

Lincoln looks silently at him, and Taylor must read the confusion in his face, for his expression melts into something impossibly softer as he says “You’re trembling, darling.”

Ah , Lincoln thinks intelligibly, attempting to wrangle his writhing nerves into stillness. Ah, so I am. He fails miserably. Ah, he called me darling.

“I can stop, if it hurts,” Taylor offers, looking rather crestfallen even as he says it.

“No,” Lincoln hears himself reply, voice thickened like honey trapped in the back of his throat . “No, I’m fine, I promise.”

Dramatic though it is, Lincoln thinks he might die if Taylor stops now. He might die if he continues.

Taylor arches a royal brow, considering, and Lincoln thinks for the briefest of instances of leaning forward to kiss it before stomping on said thought with the force of a thousand foot-soldiers.

“Very well,” he intones. “I trust that you know your own limits.”

His prince has never been so woefully, wonderfully wrong, Lincoln thinks as Taylor continues lavishing the most careful of touches upon him, trying his very best not to feel as if his soul is about to shudder out of his body at the tenderness.

The relative quiet of the moment is punctuated by Taylor’s murmured questioning, asking Lincoln how old the injury is, how long it took to scar, how it had hurt, when and where he had gotten it. The inquiries distract Lincoln enough from fully losing himself to his touch, and though he tries his very best to answer, he cannot remember the slightest bit of his responses.

Taylor’s hands upon his bare skin are like nothing he’s ever felt, ever encountered, ever dared to dream. His hands are far warmer than Lincoln had been able to feel through the thick hide of soldier’s gloves, and they are slightly smaller than his, and they are impossibly soft, devoid of the calluses that roughen his own palms. Most importantly, they are the hands of his prince, the person he lives to serve, to protect, to defend, and they are treating Lincoln like he is precious and beautiful and worthy of adoration rather than the other way around.

Lincoln scarcely realizes that Taylor has leaned closer to him in the midst of all his musings until he feels a rush of warm breath against the base of his scar.

He barely has the wherewithal to gasp before his prince’s lips brush against the mangled line of paler skin, then press surely in the smallest of kisses before drawing back with a soft sound, mouth turned up at the corners in a fond grin.

Lincoln thanks everything that he is sitting down, for otherwise, he may well have collapsed.

Even now, he feels rather faint as Taylor fixes him with that gorgeous close-lipped smile of his, secretive and sly and earth-shatteringly adoring.

“You’re beautiful,” Taylor tells him, simple as truth and appearing horribly, wholly smitten. “Gods, you’re so beautiful. You know that, don’t you?”

Lincoln makes a choked-off, high-pitched noise that is far more audible than he is comfortable with.

His charge smiles wider, a self-satisfied thing, and before Lincoln can relive the feeling of that smile against his blemished skin, Taylor is upon him again, trailing small, soft kisses along the winding path of his scar, seeming intent on mapping it just as thoroughly with his mouth as with his hands.

“Thank you,” his prince breathes between featherlight kisses, “For serving me. For being at my side.” Here, he places a kiss in the crook of his elbow. “For protecting me.” Another upon the edge of his bicep. “For putting yourself in harm’s way to ensure my safety.” Yet another atop it. “I know no-one as kind, or as brave, or as selfless, or as pretty.” A trail of kisses from the muscle of his upper arm rising onward to reach his shoulder.

“You are… stunningly gorgeous, every bit of you,” Taylor murmurs, practically in Lincoln’s lap from how far he has leant into him. Instinctually, he places a hand upon his prince’s clothed waist for support, quickly distracted by the heat that emanates from his core.

That distraction is short-lived, however, as Taylor bends downward once more to press a firm kiss atop his scarred shoulder, and the feeling of his pillow-soft lips against his skin renders his mind to nothing but detritus.

Taylor hums appreciatively, and the sound reverberates in his brain, in his chest. “Gorgeous,” his prince repeats, low and syrup-sweet next to his ear. “Even the parts you dislike, because they’re parts of you, and you are the most handsome person I know.”

He pulls away (but not so much that it would allow Lincoln to relinquish his hold on him), looking thoroughly pleased with the mess he has made of his knight.

“But-” Lincoln tries, and it sounds like a wheeze. He feels faint under the weight of Taylor’s praise.

“No buts,” Taylor cuts him off, pinning him against the cot with his gaze alone.

Lincoln swallows.

“Good boy,” Taylor says, and the phrase coupled with his gentle hold and night-dark eyes and curling, kiss-mussed lips draws another whine from Lincoln’s throat.

“I am so lucky that fate brought you to me,” Taylor murmurs, leaning forward into his chest, and all Lincoln knows is burning, burning, burning. “So lucky that you are mine.”

Yours, his mind echoes, lovestruck and loyal and possessive, yours, yours, yours, always yours .

And though Prince Taylor cannot be his - not in the way that his heart truly desires - in the stale air turned warm by Taylor’s hot breaths, in the tucked-away corner of Queen Cassandra’s palace, Lincoln allows himself to be held and tries to convince himself that, just this once, what they have can be enough.

#um. when the. when the prince and the knight...#it's about the devotion. the service. the violence that one will endure in the other's name. yk yk yk #also i simply think link deserves to be held gentle. and kissed even.#taylor is also just so incredibly smitten with him.#thanking your guard for his service is out. kissing him is in #and link ofc is very very gone for taylor <3 #okokok that's enough rambling methinks #dndads #fic #happi scribbles #swiftli #shield and scepter

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