We Were Immortals

Chapter 1: The Restricted Section

A half dozen young men sat in a simple row of desks in a very small room. Most of them were from very wealthy families, but one or two of them weren't. Of course, upon first glance, one would never notice, for they all wore suits and very nice ones at that. They all stared attentively at the professor before them, some with quills in hand, others with pencils, jotting down notes on the pieces of paper they had on the desks in front of them. 

Well, except for one of them.

Thomas Painter looked like he was paying just as much attention as everyone else in the room, but he wasn't focused on whatever meaningless thing their professor was droning on about. Instead, he was drawing a scene from a few nights before on the page, and he was smiling all the while.

He didn't have many options with just a pencil. He would have much rather used his oil paints to capture the essence of the night, but it didn't matter to him. The drawing still captured the majesty of that moment. He was especially proud of the shy look he had put on Frederick's face. The drawing was a perfect reminder of that moment, and he captured it on paper in the greatest detail he could muster.

The shy look that Thomas was so proud of was accompanied by a moderate amount of untidy hair atop his head. Below that, Frederick was peeling his shirt off, revealing a slim and muscular figure below it. His jacket and vest had already been removed and discarded into a pile on the pier. He had no shoes or socks on, and a crude drawing of the moon hung above him. It didn't quite match how majestic that moment had truly been, but it was as close as he could get.

He sat there, admiring his work for a few moments before he flipped it over and finally began paying attention to the extremely boring lecture. He took a glance over at Frederick's neatly written notes and began to jot them down on the back of the paper he had been drawing on just mere seconds ago, a delighted smirk covering his face the whole time.

The class continued until finally, he heard the words, "Class dismissed," pour forth from the professor's lips, and he stood up, socking his pencil behind his ear for later use, taking his place by Frederick's side. 

"You're absolutely incorrigible," the other man said, without turning toward Thomas, who shrugged it off and continued sauntering down the hallway. "I should just tell Professor Wheeler that you've been copying my notes."

"But you won't," Thomas said. It wasn't his fault that he enjoyed watching Frederick squirm. It was kind of cute. He watched Frederick wrestle with himself for a few moments before Frederick released an exasperated sigh. He held out his hand and, with a groan, Thomas carefully laid the pencil he had placed behind his ear into the other man's hand.

"How'd you catch me?"

"Some things are just better kept secret," Frederick responded as the two men stepped out of the building and made their way to the university library. 

Without a word of complaint from Thomas, they marched on, their expressions cool and unfeeling. However, inside Frederick's mind, there was a storm brewing. He didn't know what to think of their current expedition into the unknown, but that wasn't what he was worried about. Instead, he was focused on how exactly he was going to get his hands on the book they were desperate to obtain.

They had only heard about it in passing, but it was something that had kept them awake since Thomas had uttered those words that sat in Frederick's mind, swirling, taking up almost every waking moment. He tried to focus on his studies, and it could be said that he was succeeding, however, in reality, he could hardly remember which way was up. My love for you will never die.

What a shock it was to learn that it might not have to.

At a wedding, it's traditionally said that a couple will be bound until death do they part, but what if death never came to them? What if they could go on forever and never leave each other's side? What if they didn't have to hide their love? What if they could have a real wedding? It sounded like a dream, but any dream can become a reality if you try hard enough, and Frederick knew that he was willing to fight tooth and nail to stay by Thomas' side. He'd do whatever it took, and if that meant finding a way to sneak into a library to steal a book about evil creatures and unexplainable phenomena, so be it.