Chapter 1: Broken Glass and Blue Eyes
The ice in Shining Armor’s whiskey had long since melted, a silent protest against how long he’d been sitting there. He traced a finger through the condensation on the glass, mapping constellations on a foreign planet. The lounge was all murmured conversations and the low thrum of a bassline you felt in your ribs, a world away from palace halls and strategic briefings. Here, no one needed protecting. Here, he was just a guy with strangely blue hair at the end of a bar, trying to remember how to want something.
The shatter was startling, a sharp punctuation to the murmur. A tray of empty glasses had found the floor next to his stool, and a shower of crystal droplets glittered against his black boots.
“Shit. Sorry, sorry about that.”
The voice was warm, laced with a genuine wince. Shining Armor looked up.
The man crouching to gather the shards had tousled dark hair that fell into his eyes, which were a soft, focused brown. He moved with an efficient grace, long fingers carefully plucking up larger pieces. But instead of retreating with the debris, he stayed there, on his haunches, and looked up from under those dark lashes.
“You okay? Didn’t get any on you, did I?” he asked. His gaze was direct, curious, sweeping over Shining Armor’s face with an appreciation that was devoid of any trace of fear or deference. It was a novel feeling.
“I’m intact,” Shining Armor said, his own voice sounding too formal, too stiff in the sultry air.
“Good.” The man’s lips quirked. He reached out, not for more glass, but to brush a barely-there fragment from the cuff of Shining Armor’s jeans. The touch was fleeting, deliberate, a whisper of contact against the dense fabric. A static jolt, stupid and visceral, shot up Shining Armor’s leg. He held very still.
“Lance,” the man said, by way of introduction, finally rising to his feet with the broken glass cupped in a bar towel. He was lean, wearing a simple black shirt rolled to the elbows, forearms corded with tendon.
“Shining,” he replied, then immediately regretted it. It was his name, but here, it sounded like a title he hadn’t earned in years. A performance.
“Shining,” Lance repeated, testing it. The word in his mouth sounded like something new, something private. “You’ve been nursing that watered-down regret for an hour. Can I make you a real drink?”
It wasn’t the question, but the observation, that threw him. He’d been seen, clocked, assessed. In his old life, that would have been a security risk. Here, it just made his skin feel too tight.
“I don’t know what I want,” Shining Armor admitted, the truth slipping out.
Lance leaned a hip against the back bar, tossing the ruined glass into a bin with a soft clatter. “That’s the best starting point there is. Means you’re actually paying attention.” He turned, pulling a fresh glass. “Let’s start simple. You like the whiskey, or were you just punishing yourself with it?”
“It was… familiar.”
“We can do better than familiar.” Lance’s hands moved, sure and quick, pouring a measure of amber liquid from a bottle without a label. He added a single large cube of ice, then, with a chef’s precision, used a knife to carve a thick peel from an orange. He held it over the glass, gave it a sharp twist, and a fine mist of citrus oil sparkled down onto the surface before he dropped the curl in. He slid it across the wood.
“Try that. It’s familiar, but with a sunbeam caught in it.”
Shining Armor took a sip. The warmth was there, the oak and smoke, but then the bright, clean kiss of orange unfolded, cutting through the weight. It was transformation in a glass. “That’s… incredible.”
Lance’s smile was a slow, genuine thing. “Told you.” He busied himself wiping the bar, but his attention was a tangible thing, a blanket around Shining Armor’s shoulders. “So. You’re new. Not just to here. To… this.” He gestured loosely, encompassing the room, the easy intimacy between couples at low tables, the spectrum of life humming around them.
“Is it that obvious?”
“Only to someone looking.” Lance rested his arms on the bar, closing the distance. His scent was clean—soap and a hint of sage. “You sit like a soldier. Back straight, feet planted. You watch the door, the crowd, not out of paranoia, but out of habit. You’re cataloging exits, assessing threats. It’s in your shoulders.”
Shining Armor felt abruptly naked. He forced a deliberate relaxation, a lowering of the guard he hadn’t even known was up. “Old habits.”
“You don’t have to break them all at once.” Lance’s voice dropped, just for him. “But maybe you could take one off. Just for tonight. It’s safe here.”
The offer was so gentle it felt like a blow. Safety wasn’t a condition he granted himself; it was a state he provided for others. To have it offered to him, so casually, so knowingly, unraveled something tight in his chest.
“Why?” The word was out, harsh and low.
Lance didn’t flinch. He looked thoughtful, his eyes tracing the line of Shining Armor’s jaw, the tension in his neck. “Because you look like a masterpiece someone put in a closet. All that careful composition, just sitting in the dark. It’s a waste.”
No one had ever spoken to him like that. Not as a prince, not as a captain. As a man. Heat bloomed under his collar, a rush that was equal parts embarrassment and thrilling, shocking attraction.
“I don’t know how to do this,” Shining Armor whispered, the confession torn from him.
“Do what?” Lance asked, though his eyes suggested he knew.
“Any of it. The talking. The… wanting.”
Lance nodded, as if this was the most reasonable, the most important thing he’d heard all night. “Okay. That’s okay. We can just talk. What do you like, Shining? Simple things. Music. The taste of rain. The feel of good leather.”
And so they did. The conversation ebbed and flowed around the demands of the bar. Lance would leave to pour a beer, make a cocktail, exchange a joke with a regular, and then he’d return, as if pulled by a magnet, to their spot. Shining Armor found himself talking, really talking, about the metallic smell before a thunderstorm, the satisfying weight of a well-balanced sword, the profound silence of a forest at dawn. Lance listened, utterly absorbed, his responses weaving in stories of his own—the rhythm of pouring a perfect layered drink, the ache in your fingers after a long night playing guitar, the way city lights looked like scattered topaz from the fire escape of his walk-up.
The space between them became a charged field. A brush of hands when a fresh drink was passed. A moment where Lance leaned forward to hear him over a swell in the music, his breath warm on Shining Armor’s ear. The world narrowed to the amber glow on Lance’s skin, the fascinating movement of his hands, the intelligent, kind light in his eyes that saw too much and didn’t look away.
The crowd began to thin. The music softened.
“My shift’s ending,” Lance said, not looking at the clock. He was wiping a glass, a slow, circular motion. “I live upstairs. It’s not a palace. But the coffee’s good, and the couch is decent for talking.” He finally met Shining Armor’s gaze. The offer hung there, clear and unburdened by presumption. “Just talking. Unless you say otherwise.”
The old programming screamed a dozen warnings. Protocol. Risk. The vulnerability of an unknown location. But beneath the soldier, the prince, the protector, a simpler, lonelier man was waking up, stretching towards that offered warmth.
Shining Armor placed his hand, palm down, on the bar. A deliberate gesture. He saw Lance’s eyes track it, saw the quick intake of breath.
“Okay,” Shining Armor said. The word felt like a first step off a cliff, terrifying and full of sky. “Show me the way.”