Wow.

Here it is.

The last installment of this fic. Oh my word. It's over. It really is.

Well, here ya'll go. A nice epilogue to close it all out. This is a bit steamier than I usually go but I figured, it's a belated Christmas present/my present to ya'll on my birthday, why not?

Thank you all for sticking with me throughout this entire process, including a near-year hiatus as I tried to work through and get adjusted to college. You have all been wonderful. I will miss you! You are all welcomed to my inbox here or on my Tumblr (can be found on my profile) at any time. Enjoy the rest of this year!

Epilogue

Somehow, they had managed to carry on in secret for over six months. Well, secret was a difficult concept to apply to their relationship. Emma knew as much as she could without him telling her explicitly that he and Mr. Haddock shared the same bed when he was over. He could see the disapproval in her eyes, but also the happiness that he was smiling and content with life. Mrs. Gooding knew, and true to her word, they had not yet heard from her. They were dead to her. Though, Jackson thought, non-existent would be a better word. She refused to acknowledge their existence to anyone according to Jennifer. Sweet, Jenny. She figured it out so quickly, he was surprised it was the first thing she wished to speak to him about when she had visited at the beginning of the new year. Even with her, though, he held back, stating only that the two shared the same feelings for each other. She had nodded, and the topic forever dropped. Friendship carried on for them. He felt Mr. Liely was the same. He doubted that he and Mr. Haddock could be so close and have him not have at least an inkling of their relationship. He wasn't sure of Rachael. In all honesty, he hardly saw her in the past half-year. She had been at boarding school up until June when she went to Paris with a dear girl named Belle she had met and befriended. However, Jackson was sure that a few of the servants at Berk suspected something, especially Mr. Edmund. But, if he knew, he didn't seem to mind, or least see it as his place to mind.

Berk.

He truly did love it here. The grounds were peaceful under the snow and bounding with life when it melted. He had visited early in the new year under the guise of working for Mr. Haddock which he had come to actually do after a few weeks. He found peace in organizing the papers and learning the finances of the land. His mother had been upset that it was distracting him from finding a wife, but when he managed to earn enough money—through generosity that he only knew Henry to possess—to pay off the debt his father owned to Mr. Black, she was more than thrilled with him and the fact that her family now had the house. Mr. Fitzherbert and Mary would surly need it when they returned, she claimed. She had yet to accept that her daughter had little plans of settling in her childhood home outside of Burgess. But, Jackson hoped that it might be a good gift to Sarah's husband when she finally married.

And true to his sentiments, he had come to love summer, especially now as he unlocked the servants door at the back of his room at Berk. Henry had given him the key his first night here, explaining that there was an old servant's passage connecting the two rooms together that he had locked many years ago because he didn't wish for his servants to be hidden, unseen and unappreciated. Now, it served as the bridge between them. During the day they maintained their distance on their separate islands that society demanded, but as soon as the sun set and the night-lights were lit, it brought them together. Though, business travels always managed to interrupt their routine.

The passage was muggy and dank from the humid heat. It suffocated his lungs and smothered the flame of his candle. The heavy air added to his speed as he rushed to the end, wading against its density. Pausing a moment to make sure no one else was in the room, he opened the door. The long lasting sunlight of summer strained through the heavy curtains on the window. Two lamps steadily burned away their oil on either side of the large bed at the center of the room.

Shutting the door, Jackson blew out his candle and set the holder on a nearby bureau. He stepped closer to the bed and peered past the white, gossamer curtains that fell around the four post bed. The quilt and sheets had been pulled down, but no one lay in it. His eyebrows puckered in confusion.

Arms snuck around his waist and pulled him into a bony chest. Warm lips brushed against his collarbone.

Jackson shivered and reached up, tangling his fingers in the auburn hair that fell into his face.

"Mhmm," Henry hummed as he stepped closer. The solid heat of his body molded against Jackson's back.

The young man leaned his head back, opening his neck to the gentleman while at the same time allowing him to press gentle kisses to the shell of the man's ear. A wandering hand rubbed against his stomach before sliding across the plane to his hip. With a firm squeeze, it traveled downwards, following the outside of his thigh. His muscles quivered at the touch torn between shying away and embracing it as the hair underneath his clothes stood on end, stretching to relish in it. Fingers kneaded the tender muscles, ever so slowly making their way to his inner thigh. Jackson curled into the fingers, pushing himself back into the gentleman. His breathing was becoming painful, shooting out of his lungs in quick bursts before he could fill up the organs with a full supply of oxygen.

"You are anxious tonight," he whispered into Henry's hair.

"How can I not be when I see you all day, knowing you are mine but unable to touch you whenever as I want?" he answered quietly. His hot breath ghosted over Jackson's skin; moisture beaded under the gentleman's lips.

The young man was torn. He could curl in more, pulling the man as close into him as possible or stretch his neck back, pulling away from his hard body but giving him greater access to his neck. He compromised and turned around, latching their lips together. The hand on his thigh switched to a more comfortable position as Henry lowered himself, hooked his hands behind his knees and yanked him up. It always surprised him how much muscle was hidden by his lithe stature. Jackson wrapped his legs around the gentleman's waist, melting into him as much as he could when both of their bodies were rigid with rushing blood.

Henry's lips left his to suckle his neck.

He groaned, his fingers digging into the gentleman's shoulders. "Are you just going to tempt me?" he huffed out between pants.

"Yes," came the answer muffled by his skin. Teeth clamped down in the small indent just above his collarbone before a warm tongue swiped over in apology.

Jackson's hips bucked into the other's before he could stop them. But, the shiver that coursed through both of their bodies was too good to pass up doing another time. The lips on his necks stilled. He did it again. The fever that coursed through the lips that blazed over his skin was unbeatable. He never wanted this heat quenched. He thrusted his hips forward again.

"Odin's beard," Henry growled, barely pulling away from his skin.

The young man froze. His blood stilled as he arched an eyebrow. He tried to pull away, but discovered that doing so and separating Henry's lips from his neck was harder than pulling off a leech. But, after a minute, he managed. "'Odin's beard?'" he asked. "That's the first I've heard that. Have I not gotten you that excited before?" His voice lowered as he dragged his lips across green eyes that fluttered shut at his touch.

The gentleman paused. The blush from their activities darkened, and he licked his lips. "Eh, yeah."

"Yes, I have not excited you before?" he teased, raising his eyebrow higher.

"W-what?" he spluttered. "No. No. I was saying: it's a habit I picked up from my father."

"Not a very Christian one."

It was Henry's turn to raise an eyebrow at Jackson as his eyes looked pointedly at their current position of entwined limbs. The young man gave a small smile.

"He got it from his mother," the gentleman explained, shifting about for a moment. He tossed Jackson up to adjust his old on the young man's hips and traced lazy circles on the skin of his lower back underneath his shirt. "Before she died, Grandmother used to spin these wild tales of how we were Vikings, of how our ancestors had slayed dragons, and all these other beliefs she held tightly."

"Is that why you would go out to rid the forests of Berk from dragons?"

"How—?"

"Colonel Ingerman told me," he admitted sheepishly.

Henry nodded before the comment sunk. "You—all the way back then?"

"No. Those comments were greatly unwanted, but they did satiate a curiosity I was not fully comfortable in recognizing. But, why am I just hearing this?"

"About my grandmother?"

"No. 'Odin's beard'. Have I—"

His question was cut off with insistent lips. They left his far too soon. "No. I know where that thought was going and no. I will not allow you to think like that. You have been nothing but a pleasure and a blessing."

"Then why..."

Sighing, the gentleman rested his forehead against Jackson's chin and tightened his grasp. "Perhaps I have been too worried about pleasing you that I never let myself go. I fear that one day you won't be content with this. That you'll want more; that you won't want a relationship confined to closed doors. I do not know what I'd do without you." His voice hitched on the last syllable.

The brunet's mind spun back to the past several months. He had relished in the touches, the kisses, the pleasure the gentleman gave him every night. He could not think of a night that didn't have him squirming in ecstasy underneath him. Suddenly, he felt selfish. Very selfish and very blind. He pressed a gentle kiss among the strands of auburn hair. "I would never leave you," he whispered fiercely, wrapping his arms around Henry's neck. He held him close before pulling away.

"Tonight is about you," he stated as his fingers clawed at the gentleman's shirt until he held the rolled up material against the back of the man's neck.

Green eyes widened at the words.

Clasping the shirt firmly with one hand, Jackson's other tugged on the front, yanking it out from underneath his body.

"Jack..."

He leaned down and pressed a kiss to the scar on his chin. "You," he murmured before saying, "Arms up."

Slowly, the gentleman obeyed, and he ripped the shirt from him and tossed it aside. He had no idea where it landed, and he didn't care. He was too focused and tracing every spot of warm flesh that was now on display with his lips. Fingers dug into his hips. He smiled and tightened his grip on Henry's waist, squeezing his legs together and pushing himself into the other. A pleased grunt was his response. He smiled and twisted his lower body, coaxing the gentleman to bring them to the bed.

Henry took the hint quickly and stumbled back to the bed. It hit the back of his legs, and they crashed down onto it.

Jackson readjusted himself so that he straddled the gentleman with ease. He hovered over his lips and said, "It's all about you."

"Why?" came the faintly breathed question.

"Because," Jackson swallowed, "I love you.

The chest underneath his hands seized for a moment before it rose and fell erratically. "I love you, too."

Smiling, he kissed him. Then, he kissed his chin, his jaw, his neck, his shoulder; he went lower and lower…

Later that night, the humid heat had him lingering in limbo. His lids drooping low over his eyes; his thoughts muddled and body slowed, yet somehow unable to fall asleep. He looked at the hard lines of the face buried in his chest and smiled. Slowly, his hand rose until his fingers could burrow in Henry's sweat dampened hair. He pushed the clinging strands away from his slick forehead and replaced them with a kiss.

Summer was suffocating and winter full of fun times, but perhaps he would just love any season that had him sharing a bed with Henry.