Adam hadn’t meant to leave for long, really. He’d grown tired of everyone making decisions for him - what to wear, what to eat, where to sit - and asking for his opinion on a bunch of unimportant things - what colour should the drapes be? - and so he’d finally feigned a headache and had pretended to retreat to his room. An hour, maybe two, is all he had intended.
But it had been kind of nice, he realized. They weren’t in the country of Eternia, and no one recognized him. No one bowed to him when he passed them by, and no one tried to tell him that he couldn’t eat the cookies he’d bought, and no one was asking his opinion about the drapery. And then he’d taken a yoga class and had found himself spilling his guts to the instructor about how stressful his job was, and how much he liked a particular woman who worked for his family but of course he could never tell her, and the yoga instructor told him, simply, to follow his heart.
And right now, his heart was telling him to just take a couple days off.
And so he checked into a nice little inn, bought a pair of hideous reindeer earmuffs, and was looking at the Christmas display in the window of a charming little coffee shop when he saw Teela’s reflection in the window. He slipped inside the coffee shop and stood in line, wondering if she had spotted him.
Of course Teela had spotted him. She’d grown up with that stupid face, protecting him from every danger he could ever fathom existing and trying her damnedest to get him trained so he could do the same. And he tried, occasionally, but Prince Adam was notoriously a little bit lazy. (Maybe ‘chill’ would be kinder, but she was always one to call things as she saw them.)
She wasn’t all that surprised that Adam had snuck out in all the chaos of getting the Embassy and the Royal Residency up and running in the city. He didn’t like dealing with all the admittedly boring parts of being a prince, and she’d seen him fake sick to get away from it before. But she’d never seen him take it as far as to literally run away.
It had fallen to her to track him down, and thankfully, sweet as he may be, Adam also had a dumbass streak a mile long. He’d used his credit card to pay for a room at something called Serendipity Inn in the aptly-named town of Serendipity Hills not too far away. She’d popped over to the inn to find him gone for the day and was directed to the town square, which was of course lined with adorable shops all covered in equally cutesy Christmas decorations.
Sure enough, there was Adam, staring through the window of a coffee shop before stepping over to the door and heading inside. Reindeer ear muffs were not the makings of a master disguise, unfortunately for him.
She followed him inside, stepped right up to him in line, and slipped her arm through his, holding on tightly. “What do you think you’re doing?” she hissed. “Your mother is panicked.”
“Teela!” Adam said, smiling to see her. He was glad to see her, even if it put a bit of a damper in the whole ‘running away’ thing. Still, he wasn’t quite able to hide the guilty grimace when Teela mentioned his mom. “I was just buying you a hot chocolate.”
As if to prove his words, the barista placed two hot chocolates, extra whipped cream, in front of Adam on the counter. Honestly, it was kind of a good thing that Teela had spotted him, because otherwise he’d have to leave the coffee shop with two hot chocolates to himself. With his free hand he gestured to the one closest to Teela, and then picked up his own and took a sip, managing to get some of the whipped cream on the tip of his nose.
“Is she really worried?” he asked after a moment.
Teela’s eyebrows raised in surprise, but she wasn’t going to turn down hot chocolate, especially after so much time out in the cold. She flashed the barista a grateful smile, picking up the cup Adam had waved over to her before pulling him off to the side to sit down at one of the cozy little tables. No need to block the line for this.
“She was until we found out where you were,” she responded. Marlena was protective of her son, everyone knew that, and there had been some panic there when she and Randor had realized he was gone. His card charged at this tiny town inn was reassuring, though; anyone who’d have kidnapped him wouldn’t have been stupid enough to use his credit card, so at least they knew he was safe.
“You should have told them where you were going,” she scolded him, although she’d softened now that she had him in her line of sight. “Or me, at least. C’mon, Adam, do you know how bad this looks for me?!”
Adam relaxed a little, some tension that had gathered in his shoulders releasing. The last thing he’d wanted to do was to worry his mother. He didn’t love the idea of her knowing where he was when he was on his great escape, but it was better that she did than having her worry.
“They would have never let me come out if I’d told them,” he said. “And neither would you,” he added with a playful, if not accusatory, finger point at her. “You’ve been like, 54% less fun since you got your promotion. Admit it, you’d have never let me escape into town if you’d known.” He hesitated, and then shot her a mildly guilty look. “But I didn’t mean to make you look bad. My dad’s not too upset at you, is he?”
Teela was mostly giving Adam shit. Maybe it didn’t look great that she’d lost track of him, but his parents knew how it went by now. Teela had been a part of their family since before Adam was even born; they were softer on her than they needed to be, in all honesty. But they’d also trusted her with a lot of responsibility and expected a lot out of her, especially when it came to Adam.
“Hey, firstly, I resent that less fun comment. I’m just as fun as I always was, thanks.” She shot him a heatless glare and tapped her foot against his shin under the table. “Your dad’s fine. He’s upset that you cut out, but he’ll get over it. He always does. I need to call them and let them know you’re safe, though, at least.”
Adam sighed. She was right, she did need to call them to let them know he was alright, and that she’d found him, but didn’t want to go back. He just wanted a couple of days to be a normal guy. A normal guy on vacation, maybe with the girl he liked? He’d never actually told Teela how he felt; their positions made that a little tricky, but maybe if they could get away from their titles for a few days…
“You should tell them that you might need a few days to convince me to come back,” he said, grinning at her. “I bet we could get you a room at the Inn too. And then we can go to this animal adoption event they’re supposed to be having today and play with some puppies.”
Teela knew what the correct answer was here. She should say no, that as much as it might suck, Adam needed to get back to his family and suck it up. He’d already been gone overnight, and the king was pretty annoyed; they didn’t need to make that worse. He gave Adam enough crap as it was and Teela didn’t want to see him on the receiving end of any more.
But, she had to admit, this little town was pretty. Everyone had been friendly so far, and there was certainly more holiday spirit here than there was amongst the busy royals. Neither of them were really needed there either, if one were to get technical. Why not take a couple of days to blow off steam?
“Fine,” she agreed with an overexaggerated huff. “But only for the puppies!”
"Only for the puppies," Adam promised. Or, well, lied if someone were to look at that phrase from a strictly truthful point of view. He was going to make sure that Teela had a good enough time over the next few days that she didn't mind, though.