'What a miserable place' Quincy thought to himself as they passed the rows of Yharnam's rundown buildings. They had passed many houses on the way to Alfred's home, each one having Quincy wondering if this was where he lived, but now it was becoming more and more apparent as Quincy walked up the rickety steps that the man was renting, rather than owning a place of his own. Understandable, land was expensive in Yharnam, but this grim place looked almost unfit for habitation.
While he had happily accepted to travel home with Alfred, Quincy was not expecting anything to happen when they arrived. Quincy did feel attraction to Alfred-and if he did not, after that embrace, he certainly did. It was becoming increasingly clear that the man was rather innocent, if not totally and utterly oblivious. But Alfred was kind, polite-and enticingly tall and strong. Easy on the eyes, well, Alfred lacked the profile of the commonly swooned after, but he was handsome in his own unique way, with his expressively thick eyebrows and strong nose.
Quincy was grateful for the fact that Yharnam lacked any prejudice towards lovers of the same gender. The Yharnamites saved all their bigotry for outsiders, it seemed.
In the middle of the chaos he had been thrown in, it seemed a bit foolish to ponder his romantic prospects with a man he knew for technically less than a day, but with the night unnaturally stretched, and all they had been through together, well, there was a possibility.
Of course, there was the chance that Alfred was not attracted to other men at all. Either way, Quincy would take things slow, and not press or presume.
"Well, it's not much..." Alfred started. Quincy waited for him to add the expected 'But...' to the sentence, but it never came as he fiddled with the key in the lock. It would have been funny, usually cheerful Alfred being unable to find anything nice about his home, if they were not trapped in a plague ridden city filled with prowling beasts on a supernaturally prolonged, horrible night as Alfred mumbled curses under his breath, wiggling the stuck key in the hole. The door finally flew open with a hideous squeak, revealing a long, musty smelling hallway.
"Is this where you live?" Quincy asked. The floorboards creaked underfoot. Gas lamps lined the walls, but the only light was the narrow windows that lined the left side of the hall. The wallpaper was faded and peeling in strips.
"Yes! I'm renting a room here. Of course, I have not seen my landlord for awhile. He left a few weeks before, going for supplies, and I'm afraid I have not seen him since. I still leave my rent payment under the door, but he has not been collecting them..."
Quincy smiled. Only Alfred would continue to pay rent in a timely manner during a crisis to a man who had almost certainly died or fled the city. Or worse.
"Do you think he might have turned…?" Quincy started, before trailing off. The question hung in the air. Alfred gave a nervous laugh and continued walking down the hall.
"Well-if he's a beast, I suppose we will have to deal with him, then." He continued, as if needing to fill the eerie silence.
"I've been the only one here for a while. The neighbors left for the mountains, the woman upstairs said 'I'm sick of this damn city, and if you have any sense, you'd leave too' and left."
"Why didn't you leave?" Quincy nearly tripped over a flower pot filled with dead plants. "No offense, pal, but this place...it's pretty damn awful."
"How could I leave? My mission is here. I've never lived anywhere else, not that I recall. This was...well, the only lodging I could afford." He turned back, smiling sheepishly.
"Yharnam was not always this bad. When I was young, when the Cathedral Ward was still being built, it was quite beautiful. Sunny days, birds chirping, the sun glinting off the distant ocean..."
Quincy wondered if it was nostalgia clouding Alfred's memories. The Cathedral Ward was beautiful, but in an eerie way, the elegant architecture decorated with spooky gargoyles, the weathered statues of the Cathedral and the Chapel contrasting with the miserably cramped streets and claustrophobically aligned houses, much like the one he was inside at the moment.
"Here we are!" Alfred announced, producing another key. Quincy braced himself for the inevitable unlocking difficulties.
The lock thankfully clicked open with ease, opening to reveal a pitch black room. Quincy took a cautious step forward, and yelled when his boot collided with something hard and metal with a loud clang.
"Careful now." Alfred chided, lighting a match.
"Don't you have gas?" Quincy asked, stepping back into the hall to let the other man pass. Alfred carefully navigated through several hard to see objects, lighting strategically placed candles around the room.
"Oh, it was shut off a week ago. It doesn't matter, I spend each night hunting." He pulled back thick curtains-probably for shutting out any sunlight during the day to help with the nocturnal Hunter lifestyle- to let in some weak light from the outdoor streetlight and the reddened moon.
With the room a passable dim instead of a pitch black, Quincy could now see that almost every available surface was occupied either by books, carefully arranged tapestries, or strange, golden conical shapes, save for a rather ricketty looking bed. The room was spotlessly clean in contrast to the moldering hallway he had just passed, just terribly cluttered with rather strange objects.. He looked down, seeing what he had stubbed his toe on had been one of the strange cones.
"Alfred...what is all this?" Quincy asked. Even the walls were covered with ancient, somewhat crude looking tapestries, so sun faded that he could barely make out scenes of woodlands and hunting parties. They were obviously made for much higher ceilings and walls than Alfred's very humble room, and the edges were delicately rolled up where they met the floor.
"When the Executioner's workshop was shuttered, I saved all the artifacts that I could. I'm afraid I don't have much space…" Alfred brightened as he saw Quincy gazing at the tapestries.
"These belonged to the Master himself. They are from centuries ago, and look every day of those centuries old, sadly. I dare not try to restore them." Alfred drew close to him, carefully sliding the disturbed cone back to its spot.
"These Ardeos thankfully survived, but all the uniforms were terribly moth eaten, save for the one I wear of course, but it needed quite heavy repairs on it." He said, touching the hem of his robe.
"You did a good job on it." Quincy said. The idea of Alfred carefully sewing together a battered and tattered set of holy robes was somehow endearing. Alfred beamed.
"What did you say these were? Ardeos?" Quincy asked, watching him carefully slide the cones in an organized row across the battered wooden floorboards, making a small path to the bed. Heavens, why doesn't he just stack them, Quincy wondered.
"Yes! One of Master Logarius's most radiant creations. They block out all the corruption of the World, allowing the wearer to truly focus on their goal of justice."
"You wear it on your head? Like a helmet?" Quincy asked. Alfred nodded enthusiastically.
So...you can't see in it?" Quincy asked. Alfred frowned, looking down at the line of gleaming cones.
"Well, you can, if you tip it up slightly, but that's not the point." He mumbled.
Quincy decided not to open that can of worms. He was not liking the trend of his companion's worldview being so delicate that it could be disassembled with nothing more than a few questions.
"You might have a bit more space if you just stacked 'em." Quincy suggested. "They are hollow, yeah? To stick one's head in, right?"
Alfred gave him a scandalized look. "To do so would be to diminish their radiance." He said cryptically but firmly, placing his Kirkhammer on the ground and sitting on the bed wearily.
Quincy looked about for anywhere to sit. Well, there was the bed, but he did not want to violate Alfred's personal space. Just because they had hugged earlier did not mean he could disregard all politeness! There was a small table covered in carefully arranged books, topped by another Ardeo, heavens, there must have been ten of the things in the room.
Strangely enough, there was no sign of a closet, only an ancient looking chest of drawers. The idea that the Executioner's robes being the only clothing that Alfred owned crossed his mind briefly, only for Quincy to swat that thought away. Alfred was just very dedicated and devout, and wished to preserve the history of his beloved Executioners. He would have to have another outfit for laundry day, yes? Of course, now that he had seen this bizarre room, bereft of all but the most necessary objects for living, well, Quincy was getting a bit worried.
"How long have you been living like this-I mean, living here?" Quincy asked, leaning on the door.
"Oh, about six months now. I still have enough of my pay as a Church hunter saved, and I don't need much."
That's terribly obvious, Quincy thought. Thinking about his family's ranch back home, filled with lovingly homemade furniture passed down through generations, books carefully kept on shelves along with historic curiosities that had found over the years, walls lined with paintings by family members blessed with artistic talent, freshly picked flowers on battered end tables, the scribbles of his nieces and nephews, and the rare professional portrait of ancestors, made Alfred's living situation seem even more sad. The image of the man sitting alone day after day, as he was now in front of him, in a room so cluttered yet so bare of humanity and life, with only books and his own thoughts for company was terribly tragic.
Quincy sighed, and took the plunge. Alfred smiled at him warily from his seat on the bed, as if he knew what Quincy had been thinking.
"May I sit with you?" Quincy asked, taking a careful step forward.
"Oh! Of course! I apologize, I should have invited you from the start!"
The bed looked so miserably fragile that Quincy worried that their combined weight might cause it to give up the ghost, but it held steady as he sat next to Alfred with a sigh.
The two men were silent for a time, perhaps due to the strangeness of the situation. Quincy had been in men's rooms before, hell, he had done more than just sit on a bed with another man, but something about this place, about Alfred, always made him feel reticent. He liked the man very much, but going very, very slow seemed to be the best course of action. It was becoming increasingly clear he was dealing with someone who was not only terribly isolated and hopelessly loyal to a dead cause, but also seemed to have no concept of normal life experiences at all.
What was your life like before we met? Wasting away in this miserable crypt, only emerging to go hunt monsters and pray, cleaning artifacts of a time you might not have been present for? Why the Executioners? Why are you so alone when you are the friendliest man I've met here, well, the only one not coughing his lungs out and bedridden, that is. Is there something the others know that I don't? You said you trust me, but...you haven't told me anything.
Speaking of normal life, what was he going to do to get things back to any semblance of normal? He had come to Yharnam to cure his disease. That was done, but now he was trapped in what could only be described as a nightmare. He had hoped that going to Byrgenwerth would give him necessary information, but he had only made everything worse by defeating the monster on the lake.
The creature had not even attacked him first, he realized with a twinge of guilt. Seeing that thing...it made him react with...anger? Primordial fear? Anyway, he had struck with his axe, and it retaliated, and after many, many tries, it lay dead, a woman wept, the moon rose, and he had made everything worse.
"I have to find a way to end this night." Quincy murmured, trying to chase away the thoughts.
"A noble goal." Alfred responded. Quincy looked at him, seeing him staring out the window. The light from the streetlamp outside illuminated his profile, making his blonde hair seem to glow slightly in the orange light.
"I guess you have your own plans, with the Vilebloods." Quincy said, and was met with silence. He missed the closeness of when they had embraced before. With Alfred only a few inches away now, Quincy thought to close the gap.
"What are you going to do when the night is over?" Quincy asked, placing a hand over Alfred's. The man did not react to the touch at first, but entwined his fingers in Quincy's own.
"Continue searching for the way to Cainhurst." He answered.
"What will happen if we do find a way for the sun to rise? Will the hunt be over, forever? Will the beasts go away?" Quincy asked. "How do we get this to end?"
"I do not know." Alfred clasped Quincy's hand. Lacking gloves, they were quite calloused from the work of a Hunter. "What do you plan to do next?"
"Well, I ended up at Yhar'gul. I reckon the answers might be there." Quincy sighed. "I found a note when the red moon rose, and I ended up back in that awful place. 'End the Mensis Ritual, before we are all turned into beasts'. There was this awful chanting from the cathedral, but the only sane person I only found a Healing Church nun."
Alfred's breath caught in his throat. Quincy looked up at him, startled.
"You okay there, pal?"
"I am fine. Just an old memory. This talk of a Ritual, well, it reminded me of a nightmare I once had." He hesitantly continued after Quincy gave him a questioning look.
"When I was a boy, I was a patient of the Church for a time." Alfred explained, glancing away from Quincy's gaze, giving his hand a squeeze.
"You were sick?" Quincy asked. It occurred to him that despite how much Alfred spoke, he rarely opened up like this.
"Deathly so. It was quite serious. I suppose the Vicar back then took an interest, and I was taken to Upper Cathedral Ward."
"Ascend to Oedon Chapel…" Quincy mumbled as he continued, remembering the words of Gehrman.
"One night, well, I was very sick. It must have been something I imagined, with my feverish child's mind. I thought I heard the Choir Scholars chanting outside my door, down the hall. Quite the eerie sound. It was Latin, of course, this being the Church."
"Then what happened?" Quincy asked.
"Well...for a brief moment, I thought the moonlight turned red, much like the night we are in now. I was quite spooked. It's strange how the brain can fool itself into seeing what is not there, yes?" Alfred gave a forced chuckle, glancing at him before looking away shyly. Quincy frowned.
"Alfred."
"Yes?"
"Seeing as we are stuck in a situation where the moon has gone red, and we've both run into all manner of monsters, don't you think there's a rather hefty chance that the Ritual you heard actually happened?"
"Oh." Alfred looked down, ears turning pink. "Well...it just seemed...out of place. Foolish to believe it happened. I try not to think about my life before I...before I became part of the Executioners."
Quincy nodded slowly, just grateful to have learned a bit more about his enigmatic companion. Stirring, Alfred slowly took Quincy's other hand in his own, looking into his eyes. The air seemed to become strangely warm between them as bright green met warm brown.
Quincy tried to play oblivious, but judging by Alfred's air of awkward inexperience, this was the man's first rodeo.
Alfred faltered as he drew close, ducking shyly back. Quincy grinned
"Do you want to kiss me?" Quincy asked, reaching out and cupping Alfred's fuzzy cheek as the man started to stammer his response.
His thumb grazed the wiry hairs of Alfred's mutton chops playfully as Quincy caressed his face. Quincy reflected on the fact he had never cared much for the foriegn facial hairstyle, but on Alfred, the sideburns were starting to become rather endearing.
"If that is alright! I mean. It seemed right. I'm sorry-" He stammered out, a blush spreading across his cheeks. Despite his embarrassment, Alfred leaned eagerly into Quincy's touch.
Quincy felt a slight bit of dread mixed with the expected warm fuzziness. He was not only stuck in an endless night in a terrible town, but he was falling hard and fast for a mysterious, endearingly messed up stranger. Well, he would just roll with it. The situation right now was rather pleasant.
"This isn't the first time you've kissed someone, is it?" Quincy asked, meaning to tease, only to be met with embarrassed silence. Alfred was averting his gaze as well as he could without leaving Quincy's touch, focusing on the pristinely cleaned yet badly scuffed floor.
"Oh..." Was all Quincy could think to say. The man was certainly his age, or at least a little younger. Quincy had kissed a handful of men, had been in love a few times in the same amount of years. Gods, he wondered again, what kind of life was this man living before they met?
Who are you?
"Well, if we are stuck in an endless night, there's never a better time for it, I reckon, if you would like to." Quincy said, leaning in and praying that Alfred would follow. It would get rather awkward if the man changed his mind.
Five seconds into the kiss, Quincy realized that Alfred had indeed reciprocated. He also learned that Alfred was a terrible kisser. As Quincy had leaned in, the tip of Alfred's nose had somehow poked him in the eye, and when they finally got their faces properly aligned, the man seemed to think that a kiss was more or less a race to try to get inside Quincy's mouth. The fact that Alfred tasted, unsurprisingly, of blood and metal, did not do anything to help matters. The man hugged him tightly, pulling Quincy close in striking contrast to his hesitancy before. The man's humid breath in Quincy's mouth and how tightly Alfred was squeezing him was overwhelming as Alfred performed his idea of kissing, which seemed to consist of slamming his face against Quincy's without any discernible rhythm while having his partner enveloped in a choking embrace.
It was less of a tender moment and more like being lovingly mauled by his terribly eager partner. While the excitement and passion was charming, the knowledge that he would probably need a handkerchief after this was not. Quincy opened his eyes, to see that Alfred had his own open, and possibly had his eyes open the entire time.
Oh dear.
Quincy pulled back for air, gasping and trying to process what had just happened. Alfred smiled at him, red faced.
"Was that too much?" He asked, oblivious of his dearth of technique.
"I think you need a spot of practice." Quincy said, breathless as he fell back into the man's arms. Well, it wasn't completely unpleasant.
Quincy glanced over Alfred's shoulder at the books stacked on the bedside table as he tried to catch his breath. He recognized a few famously sappy romance novels, favored by his own hopelessly romantic eldest sister back home, scattered among the expected religious and historic texts. Well, that explained Alfred's kissing technique, at least. Hopefully he could be taught a better way to kiss, or Quincy might just dodge his next affections.
Notes -
Quincy: Damn Partner you live like this?
Sorry about the short chapter. What WAS going to be chapter 6 is is harder to write then originally planned and I have been feeling awfully unmotivated with having to deal with classes and I got back into Elder Scrolls, not just online but modding Morrowind and Oblivion help meeee, and my wonderful editor has been feeling the same way so progress has been slow going. Thankfully I have bit of a backlog of scenes that happen later in the fic, so once I'm out of this rut I won't be too behind.
But hey I've been learning html and coding so that's fun. I don't need rich text to play with the text anymoooooore
I have been sitting on this scene and greatly anticipating posting this for a while. Yes folks, Alfred and Quincy finally kissed, and I made it very unsexy.
I promise the next chapter will have actual plot stuff and not just fluff. So, uh. Enjoy.