Chapter Text
-ˋˏʚ July , 1895 ɞˎˊ-
[♫ - come, sweet death ]
Sometime, in the blooming green and warm gap between the spring and summer seasons, I found a love so polarizing, paralyzing, unyielding—an affection for a man who loves like an Oscar Wilde poem, under the sole light of stars in midnight skies surrounded by the foliage of secret gardens. And I allowed my heart to burrow in those hidden places; I allowed my heart to be suspended between the law and the beat—and I paid the price. I paid for what those would call sins, flaws; but I am no sinner; I am a lover, a man capable of love in infinite capacities. Perhaps a gentleman in sinner’s clothing; but I know my love is not a crime.
Alas, I sit in the shackles writing such words, my tongue and ankles tied, yet my memories remain boundless—I write as I please, the stories and moments which come to me in the nights where I rest and the nights I am restless. I imagine his face and trace his features upon my skin with the tip of my finger; the touch finds me in the darkness, and yet I long for the warmth of his kind embrace to pervade my skin, not that of my own body. My heart yearns for him; I needn’t the air outside of such confines, I need his oxygen, I need his touch—my body longs to share rooms with him, breathing the same air, to share stolen moments in corridors; I yearn; I am burning with desire and endless need for him. I miss him as though it’s been a lifetime.
When my captivity ceases I will coax him out of whatever entrapments he may be stuck within and I will love that man—whose name I mustn’t write—until we see stars in the daylight, until something lights us aflame; I will love that man until they chain me once more, until I am no longer breathing; I will love him.
William sets down his quill, then settles into his prison cot; there are no windows in the cell for the moonlight to spill through, so he lies in darkness, dreaming of Michael’s face.