Love's Mercy

1 Lysandre

"Alfred, Alfred..." the Prince's voice called, it was distant. "Alfred, my love."

A hand across my face, a voice I once knew. Stone, but it is not cold. No, warmer. A diamond. Alfred awoke with his head uneasy. Where am I?

"However did you fall to sleep here, Alfred?" the Prince laughed lightly. "Our age must begin to reach our bodies." He curled a finger about Alfred's golden hair, and smiled gently down to him.

"Lysandre..." Alfred at last opened his eyes, reluctant as he were to think it must be he would leave such a sweet dream. Alfred sat forward. "Lysandre? I- I am sorry."

"Apologize not, I am only glad I found you." Lysandre's hand fell to his shoulder, and Alfred looked to it. Diamonds upon each finger, the sunlight in which they catch. Beautiful. That is right, I remember where I am.

"Yes." Alfred smiled, and twined his fingers with Lysandre's. "I am glad you have. I did not even know I slept."

"What a dream you must have been in."

Alfred looked at where he had found himself; the Prince's studio, in the chair in a corner he so often sat to watch his beloved as he painted. Watching ever as he did until the sun fell beyond the glass in which enclosed the room, but all at once opened to him with their translucence the world beyond his palace. Alfred loved how the light of the faded day would every time, without fail, match the colors of his Prince's long hair; often tied, ever to fall about his lovely face. Sometimes, Alfred would stand. He would put away the book he had occupied himself with in the meantime that Lysandre worked, and mend that of his curls that the Prince would brush away without having taken a moment to tie back himself. Only then would Lysandre pause in his craft, look to Alfred, and smile as he whispered gratitude. Perhaps he would set away the one brush he ever held near, and bid his taller lover come to his height so he might kiss his cheek, or meet as equals, further until they had both forgotten their original preoccupations.

I love this place, Alfred thought. "I love you," he said to the man that held him.

Lysandre became of a red flush that nearly equaled that of his hair. "I love you, Alfred."

"I dreamt that I..." he began, but the memory seemed to have already drifted.

"Yes?"

"That we danced," Alfred said, but he did not think it was the truth. "We danced, and we were surrounded by our friends. Your sister was there, and she laughed as we passed one another." Lysandre smiled. "Maurice at last held Sivan, and I think even M-" He stopped.

My head! Alfred's hand grasped to his hair, and the room had reeled as a ship does rock against a dreadful wave. "A-ah," he breathed, and the Prince had shifted from where he sat upon the chair's arm.

"Alfred, what is it?" Lysandre's voice came worried.

Alfred looked upwards at the concern upon Lysandre's face, and it seemed the ache had fully subsided. "It is nothing, I suppose. For a moment, I felt faint."

"Are you ill, my love?" Lysandre held the back of his hand to Alfred's cheek.

"No, sir. Thank you." Alfred smiled wanly, taking Lysandre's hand away so he might stand. 

Lysandre seemed hesitant to let him free, but relented. "It will be dark soon."

"Yes. I've had a meal brought for you slept so soundly, I couldn't dare to wake you until it arrived."

"You are kind, my love, but I might wait but a while longer." Alfred regarded the gilded cart made of mirrors and metal that supported two large cloches, surrounded by smaller silver dishes of... he could not tell.