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Francis had seen the music box on Arthur’s desk several hundred times before. It was a normal wooden square box, to Francis’s eyes, and thus the only remarkable thing about it, if there was anything, would be the sound produced upon opening the lid. Francis had never stopped to wonder about its meaning to Arthur, even though it obviously was important enough to keep through all these years and move it with Arthur himself from manor to manor and flat to flat.
He had never heard it played throughout the steadier phase of his relationship with the nation representative of England and, to a degree, the UK. And, well, if he had heard it before those years, then frankly he had forgotten. Immortality didn’t bring a photographic memory with it, after all.
In any case, Francis had never thought much about it. Whenever he was in Arthur’s bedroom, there was much more urgent things to concern himself with that Arthur’s antique possessions — namely, how to get to the bed without tripping and falling and where to latch his mouth to in order to earn a keening moan from Arthur. All in all, very pressing matters.
It wasn’t until one summer night that Francis finally found out the music the box contained. There was no dramatic lead-up to the revelation, really, even though almost everything Arthur was involved in had to have at least a bit of drama. It was how England was, no matter how much he denied his flare for theatrics. (”I’m not dramatic!” Arthur would yell, dramatically, as he grabbed Francis by the collar, dramatically.)
It was an ungodly hour in the morning, somewhere between three and four a.m., also known as the hours when neighbours making noise was a legitimate reason for contemplating murder. But rowdy neighbours hadn’t roused Francis from his slumber — rather, it was the lack of sound from beside him as well as the vanished warmth from his arms. Confused and sleepy, Francis spent five minutes trying to locate Arthur in the bed. Surely the other didn’t just up and vanish on him—
Once more clear-headed, Francis got up to look for Arthur, slightly worried. Washroom breaks never did take Arthur that long, if that was the case here.
The flat — for they were spending a weekend in Arthur’s London abode — certainly wasn’t the most expensive or glamorous one, but Francis thought it compensated for Arthur’s otherwise expensive taste in housing, regardless of how England’s boss(es) felt about such an arrangement. The living room (sitting room, as Arthur insisted) was conjoined with the kitchen, and from bedroom door one could view the area almost completely and in the dark any sources of light highlighted most of it.
So it didn’t take much more than the required five steps and the turn of a doorknob for Francis to find Arthur, although the first thing Francis noticed wasn’t, in fact, his boyfriend lying on the sofa with wrinkled pajamas and a cup of tea on the table beside.
It was the music.
Describing music with words alone wasn’t impossible, and Francis certainly had a way with those, but at 3.34 a.m. while still half-asleep and in a trance-like state it was a little difficult to say something other than breathtaking about the gentle notes that floated from the music box glowing green in Arthur’s hands. Francis stared at the gentle green glow highlighting Arthur’s gently smiling visage. Accompanied with the gentle tune reminiscent of wind chimes, the sight was inhumanely beautiful. Magic in action in so many ways.
Arthur’s eyes flickered upwards, and the dark green glowed translucent from the light the box emanated. If there was ever a time that Arthur looked like the immortal supernatural being that they both were, then it was now — because that light was out of this world, surely. Cold and warm intermittently, those eyes beckoned him like the sirens in ancient mythologies.
Arthur pushed himself up slowly, hands cradling the still playing music box, and made a grunt that Francis took as come hither. And who was he to deny such a charming request from his beloved, hm?
The clear chimes of music soothed Francis and he found himself at peace as he settled beside Arthur, head tucked against Arthur’s stiff shoulder. Summer days long gone, halcyon times long vanished, Francis thought as ancient memories were stirred, and he eyed at Arthur’s face to look for hints as to why Arthur wasn’t in bed.
Bloodshot eyes crinkled with Arthur’s contented smile, and even those eyebrows looked almost peaceful nestled over Arthur’s eyes. Large tee that revealed one of Arthur’s shoulders did very little to hide the aura he oozed, Francis mused and cuddled up closer, thinking of summer days and flowers tucked in hair and offended screams of “frog” and obscenities as well as kisses pressed on round button noses and lingering touches on a face not much younger than his own.
One day, Francis mused as he closed his eyes, he would dance with Arthur to this music that so clearly reflected the innocence they had both once had.