Return of the one long gone

My medicine is you

Jimmy thought he was never going to see Scott again, even before Xornoth came through the doors of the church. His fiancé had been gone so long he wondered if he had run because he wanted to. Because he was finally done with the pressure. Jimmy knows Scott hadn't had the easiest of childhoods, with his parents and brother gone, he alone in a world where he needed people to support him.

- - - - 

Jimmy remembers the coronation. They were both young, maybe just older than 15/16. The man had looked on at the crowd in fear. Jimmy knew he had always been pushed and told to do better even when he had done his best, that was how the Elves did it, they had centuries before any other race existed as kingdoms. He remembers talking to Scott at the afterparty, giving him someone he could talk to as a friend rather than the king.

They drifted apart once Jimmy took over the throne in his kingdom. The Cod empire was newer than most of the others, a set of people broken off from the Ocean empire after the wars. They happened when he was younger so he didn't remember much, just that his Father took him and his mother looked after Lizzie. They weren't divorced, but they disagreed on what was best for the two of them, his mother wanting his sister to be Queen whilst his dad wanted him to be king. 

Scott was forced into breaking contact with him, his advisors seeing it best to trade and ally with Lizzie instead. She was always the better ruler in his opinion. She was more level headed and better under pressure. Yet his Dad always used to say that she didn't have the natural kindness and curiosity that he did. That wasn't what made a ruler good enough for Scott.

He remembers the cyanette telling him about the way they made Scott think Jimmy was so far beneath him that he was the same as peasants roaming the streets. And because he never had the chance to learn how to form his own opinion, he let his advisors have their way. Scott told him he regretted it, how he had liked Jimmy so much when he was the first person to see him at more than surface level.

They had kept their newfound friendship a secret. Not because they didn't want to tell anyone, but because Scott wasn't ready to face his advisors and Jimmy was never one to sit and do piles of paperwork, which would have been necessary if they announced their courtship, when it formed into that. They could tell some people within their royal staff were getting suspicious, but those people never said a word, they understood what would happen if they did.

- - - -

Scott stirred slightly, bringing him from his memories. He didn't wake, didn't open his eyes or even make more than in incoherent mumble before stilling again.

- - - -

The morning Jimmy woke up without Scott next to him was one he would never forget. Not because he knew at that moment Scott was going to be gone for two years, but because there was a note on his bedside table. His fiancé never left them as he never left the house before Jimmy left, he knew the Cod had separation issues since his sister came back into his life, and with her brought nightmares and quick, hazy memories of his life before the war.

So when it sat, staring at him to mock him, upset him, he knew something was wrong. 

The days that followed were filled with tears and panic attacks. Scott hadn't told him where he was going, hadn't even promised he would come back to him eventually, just said an emotional goodbye and asked he never stopped being himself.

Jimmy had wanted to hate him. Wanted to gather his things and follow after him. But he knew that this wasn't a fairytale or the start of a great adventure as if he was part of a book like the ones he read as kid, or the ones lining Scott's bookshelves in the old elven library. It was reality. He couldn't promise he wouldn't die, couldn't be sure he would even find Scott, if he would be healthy and alive if he did.