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Alfred felt at all times like he was one good sneeze away from bursting apart at the seams. His mind was always racing in a dozen directions, his feet nervously tapped on the floor, and he got these strange fluttery feelings in his stomach and random stabbing pains in his body that he tried to not think about. And don’t even get him started on his hands! If he didn’t have something for his hands to fidget with, he felt like they were on fire.
There was so much going on inside his head and his heart and his body that he worried he would not be able to contain it, or that the strain of containing it would shatter him one day and he would fly apart into a thousand pieces.
Like a jar crammed full of bees , he had once described it, earning a concerned look from Etie and the realization that normal people didn’t feel like that.
But the bees, the flutters, the taps, the fidgets… Alfred forgot them all in moments like this.
The sight of Alear seated at the grand piano, eyes closed, body swaying slightly to the rhythm, fingers dancing effortlessly across the keys, was mesmerizing. In the moonlight pouring in through the windows, the piano shone and its reflected light cast a soft glow across Alear’s skin. Sometimes in the midday sun, armored and crowned, Alear looked too extraordinary to be real and Alfred would almost fear he was a figment of his imagination. But here at night in the pale blue shadows, Alear was wonderfully human.
Alfred exhaled a long sigh. The absence of restlessness and pain inside himself was such a relief it almost brought tears to his eyes.
Alear began the third and final movement of the sonata and Alfred smiled. Despite his long hours as a child sitting at the Divine Dragon’s piano determinedly plugging away at the stack of sheet music Queen Lumera left on it, Alfred had never been able to get the hang of this particular movement.
“He doesn’t know it yet. It was written long after he fell asleep,” Queen Lumera had told Alfred once when he was a boy, “but I want it to be there when he wakes. I think he will love it. It suits him.”
It did suit him. It suited him perfectly – clear and earnest melodies flowing through the treble clef atop a steady heartbeat of chords in the bass clef.
Something nudged Alfred’s arm and he jumped, looking over to see one of the dogs staring at him with eager eyes, tail wagging. She obviously thought that Alfred sitting on the floor next to the piano could only be for the purposes of petting her.
“Alright, come here, Ginger,” he whispered with a grin, pulling the old retriever into his lap and wrapping his arms around her. She panted happily at the attention and nuzzled Alfred’s hair, giving a loud snort in his ear.
“Sshhh,” he said. “Listen to the music.”
Ginger settled down and Alfred petted her absentmindedly as his attention returned to the piano.
For another few minutes, the music’s enchantment held him spellbound and at peace, then the sonata wound to a close. He watched as Alear played the last few notes then relaxed, leaning back on the piano bench and exhaling a long breath.
Alear looked over at him and gave Alfred a smile. It was soft on his lips but bright in his eyes and full of such unabashed affection it took Alfred’s breath away. His heartbeat sped up and his thoughts tumbled wildly about in various anxious questions like How can it be possible he really feels like that about me? and Am I misreading him? But Alear was nothing if not honest. It would be incredibly unlike him to fake more warmth than he felt.
“My two favorite people,” Alear said fondly, getting up from the piano and sitting down cross-legged next to Alfred. Ginger jumped up and flung her head and front paws into Alear’s lap so that she was lying across both of them and basking in the luxury of two people petting her at once.
Alfred glanced sideways at Alear and met his eyes for a second with a smile before looking away. He could not bear to look directly at him all of a sudden. The racing, fluttery feelings were making it difficult to sit still or think straight.
As Alear cooed to Ginger and ruffled her ears, the dog wiggled ecstatically in response, whipping her tail around to whack Alfred in the face.
“Ginger!” Alear laughed, pushing her gently out of his lap. “You clumsy old girl. Go lie back down. No, don’t give me that look! I want to talk to Afred and you are distracting me. Go lie down. Go on… There you go. Good girl.”
Free of the dog, Alfred shifted so his legs were tucked up to his chest. He couldn’t keep his foot from tapping against the floor, but he at least kept his hands calm by gripping his knees. He looked over at Alear with what he hoped was a casual and laid-back smile.
“What did you want to talk about?” he asked.
“I wanted to ask you about the sheet music. You said my mother picked out most of them. Are there any that were yours?” Alear said.
“Mine?”
“Vander said that you used to play my piano often when you were young. I was wondering if you brought any of your own music and if you would maybe play one for me?”
Alfred’s eyes widened. “Vander told you that, huh? Did he also warn you that I was never very good?”
“I’m sure you are better than you give yourself credit for,” Alear answered. “And I would enjoy anything you play.”
“Well, there… I mean, it might still be here… I’ll just-” Alfred fumbled. He cleared his throat and stood up. “Let me check.”
His hands shook as he searched through the stack of music books. It was mostly full of the old composers Queen Lumera had favored. But there should be somewhere in here still the piece he was looking for. Lumera would have been too kind to throw it out.
“Aha!” he said, pulling out a faded sheet of paper with handwritten lines of music on it and tea stains blotting out a few notes. Immediately, he second-guessed himself and blushed all the way to his ears.
“Did you write this?” Alear said in amazement, appearing at his side and taking the paper from his hands.
Alfred swallowed nervously. Was he breathing? He wasn’t sure he was breathing. Oh god. Oh god oh god oh god oh-
“Will you play it for me?” Alear asked and his hopeful smile was too charming to deny. Alfred stared at it for a moment until he realized he was staring at Alear’s lips more than his expression and that his flustered mind had started thinking in shockingly vivid detail about what it would feel like to kiss them.
Alfred sat down at the piano and took a deep breath. His usual courage that had momentarily deserted him returned and he raised his hands to the keys. He had not played this piece in a very long time but his fingers remembered it even if his conscious mind did not. He barely needed to glance at the music.
After a few tentative measures, delight in the music overtook his self-consciousness and he threw himself wholeheartedly into the song, adding new harmonies and cascading triplet waves of arpeggios in the base clef instead of the simple waltz chords he had originally written when he was a teenager.
He hardly noticed that Alear had sat down next to him until he leaned over to turn the page and his breath tickled Alfred’s ear. Alfred missed a beat but soldiered on resolutely and regained his focus, although he remained keenly aware of Alear’s hip pressed against his, and the smell of his cologne, and the distracting warmth of his presence.
Alfred raced through the climax of the piece then realized he was speeding up too much and slowed down for the refrain, managing to finish the coda with the proper soft and poignant tempo. The last note rang through the bedchamber and Alfred held his breath.
Alear reached out and clasped one of Alfred’s hands in both of his. The simple touch raced electric through his whole body. He could have sworn he felt it all the way in his toes. He turned to face Alear and smiled at the overcome expression on the man’s face.
“That was beautiful,” Alear whispered, meeting Alfred’s gaze. His eyes were so full of adoration it threw Alfred off balance. He didn’t understand what he did to elicit such a look. He was a decent pianist, sure, but not as good as Alear. Besides, he got the sense that it was not the music that had moved Alear so much.
Alfred chuckled nervously. “Took me years, and what’s written is a lot simpler than what you heard.”
“Did you write a lot of music?”
“No,” Alfred answered. “Just the one.”
“Why did you write it?”
Alfred paused for a second, distracted by how very close Alear was and how he had not yet let go of his hand. Then he pulled himself together and said, “When I played the pieces that Queen Lumera chose for you, it helped me understand what kind of person you were. It’s silly, I guess, but I wrote this and left it on your piano because I thought that when you woke up, you could play it and understand who I was."
Alear smiled. “It’s wonderful.”
“Everyone told me it was so disrespectful to think about the Divine Dragon like he was my friend, but I always hoped we would be when you woke up. I didn’t…” Alfred cut himself off before he said something too serious.
But Alear squeezed his hand and said, “Didn’t what?”
“I didn’t have a lot of friends when I was young. It wasn’t that no one liked me or anything; I just wasn’t able to do the same things as everyone else. I spent most of my time in bed or at the hospital. It was pretty boring. Boucheron would come read books with me, but he was older than me and went into knight training while I was still a kid. I guess I spent a lot of time here because I didn’t have to worry about boring you. I felt so frustrated around everyone else, but I just felt… calm around you.” Alfred smiled at him. “Still do.”
“Thank you,” Alear said unexpectedly.
“Thank you? For what?”
“For being my friend. When I met you, it felt like I already knew you somehow, like I already… cared about you. It was such a comfort to feel like I wasn’t alone in all this. Everything was so foreign, but you were familiar, even if I didn’t know who you were.”
Alfred looked away from Alear and stared with wide eyes down at the piano keys. He suddenly was terrifyingly sure that he was going to explode. His face felt hot and his heart so full he couldn’t contain it.
“Alfred?”
He glanced up to see worry in Alear’s eyes.
“Did I say something wrong?” Alear asked.
“No, that’s not it,” Alfred assured him with a smile.
Alear let go of his hand and for an instant Alfred grieved the loss of his touch, then Alear’s hand rested on his knee instead. The feeling of it, warm and solid and real, anchored Alfred. The noise in his head quieted. His leg stopped bouncing. He exhaled and felt the tightness in his chest loosen.
“Then what is it?” Alear asked.
“I’m just glad you woke up when you did,” he answered. “I’m glad I get to be your friend.”
“My first friend,” Alear said softly.
His gaze did not leave Alfred’s and there was something searching – anxious even – in his eyes that confused Alfred until he understood. He thought about Alear’s sonata, how similar it sounded to Alfred’s own piece. They were both pleas to be known, to be loved.
A thousand years and he was Alear’s first friend. Alfred realized suddenly how much loneliness there was in that statement.
He wasn’t always the best at reading people, but he recognized the look in Alear’s eyes. Above everything else, it was the feeling Alfred was most intimately acquainted with.
Before he quite knew what he was doing, he found himself reaching up to brush his fingers across Alear’s cheek. When Alear’s breath caught and his brow furrowed in longing, Alfred’s self-restraint shattered. All the emotion puling him apart at the seams burst free and he took Alear’s face in his hands and kissed him.
There was no chance for worry or self-doubt to shadow the choice. Immediately, Alear’s arms were around his neck and he was leaning into Alfred’s kiss, his lips eager and full of such desperate affection it overwhelmed him.
Alear tried to push Alfred onto his back, but his elbow banged into the keys. He jumped at the loud, discordant note and fell off the piano bench, taking Alfred down with him with a startled yelp.
In a tumble of limbs, they hit the floor, Alfred crushing Alear beneath him. He laughed and propped himself up overtop him, smiling at the mortified expression on Alear’s face.
Before he could apologize, Alfred caught Alear’s mouth in another kiss. Alear wrapped his arms around Alfred and kissed him back with abandon, a hum of contentment rumbling in his throat.
How long they stayed there, Alfred did not know. Every distracting thought and sensation vanished and the only thing in the world was the man he loved pressed against him and the joy of his touch and the exquisite feeling of being known and loved after years of longing. Alfred lost himself in every glorious second of it and when they at last parted, all he could do was look adoringly at Alear, too stunned to speak.
Alear smiled brightly at him and gave a soft, breathless laugh. “I’ve wanted to do that since I met you.”
“You have?”
“Yes,” Alear admitted, looking a little embarrassed.
Alfred kissed him again – gently and leisurely this time. He was not in a hurry anymore.
“I love you,” Alear whispered against his lips.
Alfred’s heart leapt. It was a moment before he could compose himself enough to speak. “I love you too.”
Alear nuzzled his face against Alfred’s neck and pressed his lips against his skin. “I want all of my firsts to be with you.”