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The rain outside was a low, rhythmic hum against the fogging windowpane. It blurred the London streetlights into soft pools of amber and gold. Inside, the apartment was almost dark save for the honeyed glow of several candles, a small decorative lamp, and the amber liquid catching the light of a lowball glass.
Arthur had long ago retreated to the window bench, a deep, cushioned nook that he had tucked into the corner of the living room specifically for days like this. He had pulled his knees up to his chest, his arms wrapped around his shins, the soft wool of his navy sweater bunching against his chin. He looked smaller. Less like the man who once ruled a quarter of the world and more like a young boy currently hiding in his father’s library.
To be fair, it was Francis who had insisted on the candles. It sets the mood, he had pushed, going on and on about romantic aesthetics. Arthur had tried to point out that it always rains in London; therefore, romantic aesthetics need not apply, but it was to no avail. By the time he had even finished his sentence, the first match was already struck. Setting the mood, Arthur thought to himself with a quiet scoff. For what, you fro—? But the fight was useless. So, here he was.
The room was now a glimmering sanctuary of light. Francis had been liberal with the candles, placing them on every flat surface—mantelpieces, side tables, the stacks of Tate Modern art books—so that the shadows were pushed back into a warm, undulating haze. The air smelled of beeswax and the petrichor drifting in from a draft in the windowpane (a bloody window he never seemed to get fixed).
Francis leaned against the doorframe, a glass of fine single malt in his hand, watching him.
The light played tricks on Arthur’s face. In the flickering glow, the harsh, deep lines of his history seemed to recede. He looked barely thirty, but there was a softness in his posture tonight that made him look younger. He looked like a version of himself that Francis first met across the fields of an undeveloped Europe. When Arthur was a boy who had yet to build a cage or a version that still left doors unlocked.
Francis moved across the room, his footsteps silent on the rugs, and sat on the edge of the bench. Together, they looked out the window, watching stray couples running for shelter and the ever-persistent pedestrians covering their heads with whatever makeshift umbrellas they could find. Francis moved closer but didn't invade Arthur's space, sitting just near enough that the warmth of his body offered a comforting presence.
"You are brooding. More than usual," Francis said, his voice barely rising above the sound of the rain.
Arthur didn't turn his head. He kept his green eyes fixed on the street below, watching a group of university students huddled under a single black umbrella, laughing as they sprinted toward the shelter of a pub awning. "I am not brooding. I am thinking," he murmured, his voice sounding younger, less dry than usual. "I was thinking how long it’s been since I’ve just... well, sat."
"Hmm. It is a shame that this..." Francis gestured to the nook, to the stillness. "...is a foreign concept to you. Doing nothing." He reached out, his hand coming to rest lightly on Arthur’s knee. Arthur didn’t move away. The touch was grounding. "You are allowed, mon ange, you know. The world does not need you to be 'the United Kingdom' for the next twenty-four hours."
Arthur finally turned to look at him. He leaned his head against the cool glass of the window, his gaze dropping to Francis’s hand on his knee. He breathed out a long sigh.
"I know that," Arthur said. "But knowing, believing, and... allowing? Those are very different concepts."
Francis smiled at him. He shifted, stretching his legs out along the bench so he was facing Arthur, his glass left forgotten on the wood floor.
"You look..." Francis hesitated, searching for the right word in English. "You look like you did to me…a very, very long time ago. Before it all got to you."
Arthur glanced at him before returning his gaze to the window. "I feel like a fraud, sometimes," he admitted, his eyes searching the dark glass, looking at his reflection. "I look in the mirror, and I see all the things I've outlived. The history. The monarchy. The parliament. The wars. And then I sit here, and I look at you, and I feel like I'm young again. It’s... disorienting."
"Good," Francis whispered, sliding his hand from Arthur’s knee to the back of his neck. His fingers curled into the soft blond hair at his nape. "Let it be disorienting. Let the world be someone else's problem for one night, mon ange."
He leaned forward, closing the distance until their foreheads rested against each other. The candles flickered, sending long, dancing shadows across the wall behind them. In the silence of the flat, centuries of history ceased to exist. There was only the rain, the glimmering candles, and the steady breath of one another.
Arthur broke the moment. For him, the intimacy was almost too much at times. The feeling was so heavy it bordered on suffocating. He leaned back gently, resting the back of his head against the wall. The only sound left between them was the persistent pitter-patter of the rain. Clearing his throat with a slight cough, Arthur slid his legs off the nook.
“I think I’ll have one of those,” he said, pointing toward the lowball glass on the floor. He walked to the kitchen, returning a moment later with a glass of something equally strong.
Francis remained on the bench, listening closely to the sounds of domesticity. The creaking of wood, the house settling, and Arthur moving around with an effortless, practiced grace. He set his glass on the coffee table with a soft clink, then proceeded to fold a worn wool blanket he stubbornly refused to get rid of, tossing it over the arm of the sofa, before gathering a few discarded candles. Finally, he stepped over to his record player, looking for something to fill the silence.
He sorted through several albums before settling on one with a cardboard sleeve that looked aged. He carefully placed the needle down and adjusted the volume, letting a soft, jazz song weave its way through the warming air. Arthur coughed lightly again before turning back to the sofa.
Then came Dusty Springfield’s voice. A smoky, breathless, and heavy croon filled with a quiet ache surrounded the drafty spaces of the room.
The look of love... is in your eyes.
His gaze settled on the man sorting the glasses and pillows on the couch. Francis imagined Sunday morning. He saw Arthur sitting in the chair across from him, the navy sweater replaced by something comfortable and lived-in, his blond hair bedridden, his eyes sleepy and no longer scanning the horizon for a sharp-witted retort, but looking only at him. He smiled to himself at the thought.
In a way, there was a truth to the delusion. Francis—though the rest of the world would never know it. Arthur would never show it—he was the only one who knew exactly how Arthur took his tea. He was the one who knew precisely which records to pull from the shelf when the modern world had been unkind to the Englishman. Francis was the only one who could bridge the gap between Arthur’s ancient history and his rapidly evolving present. Or, at least, that’s what Arthur had admitted on a very, very drunk and vulnerable night.
Now sitting here in this flat with Arthur, undone on the couch. The whole situation felt… intoxicatingly natural.
How long I have waited… waited just to love you… Now that I have found you.
Arthur glanced over mid-sip, his lowball glass hovering halfway to his lips. Then, Arthur slowly lowered the glass, his green eyes narrowing slightly in the candlelight.
“You’re staring, frog.” He noted.
“And what if I am?” Francis questioned playfully.
“Then I’d say you’d better have a good reason,” Arthur commented back, his fingers tracing the rim of his glass as the song hummed between them.
Francis didn’t answer right away. He simply set his own glass down on the window ledge, the soft thud lost underneath the cadence of Dusty’s voice. He slid off the bench, his movements fluid and entirely unhurried, closing the distance between the window and the sofa.
Arthur tracked his every step, yet he held his ground at the coffee table before looking up at the Frenchman. His heart was thumping in his chest.
Francis sat close to him. The candles, still glimmering, projected dancing shadows on his face, catching the sharp features of his jaw and the look of love in his eyes. “Oui, mon ange. I have the best reason.”
“Pray tell,” Arthur mumbled.
“I see you tonight. I am looking at a man who finally looks like himself.” Francis reached out and traced the fabric of Arthur’s sleeve until his long fingers rested on his wrist. His steady hand halted the nervous tremble of Arthur’s anxiety.
Arthur’s breath hitched for a second before he turned to look Francis in the eyes. Dusty was still crooning in the background, and Francis’s thumb was now tracing small circles into his pulse point. A splattering of pink across Arthur's ears gave away his nonchalant facade.
“You are sick, Francis. Too poetic for even me,” Arthur joked, but he stayed right there, letting the other man draw shapes across his skin. They sat together for a long moment, completely suspended in the amber haze of the flat, letting the record spin its final notes into the corners of the room. Breathing together, the exhaustion of a thousand years seemed to catch up to Arthur all at once.
Arthur was the first one to pull back, though his movements were slow. His fingers lingered on Francis’s knuckles, tracing the bone for a fraction of a second longer than necessary. A second later, he was downing the remaining liquor. The heat of the liquid was a sharp contrast to the softness of the moment. He flinched just a bit and set the empty lowball glass back on the coffee table.
“I am going to bed,” he stated softly. It was all too much. The song, the warmth, the touch, the terrifying weight of being seen by someone without his armor.
He didn’t wait for Francis’s reply. Shifting his weight, he rose from the couch, moving silently across the thick rug. He paused at the edge of the living room, the amber light catching the edge of his navy sweater. “Goodnight, Francis.”
He turned and walked down the hall, his footsteps fading into the night. When he reached the bedroom, he left the door slightly ajar. The narrow glint of light suggesting an open border of sorts. It was a to be continued in their story.
Left alone on the sofa, Francis sat in the stillness, listening as the final strums of the song faded. A second later, the needle popped up, lifting from the vinyl. True silence filled the room once again, save for the persistent splattering of the rain against the windows. Francis stood up slowly. He moved around the room, blowing out the candles one by one, watching the light dissolve into the quiet, dark sanctuary they had built for the night.