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Alfred’s knees and back ached in such a way he wished he could discover a rip in the space-time continuum just so he could once again be twenty-two and better suited for seemingly endless hours of packing up box after box of a life well-lived. He could hear Arthur swearing and groaning in their temporary kitchen, using a hell of a lot of four-lettered words for an esteemed professor of poetry to demand to know how they had managed to accumulate so much stuff in only six months. Alfred ignored the question he’d already been asked (and asked himself in darker moments) at least ten times over the past three days in favor of taping up yet another box of Arthur’s books and daydreaming about a hot shower and a soft bed.
It was hard enough to believe that six months had disappeared in the blink of an eye, let alone to understand the mysteries of the universe that would explain how they had come to own two copies of Persuasion, when Alfred was damned certain Arthur had least two more kicking around his cluttered office at AU. But Alfred supposed he couldn’t throw stones because he’d built glass houses out of the spare parts and scrap metals that had become his pet projects to fill the hours between telecommuting and waiting for Arthur to wander home from Cambridge and entertain him with the latest ivory tower outrage. Even if his feet had gone all pins and needles from spending so much time crouched in front of bookshelves and cupboards, Alfred thought it was nice that they were to cross the pond with their lives mingled and mixed in boxes of Kirkland novels and Jones electronics.
He worried, a little, about the logistics of fitting the detritus and memories of their time in England into what space remained in what had been his home and would now be their home, considering he’d had five years to fill up closets and cabinets and neither of them were ever going to receive high-marks for organization. But as he listened to the echo of Arthur’s footsteps and covered Anne Elliot’s smiling face with his signed copy of A Brief History of Time, Alfred knew that no matter how much of his stuff he had to give away or rearrange to make it work, he’d always, always have room for Arthur.
Later, when the last piece of tape had been fixed to the last box of belongings and all that remained was the bare furniture that would remain in the tiny rental that had been their host in Jolly Old England, Alfred and his creaking knees found a quiet Arthur staring out the window at the December rain. There were stacks of boxes surrounding Arthur like a cardboard fortress, all labeled and ready to be shipped off to the next chapter of their lives. Everything was quiet but for the clattering of the rain and the faint whistle of the wind, and even Alfred’s endless exuberance slowed and deepened with the evening mood.
For a long moment, Alfred leaned against the door and watched the lines of Arthur’s back, took the time to appreciate the prettiness of Arthur in silhouette with the weak yellow of the street light pooling around his feet. He thought he would sometimes miss this little house and the months of just the two of them with no constant traffic of students, friends and family. He thought he’d probably miss these days most of all when his desk was covered in stacks of paper and his calendar log-jammed with obligations and time became such commodity. Arthur sighed and Alfred wondered what question or conundrum Arthur was turning over and over in his mind while he daydreamed about their return to reality. He wondered if it was the same problem that had made Arthur distant one moment and insistently present in the next, running hot and cold for days on end and driving Alfred to such distraction he’d eventually caved and asked what the hell was going on, only be told he was an idiot that needed to leave Arthur well enough alone.
But Alfred had learned his lesson when it came to leaving Arthur to stew and talk himself in circles, and he’d always been really bad at doing what Arthur told him to do (unless it was in the bedroom, because, hey, Alfred absolutely believed that you teach an old dog new tricks). More than anything, he just couldn’t stand around wringing his hands and worrying while Arthur stood around, wrung his hands, and muttered what sounded like Shakespeare under his breath.
“You alright?” Alfred asked, crossing the room to put his arms around Arthur’s waist and his chin on a tense shoulder to see what was worth seeing in the gloom of late evening.
“I’m fine.” Arthur’s shoulder shrugged beneath the press of his jaw, “Merely reflecting on how it seems like it was only yesterday that we arrived to primroses and sunshine.”
“Time flies.” Alfred kissed the back of Arthur’s neck, tamping down an instinctive thrill of worry when Arthur didn’t grouse about affectionate morons and then promptly swoon into his arms in a very manly fashion.
“How very insightful of you, Professor,” Arthur sniped, clearly remembering the grousing part of the routine while sadly neglecting the swooning. “However did you come to such a stunning conclusion?”
Alfred slipped a hand beneath Arthur’s t-shirt, splayed his fingers over the gentle swell of his stomach and murmured, “Because we’ve been having so much fun, obviously.”
“Have we?” Arthur said quietly, going impossibly stiff and still beneath the slow, soft stroke of Alfred’s fingers like maybe there was more to his question.
“I have,” Alfred said, kissing the dip of Arthur’s shoulder and the shell of his ear, “I can’t speak for you, Artie, but I’ve had a damned good time here with you.”
“I’m glad.” Arthur tilted his head, eyes closing as Alfred took the open invitation to give up kissing necks and ears in favor of lips, giving Arthur just a hint of teeth and tongue for asking questions that had such obvious answers. Arthur pulled just far enough so away so he could ask another crazy question that could only have one answer. “Would you ever consider coming back?”
“I can’t believe you need to ask me that,” Alfred said before licking his way back into Arthur’s mouth, turning him within the span of his arms to Arthur was looking at him instead of the dreary, wet streets of Cambridge. “Don’t you remember that little offer I made last month to stay longer if it would make you happy?”
“Oh? You mean the one you made after you ran away to Canada to hide with little brother Matthew? How could I have forgotten?” Arthur said dryly, shaking his head and pursing his lips, but settling into the embrace and tapping his fingers restlessly on Alfred’s chest. “But staying a little longer, extending another semester, that’s very different from what I’m asking. It is easy to offer such things when you know it is only temporary. You were ready to promise for now, and I’m grateful, truly, but I am asking what you intend for…later…I suppose. For the great unknown of what may happen next.”
“Arthur. Listen to me.” Alfred bit his lip and cupped Arthur’s chin in his hand, wondering how he’d fumbled through six months of England and a plea for continued cohabitation in America without making his plans for the future crystal clear. He could only be thankful that Arthur said was was on his mind the night before they moved back to AU instead of waiting another ten years for Alfred to get a clue and read his murky little mind. Arthur stared at him expectantly, eyebrows slowly inching up his forehead with every second Alfred dithered. Alfred took a breath, kissed that familiar furrow and confessed,
“Tomorrow we’re going to go home and then we’re going to spend the holidays spoiling Irina and Katya silly and giving Mattie a hard time. After that we’re going to AU and you’re going to bitch at me for not having enough space in my closets for your old-man sweaters and we’re both going to go to work dreading what our graduate students have done without us around to whip them into shape. We’re going to attempt to make something out of malleable undergrad minds and try to avoid Germania saddling us with committee work. And then, when another semester is done and we’re making the quickest escape possible from Commencement, we can do anything because we won’t be obligated to anyone but ourselves.”
“And what will you want to do?” Arthur asked, the restless fingers creeping up Alfred’s chest to brush his lips.
Alfred kissed the tips of Arthur’s fingers and smiled, “Don’t be dense, Artie. I want to be with you. Whether that’s at AU or here or on some other grand adventure, it doesn’t matter. There’s no equation I know to predict the future, but I can promise you there is one variable’s never going to change. I’m in. All the way.”
“Well, will wonders never cease?” Arthur whispered, blinking furiously like he thought Alfred wasn’t going to notice the wetness at the corners of his eyes, “It just so happens I want the same thing. I had thought now, perhaps, wasn’t the time to ask, that I ought to wait a little longer, but it seems I was wrong.”
“You were. I want to be with you, you want to be with me. Everything’s right in the universe, so you can quit worrying.” Alfred said with his lips against that small, private smile of Arthur’s that always made him feel like he was something special, something secret and treasured. He tried to deepen the kiss only to have Arthur push him away. Confused, Alfred dropped his hands to Arthur’s shoulders, searched his strange and almost queasy expression for an explanation as to why they weren’t making out like teenagers against the living window. “Um, do I need to go brush my teeth or something? I was kinda thinking we were having a big romantic moment here….”
“Idiot,” Arthur taunted weakly, gaze flitting everywhere but to Alfred as he swallowed once, twice, three time and said, “Not that it’s any surprise, but I don’t quite think you understand me.”
Alfred laughed, ducking his head to try and catch Arthur’s eyes. “So, uh, guess you had better explain it to me then? Because I thought we just established we were on the same page.”
“I suppose we’re about to find out,” Arthur murmured cryptically, the shrill edge in his voice making Alfred’s palms sweat and his knees lock.
“Find out what? I’m totally confused here, Artie. ” Alfred babbled with sudden anxiety, fingers digging into Arthur’s shoulders until he finally looked up, expression tight with wary hopefulness.
“Perhaps if you could stop talking long enough for me to get a word in edgewise.”
Alfred mimed zipping his lip. “Shutting up now.”
“Praise be for small miracles.” Arthur sighed and squared his shoulders like he was one of Alfred’s graduate students getting ready to defend five years of slaving in the lab. Alfred tried to smile at Arthur the way he smiled at them, but he was almost positive he looked more wild than reassuring.
“I realize this may seem sudden, that six months is hardly any time at all, but there are days I feel I have loved you all my life,” Arthur said slowly, licking his way around the words and staring at Alfred with such seriousness that Alfred though he might be the first person alive to truly experience spontaneous combustion. Arthur smiled at him, shy and sweet, and took his hand. “I loved you first when we were both young fools who thought the world would never stop being ours for the taking. I loved you next when we each cared for others. I loved you even when I told myself I did not. Then I loved you again and thought I loved in vain. Now I love you just as you are, here with me, and through it all, I have learned one thing.”
With his free hand, Alfred thumbed at the corners of his eyes, wiping away errant tears. His heart was racing like he’d just run a marathon and then jumped off a cliff for fun, Arthur’s words filling him with a reckless, paralyzing sort of joy and wonder as he gave Arthur a watery smile and asked, “Yeah? What’s that?”
Alfred watched Arthur bend to kiss his knuckles, watched as Arthur didn’t stop bending, didn’t stop the force of his downward motion until he was on his knees and cradling Alfred’s hand between his own, still smiling at Alfred like he was both precious and completely ridiculous. Alfred wanted to ask what the heck was happening but he’d apparently forgotten all the languages he’d ever known and he was too busy veering between trying to understand what was going on and trying not to break into hysterical laughter to do anything more than just blink, stare, and listen to anything and everything Arthur wanted to say to him.
Arthur kissed his fingertips and murmured:
“Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.”
Arthur finished speaking and Alfred sank to his knees, kissing Arthur’s happy, anxious mouth with all the things he’d never be able to say half as well as Shakespeare, with all the feelings he had that would never sound as good as poetry on Arthur’s tongue, with all the hope that Arthur would forgive him if it took just a little while longer before he had anything coherent to say at all.
“Wait,” Arthur said, laughing breathlessly and clutching at Alfred with hands that were shaking like Alfred’s legs. “Wait. You didn’t let me finish.”
“Damn, Artie. You keep telling me not to kiss you and I’m going to get a complex,” Alfred teased, burying his head in Arthur’s shoulder to try to keep from falling entirely apart.
“Do try not to be stupid when I am attempting to be romantic.” Arthur dislodged Alfred from his hiding place, shaking his head and holding him at arms’ length until Alfred was steady and silent, all thoughts once more drowned out by the hammering of his heart and the wild rush of nervous joy he felt as he watched Arthur’s hand drop from his shoulder to fumble in his pocket.
“Oh my God.” Alfred mumbled, time stretching out before him second by second while Arthur’s fingers were hidden, lost in his pocket and stealing what little remained of Alfred’s sanity, because there was absolutely no way this was happening.
Arthur was rambling, his hand still stuck in his pocket, “I realize my timing could be better. That maybe I should have waited for a five-star hotel or used one of those awful Jumbo-trons you seem to like so much, but I spent too many years not asking you what was in my heart, so here and now, I would ask you this.”
“Oh my God.” There was a box in Alfred’s face. Tiny and not at all made of cardboard and there was no packing tape anywhere in sight and it seemed like Arthur wanted this box opened instead of closed, so with his heart on the verge of collapse and tell-tale wetness on his cheeks, Alfred let his fingers brush velvet and take what Arthur would give him. He wondered if when he came back to his senses he would recall how his hands shook, how he could only think it was a damned shame he couldn’t really see Arthur’s face properly because his vision had gone blurry for some reason. Alfred took a breath, searched for the smile that could somehow encompass this moment, the surprise and the happiness that rendered him incapable of doing little more than pleading with deities and slowly, slowly opening a little black box.
“Alfred, you are my ever fixed mark. The star to my wandering soul. I would not have you removed from me for all verse in the world. So, with the constancy of Donne, the passion of Neruda, and the wisdom of Shakespeare, I tell you I love you. With nothing more than my own wishes, my hopes, and my own heart, I ask if you will marry me.”
Arthur’s eyes were very green, bright and undeniable like the silver glint of a simple band that Alfred had a sneaking suspicion was made out of titanium because it was strong like steel and Alfred had always had a fondness for a good metal. It was smooth to the touch and just as he knew it was his kind of alloy, Alfred knew he’d take that ring out of its box and when he could think in complete sentences again, he’d look inside and see something beautiful and so wonderfully, perfectly Arthur etched in its permanence.
And because he wanted to feel Arthur’s words against his skin, wanted to know the weight of such a promise, to have this one anchor—his very own fixed variable to carry with him all his days—Alfred found the smile that would always belong only to Arthur and said,
“Yes. Absolutely, ever-fixedly, 100%, yes.”
Alfred discovered that the ring was as perfect as the taste of a salty kiss and the tangle of bodies on a cold, apartment floor surrounded by twenty boxes full of lives well lived and a single, forgotten little box that promised a lifetime well-lived and well-loved yet to be written.
~~
The End <3
Shakespeare’s Sonnet 116 is to be credited for the title and Arthur’s proposal.
Thanks for reading and being with me for a time in this AU I adore so dearly.