Your love was a love that no one could understand or even hear about. Your love was one that was reserved for quiet moments where you’re both alone. When you’re certain there’s no prying eyes. No one would react well to the love that had blossomed between you and Johnny. You were promised to some heir several kingdoms over and Johnny was meant to be preventing this exact thing from happening.

You never should have fallen in love with your bodyguard. You knew that, but how could you not? There was a gentleness in his eyes when he looked at you that you’d never seen before from anyone else. He treated you with more respect than anyone else ever would, trusting your judgment, and wanting to hear your opinion. It was like nothing you’ve ever experienced.

You were doomed from the start.

In the beginning both of you tried to quell those feelings, to push them down in the hopes they’d disappear. They never did. Instead everything piled up inside of you until you made a rash decision you could never take back. Johnny was walking you to your room after a ball. You had had a few too many chalices of mead and were not in your right mind. You kissed him. The moment the door of your room closed behind him your lips met his.

He kissed you back for a moment before remembering his place. His hands were gentle on your waist as he pushed you back, keeping distance between you two. His gaze was soft as he watched your alcohol addled state. Then he did something that surprised you. Instead of taking advantage of your inebriated and rash state like so many others would he helped you change into your night clothes, tucked you in, then left.

Part of him had hoped that you wouldn’t remember what had happened that night but when you couldn’t meet his eyes the next morning it was obvious that you did. You both tried to ignore the tensions, but that kiss had only made your feelings harder to ignore. So one night you two spoke about it. You two decided that you wanted to belong to each other despite the risks.

Maybe you should have reconsidered, maybe you should have decided that the risks outweighed the rewards. Your father had found out. Neither of you are sure how or when but now Johnny’s death has been ordered. Now everything is falling apart around you and there’s nothing that can change your father’s mind. You are sure that you’re going to be shipped off to a monastery, there’s no way the young heir you were promised to would be willing to uphold the contract now that word of your illicit affair has gotten out.

Johnny is going to die, you are going to lose everything that means everything to you. So you both meet one last time in the stairwell leading up to a turret in which you’ve spent many hours fantasising about a future you’d never get to have. About a future where you could marry Johnny, a future where you could give him heirs, a future where you could make your own life instead of having to live up to expectations.

Johnny holds you close, tears welling in his eyes. He’s not crying for himself, no, he’s crying for you. Crying because he knows you’ll always blame yourself. You were the one who made that first move, the one who kissed him that night. He’s crying because you’ll think his blood is on your hands and forget that this was a mutual decision.

“This isn’t your fault.” Johnny murmurs, his face buried into your hair as he desperately takes in your scent. He wants it to be the thing he holds onto as he dies. “We made this decision together and it’s a decision that I will never regret.”