#countfrancula

The moment Francis sees the card, quickly leaves his office again, searching about for Arthur. Assuming him to be in his office, it is where he heads. There’s a light feeling in his chest and a soft smile on his face. In his hands he clutches a small bag; Arthur’s gift from him, which he also planned to deliver personally.

When he arrives at Arthur’s office, he knocks softly. “Bonjour, love. You wished to see me?”

Arthur sighed as he set the last of his paperwork for the day down. He had rushed them in order to finish by this time, since due to Francis’ schedule... Well, maybe it was a bit presumptuous of him to think that Francis would come straight to his office right after seeing the note, but somehow he knew that his partner would come up straight away.

It was just so... like him, that’s all.

And, true to his thoughts, he hears the soft knock and voice he knew could only belong to one man. He smiled and stood up, moving the papers away into a filing cabinet. Work was done for today, after all.

“Oh, no need to stop what you’re doing because of me, though I wouldn’t mind if you did~” He chuckled and leaned in to give Arthur a peck on the cheek, leaning over his shoulder. “I just wanted to speak with you, amour.”

There was a question weighing on Francis’ mind, but he was struggling to figure out how to ease into the conversation. “That and I wished to see you! Perhaps give you a break from your work, though I know it is important.”

“Well, I am going to drop what I am doing because first, I have enough free time at home to do this later. Second, and more importantly, I care about you more than my work.” He returned the peck with a chuckle and put down his papers, setting them somewhere he could easily see later on when he is returning home.

So when Arthur approached the other man in the mafia headquarters (professionally of course, it wasn’t as if their current status of partnership (what even is it, at this point?) was something public as of yet) he kept a neutral look. He felt anything but neutral internally though, but giddiness isn’t something you really want to see in your mafia leader at headquarters.

“You faring well? Eating properly?” Arthur spoke simply, but the questions held deeper meaning beyond what was said literally.

There’s a moment where Francis’ breath hitches, and he has to take a moment to compose himself. He steps towards Arthur, smiling despite the tears that threaten to drop from his eyes.

“I knew you’d return to me, amour.”

Arthur had to crinkle his brow, scrunching his nose and reaching out to cuff Francis’ softly on the shoulder.

“No need to cry about this, I had faith everyone else would solve the mystery... And I saw how dedicated you were.” He chuckled. It was flattering, honestly, how dedicated Francis became. It tickled his heart into a flutter.

Arthur could hear Francis approach from afar, yet it still caused his heart to skip a beat when he felt the other’s embrace around his waist. He was never going to be used to this, not that he wanted to. There was something refreshing about being caught off-guard for once.

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