#*flynn

Simba narrowed his eyes and tapped his chin with his finger. As King, making difficult decisions was simply part of the job. Every day he had to make a choice about something, big or small, that would affect everyone in the Kingdom. Usually he could make peace with those decisions, but today he wasn’t sure that he would make the right choice.

He sighed and laced his fingers together. This was going to be hard. No doubt there were people who were going to be upset by this choice, and hell, he wasn’t even sure if he wouldn’t regret the decision later. But not making a choice was often worse than making the wrong choice. He took a deep breath and ran his fingers through his hair.”

“Alright. I’ll have Chick Flick Cherry.”

His daughter, a prim four year old with hair his mother’s fiery red color but somehow straight like his, grinned. “Great choice,” she said smoothly, and picked up the bottle of nail polish.

“Chick Flick Cherry? Are you kidding me? That’s going to do absolutely nothing for you, seriously. Do You Lilac It would do so much more for your eyes,” said Flynn as his little girl concentrated on his own nails.

“I’m going to add tiny little curlicues!” said the girl, who had Rapunzel’s eyes and apparently, her talent for painting.

“That’s great sweetheart. I mean look at this and don’t tell me I Can’t Cope-acabana isn’t perfect for my complexion.”

Simba snorted and laid his head back in the chair.

“After we paint your nails, we’re gonna pick out the perfect gowns for the ball!” said his daughter, and both the girls nodded.

“You can say whatever you want about my nails,” said Simba. “But my hair looks amazing.” It was full of little clips and bows, with a nice big yellow flower tucked behind his ear to finish off the look.

Flynn snorted. “I’m still prettier than you, man.”

Sometimes Eugene wasn’t sure why he didn’t just bail after the whole Lost Princess debacle.

It would’ve been too easy, really, to just take a nice monetary reward and buy himself the island of his dreams. Or at least like a private helicopter or something. But no, instead he chose to stick around the palace where he was forced into overpriced silk dress shirts and pavloved into knowing the difference between a salad fork and a dessert fork.

.....Alright so maybe the dress shirts were pretty cool.

But what wasn’t cool were the looks everyone gave him. The whispers told behind his back. He knew, of course, that basically every single person in the entire kingdom thought he was some just some lowlife nobody with a ridiculous power trip who had seduced the poor innocent little princess for his own personal gain. He knew that pretty much nobody in the palace trusted him. He even knew there was a conspiracy going around that he was a spy from an enemy kingdom that was plotting to overthrow the king and queen. Yeah, he knew what people were saying, and he knew it was all lies. But knowing didn’t make it sting any less.

And while nobody had ever outright said those things to his face, they never really tried to hide their distaste of him, either. He was basically quarantined off in his own section of the palace, near the servants quarters and as far away from Rapunzel’s room as possible, just to make sure that he never forgot that he didn’t belong here. That he was nothing more than a street urchin living off of someone else’s dime. As if he could forget something that had been so ingrained in him for his entire life. That’s why he became Flynn in the first place.

But now that he was trying to turn over some new leaf or whatever, start going by Eugene, stop stealing precious family heirlooms, nobody took him seriously. They were treating him worse than they had treated Flynn. Which was really saying something considering they were definitely going to hang him for a minute there.

And it wasn’t any secret that Rapunzel’s parents weren’t exactly pleased with the company their only child and heir chose to keep. From the minute the two of them had shown up together at the palace it seemed like the king and queen had been trying to drive a wedge between them. Rapunzel was booked day and night with state meetings and etiquette classes and dress fittings (because apparently she wasn’t allowed to be seen in the same thing twice, which was ironic considering she had told him she had pretty much been wearing the same dress for the past 3 years), while Eugene was mostly left to fend for himself.

Saying that they were completely cut off from each other would be more of an exaggeration than a lie, though. They would see each other in passing throughout the day; running into each other in the halls while Rapunzel was off to her next appointment and Eugene was off to dick around somewhere new for a few hours, and they had dinner together in the evenings, accompanied by the king and queen of course, but it was really hard to catch up with your girlfriend with a time limit hanging over your head and judgmental strangers breathing down your neck.

The only time he ever got to see her, and he meant really see her, alone, without her parents or servants or guards or anyone else around to look down on them, to make him feel guilty for daring to exist near Rapunzel, was in the middle of the night. The pair of them would sneak out into the gardens so they could stargaze together, laying out on the cool grass with their faces turned towards the sky.

They would talk to each other in quiet whispers, afraid to break the bubble of perfect silence that surrounded them. Rapunzel would tell him about whatever ridiculous things her etiquette teacher had made her do that afternoon, sending Eugene into a hushed fit of laughter, and he would repay her in stories about Max and Pascal’s daily adventures (he often over exaggerated things, “Purely for dramatic effect, Rapunzel. I’m nothing if not a performer.” But mostly because he loved the way she smiled whenever he did).

She would point out different constellations, trace them with her finger so that he could see them as well, although he never did; he was too busy watching her. The way her eyes would light up, wide and so full of life the way they always did when she was excited about something and he couldn’t help but smile whenever he saw it. He would reach for her hand and she would blush, eyes meeting his while a shy smile creeped its way across her face.

“Flynn Rider!” she’d whisper, a shocked gasp leaving her lips. “When did you get here? I was sure I was meeting Eugene Fitzherbert tonight. Have you seen him?”