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Down on his knees in front of his late mother’s bed, Albus was not praying. The constant stream of pleading screams directed vaguely at the gods inside the tangled mess of his own mind was not worship. He did not know whether he would ever be able to be in awe, reverently humbled and grateful for the fate he had been gifted in front of the Gods’ eternal silence again. His hands were still bloodstained. His knees were burning from how long he had remained in this position already. A rusty trail of brown muck had dried on his chainmail shirt, his hair was sweaty and in great disarray, the ends of which were equally bloody from where they had dragged through the mess on his chest. He was too warm in all his layers directly next to the fireplace, but that was better than the bitter cold outside, and besides, if he started to take off his armour, he would have to acknowledge the end of battle.
Albus did not feel as if he would ever come out the other side of this night. With the dreadfully still man on clean linens before him, cleaned of all sweat and blood by his own hands, there was no morning coming for Albus. His forehead was pressed into his linked hands so he would not look up into that slack face. There yet was breath in that beloved chest, that great heart was beating still, but sluggishly, as though every beat was an effort the point of which no longer outweighed the inevitable promise of exhausted ever-sleep. Gellert’s hand was right there in front of him. Less than the stretch of his fingers away. He could not allow himself to touch. If he grasped for the slumbering, silver spark that had become so achingly familiar to him, he would pour himself into Gellert’s soul until there was nothing left of him, just so his beloved would live, and then the kingdom would be left without their King. And Aberforth wasn’t ready yet.
Gods help him, he would have to be, very soon.
Albus’ sword was leaning against the far wall in its scabbard, the only thing he had taken off for sheer practicality. It was too long to keep on his belt while kneeling. A glance to the corner of his eye brought it to his attention, and that, somehow, re-opened the flood gates. He was wetting Gellert’s motionless hand with tears, his strong, calloused hand that had stricken down so many enemies over the course of a life well-lived, cut short. They were but a year apart in age, not forty yet either of them, which was nothing for magicians such as them. His lax fingers, free of any blood after Albus had washed them with rose water, smelled sweet only very faintly. The blossom scent could not conceal the iron tang of blood hanging heavy in the air as the firesmoke. The blue gambeson sitting folded at his far-travelled feet was torn, dirtied and most likely ruined beyond repair, leaving Gellert only in his shift underneath a heavy woollen blanket that scratched Albus’ wrists. The healers had done everything they could for him; the knight without whom they would have been running for their lives just about now.
Albus’ hands clenched so hard his knuckles paled. Could he have convinced the gods to let him undo his poor decision several months ago, he would have squeezed his own blood from his fingers in prayer to do so. And what had it gained him, that gamble to venture north into the highlands with a siege about to crest on his doorstep?
The hand before his eyes twitched. It was ringed twice over: the North and the Tree, and on his other hand sat Gellert’s signet ring and his eternal devotion to Albus. It was too much to bear. Another sob was muffled by the mattress, not because there were guards in front of the door or his ancestors above and below listening to his human failure, but because Albus had no right yet to wail his grief into the night while Gellert yet lived.
A rasping intake of breath tripped up his heart.
“My King, I am not worthy of your tears.”
That hand, so gentle in love as it was unforgiving with a blade in its grasp, settled on Albus’ hair. It must have been knotted and stringy with sweat. To wash would have meant to leave the former apartments of his mother, whose place he would have lifted that bravest of men into, were there not the mountains to the North and three different armies to the South and twenty different noble families all vying to sell one of their daughters to the King.
Albus’ entire face twisted with sorrow as he shook his head ever so slightly. Much as he had hoped, fervently so with the force of a hundred full moons, to speak to Gellert again if only once, now he found himself terrified and so, so ashamed.
“It is you whom I am unworthy of. I sent you from my side, and you came back to save us all collectively with an army in tow. You told me – years ago, when we started talking about this madness – you told me in no uncertain terms that there are wild and impossible things north of the mountains. You warned me, and still I sent you in my desperation for a way out of our stalemate with the southern blockade. These-,“ he whispered harshly through the pain of his raw throat, hovering a finger’s breadth above the bandages wrapped around Gellert’s middle, “these are my fault.” But that involved lifting his head too. Eye contact shocked all of his fear out of him, set it aflame for a different kind of urge to race through him head to toes. Gellert’s hand slid to Albus’ cheek, cupped his chin, and as though he didn’t have the strength to hold it up any longer, it fell back to the beddings. Albus burned with shame. “You are from up North. How they followed you when you came riding down the hillslope- they would not have done that for one of our own. Am I to call you King, too?”
That finally drew a quiet little smile to Gellert’s lips. His eyes were hooded with tiredness, his strong body entirely unmoving safe for the slow rise and fall of his breast.
“We do not have Kings. And before you berate yourself for keeping me here all these years, my clan has been doing very well without me, and they would not want me back even if I offered to come home. I serve a King now, I pledged my life, my sword and my honour to you, my liege. There is little else that would disgrace me so in front of my clan. But they have entrusted me with some of their most fearsome raiders, that is true, though not for any love for me or tribute to you, I’m afraid.”
Albus slumped his shoulders, breathing, breathing in the scent of tears, blood and rose water. When he grasped for the hand lying palm up as an offering, finally, like grasping for the cool earth in spring when the snow had melted into it, Gellert’s unique quicksilver magic almost bit into his fingers. His knees ached, but he did not dare yet to rise to the bedside. Gellert had two differently coloured eyes, something he had never seen in any man, woman or child south of here, and hair bare of any colour. It was snow-white, neither yellowish nor golden or blue even when the sunlight shone on it. But there was blue in his right eye, icy flecks of it in an otherwise equally white iris. His left one was almost as dark as many southerners had them. Such beauty, Albus despaired for not having seen it sooner.
“If they disdain you, most beloved, they do not know whom they have lost to their own detriment. And I sent you back – gracious, you must think so very little of me now. Had I known-“
“Yes,” Gellert smiled tiredly, “exactly. And so, I think no less of you for knowledge you could not have obtained.” Then his gentle grasp on Albus’ chin drew him to his feet, and though Albus’ tears had stopped flowing so freely, his throat still closed up again when Gellert pulled him in with but a nudge. Their foreheads collided softly upon a breath exhaled. A log split apart in the fire. Shadows were dancing in the corners of this usually unused room, but Albus could not see them.
“Are you in great pain? Is there anything I can get you?”
“You could start with kissing the last eight months of longing for your royal stubborn arse away.” His arm trembled when he wound his fingers into Albus’ gambeson collar underneath the chainmail. His lips were dry and chapped, still they both breathed in sweetest relief like the first easterly winds of Spring. Albus felt his own pulse in his throat. His eyes stung, he felt stretched thin, held upright only by the two point of contact that were Gellert’s fingers underneath his jawline, soft and demanding at once. “Do not weep for me, my liege, please. Winter has chased me here. I am not going anywhere anytime soon.”
Laying a gentle hand atop Gellert’s midriff thickened by the bandages, Albus barely repressed a huff of agreement. Instead, he kept his touch light. He would see to it that the soothing warmth of all that exposed skin would not rise to a life-threatening fever. Personally, if he got his way.
“I cannot bear the thought of life here without you. My head weighs heavy with the crown upon it, and that weight is not made to be carried alone. You must pull through now, my love, and be not afraid of my temper. I see how unusually quiet you are.”
Gellert’s eyes briefly flickered heavenward.
“I got stabbed.”
“After pushing an army of three thousand; twelve clans united despite that they’re squabbling in front of my doorstep now; through the murderous mountains, yes.” He kissed Gellert’s fingers, feeling the cool metal push smoothly into his lips, feeling the shape and weight of them in comparison to Gellert’s roughened skin. Eye contact kept him quiet. “You are thin, my heart. Have they who followed you into battle not treated you to every comfort?” He felt Gellert’s answer in a quick squeeze of their joint hands more than in any words that took a while to come forth. The exhaustion was weighing heavily on him, sitting atop his bandaged chest like a great, hulking shadow that was pushing him back into a deep sleep, away from Albus. The way in which he lowered his eyes could have been mistaken for demure surrender by someone who knew him less.
“Us First Folks – that is the name of my people, though I have lost the claim to that heritage when I ventured south twenty years ago – we are secretive for good reasons, though there were no vows binding me to my silence. Believe me when I say that it was… a great weight on me to keep this from you, Albus. It never felt right to sit you down out of the blue and correct all your old maps. You would have been so enthusiastic to go and meet these secretive people, no matter how fervently I would have warned you off.”
His name. Gods, it had been eight months since he had last heard his name in that smooth voice. Gellert had a special way of pronouncing it, one that should have given away the last rests of an accent, had Albus not been so thoroughly lost to the blindness of love.
“Well, you did,” he muttered, “I only did not listen.” How pale Gellert was even on the white sheets… The only balm to Albus’ rabbit heart were their linked hands above a steady pulse and the ceaseless, calm rhythm of his breaths. “Can you forgive me, beloved? I will never ask for your origins if you do not wish me to, and your people will be well-treated here. We managed to bring the harvest in just before Lord Thomas’ army cut us off from the river valleys, so we should be able to provide for everyone if we ration the stores. It would have been a long siege, had battle not broken out today.”
“He meant to starve you out,” Gellert murmured, now almost half asleep. His fingers were limp in Albus’, but warm, and he blinked twice, three times as though to stay awake by all means. “There is nothing to forgive, my liege. If you had not asked me to go, I would have volunteered and pushed all other contenders from that spot. I only ask you to be patient with me now.” Trying to prop himself up on his elbows resulted in a grimace of pain that Albus was quick to soothe by helping him roll a little to his side, as much as was possible with the stab wound in his waist. That nothing essential had been destroyed had to be a streak of mind-boggling luck.
“We have all the time in the world. You are staying here until you can walk without keeling over, and not a moment sooner. These were my mother’s quarters, thus we are quite near my own apartments. I will only ever be a call away, not half the castle.” His hands stilled while pulling the blanket further up Gellert’s exposed shoulders. The silence tasted of questions and answers given freely with fervour. “My tower has been lonely without you,” he confessed and damn near melted when he was tugged back down for another lingering kiss which deepened within seconds. A small sound fell from his lips that Gellert licked from them like a drop of mead. His hooded eyes were dark.
“You are assuming my ire again. For the past eight months, I have been sleeping light like a horse, always waiting to be suddenly awakened by trouble or some other urgency. I would be glad beyond measure to be able to drop off like a bloody rock troll as I can only do it next to you. What you are willing to do in your Dowager Queen Mother’s bed, however, that is something I must leave to you, love.”
It was such an easy endearment. Rare for all the respect that Gellert held for him, and though ‘my king’ never failed to send shivers down Albus’ spine, especially in certain situations between the sheets, it was the terms of affection that truly got him smiling.
“Reckless rogue,” he murmured against Gellert’s bearded cheek; he looked shaggy as though he’d not had the opportunity to shave in a good three weeks. Surprisingly, it was all salt and pepper, not completely snowy as his hair. “We shall have you transferred to my bed as soon as you are safe to be moved. And damn the eyebrows of court, that ship has sailed anyhow.”
“Has it?”
Albus scrunched up his nose in a very unkingly manner.
“Afraid so.”
Sighing, Gellert shrugged his good shoulder and closed his eyes again for what seemed the final time tonight. His fingers were still lightly woven with Albus.
“I’ll take it over mountain trolls and meddlesome relatives with their godsforsaken pride.” He was slurring his words now just a little, and though Albus whispered an aching love declaration to his temple, he was asleep before the turning of the sand glass.