Closer Still

"Are you really going to steal that?" A voice asked from behind him. It sounded young, a small boy or just a girl, and lilted with an almost laugh that came and went with the words.

Edward didn't turn to check who it was, but his lip curled and he hurriedly finished stuffing his shirt pockets so he could move off from the unattended stall.

"Mind your own business!" He hissed. Grabbing back up the basket of wash he'd carried up from the river and hiking it up against his ribs where it could hide the bulges in his shirt, he trotted a few steps before slowing to a more casual stumble with his heavy load. He was too dirty, too obviously rumpled and bad off to not be stopped if someone got it into their head he was running from something. Thefts were high in these parts, suspicion was high, and the beatings free flowing if the thief in question was caught in the act.

Edward crossed from the food stalls, pressing through the busier middle of the street and sidestepping lizard dung until he reached the dusty side alley he was aiming for; too narrow for a plump adult to squeeze through, but just right for a skinny teen like him to dart to and fro.

There were crevices like these everywhere that the more scrappy youngsters on the street took advantage of, but this one in particular was a handy shortcut home for Edward. It passed between the two large bulk buildings; one selling rolls of cloth for the thriving, fat local tailors, the other boasting the best overpriced bruised farm produce in the world; then branched off behind lines of square house tents. Farther in, one of these tents belonged to his father.

Edward did not, however, make it that far.

He wasn't an easy boy to spook. He knew when to run, of course, when and if things got out of hand in a fight or a stall owner pulled a knife from behind their counter, but superstition was for idiots-- Everyone knew the monsters only snatched you if you made a scene about them being there. That was what they lived for; winding people up, then eating them. You were fine as long as you didn't sweat, look over your shoulder, or shake.

Still, Edward felt the prickle of hair rising on the back of his neck and made a turn off that wouldn't lead him home. He could feel it, someone or something following him, and the lack of audible footfalls meant it was either a person out to get him, or... something he needed to ignore. He tried to speed up his steps without looking like he was fleeing, but his nostrils had flared and his arms were clutching the basket hard to his chest to better muffle the sound of his heart pounding through the crushed bread rolls and damp laundry.

He wanted to look. His eyes were rolling side to side, but he was too scared to turn his head now. It would be fine if he knew a man was there, but if he looked and there was nothing or something dark...

"You smell scared."

Edward felt as if he'd jumped out of his skin when the voice came again. The laundry tumbled out of his hands and he tripped over the basket, bread falling from the front of his shirt. He caught his feet and ran several long strides before he recognized the speaker as the same he'd heard at the stall. The panic stuttered in his chest, a wash of fury bubbling up hot on its heels, and he spun with a face twisted in embarrassed fury.

"FUCK O-" Edward's fist stayed raised, frozen at shoulder height, but the next syllable died on his lips and reversed as he sucked back in his breath. He stared at the smaller boy who stood at the end of the turn he'd just taken, and swallowed hard.

"Did I scare you?" Elic asked.

The youngest Night Prince cocked his head, scarred lips turning up in a little smile that flashed the ends of very forward angled and sharp front teeth that immediately reminded Edward of the large rats that wallowed in the sewage a ways down the riverside and sometimes wandered into the town at night. He'd been bitten by one once, and it hadn't been pretty.

The teeth weren't the scary thing, though. The whole picture was. The pale face with dark ringed eyes that sported long dark scars like three exaggerated lashes from a distance, the thin dark hair curling in the odd clumped way that seemed to follow the Night genes from generation to generation, the smile, the tottering posture as if the small boy's head were too heavy or supported by a string held by an unsteady hand... He was Nightmare spawn.

Edward recognised the boy immediately, of course. If not by exact name, he knew the family that lorded over the country's dark hours. Trembling slightly, he let his arm drop, fingers loosely curled at his side. "N... no. Sir. I mean-"

"I won't tell." The smile stayed as Elic swayed on his feet, eyes boring into Edward's face. The prince seemed dazedly thrilled, as if they'd been playing a one-sided game of tag that he'd won. He didn't seem to much know what he wanted to do now.

"Wh- what? Tell what?"

"My cousin. That you took from his stall." Elic tsked like Edward was being stupid, teeth glinting again in a wider grin still as he traced a finger in the air. It looked as if he were spelling a letter or a picture, but he lost interest and let his arms both go limp a moment later to swing as he turned back and forth and rocked on his heels. "He would prob-ab-ly kill you."

Edward felt his throat contrict. He hadn't realised whose stall it was, or really cared til now. "I-"

"I thought it was funny," Elic went on, smiling and rocking and swinging and fidgeting, and it occurred to Edward that maybe the prince was really not trying to scare the piss out of him, but make some awkward conversation. "Stealing bread. That bread. Did you notice how dry it is? It's burnt, you know. My cousin's an awful cook."

When thinking about it that way, maybe the prince didn't look as terrifying as Edward first assumed. He was just some ugly boy who had tagged along where he wasn't invited. It brought back some of the irritation that had been wiped away in his first impression.

"I'm not really inna place to go judging, if it's food," Edward told him, eyes narrowing. He'd dropped the rolls, they would be especially gritty and dry now, but he still had every intention of picking them back up and eating them later now that he wasn't being chased by a monster. "And," he added, voice rising, "I don't think it's much funny at all."

The prince blinked for the first time then, only once, smile there but wavering oddly as his eyes opened wide in what almost looked like shock. They stayed that way until the grin returned with a vengeance, and the boy laughed. He laughed loudly, starting with one high bark that deteriorated immediately into perfectly enunciated HA's that didn't sound like they belonged to such a small boy.

It was disturbing to be pinned by such a steady wide stare while the rest of the prince's face was morphed by hysterical glee. It looked demented, dangerous, like the monsters from Old Jacey's stories that laughed long and hard only to stop in a heartbeat and attack.

Edward jerked back when the prince did just that. Not attack, but stop laughing. No trail off or distraction in sight, just stopped. The grin had disappeared just as suddenly, and Edward didn't think twice when the sharp, instinctive spear of panic hit him in the chest again. He spun on his heel and ran like the hounds of hell were on his heels.

"Get AWAY!" He yelled over his shoulder when, this time, he heard the light footsteps giving chase. His voice cracked. The other boy was smaller, yes, younger, but terrifyingly fast. They'd been at least fifteen feet apart, now it felt like two. "Just- just go away! Get away from me!"

Not five feet from a turn he knew would open back into the crowded, possibly safe street, Edward tripped. It was a bit of uneven ground, or the drag of his oversized pants getting caught, it didn't really matter. He'd felt the relief of almost escape, put on a clumsy burst of speed between two rough walls, and then he was falling. There was a dull cracking noise as his forehead hit the gritty concrete to one side, a burst of light, and he dropped like a sack of potatos.

The young Night prince skidded to a halt. Edward heard the crunch of gravel and old broken glass as the boy stood over him, saw the tidy shoes stop by his shoulder, along with some drops of blood that must have splashed there on the way down. The vision waved in and out, blurring gray-brown on the edges.

"Oops... did you get hurt?" Elic crouched, touching a finger none too gently to the nasty gash across the older boy's scalp. It drew a harsh gasp that made him smile his terrifying smile. "It's ok. It will be."

"Ghh..." Get away, Edward tried to say again. Instead, the effort proved too much and he let his jaw fall slack, eyes rolling up.

"Shhhhh. Everybody gets hurt sometimes." Elic cooed and pet his new friend's hair, unmindful of the wound. Blood from it smeared his fingers and palm. "But don't worry. I like you, so you'll be ok."


Edward woke some two weeks later in his father's tent, a healed scar running from his hairline to just off his eyebrow. He didn't see the young prince again, not for a long time, but the single meeting had put the fear in him and he came to carry a knife everywhere he went. Not that he could stab Prince Elic, but the lingering paranoia left him vulnerable, always, to the nightmares that lurked in all the town's dark places. He kept his hand in the pocket holding his knife, and a pack over his shoulder that carried a flashlight and piles of stolen matches which unfortunately came in use on a regular basis from then on.

The spooks came too know him well over the years, recognizing him as a repeat target, and they terrorized him at every opportunity. In the alleys, waving from dark corners across the street, swarmining and whispering to him in his bed. He would scramble for safety in the crowds or grab for a light, and be left shivering and wondering why they didn't just get things over with when they so clearly had the upper hand.

There was no way he could have known then just how devoted the nightmares were to their Night lords. They were always spoken of as wild things that existed from nothing but wayward magic and fear, so how could they possibly be mastered any anyone?

But then it made sense that the Night family, who could call up their most terrible nightmares with the crook of a finger, would cow the simple hungry shadows living in the streets.

It was all very simple. The Prince had decided Edward was his... friend. And he would have conjured a terrible tantrum of horrors had anyone, or anything, taken something of his away. So when Edward was seventeen and collected to be the fourteen year old prince's birthday present, he was a terrified mess but otherwise unharmed.

Edward was washed, perfumed, dressed warmly, and fed better than he'd ever been in his life. He was angry, of course. Furious to be plucked from his life without any warning and frightened of a life living in the home of the Nights. Still, the anger didn't change anything. Niether did the fear, though Elic seemed to flit back and forth between trying to inspire it and then comfort it away. He wanted Edward to be happy but still fun to play with.

Running away meant the most traumatic chases Edward could ever endure, and Elic's hurt furies when he was inevitable returned to the prince's room. Edward only attempted this three times, with enough space in between to dull the memory so that he got brave again. Three times were more than enough to assure it stuck well.

"Edward," Elic whispered one night after a year of living together, waking him by winding thin arms around him from the back. He had climbed from his soft bed to join Edward on the floor. "I had a nightmare."

"Go back to sleep." Edward breathed back at him, eyes tightly shut in case the prince had decided to summon it for show-and-tell. Turning his face deeper into his pillow, he felt the cold draft of Elic breathing slowly against his neck, the arms tightening around his own and the smaller body pressing in close over the blankets. Edward stiffened in the embrace, brows furrowing. Elic was always too affectionate with his touches, but it felt especially inappropriate right now. It took Edward a moment to realize it was because the younger boy was, ever so slightly, moving against him.

"It was a good one... You were there, too," Elic whispered again, his face pressing into the back of Edward's neck. The front of his teeth touched the skin, giving away a grin Edward was glad not to be able to see in the dark room.

Edward cringed, bending his elbows so he could pull at the limbs pinning his upper arms. They were alarmingly strong and stubborn. "Quit it," He growled, quiet in case Leleno was posted outside the room. The last thing he needed was the embarrassment of Elic's uncle poking his head in to see this scuffle. "I already sleep in here, I don't need to share your wet dreams too. Ass! Get off me and go back to bed."

"Mm." Elic nosed at the back of Edward's ear, squeezing him tighter and tighter until the pressure made it hard to breathe. "Mummy told me this would happen, two years ago."

"What?" Edward demanded angrily, but it came out as more of a wheeze.

"The wanting. The good nightmares." Elic smiled again. "I wonder if I'll molest all the serving girls now, like she said. Father did."

"If that's what you want, go ahead- leave me out of it!"

"I don't want to. Leave you out of it, I mean," Elic huffed, a sulkiness leaking into his tone as if Edward had hurt his feelings. "I want to share everything, everything, with you. And you-"

He shifted, putting his leg over Edward's hip so he was laying draped over the older boy's side. He clenched his thighs together on either side, the rocking motions of his hips losing all their subtlety with this new, more gratifying, position.

Edward couldn't move much to struggle; arms pinned and the prince much heavier than his size suggested. Elic's breath barely changed, only hitching once between Edward's hushed mortified protests before the tensed thighs clinging to him finally went lax. There was a silence as they both digested what just happened.

"- You," Elic finally murmurred, clammy forehead ruffling over the short hair on the back of Edward's neck, "can share everything with me. You can."

"Elic." Edward had his teeth grit together, flushed face buried still in his pillow. He sounded strangled, fingers fisted in the feather padded quilt he slept on, a thin trembling moving up and down all his limbs from how tense he was holding himself. "Please. Just. Go back to bed. Please."

"Ok. But if you have any nightmares, I want you to share them with me. Promise?"