To the enchanter’s grand surprise, David does return, and rather quickly at that, too.
He had expected David to be gone for days—or, forever—yet, the bard arrived once nightfall come, and now, they are both huddled together in Alexander’s cave, around a fire he’d made minutes ago.
As David reads the instructions given to him by his village’s apothecary, Alexander observes him through lidded eyes, with curiosity bubbling in his gaze.
The bard’s brows are knitted together with pure concentration. He purses his lips and squints at the paper. It is adorable in the strangest of ways, how much of his person he is putting into the mere idea of helping Alexander—from merely seeing David, one would suppose him to be in charge of healing a King, not a mere stranger, that he only met days ago.
“Done!” the bard finally exclaims, and Alexander must hold himself back from yelping out of surprise. He had been so engrossed in taking in the sight of the flames casting mystical orange hues that flickered across David’s now-bare, muscular arms, that he had not even noticed the bard had finished with going through the yellowing scroll that he has just closed.
“Alexander?” David leans in. He frowns again, then tilts his head. “Your face is red.” The bard’s voice is quiet. He is close—so close, in fact, that if Alexander were to shift slightly forward, their hands would touch. “What’s wrong?” David asks him once more, after a short, silent moment. “Are you ill?”
Before the bard can reach out to press the mid of his palm across Alexander’s forehead, the young enchanter grabs his wrist, and sets it down by the stone that he sits on.
Outside the cave, the ravenous cries of starving birds can be heard all around, accompanied by the song of crickets and other wild things, which lurk in the darkness, as every nightly creature tends to do around here.
Alexander can feel no traces of the spirits that had previously been intent on needlessly nagging him on the daily. Perhaps, they have grown shy, since the arrival of David’s presence?
“I’m fine,” Alexander says, though it comes out as a croak—a weak, uncertain statement that David apparently has a hard time believing, since he is giving Alexander quite the odd look.
“Are you sure?” the bard asks.
And Alexander finds himself nodding, and saying, “Yes, please, let us”—he averts his gaze—“simply get on with it. It is… quite late. I am…” The enchanter gulps. “Not used to being up and about, during such hours,” Alexander says, even though that is not why his face has warmed—nor is it the reason for the jitters running through his nimble fingers, that tap at his knees in nervous, anxious rhythms only his skin can hear.
“O-okay.” For the first time in a while, David seems unsure of himself. As he fumbles around to grab the healing balm for Alexander’s injuries, he grabs his own seat by its edge—a small, wooden stool; he scoots closer to Alexander, until their knees brush up against one another.
The bard smells of flowers picked in faraway fields, foreign ointments, and merry meals whose scents Alexander remembers from festivals he had attended when he was far younger than today.
Alexander shuts his eyes. The enchanter holds out his hands before the bard, who takes them—gently, as if Alexander’s skin could tear like silk or porcelain vials.
David dips his fingers into the small jar he’d been carrying, full of cream the shade of lighter olives. “I, uh— I’m touching y-your hand now,” David mutters. His head hangs low in concentration; his eyes are fixated on Alexander’s scars. “S-sorry,” is the final word he blurts, before his fingers ghost atop Alexander’s palm in a delicate manner, as he softly rubs the lotion into the enchanter’s hand in slow, and gentle motions.
The bard is very good at this, Alexander won’t deny that.
Alexander is also thankful for David’s suggestion; this is indeed much better than using his own energy on trying to mindlessly heal himself, when he barely has a grasp of what his magic can or cannot do.
As David reaches Alexander’s wrist, warmth pools across the young enchanter’s chest. He does not quite understand, why it is that this is happening to him, but Alexander feels the need to tighten and press his legs together, as if to create some sort of relief from… this odd sensation of heat that David has awoken within him.
“I’m not hurting you, am I?” David pauses. He glances upward at Alexander, from where he had been kneeling before.
Alexander is ashamed at the way his heart skips, when he looks into the bard’s eyes, then says, “No.”
The young enchanter shakes his head. His lip quivers with anticipation—and how he misses the bard’s touch, the way the pressure of the soft strokes he’d left against his skin felt. “No,” he says it again, a tad louder this time.
The bard holds Alexander’s hand; he gives it a single, brief squeeze. “No?”
“You were not hurting me, David.”
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