Epilogue
5 years later…
Past tall mountains and trees; past raging rivers and gaping valleys, there stood a fine house with quartzite walls and a charming yellow roof surrounded by dancing blossoms and gentle pines.
If one looked into its long windows, they would cast their sights on a man leaning over his desk, his attention sharp and piercing on the parchment as his hand appeared to be but a blur.
Julian had found himself recently recovering from a long and draining mental block and when he had woken up at 5 in the morning, the sky still unsure whether it was a charming blue or a mellow violet, he eagerly leaped from bed and rushed to his desk.
The murmur of the quill’s nib tattooing the parchment was a subtle lull in the bedroom, a murmur that led to a body that was under the warm covers to stir and rise from slumber.
“Is it so hard to go to bed?”
Julian chuckled, his grasp stilling on that dedicated quill. “No, but it was quite difficult for me to get started on this. I can’t afford to let it just evade me, Erwin,” he said with a mock huff, stifling a moan as lips began to tease the tender skin where his neck and shoulder met.
“You’re a smart man, a smart man with money, too, you don’t need to be writing your research things right now. There are vastly more important things to do.”
“Money that isn’t mine , you mean. And my ‘research things’ are botanical studies over the exact configuration of the-” he paused when he heard the other man roll his eyes deeply and toss his head back with exaggerated boredom.
“Well, leave those… studies for another time! It’s cold and I want something to warm my poor soul up!”
“Not even a fire could heat up that piece of coal you call a heart.”
“Oh, Julian!” Erwin gasped, hand pressed on his chest. “How blasphemous, absolutely cruel, and-”
“Yes, yes, I’m coming to bed!”
A sharp smirk settled on his lover’s face. “Thank you.”
Julian suppressed a goofy grin as he organised the askew stack of papers on the desk into a tidy pile.
Oh, the things he did to please, really!
Preminger really didn’t expect this to be his life.
He had once wished about sitting about in golden seats, decked out in dazzling suits, with a crown propped right on his head.
He had once wished for luxuries to be handed out to him without one word, for the biggest of parties and galas in his name, and for the halls to be filled with his glorious portraits.
They were mighty illusions of grandeur, of wealth, of that power he had craved since his boyhood years.
But he found something infinitely better.
He looked down at a slumbering Julian, whose face was held in a moment of bliss and contentment. The ribbons of the morning sunlight dappled onto the man’s skin like paint thrown on a canvas without caution.
He traced little maps on Julian’s bare shoulder, letting the soft warmth of his body transfer to his own fingers.
The quiet in their bedroom.
The softness of the light sneaking onto the floors.
The whispers of their breaths curling together into one as the winter breeze tenderly passed by.
Yes, this was better than any crown or new silken suit.
And to think it had all been because of his own plotting!
Maybe he should’ve gone about kidnapping princesses sooner!
But upon remembering when he finally told Julian the truth… the complete truth… which meant absolutely no double sided language or attempts at excuses, and how the man’s face fell into a watery smile…
Preminger couldn’t bear to see something like that again.
He really could not.
Did he expect it? Of course he did.
But having an expectation was never going to be the same as actually doing the blasted thing!
But to skip over the unpleasant details of regret, heartbreak, longing, and multiple attempts to get him back, Preminger now was in the best case situation that no amount of planning could account for.
“Stop thinking,” Julian mumbled, his voice distorted by slumber and lack of use over the night.
“I wasn’t thinking.”
“Oh, I think I see a new wrinkle!”
“Where?!” Preminger cried out, making his way out of bed before Julian pulled him back in.
“Nowhere, I was just joking around,” the young man laughed, dodging a pillow.
“Go back to sleep, you numbskull,” Preminger said with a huff.
“You were the one on the verge of an entire rampage over a single wrinkle.”
Something that Preminger had learned along the way when it came to supposed learning men was that they never really understood the skill of keeping quiet.
Luckily for the both of them, Preminger was well rounded in that skill.
And so, he leaned in to kiss his lover, shutting the canopy curtains with a full hearted laugh.
He idly remembered those passing memories of brilliance and chess and simply chuckled internally.
Trust him, Erwin Preminger, to outdo himself in all that one could think of!
No, no, he didn’t care about those needs to succeed and gain some heavenly divine glory.
This was enough.
And the free gardening that Julian always did, that too.
All of it was enough.