Alexos’ body was, understandably, somewhat sore. Settled back in his seat in the train carriage, he had his good leg extended and resting on a newspaper on the opposite seat, his other foot on the floor. Harry was seated beside him and paging idly through his own paper.

Despite having been so heavily exercised, first with Felice and then with Harry, he’d slept the best he had in a long, long while. Harry hadn’t even tied him to the bedpost, as Alexos had initially recommended – every time Alexos would begin to stir, Harry would simply band his arm around his chest and pull him closer, turn Alexos’ somnambulistic intentions to affection instead.

He remembered, dreamily, Harry’s mouth against his cheek, his hand on Harry’s chest. He remembered the weight of Harry on the bed beside him – he had been right, the mattress did bow heavily, but for all his lower back ought to be aching, it was somewhat drowned out.

Most of what Alexos felt, despite all the sorenesses from one source and another, was satisfaction, and pure, unadulterated contentment.

“There’s going to be an eclipse in November,” said Harry, turning a page.

Alexos, his eyes closed, his arms crossed over his chest, his hat tipped forward to hide his face, hummed noncommittally. “Excited about it?”

“It’s a novelty,” Harry said. “Would you like to see it?”

“With you? I’d go and see anything. Even Cherry Flintman’s next performance.”

He heard Harry’s quiet laugh, felt his arms shift with his smile.

The new tattoo on his ankle felt fresh and sore – the sharp, discomforting pain of the numerous stabs of the needle through his skin was actually in many ways rather pleasant, a distraction from the other pains in his body.

“How’s your ear?” Harry asked.

“It feels fine,” Alexos said. “A little uncomfortable, maybe – I’m rather uncomfortably aware of my own blood flow – but it doesn’t feel inflamed. It looks alright, doesn’t it?”

“It looks spectacular,” said Harry in a rich, intimate tone, and Alexos opened his eyes to look sideways at him, unable not to smirk at Harry’s expression. Despite the pallor of his hangover – he’d been somewhat green this morning, and Alexos had laughed at him very quietly, not wanting to worsen his headache – he was smiling in a lovestruck sort of way.

Alexos reached up and touched the ring through his ear, dangling from the lobe. He’d only had the one ear pierced, his left, and Harry was, infuriatingly, quite correct in his estimation in the conversation they’d had weeks ago – a piercing did indeed distract from the size of his ears.

It had been a whim, a silly one, whilst Harry was in the process of getting tattooed after Alexos’ own tattoo was finished up. One of the young men in the shop, built like an ancient tree and with all sorts  of barbels and rings tattooed through each and every spare bit of skin, had been more than happy to give it to him.

It looked quite handsome, he thought. He’d acted like some sort of peacock once they’d gone back to the hotel to get their things, unable to look at his tattoo under its protective bandage, and turned his head one way and the other, examining the dangling ring, the golden shine of it, the way it offset the brown of his eyes and brought out the lighter flecks in them.

“I look like a Victorian,” Alexos said. “But for the tailoring of my suit, you’d think me born fifty years earlier than I was.”

“I’d still have you.”

“With five-and-fifty years between us instead of just the five?”

“Absolutely.”

“You’re a fool.”

“A fool in love.”

“Well, I’m not.”

“You’re not in love? Mr Fox. You wound me.”

“Oh, I’m in love, alright, Mr Sutton, don’t you worry about that. I’m just not a fool about it.”

“A genius, are you?”

“Something like that.”

“A man should kiss you.”

“A man might well get us arrested.”

“A man can wait until we’re in private.”

Alexos laughed, shaking his head – he quietened the laughter as soon as he saw Harry’s expression tighten a little, his nose wrinkling, his brow furrowing.

“Is it so bad? The hangover?”

“The headache is lingering,” Harry muttered, rubbing the side of his nose with his knuckle. “I used to be able to drink like a sailor and feel no ill-effect whatsoever.”

“You just need practice, that’s all. Why not try to keep apace with me?”

“Because I need to be able to remain standing whilst going about my duties, for one. I’d be insensible if I drank the way you did.”

“Some bodies can take more punishment than others, dear butler of mine.”

“Some can indeed,” Harry said, voice full of implication, and even without looking, Alexos knew that his eyes were roving up and down his body. “When your mother next throws some soirée at the house, we might invite Larry and some of those actors as well – Mr Garibaldi, Ms Bear, Ms Holland.”

“And Mr Samuels, perhaps,” Alexos said, surprised at how easy it seemed to him, the idea of it, inviting people to his home for one of his mother’s awful parties and… it not being so awful.

“Perhaps,” Harry said softly. Shifting, he extended one of his own legs, and Alexos opened his eyes to look – his left leg. They had their tattoos mirroring one another, the same tattoo reflected on each of the sides of their legs, though the artist had artfully made the same design a little larger on Harry’s thicker calf. Two bottles of red wine, one standing up – Harry’s, vintage of 1888 - and the other on its side – Alexos’, marked 1893. The bottles of wine didn’t exactly match up with the ephemera on Harry’s left leg, the ship’s wheel and other assorted nautical tattoos, but it was a bit more cohesive than it might have been with the marine mammals and creatures on the other side.

Alexos didn’t know that he had the strategy and patience to have such a beautiful set of themes and movement across his tattoos the way that Harry had – all he knew was that he wanted tattoos on every inch of him that he could keep hidden, and maybe more tattoos after that.

“Would you like an engagement ring,” Harry asked in a quiet voice, and Alexos was surprised at how his heart beat faster, at how his skin felt abruptly hot, his cheeks flushing, at just those words, “or is the one in your ear good enough?”

“The one in my ear is fine, thank you,” Alexos said. “Would you like an engagement ring for your finger, or should I buy you one to put… somewhere else?”

He heard Harry’s intake of breath, and he was just readying himself to say something more, to tease him, but the door of the carriage opened.

“Is this seat taken?”

“By all means, sir, please,” Harry said. “My employer is asleep – he needs to keep his leg extended, what with his injury.”

“Oh, that’s fine, fine,” said the other man sitting down. “War wound, was it?”

Harry made a noncommittal noise, and Alexos feigned sleep until he wasn’t feigning it any longer – the second time in as many days he’d fallen asleep at Harry’s side.

They travelled home together, and when they were finally in private again, they kissed, and kissed, and kissed… until the bell sounded for dinner, and they came apart again.

“Are any of your friends builders, by any chance?” Alexos asked as Harry helped him on with his jacket. “Someone who could put a secret door between our rooms?”

“I’ve been making inquiries already for a month, sir.”

“Very good, Harry. Very good indeed.”

FIN

(for now)