CONTENT WARNING: This chapter contains a scene of unprotected h*nd h*lding. For the faint of heart, please look away.
"Whaddya think? Found what you were looking for?" he called, coming behind him and teasingly resting his chin on the crook of Arthur's shoulder. Huh. It was bonier than he'd imagined, though the softness of his skin was still undeniable. Who knew someone as prickly as him could smell that nice?
Man, now he was kind of regretting doing something that bold. The scent of roses clung onto the nape of his neck, surprisingly sweet, making him not want to draw away.
It wasn't as if Arthur gave him a choice, though. "Get off me, idiot," Arthur yelped, springing backwards to face him, the red from earlier not fading from the bridge of his nose. "Are you really that obtuse as to linger for so long before entering your own library?"
"Naw, I was just...camera guy," he said, gesturing with a jab of his thumb at the now closed door. "Thought you could, uh, find what you're looking for easier without a camera following us around."
"I see," he said, with a quirk of his thick eyebrows. "Well, that's a pleasant surprise. I wasn't aware you could be so observant."
"Hey! Everyone's teasing me today," Alfred pouted, folding his arms and stomping his foot, though it wasn't serious. "There's no need to be so mean, Artie."
"It's Arthur," he retorted over his shoulder. Thankfully, the first section where he thought to look was at his height, so he quickly moved forward, Alfred following and standing next to him. "And I have started to look rather successfully, actually."
Whilst he was roving over the exquisitely printed titles of the books, the prince watched him instead. Seconds spilled into minutes, and they maintained a peaceful silence, the sandy blond feeling much more in his element, the most confident he'd been since arriving to the palace. The citations and sorting were similar to the library in the holding facility – albeit tiny in comparison to the one he was in now.
Naturally, Alfred's mind wandered. Not to the mosaics in the windows, the various paintings hung around the place, or to the wood grain in the various ladders stacked up near the bookcase, or even the faint droplets of spring rain that had started to appear outside, but to his companion.
Oh man, he's really engrossed in this stuff, Alfred thought to himself as his eyes drifted from the bookshelf to Arthur's empty right hand, resting comfortably at his side. What if I tried to touch him? His bare fist clenched and unclenched, imagining what his hand would feel like if he held it.
"Alfred, I don't think it's here," Arthur said apologetically, turning around so that he was facing him. The hand hanging so loosely to his side was now clasped behind his back, making him feel bitterly disappointed staring at where it had been. With a slightly sheepish expression, he spoke. "I'm sorry, but we must keep searching, I suppose."
"Oh, uh, yeah, whatever you need," he said, forcing the corners of his disappointed mouth into a grin. "What's that you were looking for, Artie?"
"It's...rghh," Arthur huffed, and Alfred fought back a grin as he pushed away at a complaint about the nickname. "You're just...well. About what I'm searching for, it may seem a little presumptuous, but I wanted to read more about the studies of the properties of time here. I've only read about very basic information in Hearts, and I just thought it would be interesting to pursue. "
"Is it just time magic that really interests ya?" he asked, over the increasingly loud noises of the rain outside.
"Not just that one, no." he said. The two of them glanced outside for a moment before the conversation continued. "I took courses in my holding facility, specialising in healing magic mostly, as well as amplifying magic. In my last year, I took a course on offensive spells and how amplifiers increase the amount of magic one can wield, but that's about it. I'm not sure they're allowed to teach us more before we either pursue a degree about it or enlist in the military branch that deals exclusively with offensive magic. Even after ten years, there's still barely enough manpower to take up these positions."
"Cause of the...epidemic thing, yeah," Alfred replied awkwardly, rubbing his forearm. "At least, I guess it is."
"And what better and easier way to keep a flailing populace alive by allowing their children to go into holding facilities? It's not nearly as expensive as needing to support the entire population, teaches them about the goodwill of the elite, helps fix the brain drain issue, makes it seem like they're doing something-" Before Arthur could continue his tangent, he paused and observed Alfred's slightly uncomfortable expression. Ah. He wasn't really aware of the situation around the holding facilities anyway. There wasn't a single thing to blame him for, and he could truly have been reprimanded for the speech somewhere else, but in his company he felt...secure. Almost.
That, in itself, was dangerous, but he'd tormented the poor boy enough – he was clearly not comfortable talking about the epidemic for good reason.. "I apologise. That being said, though, it's a wonderful opportunity. I'm not sure my family, not to mention many others, would have survived had it not been for their aid."
That seemed to perk him up, thankfully. "Really?"
"Yes, Alfred, really. Without the funds, and one more mouth to feed, things would have been harder. Even if Decidings happen only occasionally, especially with everyone in the four kingdoms still being so young, it's still an excellent way to get into employment or higher education though we weren't born into a well to do class. So that's partly what I'm planning to do afterwards."
Alfred didn't quite understand. "Afterwards?"
"After the...Deciding..." Arthur trailed off, looking at his frustrated expression. What was that all about? "Pardon? Did I say something wrong, Alfred?"
"You don't know whether you'll be able to do that after this," Alfred pouted, folding his arms. Those eyebrows furrowing, looking away, your annoyed eyes...Your Highness, they're strangely...
"What?" Arthur replied hoarsely, him being the one to barely listen this time. What was he thinking? Was there to be no comment on his words about the holding facilities? Or a much deserved reprimand about his tactlessness?
"After the Deciding, man! You could-" Alfred began to speak enthusiastically, before something came across his mind and he clamped his mouth shut abruptly. "Uh, n-nothing. I didn't say anything. I think?"
"What, is there – is there a rule against attending university or enlisting in a mage organisation after a Deciding process?" Arthur said. The prince was not helping very much when it came to alleviating his confusion. "I'm sure there wasn't anything about it in the rulebook that was distributed to us when we were signing up."
"No, no, nothing like that," he mumbled, waving his hands in front of him whilst Arthur inadvertedly stepped closer. "Really! Heh, it's nothing, I promise you. Don't worry about it, Artie!"
"Now I really am worried, Alfred."
"It's just...it's just that, you know what happens at the end of a Deciding?"
Completely oblivious, Arthur answered his simple question. "The Spadian Primary Suit is completed. Correct?"
"Yeah, but – oh man, this is hopeless," he sighed. Running his hands through his hair, cowlick bobbing in protest, he turned away for a moment to gather his composure. "I...Arthur, you know that there's a king and queen, right?"
"Of course, you dolt, that would be you and whoever wins," Arthur said. "We all know how it goes."
Alfred, red in the face, continued speaking. "Then you know the reason someone would win."
"You'd choose them, then the mark of the Spade would appear on their bodies." He tried not to roll his eyes, as the rain outside increased, making it slightly harder for him to hear. Was he missing something obvious? "How would that interfere with my future studies?"
"A queen would find it much easier to study within the palace, right?"
"I would imagine, yes." Folding his arms, Arthur peered even closer at Alfred, who seemed to be incredibly flustered. Was the prince really that hopeless? He didn't think him to be so...innocent, though it was possible to tell he hadn't ever kissed someone, let alone the other, er, thing. "You're still not answering my question."
Another moment passed between them until Alfred fixed him with a gaze. Suddenly, it felt as if he were a deer caught in the headlights – something smouldered in their depths, an intensity the likes of which he himself had never experienced.
"Artie...Arthur, t-that's not the point. You're still here, and I, uh," he exhaled once, tilting his glasses upwards and pinching the bridge of his nose, "I believe I've made my feelings towards you very clear, if that counts for anything, and you told me you don't dislike my company. So, if things...happen, between the both of us..."
"What things..." Arthur trailed off, green eyes meeting blue. "...Oh."
Is he proposing the possibility of me staying here far, far longer than I ever expected to? Is he proposing, flat out? He thought, unexpectedly panicking. It had been so soon, everything was moving so fast, he wasn't completely sure of his feelings and what they were exactly, though it wasn't as if he loathed the idea of being at the prince's side, but-
"I'm, I'm not saying or doing anything past that, or making you feel as if you have to say stuff," Alfred stammered, speaking much slower and with a deeper tone than the excited person he'd just learned to deal with, snapping him out of his frantic thoughts. "I'm just saying that you might not want to set your heart on any particular path after the Deciding just yet. That's...that's all."
Arthur knew he shouldn't do it, but he stared at him. The sun was barely starting to set now, casting its light against Alfred's honey blond hair, unfairly framing it in a way that made him want to run his fingers through it. He was sure that this desire wasn't unusual, not to mention all the other things he'd thought about doing but would never admit to it. He'd been capable of handling it when he wasn't the one feeling these things, so he should know how to deal with these desires, other than the fact that, well.
They had never belonged to him.
"A-Anyway," Alfred coughed into his fist, pulling them both out of their mortifying thoughts. He couldn't think something as forbidden as that, not yet, when he wasn't sure whether Alfred would accept his feelings so late into the competition. "Uh, your book! Heh. I-I think it's somewhere around there!" he said quickly, feeling as if his heart would burst if Arthur said something that was too cute, as his expression was killing him already. "Come on, let's go!"
Not trusting himself to look at the other boy's reaction, Alfred took off immediately, pushing away the embarrassment of wanting to look more at that mesmerised face of his.
Beyond the small altercation between the bookshelves, the rest of the encounter had been enjoyable. Once Arthur selected two books that he'd found interesting, Alfred enthusiastically led him to the center of the library, where he'd requested Arthur leave what he'd like to take back to his room on a large mahogany table before jogging off, Arthur's notepad in his hand. Rinse and repeat. For some bizarre reason, he'd taken it upon himself to find practically everything in the list before they both realised he had no idea how to navigate a library.
"Alfred, with all due respect," Arthur said after they'd stumbled into a shelf filled with guides on tourist destinations in Diamonds for some odd reason, "I'm not sure you know how to find things within a library. Didn't you use it extensively during your education?"
"Nah, not really," he replied, sounding a little overwhelmed. "I guess you could say I had a lotta tutors when I was young, then I started military service at sixteen, where I learned stuff in the army, so I didn't really come here to study much."
He couldn't help but smirk, wiping off some of the tension on his brown pants. "Sometimes, I wonder if you studied at all."
"Hey! Can't you see my brilliance?" Alfred protested, but he was grinning in such a way that Arthur wanted to wipe the smile off his face yet preserve it in his memory. "Anyway, I was a super diligent student as a kid!"
"I can't, because it's so bloody blinding. And you know it's not true," Arthur snarked, "The entire nation's had Jack Yao tell them stories about how you always skived off lessons to go horse riding and whatnot." At his companion's continued pout, he relented a little. "Though, I will say that you've managed at this princely lark very well."
"Aw yeah! A compliment from Artie, finally," Alfred cheered, which earned him a light jab in his firm stomach. "Ow! You're gonna have to go harder than th – hey, put your hand down, man! Uh, anyway, this is what you wanted to do, so I'm okay not being super knowledgeable compared to you. As, uh, as long as it makes you happy, I'm okay, heh."
"I..." Arthur, who had a crass response (and a half hearted hard poke) prepared, was completely blindsided by the honest confession, to the point where his fingers stilled on the spine of the book he was about to peruse. "T-Thank you...I suppose. You don't need to push yourself so much for my sake...idiot."
"Not at all, it's not pushing when you're enjoying yourself, yeah?" Alfred said, offering a small thumbs up. "Keep on going, and let me know if you need help in bringing those books back, okay?"
The next two hours were consumed by Arthur scampering up ladders, Arthur scampering down ladders, Alfred steadying ladders and offering a hand to help him get down (refused every time, of course), putting books on the table and talking a lot about nothing in particular. Talking about himself, and his life prior to the Deciding wasn't anything easy, but once the tide of conversation changed and Alfred started talking about his horse, his time in the military and how he managed day to day life as a prince that couldn't yet ascend into kingship, Arthur found himself paying more and more attention to him rather than the crossed out topics on his list.
Finally, he'd gotten to the last thing, which was a relatively bulky almanac about recent Spadian history, detailing the past hundred years up until the ending of the dully named Virus that had claimed so many lives in the pandemic an odd ten years ago. Arthur noticed Alfred's eyes linger briefly on the blurb, but he seemed to say nothing about it once they'd come back to the table.
"Ha ha, do you think a scrawny guy like you can really carry this all back?" They were in front of the table and a faintly crackling fireplace that had barely made its presence known in the hours they'd been in the library. "Guess it can't be helped! The hero'll help you take these back."
"It's only a dozen or so, and you are not getting away with calling me scrawny, hero or not!" Arthur exclaimed, though once they started scooping up the books he realised Alfred was incredibly fixated on doing anything but looking at the area around them. Taking a moment to observe their surroundings, he realised that there was a painting perched on top of the fireplace – that of Alfred's mother, the late Queen Piper, whose life had been taken during the sickness that had swept through the castle.
Arthur's body stilled as he watched Alfred continue to collect the books into a small bag that he'd managed to find lying around. He'd rolled up his sleeves and his tie was dangling loosely as he did so, yet there were conflicting emotions on his face – he must have noticed, and wanted to distract himself from his grief.
Even though Arthur's parents had both left this world early, he'd been incredibly young when they had and didn't have the clearest memories of them. Whereas Alfred would be around eight or nine, and he hazily remembered, from an interview or something, that he had been very close to Her Highness when she was still alive. Was that why he hadn't chosen to wander away, in attempting to distract himself?
"Alfred?" Arthur murmured softly, causing the other boy to look up at his face, and his face only.
"Hm? What's up, Artie?" he asked, tilting up his glasses further up the bridge of his nose, but his cheer had dulled somewhat. "You okay?"
Arthur swallowed once before replying. "Are you?"
With an almost imperceptible shake of his head, Alfred swallowed once before breaking their eye contact. The almanac Arthur had been looking at before slipped from his strong hands into the bag, where it made a noise that reverberated around the now silent room. "I, uh, I just..." He took one look at the portrait behind him before he abruptly shied away, confirming his suspicions.
Gingerly, slowly, as if he were touching a statue, Arthur's ring finger reached for Alfred's trembling palm, left dithering after he stopped holding onto the book. Not knowing how to proceed with the backs of their hands facing one another, he moved his hand to the side to try to not alert the prince. But when their knuckles brushed and Arthur daringly slipped three fingers into the space between his thumb and palm and squeezed, all semblance of stealth and propriety went flying out the library windows. The movement, and their closeness, felt audible over the very faint crackling of the fireplace.
His hand felt refined yet small in Alfred's larger, more calloused one. He couldn't help but feel as if it should be different considering their backgrounds, though when in his youth Arthur had been educated in the way of the wealthy and the elite, honing his mind, Alfred had been running off to ride horses and pretending to dig up things in the backyard from what they had just talked about earlier on in the day. A flicker ran between them, yet neither of them seemed to catch the very faint blue sparks that bloomed.
Whilst the sound of bare skin to skin contact had already sent goosebumps down Arthur's spine, the actual sensation of his warmth made his heart pound, the sound refracting in his ear drums. He'd experienced his warmth before, but never like this. Alfred looked at where Arthur had slipped his hand into his, and exhaled once, his Adam's apple bobbing. "A-Arthur?"
"I just, er, felt you needed some comfort," Arthur breathed. One finger after the other, Alfred's hand tightened on his, finishing with a thumb that rested shyly on his knuckles. "And you shouldn't be alone in your grief."
With a noncommittal shrug, Alfred tried to play it off. "It's just that, it's been so long," he mumbled, rubbing his nose. "And I didn't feel as if it was heroic or princely to still be so torn up about it, so I try not to talk about it in public. Neither of us in the Primary Suit do, either – not just Yao and Matt, but everyone else in the other kingdoms. I guess they weren't particularly close with Mom or Dad since a lot of them became full members after they...passed, but a lot of it is probably outta respect for Matt and me. So I'm sorry to spring this kinda stuff on you again, but-"
"Nonsense," Arthur said, awkwardly giving his hand another squeeze. Everything felt clammy and his spine was prickling, but he couldn't seem to find the energy to sever their contact. "There's no need to be so harsh on yourself. For some people, grieving never stops and that's all right. I appreciate you telling me about it, Alfred. But don't admonish yourself for missing your mother; I'm sure you loved her dearly, as well as your father."
"I still do," Alfred acknowledged with a dip of his head. "But...what's ad-moe-nish?"
"Admonish. Don't hold yourself to such ridiculous standards and scold yourself for mourning, is what it means," Arthur chastised, tapping the bottom of his chin like he'd do to the younger holding facility members when he'd help out with classes to earn a little extra money to send home.
Yet this contact was different, much more distinct – the tip of his finger where they'd touched seemed to tingle once he'd hastily let go, and remained there for a good moment before flitting away. "Keep your chin up, and know that it's all right to speak about with me. Anyone, really, who will listen with a kind heart."
Blinking once, Alfred straightened himself out, gently unclasping his hand from Arthur's to fix his tie and arrange his shirt. Picking up the bag of books, giving the portrait of his mother one last, long look, he turned to Arthur once more with a grateful smile, eyes soft behind his glasses.
"Thanks, Arthur."
"Your Highness, there was no need, you could have requested me to come downstairs with some aid," Anna fretted as soon as the two of them walked through Arthur's door. "I hope it wasn't that much of an effort."
"Not at all, Miss Anna," Alfred beamed, proudly flexing his right bicep which garnered a snort from Arthur, who didn't look twice again at his muscles or anything. Not at all. What a foolish suggestion. Absolutely preposterous. "These arms aren't just for show! I had to escort him as well, so it's completely okay."
Said trip from the library to his room was shadowed by a cameraman who was currently hovering outside his room, but Arthur supposed the cameraman needed at least some footage to air on the news tonight. "Well, if you say so, Your Highness," Anna said. She curtsied, Arthur following suit with a bow. "My sincere thanks for helping him today."
"No worries, it's a hero's job! Though I gotta ask, Sir Arthur, did you enjoy my company?" he asked, tilting his head – surely it was a bit of an obvious question, but Arthur could see in his slightly pleading tone that it was a genuine one and not asked solely for his benefit to the cameras. After opening himself up to being so vulnerable, Arthur guessed, Alfred must be worried that he'd inadvertedly frightened him away.
"Yes, of course. I had an exemplary time, Your Highness," he answered truthfully, bowing once more, eyes catching the relaxing of the prince's broad shoulders that he daren't comment on. "I must once again thank you for assisting me whilst getting all those books. I imagine they will keep me occupied for a very long time."
To his surprise, though, Alfred merely winked, pulling down the sleeves of his dress shirt. "That might be true, but I still hope you'll find some time to spend with me."
Arthur stood there, mouth gaping open foolishly, not quite sure how to respond to this incredibly blatant flirtatious remark. Sure, they had been speaking amicably as of late, but he hadn't been flirted with yet. It took him a few moments to close his undignified mouth – probably too late for the cameras to not capture, but there wasn't much he could do about that. Hesitantly, he nodded in return.
"I wouldn't protest at the thought," he said, blushing darkly, "Y-Your Highness. I'll see you at dinner, I suppose?"
"You betcha," Alfred smiled, leaving the both of them even more thankful that they'd said a set of goodbyes in the library in private. Just before Arthur could shut the door, though, when there was a mere crack left he leaned in and whispered something in his ear that sent a shiver down his spine at both the sound and his proximity.
"I haven't forgot about the birthday, you know! Don't think I'll let you off so easily."
As quick as a flash, he pulled back and grasped Arthur's hand gently, now without the added barrier of his gloves. Pressing a kiss into the back of his hand that lasted for a moment too long, he maintained eye contact with him until the door was closed and along with the cameraman, went along to whatever duties they had next now the sun had gone down.
"...well, Sir Arthur," Anna said, sounding a little dazed as they sat in the room in silence after he'd left. "I don't think it would be too overbearing of me to say that your date today went quite well."
"No," Arthur said, cupping the hand that still bore the faint marks of Alfred's lips to his chest, careful for her to not see that it lingered. As he tilted his hand to push the door closed, the imperceptible sheen that his mouth had left on his skin glistened in the lights of his bedroom. Even if it only lingered for a moment, it still left an unforgettable mark. "No, I don't think it would."