The Wings of a Butterfly

WhinnieRichards pointed me at Julian's surname. The name 'Stuart' wasn't properly chosen for this story. So I changed it into Lewis! Thank you for correcting me! *kiss*

.:16:.

The servant made a curtsy, and mumbled something about guests, asking for Mr. Lewis. They were waiting on the stairs, outside. She hadn’t let them in. They looked odd, she added, apologetically.

“Your friends?” Frederick asked, perching up.

“I believe so!” Julian quickly finished his cup of coffee, and wiped his mouth. “Come; we’ll see who they are.”

They were odd, Frederick agreed. He stood behind Julian as the man opened the door, peeking over his shoulder. Odd, but happy to see each other. They laughed and slapped each other’s shoulders, all talking through one and other.

“Frederick, my love, this is Greg, and that is Simon. Guys, meet Hon. Frederick Vane. And mind your manners.”

The young scientists bowed deeply. Frederick looked at them. They were dressed like common Londoners, not noblemen, yet their clothes were new and clean. They were pale rather than tanned, and their hands looked soft. Frederick put one hand on a hip, and rubbed his chin.
Julian was a nobleman, but he looked strong and was tanned. These two civilians were pale and soft, as if they never went outside. That world was upside down!
“Welcome,” he eventually said, shaking his head a bit. “Please, come in, and join us for breakfast.” They looked hungry. Perhaps he should give them full English breakfast instead of toast. He decided to ask his cook to make a simple buffet, yet he asked only two servants at the table.

At the table with view on the garden, Frederick drank tea while the two new men ate their nutritious breakfast. He listened to the conversation, but understood only part of it. He observed the two. Greg was a chubby man, with thin blond hair and grey eyes. His manners were impeccable, and they seemed natural to him. Simon, on the other hand, was different. He had manners, but only because he concentrated on them. He never put his knife down between bites, and barely swallowed before he spoke. He was wearing round, metal eyeglasses. Frederick had seen glasses like that before, but these seemed refined. Strange, for a man like that to wear such delicate eyeglasses...
As Greg was chubby, Simon was thin. It made no difference for their appetite. They cleaned their plates, using bread to scoop up the final bits of sauce, and washed it away with coffee.

“Ah... Thank you very much, Mr. Vane,” Greg sighed contentedly. “I was very hungry.”

“Yes, thank you, Mr. Vane,” Simon nodded. “Good coffee...”

By now, Frederick was used to the odd manner of speaking. He smiled friendly. “My pleasure, I’m sure. The coffee is Julian’s recipe. He likes to interfere in the kitchen.”

“It’s good to see you here, guys,” Julian said with a broad grin. “I lost some sleep over our plans.”

“This morning I woke up screaming,” Greg grinned a bit awkwardly. “It suddenly seemed so definitive; it scared the hell out of me.”

“We have a lot of work to do,” Simon said. “I can’t wait to start. We will probably ask you where we can get stuff we couldn’t take with us. Do you know the city, Julian?”

“I haven’t visited it yet. But I’m sure Frederick will be able to tell you everything you need to know. Don’t you?”

“It will be my duty and pleasure,” Frederick assured them. “If you go into the city, gentlemen, please be careful. It’s a hazardous place, especially at night. I am willing to let my coach carry you, but my servants will not stay.”

“Stay low, and you’ll be fine,” Julian said soothingly.

“What will you be creating, gentlemen?” Frederick used the same sweet tone of voice, combined with big blue eyes, which made him so successful with Julian. These two appeared to be just as easy. They stammered and blushed as they tried to be vague about the answer. “Oh, please, gentlemen,” the nobleman insisted. “You can tell me; I know you come from a different world...”

“Did you tell him?” Greg asked Julian.

“Frederick!” Julian protested. “Don’t lie to my friends. They--”

“Tell me what, Julian? Do I now have three guests, keeping me from the truth about your origins?” His face had turned red, and his eyes were no longer innocent. He looked annoyed. “I wish to know what you are inventing,” he said, almost angrily. “If you do not tell me, I will make sure this is your first and your last day on my estate.”

“They’re making a machine to travel through time,” Julian said with a low growl. The two scientists had backed away a little. “Alright? Happy now?”

Frederick blinked. “A what to do what...?” he asked blandly. He looked bored rather than shocked, as if he doubted his own ears.

“A machine. A device, to travel from one time era to another. To visit the future, or the past.”

“Again, I can hear you speak, but your words make no sense to me.” Slowly, he turned to face the other two. Greg and Simon tried to avoid his gaze, pretending they were inspecting the tablecloth and cutlery. The mere fact they didn’t smile or corrected Julian said enough to him. “Why would you make such a device, Julian?”

Julian sighed. “We have our reasons, my angel.”

Pulling his mouth in a stubborn stripe, Frederick looked hard at the man who had been his lover for months, now. It was as if he didn’t know him, anymore. He made sure his servants were away, and straightened his back. “I wish you would not lie to me, Julian,” he said slowly. “I wish you would tell me the one truth. You have made me a promise, to tell me the truth when the time was right. Now is that time. Inform me!” He banged his fist on the table, startling the others.

“Gentlemen,” Julian said with another sigh, “do you have something on you to show Frederick? I’m sure you do. I bet one of you couldn’t part from his cellphone.”

Greg chuckled in disbelief, but Simon averted his eyes, and cleared his throat. “I have my cellphone with me,” he mumbled.

“What?” Greg snapped, jerking his head towards him. “Are you crazy?”

“What is a cellphone?” Frederick asked, again with that bored, bland expression.

“This is a cellphone.” Simon pulled it out of his pocket, and dropped it in front of the nobleman. “It’s the latest model with touch screen and all the apps you can think of. The battery has a record lifespan, and it’s made from a single piece of aluminium.”

Frederick had stopped listening. He didn’t understand a word the man said. The small, rectangular... thing had lit up in front of him, and he stared at it as if it would explode. “What does it do?” he asked when he found his voice again. Carefully, he reached out with a finger, and he poked it. He jerked his hand back as it changed in colour, squeaking in shock.

Julian took his hand, and the phone. He sat closer. “Where we come from, everybody owns something like this,” he said. “We can contact each other with it. It’s like those letters, appearing in your study, but then we simply speak, and the other can hear it, no matter where they are.”

Fascinated, Frederick leaned against Julian’s shoulder. The man touched the colours, and different images appeared. It was as if he looked at the pages of a book, but without the paper and all those small letters, leaving only colourful illustrations. They were amazingly lifelike. “I hear no voices,” he said. “Where are the voices?”

“Unfortunately, it doesn’t work here,” Julian said. “But I won’t bore you with telling you how it works, yet.”

Frederick pouted. “Do I have to wait until the time is right, again?” he asked a little sadly. To his surprise, Julian kissed him, and smiled.

“No. I will tell you everything you want to know, but sometimes it’s just too complex even for me to understand. I know it needs satellites in the sky, which you can’t see because they are too far away, but they haven’t been invented yet.”

“They have not been invented yet? But then how can you use it? How do you know they will be invented, and they... Oh,” he stopped rambling. Suddenly, he understood. “You are from another time...” he said quietly. He gasped, and put up wide eyes. “That is why you are so strange! Oh!” He fanned his face with a hand, his heart thumping.

“Leave us, guys,” Julian said to his friends. He gave the phone back to Simon. “Put that away safely. I have a lot to talk about with my love.”

The men were obviously happy to leave. When they were alone, Frederick took another tea, and drank it slowly to calm down his heart. His mind was raging. He had so many questions; this was so exciting!
“Julian, Julian! You come from another time? When? How did you get here? Why are you here?” He trembled so hard he had to put his cup down, or he would drop it. “Tell me all! Have no secrets for me! Please, I beg of you!”

“Lower your voice, Frederick,” Julian urged. “It’s a secret. No one should know about it. They would lock us up, I’m sure.”

With a lot of willpower, Frederick calmed down enough to speak quietly. He pulled his chair against Julian’s, and leaned over to him. “Speak,” he demanded.

“Okay... You ask for it, and I will tell you. I was bored, love, a long time ago. Greg and Simon came to me, asking for money, so they could make a machine to travel through time. I invested in their project. I mean, I gave them all the money they needed.”

“I understand what you mean,” the blonde waved impatiently. “Continue.”

“They made the device. It looks a bit like that cellphone, only much, much bigger. It had the size of your study. In fact... we made it in the same room as your study, only two and a half century in the future. And we saw you.”

“You saw me? How?”

“On a large screen, as we call it. Your mirror in your study...? We saw you in the mirror. I saw you. And...” Julian looked at his nails. “And I fell in love with you.”

Frederick's jaw had dropped. He thought back at the strange feeling he had as he looked in the mirror, before Julian had come in his house. It had felt as if he was watched. He had looked behind the mirror, even... And now he heard he had been watched indeed. Julian had seen him. He didn’t understand how, but he believed him. “My mirror is a glass? A window?”

“Yes,” Julian nodded. You could put it that way.”

“You gave me roses through my mirror?”

“Uhm... Sort of. We pushed it through a... A gap. An invisible hole.”

No wonder his servants hadn’t seen anything, as it was not visible. “I felt very warm, every time I found one of your presents,” he said quietly. “Did you come through that same hole?”

“Yes. It took a lot of preparation, though. We don’t dress like you, and our money is different. I had to make everything as accurate as possible, before I could come to you. And there was no way back, because it requires a machine to open the hole. I took a large risk for you.”

“Did you know me?” Frederick asked. He felt a bit dizzy, and kept Julian’s arm between his hands as he looked at him.

“Not really, no. I knew your name, and I knew you were beautiful. I was, no, I am in love with you. That was enough for me. I wanted to meet you. Nothing was more important to me.”

“I could have rejected you! What would you have done?”

Julian nodded. He pecked a kiss on his lips, and sighed. “I don’t know what I would have done, Frederick... But yes, it was a huge risk. I am very happy you didn’t reject me.”

“You were a gift, to me. You with your strange manners and your handsome physique. Thank you for taking the risk, Julian.” He offered his lips. As they kissed, he felt remarkable calm. It was difficult to apprehend it all, but there were more events in his life he didn’t understand. He accepted it. With the acceptance, more questions came up.
“What do you wear, in your time?”