Chapter Text
The thing is Dylan always knew he was royal-adjacent; he just never expected to have to do anything about it. Not until his cousin surprise abdicated and the line of succession was suddenly an issue. He still, probably — oh god, hopefully — wouldn’t ever end up as king or whatever, but now it wasn’t as distant a possibility.
And yeah, he went to a prestigious university in the UK and studied politics for three and a bit years. And yeah, he knew how to fence and ride a horse. But he had spent the rest of his time doing perfectly normal student things. Drinking, partying, stressing about final exams, eating too much take out. Learning too much about himself under the adverse circumstances of liquor and culture shock.
The... his kingdom, Albor, was small enough that no one needed to care about the royals who weren’t actively doing their ceremonial duties, and most extended royal families weren't that famous outside their sphere of influence.
All that to say, it wasn’t hard to keep his name and image out of the papers as he got older, even easier when he took his mother’s maiden name instead of the royal name and they disappeared overseas to an uncaring new country. Nobody was looking for Dylan Zhou as long as he didn’t do anything illegal. As long as he wasn’t caught doing anything illegal.
But that changed when the aforementioned cousin decided to skip off to New York and get engaged, forsaking everything else and low-key condemning Dylan’s future to starchy formal wear and tedious cabinet meetings.
Okay, Dylan was actually really happy for them and mostly just annoyed he didn’t have an excuse for himself.
Needless to say the call from his Aunt Fay was a surprise when it came, but he was grateful for the courtesy before the sudden influx of assistants and PR agents would take over. Still, it was a fast turnaround before he was agreeing to fly back after graduation and rejoin his family in the seat of power; instead of his original plan of travelling wherever he felt for a few years before deciding what the rest of his life would look like. Now it was decided for him.
It wasn't until Dylan started packing up his flat, surrounded by clothes and coordinating international delivery for stuff that was too big or that he didn't want to check-in on the flight, that he stopped and wondered for the first time why he agreed to all of this without even token resistance.
He could have. He should have. Dylan was famously stubborn. Why would he want to go back into the life that his mother had worked so hard to teach him to live without?
Too late now, he thought and simply continued folding his university branded hoodie into a loose square.
In the midst of the tumbling chaos of suddenly being in direct contact with a family that he’d mostly known from a distance through his aunts and cousins (and the odd news article that hit his algorithms), Dylan did manage to video call the one that caused it all.
Checking the clock and doing some quick mental time zone arithmetic, he hit the call button ready to reign hellfire and brimstone down. The second his cousin's face filled the screen most of the righteous indignation abruptly fled. Most of it.
He was sitting in what looked like a living room, throw pillows on a couch, the corner of an overstuffed bookshelf in the background. There was a softness in his cousin’s expression, a lightness that Dylan hadn’t seen in him in years. Now that he could see the other side of it, Po unburdened, the calls and texts throughout the years where his cousin seemed progressively more stressed and worn down all started to superimpose themselves together. How long had Po been struggling before this?
“So, were you going to give me a heads up at all?” Dylan went with instead; teasing rather than excoriating like he’d originally planned. “You better be inviting me to the wedding.”
Po looked abashed.
"I'm really sorry, Dylan. We're really sorry. I didn’t think aitona would act that quickly, or that he wouldn’t at least give you a choice.”
Dylan fixed him with his best flat unimpressed look.
“Seriously? Our grandfather? After what happened with...” He made a vague gesture and a moment of silence settled.
“You’re not really angry with me are you?”
And Dylan had been, but it seemed less important now.
“I would’ve liked some warning that you were going to go this far.”
“To be honest,” Po said slowly. “I thought texting you ‘I think I’m going to propose to Thame’ might have prompted a few questions. Then you sent me that wall of emojis and the worst spelling of the word ‘congratulations’ I’ve ever seen, so I figured you were preoccupied.”
Dylan vaguely remembered that interaction. He had been extremely day drunk at a friend-of-a-friend’s flat. Managing any sort of correspondence in that state was impressive. He hadn’t opened his messages for a couple of days after that, just in case he’d sent something he couldn’t take back. That and he was suffering a near 72-hour hangover so reading wasn't his best skill at the time.
“I’m happy for you," Dylan said honestly. "And I better get my invitation to the wedding delivered by doves. You owe me, bro. For the rest of our actual lives.”
Po went to say something before visibly stalling, looking bashful.
“Whatever it is, say it.” Dylan prompted, not unkindly.
“It’s selfish.”
Though Dylan scoffed, there was no heat in it. “I bet it is. Why stop now?”
“It’s all worth it if I get to be with him.”
Dylan felt his chest flood with genuine warmth, a little awkwardness at being in the radiance of someone else’s honest happiness, and a burning sort of jealous feeling that he wasn’t looking to unpack live on call. Despite his clear embarrassment at the words that were coming out of his mouth, Po looked so earnest that Dylan couldn’t bring himself to laugh.
“As soon as I can, I’m flying to New York to kick your ass and meet your stupid fiance. You both owe me.”
The rest of the call was full of teasing and laughter, and as much as Dylan was in a weird situation that he was not prepared for, he couldn’t begrudge Po seizing his happiness. He didn't get a chance to talk to the fiance directly that night as he was busy with his own commitments; though they had chatted a little here and there on Po's calls, Dylan had yet to really feel fully comfortable reaching out to Thame. It would be different now they were to be family though, Dylan needed his family.
Dylan’s uni friends weren’t going to believe it when they eventually heard the news. In all honesty, he didn't anticipate seeing them ever again. There was only a little bit of him that felt bad about that. They had been nice, lovely even, kind to him when he stumbled over complex English words or got lost along strange streets.
They didn't really deserve such a wholesale abandonment. The circumstances were unusual, however, and they would have a good story to tell in the bars. "Hey, did you know I went to school with a prince."
He had locked down his already sparse Instagram account as soon as the first call came; there wasn’t much that could be identifying on there anyway. He had always been careful with it and told everyone it was mostly just for aesthetics. Posts mostly featured places, days out with friends, and studying crash outs. Dylan knew well enough what a careless internet presence could do to someone of even mild celebrity.
The second his story was updated with a simple picture of his plane ticket tucked into his thistle-y green passport with the floor of the departure lounge in the background, and the caption 'Going home, I guess', his DMs went crazy.
The sudden announcement that Dylan was returning to wherever he was from meant a barrage of concerned messages, carefully dancing around the not unreasonable question of did someone else die. None of them would ever get close to the truth, of course, and his personal accounts would be scrubbed before it all hit the papers.
It wasn’t a secret that Dylan hadn't been planning on going 'back home' after university. Most of his friends had assumed he was from China and didn’t really ask any follow up questions; too wound up in their own lives, applying for Masters degrees and starting careers. They knew that he didn’t have any immediate family, no family at all in the same country, and Dylan let the implication hang heavily enough that no one was comfortable prying.
The last time he had seen any of his extended family had been at his mother's funeral. It had been four years since. An understated civilian affair; she hadn't wanted too many people there, just the ones that mattered, but she had been adamant that Dylan not be alone in his grief.
Compassionate leave from his first year of uni had been the worst. Simultaneously void of anything but the pain, and completely impossible to focus on anything that would fill the time and distract him from it.
He holed up in his room and made some bad music; songs that he could never look at again let alone listen to. They now lived in a password protected folder on his laptop.
Healing had been slow, and incomplete as any grief is — he still felt the acidic burn of the pain at times, unprompted. Friends were as present as they could be, but their lives were complicated enough without supporting someone who had just lost a parent.
Dylan wasn't a bootstraps thinker. He wasn't made to pick himself up and power through like that; it wasn't how his mother raised him. Even if he didn't share them, he was made to feel his feelings, and his temperament had always leaned towards that of an artist. He could recognise he needed time, yes, but also space and comfort.
Returning to the family manor in Albor for a couple of months had been clarifying. His aunts met his grief with their own, even though his mother had "only" been their sister by marriage. There was always something happening at the Manor but it was nowhere near as staid and proper as the palace, equally there were always places to go and people around who wouldn't let him be alone with his thoughts.
To his uni friends and classmates, he dropped off the map entirely for six weeks before he returned to halls.
Albor's more moderate weather meant that he saw the sun much more regularly than in the UK (not difficult), and even that was enough to make Dylan feel less insane.
The time he spent alone, he spent outside in the Manor's private gardens, surrounded by beds of flowers; sometimes writing, sometimes reading something random from the expansive library, even just sleeping in the shade of the broadleaved trees.
He wandered around like a ghost for a couple of weeks before he started to feel more corporeal.
Po and Baifern were indispensable in this time. Even though they had been playmates in their childhoods, as any cousins that lived in proximity would be, the distance and inconsistent contact had settled their relationship into affectionate strangers. Nothing built a bridge like a grief shared, however.
It had been a long while since Dylan had felt real companionship with someone to whom he didn't have to lie either wholly or by omission. Po was a rock, and Baifern an endless well of empathy and humour. And Dylan didn't love physical contact, but it wasn't so bad when either of them bundled him into a hug. Every moment they could spare, one of them was with him.
Leaving Albor and his cousins had been difficult, and he had found himself wanting to stay. But his degree was on hold, and Dylan knew that his mother wouldn't have wanted him to put his education on the back burner forever. Even if the topic felt flavourless and lacking direction.
It wasn't the first time he thought he should have chosen to study something in the arts, but this was the one expectation handed down from his father's early passing he was willing to concede.
Dylan's grades had been projected well throughout his course, even considering the breaks and then the sudden intrusion of his past. Graduating with a first was work, and while everyone else celebrated and commiserated their results with equal amounts of alcohol, Dylan only found himself experiencing bone-deep relief that it was over.
Staying for the actual graduation ceremony was a possibility that he toyed with. Then Dylan sat down and really thought about it. He didn't have family to watch him walk across the stage — asking anyone to fly out for it would have been inconveniencing them at best, actively revelatory of his secret at worst — most of the loose friendships he had from halls were from different faculties. And, frankly, Dylan realised that he didn't want to. He had the degree, that was fine.
For all that he was living in England, he didn't often feel alive there.
Landing in Albor felt akin to a trip into an alternate but familiar universe. Security detail greeted him as he disembarked — other passengers peeked over at him curiously, wondering if they should know who he was just by the predominance of men and women in suits with unsubtle earpieces.
It was strange to be the person making a scene just by existing after so long of being just another guy in the crowd. Between his mask and the careful nondescript nature of the security he had been assigned, there was nothing for anyone to recognise. Yet.
Dylan expected to be driven back to the Manor, maybe find a grounding presence in Auntie Tear before everything hit the fan. Instead, he realised quickly that he was on the approach to the palace proper, and inside before he had chance to think. Not even the nostalgic honeyed amber fragrance of the foyers could calm his heartbeat.
He was led to the sitting room by one of his grandparents' assistants. The room itself was roughly the size of the lecture theatre he remembered auditing an English lit class in for a semester. More grand than that obviously; ivory and gold walls, rich textiles, markers of a royal life.
Even though the flight had only been a couple of hours, and the time difference from England to Albor was functionally negligible, Dylan still felt tiredness seeping into his bones. He wanted a shower, food, and sleep in whatever order he could manage.
Instead he smelled like the stale air of an international flight and was walking across a lavish room to the ornate couches where his grandparents — aitona and amona, the king and queen of a sovereign nation — were having tea. Suddenly everything was real again.
His grandmother stood from her seat and took two long strides towards him, impressive for her notably diminutive stature.
Whatever reunion Dylan had expected, three years after they last met in grief, it wasn't to be enfolded in a maternal embrace by the small woman.
"My darling boy," she said from somewhere around his collarbone, smelling like vanilla and freesia and childhood memory. "Welcome home."
Dylan's heart did something complicated before settling, the last remnants of his anxious journey melted out of him. He buried his smile against her hair.
"Yes, amona. I'm home."
—
The next hour was filled with discussions about the right and proper way to go about presenting him to the public. How much to share about where he has been, whether to frame it as a reintroduction. Dylan found his breath shortening more than once at the thought of standing in front of that many people at once — a whole country's eyes on him, if not the world's.
His grandfather didn't even bother asking one final time if Dylan was sure about going ahead with all of this. His agreement had been procured, and now it was down to business.
The presentation would happen the next week; leaving enough time for the machine of the palace to catch him up to speed on everything. Dylan was to have assistants and a team. Stylists.
After a while, his grandfather was called away to attend to another matter. But before the king left the sitting room, he enfolded one of Dylan's hands in both of his own — the paper-leather feeling of his aged skin calling forth a sense memory of another time.
"Your father would be so proud of you."
Dylan felt like a brick had dropped into his stomach. No one brought up his father unless they absolutely couldn't avoid it.
He didn't know if it was true — if his father would be proud of him — didn't know much of him at all. His amae had told him stories here and there, until Dylan had gotten older and he had known more of his life without his father than with him. That was the first time he learned what heartbreak could look like, in the face of his mother when Dylan told her that he could only sort of remember his father's face.
Your father would be so proud of you.
The smile he gave his grandfather in response was watery and weak — he hoped it seemed more like exhaustion than emotion.
Some of the tension in his shoulders left the room with his grandfather.
"We love you, Dylan," said his grandmother, turning to face him directly, after a long beat of silence. "We are delighted to have you back with the family."
"I know," and he did. "I'm sorry that I'm not... I'm just tired from the journey."
His grandmother chuckled but didn't challenge his fumbled untruth.
"We will introduce you to Ms. Gam and her team tomorrow. Before long you won't know how you ever managed without her."
Dylan nodded, vaguely putting the name away into his memory. Ms. Gam and her team. His team.
"And are Auntie Tear and Fay staying at the Manor?"
Grandmother nodded. "For now. Baifern arrived home last night. Her flights were dreadfully delayed."
"The fashion week thing." He forgot. Baifern had mentioned it in the group chat a couple of months ago, but that had fallen a little dormant as everyone's lives had suddenly gotten busy.
"You have had other things to think about. They will be here before the presentation."
Dylan itched to message Baifern. He should have done so already, to tell her he had arrived, to get her perspective and advice on what the hell he was in for. However, one doesn't text at the royal tea table so it would have to wait.
"Dylan, be honest with me. "
"Always, amona."
"Your mother removed you from palace life for a reason. I respected her decision, we all did. Your childhood and your education were most important to her, and you've become a fine young man." She paused for a long moment, picking up her teacup, looking at its contents, and then returning it to the saucer. "After losing your father, I could see that this place was becoming a cage of memories for her rather than a comfort. She wanted to be free of that, and for you to live a life of your choosing. Obligation works differently for people like us, if you feel—"
"Amona, I want to be here."
His amona looked deep into his eyes. It took everything in Dylan not to flinch away. Whatever she saw in there satisfied her enough to return to her teacup for a moment.
"Then we'll let you get settled into your rooms. Tomorrow will be busy, and I think we've kept you from your rest enough."
The queen stood, therefore so did Dylan. She gestured to someone over his shoulder. Then she opened her arms to Dylan again.
He was aware as he gave himself over to his embrace again that this would be the last time for that she would just be his grandmother for a moment; in the morning his new old life would begin.
Prince Dylan Zhou. This could only go well.