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In the dark, there’s no difference between having his eyes opened or closed, and so Arthur keeps them closed and feels the weight settled against him, so there it takes his breath away. Every inch of where Alfred is pressed against him echoes warm with his heart. Their legs and their chests pressed close and his hand, tangled in his and beating close and fingers twined.
The world is suspended in the warmth of sleep, and Arthur drifts between dreams with Alfred in his arms. He can count every heartbeat, every breath between them, a steady rhythm that rocks him in and out of drowsiness. One, two, three-the world is holding its breath to give them this moment, Arthur thinks with a slow smile, pressing a lingering kiss to Alfred’s messy curls. A moment where they are not nations, where they are nothing and nobody but Alfred and Arthur, curled up together and counting heartbeats. There is no need to wake up, and so they don’t. The world has softer edges in sleep, even when they dream of the past. The curls tickle his nose, and he brushes fingertips through them.
‘It was you who taught me heartbeats count better than years,’ Arthur mumbles to Alfred’s hair. Alfred smiles- Arthur cannot see it, but he knows he does, from the subtle bending and breathing out of his body. He can’t hide his smile if he tries, every happiness changes him. Alfred’s body curves as he stretches, and Arthur reaches out. His fingers skim Alfred’s shirt, the skin showing where the fabric rides up.
‘Artie.’ Alfred’s voice is fond and slow and heavy with sleep. The bed creaks as he rolls over and noses against Arthur’s neck. His breath tickles. Arthur can’t even bring himself to reprimand for that stupidly sweet nickname.
‘Did I wake you?’ Arthur pushes a lazy hand through Alfred’s hair, and Alfred hums a laugh and his lips press his collarbone.
‘Nah.’ Alfred’s eyelashes brush his pulse and Arthur can feel his smile against his skin. The world floats around them. It’s warm, perfect here, perfect with him. Arthur cups Alfred’s face and kisses him, and he can still feel Alfred smiling.
Alfred hums, some old radio song from wartime. Arthur remembers their nights standing alone to it, him in his rumpled uniform and Alfred in his then-stiff leather jacket. Arthur whispers the lyrics back to him.
‘You remember it,’ Alfred says. His hand presses against his chest, brushing the raised toughness there.
‘Yes,’ Arthur tells him, even though he’s not sure if he means the song or the burns over his heart or this, the act of counting heartbeats. It doesn’t matter, because he remembers it all, sudden and bright. ‘I do.’
‘Do you want me to tell you it again?’ he asks. Arthur nods, brushing a fingertip over the sun-tan roughness at Alfred’s neck, where it always seems warmer, as if the sun has soaked in.
‘Feel that?’ he asks. His heart thuds against his ribs fiercely and Arthur can only nod. He smiles as he continues. ‘If you don’t count heartbeats, the world forgets how much they mean.’
The words he tells this promise in are always the same.
‘Everyone has someone else counting their heartbeats, watching the number go higher and higher and never stop.’
‘Never stop,’ Arthur echoes, because in that moment more than ever it sounds like the most wonderful thing. Alfred’s laugh is a melody in a breath.
‘I’m your someone else,’ Alfred says, moves closer to kiss him and the world tips backwards and in the dark Arthur swears he sees the stars because his words are warmth spreading out from his chest and to the tips of his fingers where Alfred kisses, golden and sparkling. He draws a line across Alfred’s closed eyelids and imagines that light spreads through his body from the points their skin meets and outwards, until it illuminates the whole of him in the dark like he’s made of fireworks. Lit up, laughing, blue eyes electric and catching his.
‘And I’m yours,’ he manages to say. With his eyes closed, Alfred is a blaze of brightness in the darkness, throwing off bits of light. ‘I’m yours, firework boy,’ he repeats, and the words taste sweet in his mouth. Alfred laughs, his next kiss catching the corner of his mouth.
‘Firework boy,’ he repeats. His soft lips move down to his collarbones, his calloused hands pulling apart his flannel pyjamas, his heavy warm weight moving over him with a groan of the bed springs. ‘Your firework boy. I like that.’
‘Do you?’
‘I’ll have you if you’ll have me.’ He can hear his smile at his impossible promises. ‘Is that good?’
‘You ridiculous, amazing, frustrating-’ Arthur doesn’t have the words. He wrestles Alfred back up and kisses him hard. ‘ You .’
‘Me.’ He stills for a moment, soft breath against his cheek. His hands touch gently, reverently. ‘Artie, I love ya, y’know?’
‘Of course.’ Arthur smiles at them both. ‘I love you, too.’
They lay for a second, lazy hands moving quietly, finding each other in the absolute dark. Alfred’s breathing is deeper, and his eyelashes brush the hollow of Arthur’s neck in quick flutters. His hand wanders, mapping out the subtle curve of Arthur’s arm like rivers that glow phosphorescent green when they’re swam in. That’s what Alfred does to everyone, he thinks- touches them and his energy lights them up the same.
‘Hey, Arthur.’
‘Mmm?’ He’s too content and warm to think more, but Alfred sits up, the blankets tangled around them both.
‘Can I say something?’ he blurts. Without waiting for an answer, he rushes ahead. ‘I just really love spending time with you, Artie. When I get to see you, it’s like-I want to say so many things and do so much and be with you but even now I can’t express how much I love you, really. Every part.’ He stops, and Arthur thinks he can hear a soft, choked laugh to his words. ‘I probably sound stupid right now,’ he adds, less fiercely.
The heartbeat-pride in their chests must feel like too much, too fierce, and it is in their natures to fear standing in the lights now. They’ve been always told to hide their love, to keep things quiet, but Arthur wants to know everything about him, to be with him every breath and step of the way, to share their lives and futures and especially this. Alfred is too brilliant to ever hide.
‘You don’t sound stupid,’ Arthur says, through his own tears. He cups his face and kisses his eyelids, tasting salt. ‘I love you, I told you. I’m so proud of you, my dear boy, of all of you. This, see-’ He spreads his hand on Alfred’s broad chest. ‘See how far it’s come now? How far we’ve come? Never stop being you, impossible and brilliant and everything you.’ He laughs, softly, memory choking him off. ‘It’s what I fell in love with you for.’
‘Really?’ Alfred’s hand tugs him down. ‘You don’t want me to change even when I forget to do the dishes? Or when I don’t bring back your hardcover books?’
‘Or even when you bring me coffee instead of tea,’ Arthur says. He wrinkles his nose. ‘Actually-’
Before he can say anything else, Alfred’s mouth is crushed against his, kissing him slowly and maybe a bit clumsily, hands in hair and bumping faces in the dark. They pull away holding each other close and it is all Arthur has ever needed. Alfred sways slightly above him.
‘I really love you. All of you. Your voice when you talk about those things you won’t say you’re proud of and the way you fix my tie and this, here-’ His fingers skim across Arthur’s wrist, fast and fluttering until they settle into their old rhythm, ‘-everything, everything and everything -’ touching, here and here and here, clumsy and eager and somehow there is the most reverent prayer in the way Arthur thinks he can feel the ridges of Alfred’s fingerprints when he touches his cheekbones and wonders if he will see the neon impressions on his hips when he wakes up. Behind his eyelids, where Alfred touches lights up and his fingers shed sparks. How lucky he must be, Arthur thinks wonderingly, to know every line and stroke of his body better than his own.
His hands still and Alfred kisses him again. Arthur’s hands fly up to his hair, holding him close. His hair is lightning and his skin sparks like a live wire. Even in the darkness, Arthur can remember the shade of his eyes like it’s been coloured on his soul.
‘I’d always be yours if you wanted. I want us to be everything, to be so god damn perfect that when we walk out people can’t help but stare.’
‘You Americans can never keep your loving quiet,’ Arthur gasps out. Alfred’s hair is spread silkily across his neck and he can smell faint musk and soap and behind his eyelids the world looks like the streets of their hearts on New Years, a swirl of gold and colour. He chuckles, low and gentle.
‘Why would I want to?’
‘Oh, Alfred.’ Arthur feels his chest tighten, his throat close off. ‘You don’t-you’re such a- Alfred , good God, you drive me mad. I love you,’ he finishes, and it seems grossly inadequate for this boy of light.
He understands now, that Alfred loves things so fiercely it scares him, how he is lit up, always, but Alfred is a warm light that will not burn him. He will not be left burned and alone this time.
Alfred F. Jones is a firework down to his wanderlust heart and God, Arthur loves every part of him.
The bed creaks again when Alfred sits up to let Arthur pull off his old shirt; the wood groans in sympathy when he’s pushed back down onto the sheets and Arthur worships the space between dip and swell of muscle.
‘Yours,’ Alfred gasps. He pushes himself back up and Arthur catches him, holds him, pressing their chests together to light them both up, young gods blazing. He must know what to promise forever is to a nation and being Alfred, being him, promises anyways. ‘Forever, Artie, I swear.’
‘Forever,’ Arthur echoes. ‘Firework boy.’
He laughs, voice cracking with exhausted adoration. Arthur can feel the dampness of both their eyelashes and the world is bright. ‘Kiss me?’
Arthur can’t refuse. This time, when they find each other, there are no words. There is only liquid warmth and light and want. Alfred tries to say something a few times, but Arthur draws him back in and they fall into each other. It is strange, Arthur has thought before, that no matter what, he only ever hungers more for his touch, his taste, his soft gasps and groans, for the energy just below his skin, never sated. But right now, it’s all he can do to even keep his thoughts in words.
For his heart is not beating any longer. It’s thrumming, like a thousand birds taking wing all at once, like loud, loud music, like the awe that steals his breath away when Alfred sits on the hood of the car with him and stares with wide eyes at the sky as it explodes into colour and sound, reverberating all around his echo chamber of a chest. He hopes Alfred can feel it when they kiss, in the hand pressed against his heart.
‘Feel that?’ Arthur asks breathlessly, kissing the dip behind his ear. Alfred laughs and turns his head until their lips meet.
‘Your heart?’
Arthur smiles. ‘It’s yours.’
Alfred kisses him again, shining like all of the stars. ‘And I’m yours. Your firework boy.’