Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Autumn rolls around in vibrant reds and oranges.

Rain and wind grow more common, covering the streets during the night hours, and bringing with it dreary, foggy mornings; Blanketing London in a hazy morning spell, that makes waking up difficult and layering a chore.
The streets are soggy with brown leaves, run flat into the ground by cars and bicycles, and green, ripe, chestnut casings litter the sidewalks, from where chestnut trees peek out over garden fences.

It's a long anticipated break for some - To leave the hot, scalding summer behind in order to jump into something more comfortable.
An anxiety inducing season for others, with holidays coming to an end and the days growing darker and shorter.

An ambivalent time of change and unpredictability.

Arthur trudges his way through his house in his slippers and stifles a yawn.

It's early Sunday morning - He doesn't have work and he isn't expecting anybody.
So the ringer was a surprise when its incessant ringing forced him to put on a pair of trousers and begrudgingly make his way downstairs.

He managed to pull on his robe before exiting his bedroom, and he pulls it around himself now. Crossing his arms over it to fight the morning chill that still hangs heavy over him.

The ringer buzzes again, once he reaches the bottom of the steps. It pierces the air jarringly shrill and he winces against it with a growing sense of disgruntlement. He can’t fathom who in their right mind would try to get his attention this early on a day where absolutely nothing is open either way.

He unlocks the front door and pulls it open more harshly than necessary and schools his face with a grimace. Just to be sure whoever his visitor is, will know how unwelcome they really are.

Arthur peeks his head outside.

"What in god’s name is it?"

The first thing he notices is the rain. The shushing sound of it hitting the street outside and the droplets that fall just within the door is an immediate alert to keep the door only part way open.
He lets his eyes fall on the person next, noticing second to the rain how ill equipped they are for the weather. And lastly, as he scans his eyes upwards to land on their foggy glasses and waterlogged head, that he one hundred percent knows exactly who stands at his porch. Having awoken him like the absolute devil that he is at 6:30 Sunday morning.

Said devil greets him with a less-than-impressive smile.

"Mornin’!" Alfred greets.

It must be centuries of perseverance that wills Arthur not to slam the door closed.

Alfred sounds much too loud for this early in the morning, shrill and nearly fake sounding in his cheeriness.
Arthur scowls at him.

"You?" He asks suspiciously. "What are you doing here? This early in the morning, no less?”

Alfred moves an arm up to rub at his neck. Sheepish looking, the movement seems heavier than usual.
His signature leather jacket crinkles as he moves and there’s an air around his sluggish movements that feels just a bit off.

"Took a late flight." Alfred replies.
"I thought I'd come and visit you for a while."

Arthur’s scowl deepens and Alfred sniffs. A droplet of rain dripping from the tip of his nose.

"Unannounced? The day before a workweek and voluntarily?”

“It was a last minute decision.
I just thought ‘oh, we haven’t talked with Arthur for a while! Why not go see how he’s holding up?’, you know?” He laughs obnoxiously at his own wit.

Arthur leans a bit outside, clutching his robe around himself a bit tighter against the cold. He glances down the street- Left, then right, before looking Alfred up and down as he leans back inside.

“I don’t see anybody else with you.”

Alfred’s fickle boisterous demeanor crumbles ever so slightly and his smile looks just that bit harder to uphold.

“.. I’m here on my own, man. Why would I bring anybody with me on a vacation?”

Arthur hums dubiously.
They might be getting along better now-a-days but it's far from being a perfect kinship and Arthur feels that his fuse gets shorter and shorter every time he has a conversation with this lad.
He's much too obnoxious and way too quick to argue, even if he doesn't even believe in his own argument.
Arthur isn't saying he's stupid, he knows he isn't.

But he's gotten annoyingly good at pretending he is and it's exactly that, which Arthur doesn't have the patience for.
Arguing and debating just for the sake of it- A tiring dance that gives him a headache.
“Let me understand this right, America.”
He begins and Alfred shifts his weight from one leg to the other.

“You show up unannounced to vacation in London of all places. You cannot expect me to actually believe that obvious a lie, can you?” He raises a skeptical eyebrow.

The cold air from outside swims around his ankles and he shivers involuntarily in his spot, still half-hidden behind his front door. Alfred’s expression falls and grows disappointed. Arthur looks elsewhere to avoid looking at it, a mildly guilty feeling blooming in the pit of his stomach.
When Alfred speaks again, there’s no doubt about it being an act.

“C’mon on, dude! I haven’t been here in a hot minute, it’s not that crazy for me to visit!” He insists, rather desperately.
“Besides, I- It’s a great place to get in the fall spirits! London’s always super dark and spooky around this- Waitwaitwait!”

Alfred jams a foot in between the doorframe just beside Arthur has the time to shut it. He glares back out, eyes narrowing at the way Alfred withdraws his foot with a chorus of bemoanings and whimpers as he shakes the foot out.

“Couldn’t wait to insult me, could you?”

Alfred puts his foot down lightly. His hair sticks to his forehead, dripping wet and flat like a helmet. Even his cowlick seems to be losing the battle.

“I just need a few days!”

Arthur rolls his eyes. “Of course you’re assuming you can stay here-”

“I’m not gonna spend money on staying at a hotel when I know someone who has a massive house in central London-”

Arthur lifts an accusing finger to point out at him, keeping his voice to a hiss but making damn sure the tone is sharp.
"You can't just do whatever you feel like in the moment and expect others to accommodate it!”

Alfred opens his mouth to say something else but Arthur doesn't let him.

"The answer is no. You decided you wanted to come here, you get to deal with the arrangements yourself."

He goes to shut the door a second time. More forceful in it this time, with conviction that no matter how drowned and out of it Alfred seems, they’ll talk later when Alfred’s found somewhere to stay and dried off.
He’s already wondering if he’ll be able to fall back asleep after such a crude start to the morning when a foot jams itself in between the doorframe and the door once again.
The door jolts to a stop at the interruption, but elicits only a bitten back noise of discomfort from outside.
Arthur swings the door fully open this time.

"You cheeky-"

"Please, let me stay." Alfred pleads.
Arthur’s words die in his throat at the full sight of him. With the door fully open, Alfred’s frame looks so much frailer than he’s used to him being. His clothes hang off him like rags, accentuated by the rain dragging them down, their weight makes him look miserable.

Arthur looks back up to his face with his mouth caught in forming the beginning of a word he can’t recall anymore.
Alfred’s wiped his glasses, now looking at him without a trace of the forced cheeriness of earlier, his eyes look sunken and his skin is pale and sickly looking.
Arthur swallows.

They haven’t seen each other for a while. Meetings not aligning, Alfred coming to maybe half of them to begin with.

"I really don’t wanna be alone right now."
It’s spoken too much like a prayer for Arthur’s comfort.

Maybe it's the clouds, or the fact that the sun has barely slaved itself above the horizon, but Arthur clears his throat to compose himself and recover. He straightens himself up, pushing aside any concern he might be losing his mind about, in order to give a response.
Even if Arthur did go back to bed, the chances of him falling asleep again are essentially non-existent.

He breathes in deep, willing himself to relax.
“... Alright.” He bites out eventually.

The instant relief that washes out the anxiety on Alfred’s face is all Arthur needs to know, to be sure that he would not have done well finding somewhere to stay on his own. Something tells him the fact he’s even here to begin with is a battle won in and of itself, and he inwardly scolds himself for not having noticed the state of him earlier.

"Take your shoes and your socks off before you step a single foot onto my floors."
He steps aside and lets Alfred pick up his small carry-on suitcase.
The cold wraps all the way around him and he motions for Alfred to hurry up before all the hot air seeps out.

Alfred doesn't need to be told twice.
He steps inside with a quiet and airy “Thanks, dude.” And shrugs his jacket off to hang over the umbrellas. His shoes and socks joining the doormat beside them.

Arthur closes the door and turns to watch as he ventures inside. The hollow sound of the carry-on rolling across the floorboards reverberating throughout the house.

Arthur rubs the bridge of his nose and sighs.

"I'm going to make some tea!” He calls.

Alfred's voice carries through the house from the guest room, that sits nestled in the corner of the living room.

"Coffee for me, please."

"It’s tea or you make your own damn coffee!"

There’s a pause, then Alfred is padding his way barefoot out towards the kitchen. Pants and the shoulders of his shirt absolutely soaked through, yet he makes a feeble attempt to dry his fogged up glasses in his hurry to the kitchen.

Arthur follows along with him, a sinking feeling in his gut about the whole ordeal.

It turns out the concern that sparked to life at Alfred's sunken face on his doorstep only worsens when Arthur’s looking at him in proper lighting.

Alfred is sitting in the kitchen with him, changed but not showered.
His hair is still damp from the rain and there’s a distinct wet-dog smell about him.
It’s surprising that there even is a smell. Alfred usually keeps himself clean- A bit too clean, in Arthur’s opinion.
Showering twice a day at times, his clothes are usually washed and pressed and in particular his hair he always fusses over. That stray strand that refuses to sit how he wants it to and ever present insecurity, it seems.

Yet he sits here now, a slight tremble at his hands, looking for all the world like he hasn’t touched water in months.

Arthur's nursing a cup of tea, and he stirs in a bit of cream.
The spoon stirs obnoxiously loud in the unusual silence, that usually never lasts for long in Alfred’s particular company.
It's another concern to add to the list of worries- The only other times Alfred gets this quiet is if he’s brewing over something serious or when he’s sick. Or when its both, but it is very rarely both.
Alfred doesn’t get sick very often.

Either way, the quiet is disconcerting.

Alfred's eyes stare at a spot on the table and in the time Arthur's quietly been observing him, he has yet to blink.
He has one leg sat on his chair and both hands holding his lukewarm cup of coffee.

Arthur sips his tea from the opposite side of the table.

"Are you coming down with something?"
He asks, trying to jumpstart some kind of conversation and also, maybe, to make himself feel less nervous about the arrangement.

Finally, Alfred blinks, then blinks again and glances around in a second so brief, if Arthur wasn’t staring at him, he would’ve never caught it.

"What?" Alfred blurts, then looks down at his coffee as if only just remembering it being there.
He takes a sip from it, hurriedly, as if the mere presence of it would crumble and vanish the second he put it back down.
Alfred immediately grimaces and smacks his lips in distaste.
It must’ve gotten cold.

"I said: Are you coming down with something? Are you ill?"

The last time Arthur saw him this down was probably back in the 30's, and even then he'd fought tooth and nail to get back on top.
Now he just looks like he's given up.

"Nah, I'm alright." Alfred says slowly.

Arthur furrows his brows at him, setting his tea down and leaning forward ever so slightly.
"Are you sure?"

Alfred meets his eyes for a moment, then quickly looks back to his spot on the table.
"Yeah. I'm fine, dude."

He wants to tell him that he's very clearly not, but he leans back in his seat instead.
Alfred’s looking too out of it to pursue the subject any further, so he lets it be for now.
He is worried though.
And he hates that he is. It’s not very well trodden ground for him, Alfred’s always seemed to get along just fine, aside from his early years.

Maybe if he steers the conversation in another direction…

"How long are you staying for?"

Alfred takes a deep breath in, face scrunching up slightly.

"I dunno." He says with a sigh. He sounds slightly frustrated, only, frustrated wouldn't sound this winded usually.
"I didn't really think this far ahead."

He throws another glance up at Arthur just to look back and away again. Arthur keeps his eyes locked on him, trying and failing to read his mind.

He hasn't spoken to him outside of work for a long time, he doesn't really know when this began, he doesn't have a timeframe to work with at all and if anything happened to him to cause this - The only way Arthur’s going to figure it out is through Alfred.

"That's…" He trails off, deciding what to say next.

"That's alright." He says. He doesn't actually know for sure if it is, he hasn't had time to think about how he feels about all this yet.

Obviously, he’s not going to send what’s supposed to be Alfred back out to fend for himself.
The boy pleaded with, for god’s sake. ‘I don’t really want to be alone right now.’
What sort of a thing to say is that, if he isn’t going through something.

Arthur doesn't know why he's the one Alfred decided to come to though.
That's what puzzles him the most; With Gilbert and Mathias being, by now, Alfred's biggest confidants and Matthew being right upstairs, it's… It doesn't make a whole lot of sense that it would be him of all people.

Then again, 'why' doesn't really matter right now.
Now Alfred's here. And he's sitting and looking like Arthur's wilted planters out on his front porch.
'Why' can wait. Alfred can't.

Arthur exhales and let’s his hand fall heavy onto the table with a sudden clap.
"Think it over then, yea?"

Alfred jumps, then tries to disguise the fact that he jumped by stretching and Arthur pointedly makes sure to look away at the action.
He finishes his tea and stands.
His chair creaks as he leaves it and he takes his dishes to the sink.

"Could you soak your mug before tossing it into the dishwasher? I have some things to get done today, so I'll set it to wash in the evening."

Alfred makes a noise of acknowledgement and Arthur lingers for just a second, looking at him before brushing himself off with a quiet 'Right then.' and exiting the kitchen.
He has to clean up around the house and do laundry. Getting up early, he supposes, just gives him more time to relax in the afternoon.

Chapter Text

House tidied and laundry spinning in the kitchen, Arthur sets another cup of tea on the side table by the sofa and sits down into it with a sigh.

The clock tics its way through early afternoon, and the sky has cleared up enough for little bouts of sun to peek in through his windows. The light bounces playfully off of trinkets he completely forgot he had; Casting small, glimmering patterns across the ceiling and the wall, reflecting off of three small glass-crystal pyramids he thinks he might've gotten from India.

The rest of the room takes well to the sun, and for not the first time, Arthur wishes the weather would be this sunny more often.

It doesn't help that most of his furniture is dark wood, though - It doesn't really expand the room, and maybe he should get rid of a few things, because he's pretty sure parts of his house are starting to enter into hoarder territory. He's seen what those looks like, and he really doesn't wish to end up in something like that .

There is maximalism and then there's hoarding, and he's definitely falling into the latter category.
He goes to reach for a biscuit to dip into his tea just to realize that he's forgotten to take them with him.

He frowns in annoyance and begrudgingly moves to get back up, when he catches sight of the door to the guest room.

It stands ajar, just out of reach of the sun.
The inside is dark. 
Or, as dark as blinds can make it dark early-afternoon.

Alfred went to lie down about two hours ago now. A quick glance to the clock confirms this and Arthur looks back to the door apprehensively.

He wonders what’s gotten into the lad’s head, sleeping for that long. Some part of him worries if he had a double meaning to not wanting to be alone, but Arthur doubts the lad would want to kill himself. Of all people, he’s the least likely to do so, with how much ego the boy packs, Arthur finds it unlikely…

But then again…

Arthur gets himself to his feet and debates on whether to check on him or go fetch his digestives and put some faith in the lad. He's a grown adult by now, right? Maybe 19-ish for human standards.

He bites the inside of his cheek and looks to the kitchen, then looks back
It wouldn’t hurt to check on him. After all, it’s his house and Alfred’s let the door be ajar.
He steps in the direction of the guest room and ignores things he'd rather not mull over for too long.

The floor creaks under his feet and he reaches the door.

From the small gap in it, he can make out the closet and a few boxes he hasn't found a better place for yet.
It reminds him once again that he needs to clean out his shit soon. A bunch of old shit is what it is, surely countless of his people would go wild to get their hands on some of it.

He closes his hand around the knob and slowly pushes the door open, eyes flicking to the ceiling to find it blissfully unoccupied with the exception of an old, broken fanthat he absolutely needs to have fixed soon.
He exhales a breath he hadn't realized he was holding and he enters the room with a bit more gusto.

With the blinds closed and the lights off, it takes a bit of adjusting for his eyes before he can clearly see Alfred lying, fully clothed, on top of the bedsheets.
He's breathing regularly, chest rising and falling normally and whatever anxiety had overcome him before is making him feel a bit silly.

He makes his way over, stepping around clothes and Alfred's open and spread out carry-on and attempts to be quiet.
Alfred's on his side, legs still on the ground, only his upper body lying horizontal and Arthur pulls a face; It's a sore back waiting to happen. 

"How do you always manage…" He mutters, cautiously reaching under and around Alfred's legs and lifting them up onto the bed with the rest of him with a grunt.
"...to fall asleep in every possible way imaginable?" 

Alfred's only response is a faint snoring, and Arthur just feels glad he's breathing and seems to be well.
Not well, but not dead, is what he means. Dead or dying.

He reaches across and pulls the side of the duvet Alfred isn't lying on top of over him, covering him sort of like a hotdog in a bun.
Alfred doesn't have any reaction to that and Arthur appraises his handiwork by placing both hands on his hips and patting himself, figuratively, on the back.

The duvet now covering him, when Arthur sneaks back across the clothes and the suitcase, hands held out awkwardly for balance, to open the window, Alfred isn't going to be cold.

He hasn't aired the room out in a very, very long time and it's evident in every possible way. From the small layer of dust that's settled on practically everything, to the stuffiness and stale air that's been circulating in itself for so long, breathing in it feels like breathing the inside of a shoe box.

He'd initially gotten the ceiling fan installed to combat the stale-ness, but it broke after two years and he just couldn't be arsed to get it fixed.
Now it sits as decoration. 
Ugly, broken decoration. 
But it somehow looks better than a plain ceiling, anyhow.

A small breeze billows inside, rustling the blinds slightly and Arthur decides that checking in on the door ajar was a good decision. 
He glances back over to Alfred, still on his side, breathing evenly now nestled in half a blanket and looking for all the world at peace for the first time in a while.

It's another gut feeling, but looking across the room at him; At the nation who prevails as a superpower, a powerhouse brought to power so fast- Arthur gets the feeling that Alfred doesn't get much rest.

It's a shame, really.

Although he can't blame it all on circumstance, he was the one who was so absent, but he can't help but feel like Alfred missed out on a lot somehow. 
He grew up fast, he rose to power fast, everything happened so fast, he wonders how he copes with it all.
Everything was already taking off, and he was fed everything from the get go; Taught how to think and feel and act and how to be an adult and how to take charge - Did he ever really have a choice or did he make himself believe that he did?
It’s a thought Arthur rarely considers, but with the kid right in his face, it’s hard to not have grievances.

He shakes his head. His tea is getting cold.

Arthur turns to leave, pausing in the doorframe to cast a glance back at Alfred.
If what he’s seen of his face. How quiet he is, how jumpy he reacts, the idea of dead or dying doesn’t seem as farfetched as he initially thought.
He’s misjudged this boy far too much.

He grew up too fast, that one.
He didn't deserve to have his childhood taken from him that way.

"Well, I’m not planning on going anywhere this time around." Arthur whispers. “I can promise you that.”

He leaves the door ajar as he leaves, and goes to grab the digestive biscuits in the kitchen to get back to his tea.

Chapter Text

Morning dawns much too soon for Alfred's liking.

But then again, when doesn’t it.

He stirs awake, a dull headache throbbing behind his eyes as he opens them to a room he for a panicked moment doesn't recognize. 
He thinks he sees the shapes of boxes and unwashed dishes. The sight of his overloaded dinner table; With old take-out, cardboard dinner plates and stacks and stacks of paperwork.
He blinks a few times, heart skipping a beat, trying to allocate the things he knows should be there but isn’t.
He continues looking around frantically, trying to get his bearings, retracing his steps, until the previous day catches up with him and he shakily breathes out.

He untenses and sinks further into the mattress of the guest bed. Mind a mess, muddled and too heavy.
He’s feeling excessively toasty and way too comfortable for staying at a guest room.
He knows the interior; Has slept here before.

With a resistant hand, prickling and sore from having lain on it, he fumbles around the general pillow area until he finds his glasses.

The decor is exactly as you would expect from someone as old as Arthur.
He looks around, glasses secure on his face, the surrounds are clearer and ground him fully in the realization that he actually went to England.

The room is a mix and match between everything old and new, a few unlabeled boxes stand in the corner by the closet- 
Dusty and unopened in who knows how long; He's pretty sure even Arthur wouldn't be able to tell you what's in them before looking first.

It feels familiar, a little comfort to know that some things just never change. 
Arthur for all his perfectionism isn't very particular about his storage. That or he is and the mess is just a weird system Alfred can't figure out.

Staring at it all for a bit too long, Alfred coughs into his hand. 
Throat scratchy and mouth dry. His eyes feel crusty with sleep and as he pushes himself up to sit, he belatedly realizes he’s still fully dressed.
He brings a palm up to run through his hair. Greasy as it is, he barely notices the grime.
He’s so used to it by now, the idea of a shower, while the cleanliness is a nice thought, he cannot muster the energy for it. He can barely muster the energy for eating.

He stares ahead into nothing for a little, enjoying the slightly musty smell the room permits and the refreshing chill that hangs in the air.
He closes his eyes softly.
He can hear traffic outside, but much quieter than Manhattan. 
People talking, trees rustling. There are birds chirping, coming and going, it sounds like they’re frolicking in the backyard; He knows Arthur has a bird feeder that attracts all kinds of things.

He sits and listens to the room for another chunk of an hour. At some point he removes the sweatshirt he’s got on and sits in the chill and the breeze that streams in through the closed blinds.
(After checking to see why the blinds were moving and catching sight of the open window - It was a great relief to know it hadn't been a ghost. Although he's still absolutely sure that Arthur's entire house, all of the places he owns, are haunted.)

The cold air is refreshing on his skin. He feels lightheaded and slightly feverish. A cold glass of water would be amazing.
But that means going out to where Arthur is. And oh, right, he’s not just gone to London. He’s gone to stay with Arthur.

He grumbles quietly to himself, covering his face with both hands, effectively pushing his hands beneath his glasses.
It's not like he could've gone anywhere else though, could he.

He thought about hopping on up to Matthew Again, but by the way he reacted last time- Telling him to get help, see somebody, there’s absolutely no way he’s going to do that. He doesn’t need some doctor to tell him he’s doing badly, and he definitely don’t need to be locked up just because he’s a bit tired lately.

He just isn’t sleeping well, that’s all. That not enough sleep is not good for the head, obviously , he knows that.
That’s why he just wants a few days to sleep and get his bearings. At least it seems like Arthur understands that. There’s no risk of being lectured on whatever self-help stuff Matthew’s trying. Not that he really ever has the energy to listen properly.

Alfred allows his hands to fall from his eyes back into his lap.
They’re dry and itch slightly.

So he ended up in England. 
With Arthur.

He feels embarrassed about how pathetic that is, but he’s here now and it can’t hurt to be a bit indulgent, can it?
The room offers him little comfort in exchange for his silent muttering. 
His head is starting to throb, his skin feels clammy and he’s starting to grow faintly dizzy.

He pushes the duvet aside with a grunt.

His legs feel like jelly as he rises to his feet. They feel sore and frail, as if they could buckle beneath him, and he braces himself on anything he can to ward off the morning-stiffness and the headrush of standing up.

He ends up knocking his foot into his open suitcase and trips, catching himself by ramming his hand all the way through the blinds to the window. 
They crunch loudly under his palm and he curses to himself. They don’t seem to be damaged, as he straightens back up and regains his balance.
Not that he wouldn’t be able to replace them, but he already feels embarrassed enough to be staying here, ruining Arthur’s things first day seems like the perfect setup to being sent back home.

He frowns and clicks his tongue at himself.

He doesn’t want to go back home. Not yet…
He doesn’t bother closing the window before he pushes the bedroom door open. If Arthur opened it, he probably wants it that way.

The streak of light that had drawn him out bathes the living room in spotty sunlight and soft overcast daylight.'
He squints against it, the warm air engulfing him comfortably, he feels a pang in his chest of a deep seated feeling of calm.
It steals his breath for a moment, grounding him to the spot.

The tv stands where it always has, on top of a dark wooden tv-stand with a dvd player which stands in the small department beneath the main board.

The windowsill houses a plant that looks like it’s seen better days, with a handful of little glass pyramids glistening in the light, books and a figurehead of some sort that he doesn’t quite recognize, accompanying a better-faring snake plant by the bookshelf.
It feels as if, if he looks long enough at everything, he might find some kind of hidden treasure. 
Like everything in here is something special waiting to be uncovered. Like turning over a rock to reveal the crawling underbelly beneath it.

He’s impressed with the way Arthur manages to rock maximalism this well. Everything sits just the right place, as if it’s been placed deliberately there to make the mess look purposeful and not just like a bunch of old things huddled in one place - 
He remembers a few of the things here. They were there when he was little, and Arthur had only recently gotten a hold of them. Some things he stole, some were gifted or bought and other things he found.

The walk to the kitchen is more eventful than he’d have expected it to be, stopping several places to look at something or other.

He realizes that he missed this. 

The fog and the overcastness and the slight dampness to everything in England. A concoction of something much slower than back home that allows him to feel like breathing for the first time in forever.

He enters the kitchen with a nostalgia clawing at his chest and a feeling of second hand loneliness of Arthur living here on his own. 

He doesn’t remember if he mentioned it at any point, but Arthur never did very well for long periods of time on his own.
Matthew stayed with him though, so he wasn’t entirely on his own…

He finds a mug and then he finds the instant coffee Arthur usually keeps all the way behind his tea. Out of sight and out of mind.
He looks at the glass jar as the kettle boils - It's expired by 10 years.
He scrunches his nose at it, thinking coffee can't go bad , no way.
It's dried beans…

Alfred dumps a teaspoon of the expired coffee grounds into the bottom of the cup and pours the boiling water onto it before going to the fridge to grab the milk.

No milk.

Cream? He grabs the carton to find it nearly empty. He'll just grab the last bit then.

He sits with his cup of coffee cradled in one hand, the other sitting flat against the countertop.

The grandfather clock ticks away the time. A background noise that lulls him away into his own thoughts until his coffee grows cold and he’s breathing himself through not fainting out of his chair.

He feels ill. He feels feverish.
He gets himself that cold glass of water and sits back down. Drinking it in sips and shuddering at the feeling of it going down.
It’s so refreshing, he’d forgotten how thirsty he’d been.
He drinks another glass after the first one. Sets the glass down and falls to the floor slowly to crouch into a ball. Breathing through his nose, into his lungs. Moving through the coldsweats and the tingling at his fingers and forehead.

He wonders briefly, through this dizzy spell and his body betraying him entirely, where Arthur is.
He wonders, in this frazzled frame of mind, if he’s still asleep. If this is actually one of Alfred’s own houses back in the states, and he’s actually never left at all.

If he’s just dreaming up a very elaborate hallucination from sleep deprivation. That can happen for any healthy mind. Anyone, not crazy or deranged, with enough lack of sleep can start to doubt reality.

He convinces himself of that, even as he manages to get his phone from the guest room, moving about at a snail’s pace and settles himself back down on the dinner table.

He sits scrolling through his phone for an indefinite amount of time. Breathing in and breathing out, focusing only on what is shown to him on his screen.

He subconsciously hears the grandfather clock continue in the living room. 
His screen reflects in his glasses - The headache from the morning still hangs at the back of his head, but it’s not pressing enough to actually do anything about it. For now he just needs to breathe. To distract and not think about how hot he is.

He ends up on tiktok, hearing someone talk about news he's been pointedly avoiding reading about for the past week, but he can't scroll past it. 
He feels morally obligated to watch it in full and take in what other terrible things the world is doing to itself that he can't do anything about - 

Even with his 'position of power' , politicians don't listen to him. To them, he's just some honorary prize, supposed to make them feel good about themselves and forgo politics that he apparently knows nothing about, according to them.

Even though he does know better, work has had him incapable of thinking about much else than numbers and statistics.

He’s broken out of his half--dead reverie, the tiktok fading from hyperfocus to background noise as the jingling of keys and the sound of the front door opening captures his attention.

He sits frozen for a solid second, mind doing backflips trying to pull itself back into reality.
He’s about to call out, steeling himself for some type of confrontation when the door closes and a great, loud sigh of relief echoes throughout the house, followed by the trademark cursing and swearing of a man on the verge of homicide.

Alfred settles down; 
It’s just Arthur. No need to get worked up.

The door slams, Arthur’s angry grumbling follows with rustling and shuffling and then footsteps that carry him into view and into the kitchen where Alfred is sitting.

He seems to oversee him, setting two bags onto the counter before tossing his briefcase to the floor haphazardly and stopping only to look at the teaspoon and sugar Alfred hasn’t gotten to putting away yet. He looks puzzled and Alfred opens his mouth to say something, when Arthur jolts with a surprised yelp and nearly drops everything he's holding.

"JESUS!"

Alfred can’t help but pull a lopsided grin as Arthur catches sight of him. He did always find scaring him funny.

"How long have you- For the love of god, I never thought I'd say this, but make more noise , please.”

Alfred chuckles a little, setting his phone down and moving to get up. "Do you need help with-" 
Arthur holds up a hand.

"No, I've got it. You just go back to whatever you were being so quiet about."

He sets a white plastic bag on top of the counter a bit further away from everything else and begins to sort groceries into categories: Cupboard, fridge and freezer. Alfred looks on, catching sight of the teaspoon and the sugar still standing out.

The coffee cup still sits cold in front of him as well and he stands after a moment to take it to the sink. He can clean up the sugar and things too while he's at it.

Disguising his headrush like a suave gesture of leaning casually onto the counter. The brief blackening of his vision brushed aside and ignored.

He heaves a great deep breath to balance himself.

“Where-”

"Did you sleep well?"

Arthur beats him to it and Alfred pours out the cold coffee into the sink.
It swirls towards the drain, small chunks of condensed cream sticking to the ceramic.

"Oh, uh, yeah. It was okay. Didn't dream of anything."

Arthur hums, beginning to stock the fridge. 

“That’s good I suppose.” He muses.
"I wanted to wake you this morning, but you looked like you needed the rest." He continues. 

Alfred turns on the hot tab, washing the coffee away and squirting dish soap into the now empty mug. He puts it under the stream, filling it up until it foams and lets it overflow a little.

"I probably did.” He shrugs. “Your bed’s super soft, so it’s hard not to sleep heavy.”

"Hm, I'm not really a fan of soft mattresses- Did you see the note I left you?"

Alfred looks over at him quizzically. 

“What note?”

Arthur glances back at him with an exasperated expression, a carton of milk in hand, halfway to the shelf.

"I left a note for you on the door to let you know I was out."

Alfred blinks. 

He has no memory of a note. Actually, he doesn’t really remember anything, except maybe the news and making coffee and that Arthur’s house is for sure haunted with all this old junk in it.

“I didn’t see anything.”

Arthur makes a face but waves him off.

“Don’t worry about it then, it was just to let you know I would be working late and getting some groceries.”

Alfred doesn’t say he’d briefly questioned whether he was actually ever going to come back. Or whether the house was ever actually real, in the first place.
All he knows is he’s feeling sick and his hands are fumbling with what they’re doing in the sink.

It feels more real than it did back home, where minutes, hours, days all blended together into one until there was no clear discretion between either anymore.
It feels overwhelming and Alfred turns his head towards the nearest window and glances outside.
Darkness falls across the streets, the streetlights are on and it’s clearly evening.

He hasn’t paid attention to the time at all.

Arthur crumbles the plastic bag together and puts it in another, bigger plastic bag under the sink and smears up his shirt sleeves to wash his hands.

“If you didn’t see the note, I’m assuming you found something else to eat then?”

Alfred steps aside to give him access and swallows.

“Eat?”

The faucet runs cold water and Arthur’s tone becomes lightly irritated.

“Yes, eat. What did you end up eating?”
With the mug soaking and his hands unoccupied, Alfred grabs the sugar and puts it back where he found it.

“Yeah.” He sputters. “Yeah, I totally ate.”

The water stops running and Arthur levels him a long look. Shaking his hands over the sink a few times.

“Yes. I would hope so...”

Alfred clears his throat. He sets to emptying the dishwasher for lack of any other distraction from meeting Arthur’s eyes.
The kitchen might be new and remodeled recently, but Arthur doesn’t switch things up - He hates getting used to new things.

Out of the corner of his eye, Alfred sees Arthur finds a dishcloth to dry his hands with. He rests his weight onto the counter, the other he places at his hip.

“Alfred, when was the last time you had a meal?”

Alfred’s palms begin to feel slightly clammy as he moves around the kitchen with the small basket for cutlery.
He gets to the drawers, and Arthur turns along with him, keeping his eyes on him. This guy’s way too patient when he wants to be. 
It’s always been his quirk to wait for an obscene amount of time for an answer even if he has even the slightest suspicion that somebody is lying to him. 
It’s like a sixth sense. A really inconvenient one - for Alfred .

“Today. I just said.”

“You ate today?” Arthur lifts an accusatory brow, crossing his arms skeptically.

Alfred shrugs, ducking his head as he heads back to the dishwasher to refill it. 

“ Probably . Yeah.”

“'Probably’? ”

Alfred picks up the teaspoon he used to stir his wasted coffee and dumps it into the cutlery basket; Then turns and faces him with the best look of exasperation he can manage.

“What do you want me to say? I love food. So yeah , I probably ate!”

The subtle subtext wasn’t necessary, and if Arthur was suspicious before, he’s absolutely in the know now.

“Did you eat, yes or no?”

“I just told you I ate today, I’m answering the question!”

A moment passes. Alfred feels his stomach churning, from noticing that he’s hungry or from hating to be found out or both isn’t clear. But the idea of food is making him feel that churning dizziness again.
Arthur’s looking at him, looking to try and see through him in that scrutinizing way he always does when he refuses to believe something.
It’s not always he’s right to be suspicious, but in this case he does and Alfred needs to convince him otherwise.

“I ate!” Alfred exclaims, throwing out a hand. 

Arthur stays silent with that judgemental look of his for a moment more before looking away and bending down to pull out a pot. '
He’s let it drop. 
Doesn’t mean he believes him, but he’s let it go.
Bittersweet victory.

“What do you want for dinner?”

Alfred hates himself for the way he immediately cringes. Arthur takes it the wrong way, and while that’s good, it also always puts him in a bad mood whenever there’s any insinuation to his culinary skills, and Alfred is staying here on the sole charity of Arthur’s patience.

“Oh, piss off, I thought we were past this ridiculous England-can’t-cook schtick.”

“You didn’t make anything edible last time.”

Arthur squints. “That was 5 years ago, mate. I’ve improved since then… And taken classes.”

“That’s all good and all, but I’m not actually that hungry for dirt and ashes today.”

Alfred puts in a request for pizza, preferably of the ordered kind, and Arthur gives him an incredulous look before begrudgingly putting the pot back where he’d gotten it.
Home-made pizza is apparently not something they’ve gotten to in Arthur’s evening cooking classes just yet. Probably not ready for that amount of skill.
Alfred retreats back to the guest room before it arrives, proclaiming he’s feeling ill, which is by no means a lie but is definitely also an excuse not to have to eat anything.
He doesn’t have the stomach for food right now, the idea makes him more ill than he already is and he’s asleep by the time Arthur comes in to tell him the food’s arrived.

Arthur doesn’t try to wake him up and Alfred sleeps without dreams once again.

Chapter Text

It’s pizza for lunch when Alfred wakes up the next day at around noon.
 
He reheats one slice, puts it on a dessert plate and sets it down beside his cup of coffee at the kitchen table. The feverishness hasn’t gone away, and he sees his face flushed and red whenever he glimpses himself in the bathroom mirror. He’s looking pale and generally awful, and as much as it grates on him he also just doesn’t care.

He’d checked for notes this time, but hadn’t found any. Arthur must’ve dropped the idea. 

And it’s not really Alfred’s business what he goes around doing in his day to day, anyway. Alfred’s visit shouldn’t hold up his schedule any and Alfred tells himself that it’s fine. And that being alone across the ocean from home is better than being alone in his own home with everything a mess, equally as disgusting as he has become. 

Reminding him exactly of why he doesn’t want to go back home yet.

He’s received a few calls and emails from his boss that he’s decided to ignore. He’d tried to open an email, read it through just to read it again, and again; Enough time that nausea overtook him and started the mouth sweats. He’d been sick in the bathroom after trying to listen to the voicemails. His boss’ voice sounding muffled and far off, with words that refused to make any sense in his head.

Alfred gave up after that. He’ll be back soon, not too soon, but it won’t matter at all. Once he’s slept and fought off this annoying fever thing that’s happening, he can catch back up, no problem! He just needs a few more days.

The afternoon falls away like the day before. Arthur returns home, then insists on cooking dinner, and Alfred excuses himself to go to bed early again with the excuse that he’d woken up late and ate the pizza for a late lunch.

Arthur has no reason not to believe him, a slice or two is missing after all and who’s Arthur to try telling him he didn’t eat it right before he got home? He wouldn’t know, so he can’t protest. And even if he could, Alfred’s gone before he has the chance to.

It continues that way for a few days.

Wake up late, drink half a cup of coffee, evade Arthur and his insistence that he eat, go to sleep. 

A cycle that he’d fled across the atlantic to escape from - A desperate, last-ditch attempt to get away, just to fall backwards right back into it. The worst part; He only half-realizes it’s happening. 

Half, because a part of him doesn’t remember a time where it was any other way. 
Days blend together into a mess of everything until there is no distinction between today and tomorrow, now from later, and up from down.

In the end he stops getting up for the cup of coffee and stays in bed. His phone died last night and he just can’t see the point of charging it anymore.

The guest room doesn’t even register for him either. It incorporates itself with the scenery of his muddled mind, spewing obscenities at him and telling him to get up and stop being so lazy. That he needs to go back home soon so he can get back to work and catch up.

Stop acting so out of line, you’re at someone else’s house and you’re just lazing around like a sack of shit.

He agrees, but he can’t stop falling asleep. 
And with sleep comes darkness and nothingness, but when he wakes, he begins to wonder if he’s still asleep and if he’s just having a dream. One of the rare ones he gets that isn’t nightmarish recollections of things he refuses to think about. All bringing guilt and frustration and bitterness towards people he now has to rely on to stay afloat.

He doesn’t find it very fair that he has to feel like this while everybody else doesn’t. 
Why do they get to take their days off all year round? Or get sick and have support? Why do they get to be sick, and not him?
Why does he need to get up and do everything 24/7 just because he’s supposed to be the big shot. What if he doesn’t want to be ? What if he just wants to rot in his bed forever and let the moths and mosquitos take him, what then?

A knock at the door cuts through his hazy mind and he opens his eyes to look towards the doorway.

The blanket obstructs most of the view, and what he can see is mostly a blurry, warm streak of light flowing in from the living room.
It must be evening, the light isn’t sunlight. But a warm lightbulb from a green tinted lampshade.

“Alfred?”

The door opens slowly and Alfred can see the backlit silhouette of Arthur entering. 

His shadow falls across to the room, and Alfred closes his eyes again, trying to pretend to be asleep. To get him to just go away and forget he’s there. That’s probably for the best, too. Maybe if he stays still and quiet enough for a few more days, Arthur will completely forget about him and he can sleep for eternity in peace and the world will find a way to function without him in it. He can be completely free, completely untethered and sleep will embrace him for the rest of his life.

“I know you’re awake.”

No, he isn’t.

Probably. 

He’s probably not awake. 

His body is still buzzing and he feels hazy. Skin aflame, yet he’s shivering from cold.
He squeezes his eyes shut tight, hoping the darkness from behind his eyelids and the heavy blanket keeps him hidden.
The edge of the bed dips as Arthur sits himself down on it.
It pulls at the duvet and adds a shift in pressure.
He stays silent, but cracks his eyes open just slightly, just to try and see.
He sees the streak of light and he sees the open door.
Arthur’s hidden by the blanket.

“You need to try and eat something, lad.”

Alfred sucks in a breath, regrettably also confirming he’s awake by doing so;
Arthur doesn’t comment on it.

Instead, he places a plate of peeled orange slices on the table directly in front of Alfred’s face. He sets it next to where Alfred’s glasses are, and he can make out the fruit a bit clearer than the rest of the room.

“I’m not going to get upset at you if you don’t, but I want you to at least try.” Arthur explains calmly.

He sounds genuine and speaks softly. 
It’s reminiscent of the way he’d speak whenever Alfred and Matthew were sick as kids, bedridden and feverish. Alfred looks at the orange slices, the numbness of his mind clearing up for something more pungent. 

It grows in his throat like a peach pit, and he swallows uselessly against it as his eyes stings and grows glassy. It’s the dip in the mattress and the peeled orange slices and the softly spoken concern.
He didn’t realize how much he’d needed that. The feeling of having someone give a shit, and talking to him softly for once, in a tone of voice that’s understanding and empathetic instead of demanding and condescending.

He missed Arthur. 

That’s probably why he came here in the first place, he missed the feeling of being home.

It’s an innocuous gesture and yet it makes him feel so overwhelmed.
He doesn’t know how to say anything anymore, he doesn’t know what he would say either, even if he could.
The silence drags on, Arthur stays put for a bit and the longer he stays the more prevalent the push of needing to cry becomes. 
He feels confused, about whether to feel safe and secure or on edge and worried that he’s feeling so vulnerable. He swallows at the clog in his throat again, but it just makes it worse. A tear slips sideways down his face and hits the pillow in a tiny wet dot.

“I’ll be working from home over the weekend.” Arthur adds after a moment.

He places a hand on where he’s assuming Alfred’s shoulder is and gently rubs at it in an attempt to show comfort. It misses by a few inches, but gets the point across.

“And I’m going to sort through some old boxes I have standing about. In case you would like to join me.”

Alfred’s lip wobbles dangerously and he closes his eyes again, turning his face into the dampening pillow and if Arthur notices, he refrains from commenting on that, too.
The hand on his shoulder retreats and Arthur places both hands on his knees and pushes himself back off the bed. The mattress rises back to its original shape in his absence and the soft sound of footsteps maneuvering around the still open suitcase, now with a small folded stack of clean clothes, approaches the door.

“Arthur?” Alfred calls, voice groggy from disuse and wobbly from tears. Arthur backs up and pops his head back in with a curious expression.

“What is it, love?”

Alfred takes a shaky breath in, raising one hand to rub his eyes.

“Thanks.”

Arthur quirks the side of his mouth up a little. 

“It’s no bother. Just try and eat, yea?”

He doesn’t close the door, he leaves it ajar just enough for the light from the living room to illuminate the nightstand with the fruit and Alfred’s glasses.

—

Alfred’s sitting perched at the edge of the bed, fighting the last bite of the entire plate of orange slices down with red rimmed eyes and a throbbing headache. This one at the front of his face, unlike the usual ones that sit right behind his eyes and threaten to pop them right out of his skull.

The grandfather clock in the living room is overshadowed by the sound of the television. The chatter and instrumental music of ads and shows he doesn’t usually watch flow in through the open door and whatever Arthur put in those oranges, they’ve got him reaching over and grabbing his pillow.

He stands, feeling like the world is tilting and gathers his wits for a moment or two, taking in deep breaths and clutching the duvet back around himself.
The floor feels cold under his feet and instead of trying to walk around the suitcase, he kicks it aside and trudges his way slowly out into the soft light of the living room.

He stands in the doorway for a moment, observing the scene in front of him.
The lamp standing on the tiled table beside the couch is on and reflects against the part of the windows that peek out from the half-drawn curtains.
The television mixes in with the lamp to create cool and warm shadows that dances around the furniture like those fairies Arthur’s always going on about.
Alfred isn’t entirely sure he believes in them, he never really did, but he sort of wants to.

Arthur sits on the couch in the middle of it all. A cup of tea in hand, raised lazily for a sip before he lowers it back down to stand on the side table. He’s wearing the more modern clothes that he wears at home for the most part - And the only reason Alfred knows about it, is because Francis has mentioned it.

It still looks weird though. To see England sitting around in Adidas joggers. It feels somehow a little bit uncanny, once he’s seen him wear an 18th century wig and pirate getup, consisting mainly of linen and cotton pajamas for lounging.

He sniffs, remembering the whole ‘ Make more noise ’ thing and steps one foot forwards and begins to approach the couch.

Arthur looks over in his direction, the hand that he’d been resting his head against falls as he sits up a little straighter. “Oh. Fancy seeing you here.”
Alfred rolls his eyes in distaste, but all it does is give Arthur more reason to keep making awful jokes and the movement spurs a piercing throbbing through his head. So he tosses his pillow at Arthur before he has a chance to continue making stupid remarks.

Arthur catches it, looking momentarily confused, before Alfred’s plopped down and rotated the duvet to the horizontal.

Arthur looks on curiously.

The duvet is bigger than the couch and the sides of it spills over to the floor as he tugs himself underneath it. He snatches the pillow from Arthur’s hands and lays it down beneath his head, placing it on Arthur’s lap and begrudgingly sinking into it with a sigh. He made sure to lie on the cool side of the pillow, and the feeling it brings against his face is heavenly.

Arthur huffs out a surprised noise that Alfred perries by pulling the blanket all the way up to his ears in a terrible attempt at communicating that he doesn’t want to talk about it. 

He lies on his side, facing the tv.

It’s playing some old western movie - He recognizes it, but he doesn’t remember the name. It’s in color, and he tries to get his mind off of whatever he might be spiraling into, in favor of narrowing down the filmpool of color-film westerns from the 20th century.
Arthur resumes the position he’d held before. He places one hand on Alfred’s shoulder again, and Alfred swallows down the stubborn pit that forms itself back in his throat.

He’s gotten halfway to the end of the movie when he hears a steady, soft snoring from above him and he turns his head sideways to look up.
Arthur’s leaning against his hand, fast asleep.
Alfred turns his attention back on the tv, debating on turning it off and going back to bed but ultimately decides there is nothing he’d rather not do than go back in there alone again.

He lets the remainder of the movie play as he closes his eyes and lets the sound of a stand-off lull him into a peaceful sleep.

Chapter Text

When Arthur wakes up, it’s with a numb leg and a crick in his neck that pops the second he shifts into a different position.

His back is screaming at him and as he peels himself off of the couch cushion behind him, the entire length of his spine cracks with a stretch and he winces, a hand flying back to rub at it sorely.
He's definitely beginning to come on in years. He might not look it, but he feels it.

Everyday.

He's on the couch in the sitting room downstairs. The tv is still on, playing a morning show talking about the weather forecast for the weekend.
It looks to be sunny Saturday then goes back to rain the evening to Sunday. A cold front looks to be dropping the temperature quite a bit too and he curses under his breath at the inevitable heating expenses that comes with winter.

His house is old and poorly insulated, no matter how many times he's gotten it remodeled, it's just not great at keeping the heat inside. The luxuries of the modern day vs when the building was built proves to him many things he’s grown used to, that he never used to complain about before.

He looks down to where the cause of his numb legs is sleeping peacefully.
Alfred is still facing the tv, half buried in the duvet that's fallen off of his legs during the night, now only covering the upper half of his body. The window behind the couch is slowly brightening and Arthur can see Alfred's face around the eyes is puffy and red.

He looks at him, momentarily stunned of the obvious crying he’d obviously been doing the night before, then promptly surprised by how flushed he is generally.

He's never been very good at handling emotional outbursts, Francis was always the best with that - Having had plenty of practice dealing with him for so long - it comes almost naturally to him.

But with ailments such as fevers-
Arthur places an experimental hand to Alfred’s face and his face falls immediately.
Of course he was coming down with something- Looking like that and not having something or other is rarely the case.

He withdraws his hand to place it at the lad’s neck, then to his forehead to be sure, before determining the diagnosis and feeling mildly irritated at both Alfred and himself for not doing something about it earlier.

With a sigh through his nose, Arthur determines he needs to get up and shake out his legs, the numb prickling in them is beginning to become a bit much.

But then there's Alfred.

He doesn't want to wake him. 
Despite the puffiness of his face, he still looks much more relaxed than he does awake and judging by his temperature, he really needs the rest.

Arthur looks around the softly lit living room, then looks back down at Alfred, then at himself.

An idea springs to the forefront of his brain and he scoops both hands delicately beneath the pillow Alfred is sleeping on and begins to weasel his way free, moving his legs sideways from underneath him.

His left leg begins to feel like static as he stands on it, and he shakes it out, hopping around on one foot to keep balance while trying his best to keep Alfred's head from jostling too much. 
He lets the pillow rest on the couch and bites his expression together to stop himself from swearing too loudly at the awful feeling returning to his legs.

Alfred stirs, but thankfully doesn't wake.
Arthur grabs the remote from the side table and turns the tv off, giving his leg just a few more shakes, before putting his weight on it and walking it off.
He steps cautiously around the creaks in the floor, moving through his house towards the bathroom.

He returns to the couch and looks down at Alfred determinedly.

He hasn't done this in a while and Alfred isn't exactly child-sized anymore, but that doesn't matter.
What's a bit of weight, right?
He's carried Francis before and he's weighed much more than Alfred does now, he can handle this.

He breathes in through his nose and sets his stance. His legs are back to normal and he's stretched out his joints - He leans down and picks the bottom part of the duvet up from the floor and wraps it around Alfred's legs. The boy sleeps undisturbed as he's flipped to lie on his back.

Arthur slips one arm under his back and maneuvers the other under his knees and lifts unsuccessfully once - Then with a mostly soundless heave, he lifts again and leans back with Alfred securely in his arms. He huffs a breath. His arms doesn’t appreciate the exertion and neither does his back for that matter.

He's seriously gotten out of shape.

He neglects physical exercise too often. It's just the getting out and starting part that he never gets past. It's not lack of motivation, it's just not being bothered - He tried once, but it flopped with how little time he was able to set aside for it anyway. And he refuses to get up earlier than 7 just to go for a run. It's just not worth it, he thinks - Except it might've come in handy right now. And maybe starting with running would help his stomanina quite a bit as well.

He turns and walks towards the guest room. Legs buckling a little, but he plows on with the same stubborn determination he used to have when he was younger. 

It's Alfred, he can't possibly have gotten too weak to lift Alfred . 

He makes it to the guest bed and plops the boy into it as carefully as his arms will allow it.
He gets the pillow from the couch, arms burning, and places it beneath Alfred's head and sits on the edge of the bed for just a little to catch his breath.

God, he needs to work out more. Getting winded by this is simply embarrassing.

He decides to open the blinds and close the window. 
The room's been dark for too long and he really doubts it does anything good for Alfred's head.
The plate with orange slices stands empty, he spots it on his way out - It's a proud feeling, taking it out and setting it in the washer. 

A very proud one.

He returns into the guest room with a pain reliever and a glass of water for when Alfred wakes up.
The medicine should help a bit with the fever, and if it continues to resist, he’ll check if it’s high enough to be seen by a GP.

Until then, he’s going to get started on some sorting.

Chapter Text

When Alfred finally wakes up, Arthur's already gotten a headstart on the boxes from upstairs.

He's set them into the living room, made three sorting piles of keep, scrap and donate and is tossing too many things into the keep pile. 

Leaving the scrap and donating piles embarrassingly sparse.
He looks up as Alfred steps out. Hair messy and without the duvet wrapped around him - He looks awfully frail. His face is still flushed and he’s still looking pale, but at least he’s up and about.

"Goodmorning." Arthur greets, trying to sound more chipper than is called for.
Alfred makes an attempt to mimic his tone, but fails considerably. It's no bother, he didn't expect much more.

Alfred joins him on the floor with a huff.

"Aren't you supposed to clear out this stuff?" He asks hoarsely, grabbing an old chipped mug from the keep pile
- A relic of the 18th century that he's perfectly capable of fixing and retouching. Maybe he'll repaint it and start using it again, that would be grand. It'd fit in fine with his already overstocked mug cabinet, right next to his first self-made pottery that he's afraid to actually use, in case the clay falls apart the second it makes contact with water. 

He snatches the mug from Alfred's hands and puts it back into the keep pile. 

"I am . There are just a few things that I don't have the heart to throw out."

"Like this one?"

Alfred picks up another item from the Keep pile, a rainbow plastic slinky from the 90's.
Arthur eyes it with distaste, but thinks about how potentially he could… 
Actually, he's not entirely sure why that's in the keep pile, he isn't even sure how it ended up in his house.

Probably Peter.

Yeah, definitely Peter. 

He takes it from Alfred's greedy hands and places it as the third item in the scrap pile.

Right beside an old, cursed doll he forgot to burn and a moth-eaten, rotten and decayed, unwearable and nearly unrecognizable tunic, ten sizes too small that he for a few minutes had in the keep pile, promising to just fix it up later.
He moved it when he realized his wishful thinking might be bordering on delusional.

" Dude .”

Alfred regrabs the plastic abomination and moves it to the donate pile. 

"Those're timeless , you can't just throw out a slinky ! It's somehow not even broken or all jangled up or anything…”

Alfred seems to get an idea halfway through his sentence and picks it back out of the pile and begins to sit and fiddle with it - The springs jangle and clack and bounce in an array of multicolor that threatens to give Arthur a stroke if he looks at it for too long.

Alfred on the other hand looks pleased and that’s really all Arthur could want of him.

He decides to look away and go back to the boxes.

There’s an old pair of shoes that he specifically remembers never wearing for their tight fit and for losing him a toenail back in the day waiting to be sorted. 
They’re unsightly and lousy and absolutely unwearable, but then, he hesitates to throw them out.
They're still pretty spry for their condition, if he took them to a shoemaker he could probably get them refitted-

"You're gonna throw those out."

Arthur looks up at Alfred, then at the shoes, then back up.
"These are in perfectly fine condition." 

"Yeah, but who's gonna wear them? They're ancient clogs."

Arthur hums, turning them this way and that. "I was thinking they might fit Peter-" 

Alfred laughs briefly and crisply, voice still unrecovered.

"Peter? Bro, Peter's in his sneakers phase, you're never getting him to wear those."

Arthur frowns. "Well, I can't just toss them." 

"Donate them then." Alfred says simply, shrugging non-chalantly. 

"Or get them appraised at one of those antique shops, people really like ' vintage' junk, they'll pay you top dollar for anything as old as that ."

A bit of contemplation and they're placed in the donation pile so they can move on. 

Alfred turns out to be a surprisingly sensible voice of reason when it comes to whether or not to keep or to toss something, and after the first box, he begins to worry whether he'd regret tossing out so many things, in case he'll need them later.
He knows he won't, but probability has proven never to be zero in a life as long as his, and that fact alone has kept most the stuff he owns well beyond their years, to the point of disrepair. Yet he still can't part with them, they've become part of the house, it would feel emptier without it.

He doesn't know how Alfred seems to have such a disregard for sentimentality. 
Although, as Arthur looks at him, he's accumulating more and more things from the donation pile - The slinky being at the forefront as he fiddles around with it noisily.
He's put on an old hat Arthur used to wear some time in the early 20's and has secured a dysfunctional lighter because 'It looks rad.'

Arthur does like that lighter, and though he'd use a different word choice, he agrees that it does indeed look 'rad' .

Alfred has brightened up significantly - He's more engaged, more animated and despite the fever, he looks clear in the eyes.
Still such a far cry from what his usual offers up, but from the past few days, Arthur’s wondering if his usual was ever really real to begin with.

Arthur sorts through a few more things, pulling out a small cardboard box in the process.
The paint is chipping off and the lid is missing. He places it on the floor in front of him thoughtlessly, wondering now if Alfred's just been putting on an act and Arthur's just gotten used to seeing that version of him, and forgetting all the rest. Thinks back to how good at pretending to be stupid he is, and how gratingæy wrong that has always felt to him.

"Oh my god, are those my old cuff links?" 

Arthur blinks, turning his head to see Alfred reach over and snatch out two silver cufflinks from the small chipped box without a lid.
They're indeed his old cufflinks. 
He hated wearing them, Arthur remembers having to fight with him to get him to put them on until he'd gotten them costum made into star-emblems. 
If he remembers correctly, it'd been around the time of their… 'Altercation', though after the design change, Arthur rarely ever saw him go without them. 

Even after Alfred declared independence, Arthur remembers him wearing them. He was always confused about that, he still can't really make sense of it.
He'd expected him to have tossed them out, what with his lack of nostalgic attachment to things… 

Alfred looks up at him, a stirring of excitement and brewing trepidation dawning his face.

" You had them? I've been searching for them for years, man!"

Arthur looks at him for a moment and lifts his hand to scratch a bit self consciously at his neck. 
The fact Alfred has been actively missing them for that long has him feeling guilty for keeping them. And for such a silly reason too…

"Yes, you, uhm, you left them sitting on my bathroom sink a decade or two ago now." He explains, earning a confused quirk of Alfred's eyebrow.

"What? Why didn't you say anything?"

"Well-" He begins, shrugging. "I thought you might've left them on purpose." 

Saying it out loud really hits him how ridiculous that is. Of course he wouldn't do that, if he wanted to give them back to cut ties entirely, he would've done it earlier and in a much less subtle way.

Alfred seems to think the same.

"You know how much I like them, why would I leave them on purpose?" 

"I don't know. I just assumed-"  

"Wait, you didn't keep them to hold it over my head again or something, did you?" 

Arthur furrows his brows in indignation. "Sorry? What's that supposed to mean? ' Again'? "

Alfred waves a hand.

"Your whole 'Angry about the independence war' thing? The thing you're always reminding me you hate me for?" 

Arthur tenses, wavering in his response for a moment too long.
Alfred seems to take it as a confirmation to his suspicions and he rolls his eyes, entire body falling with the tired sigh that follows.
His entire demeanor exudes disappointment and Arthur cringes inwardly.

"Of course. Why am I surprised- That's always what it's about!"

Arthur struggles to find something to say in defense - He didn't hold onto them for blackmail he just… Misunderstood the sentiment. 
And yes, maybe he'd misunderstood a simple action as a declaration of total and final abandonment, and yes , maybe he'd gotten himself worked up over it for a year or two, and had taken it out on Alfred unknowingly through his actions, but he didn't mean to hold it over him .

Alfred stands, hat back on the donation pile, lighter on the floor and the slinky forgotten by the toss pile.

The only thing he's clutching are the cufflinks.
Arthur remains on the floor, looking up at him in a gross sort of deja vu.

"Alfred-"

"You know - I came here thinking that for just a bit , we could put that shit aside for maybe a month or something, but I guess that was too optimistic of me."

Arthur pushes himself to his feet.
"If you would just listen for one moment -" 

"Why should I?!"

Alfred shouts, turning on him. Arthur snaps his mouth shut.

"I'm so tired of this crap! I couldn't go to Mattie again, so I came here! Because 'Arthur used to be really great' I thought! '-and maybe he's moved on from his dumb grudge and we can go back to how things used to be!'- But fuck me for giving you the benefit of the doubt!" He raises an accusing hand in Arthur's direction.

"You're still acting like I'm the bad guy! Because I got fed up, sitting alone and twiddling my thumbs, in a house you weren't even in half the time!"

Arthur's mouth dries out and he looks away, setting his jaw tightly.
Alfred continues.

"I don't have enough hands or feet to count the amount of times I sat up waiting for you, you know. I even gave you a few days' leeway, because you'd told me those stories about the sea; About what's in it and how unpredictable it is, but you never showed! You promised me you'd come back but you never. fucking. did. "

Alfred takes a sharp inhale, voice cracking in places. Arthur keeps his eyes down, gnawing a bit on the inside of his cheek. 

"I had to figure things out on my own after that, including figuring out what the hell I even was , thinking you might've died. Or whether you'd ever fucking existed to begin with - And then, what, you expect my unwavering loyalty to you now, when you never showed me any?! How's that fair?! How's you hating me now, fair?!"

A metallic taste fills his mouth as Arthur stands there, unsure what to say.
A part of him wants to retaliate and say he's being dramatic. That he's exaggerating and that it wasn't that bad.
That Arthur had had worse, and that he should just be grateful he returned at all.
But he doesn't say that. It's just a projection - An unfair one at that. He doesn't actually feel that way, and Alfred doesn't deserve that invalidation.

Arthur's learned a lot since the turn of the century - Much like Matthew, he's went in and out of offices with stuffy chairs and people who try to read his mind like a cheap magazine.

He's had a hard time applying it, but he knows enough to think before he speaks for once.
He once more hopes, in between the myriad of other thoughts clouding his brain at the moment, that Alfred's gone that direction as well.

"It's not." He settles for saying. It comes out tight and what he sees when he finally manages to regain eye contact is the exact reason he'd looked away to begin with.

"It's not fair."

Alfred's eyes are wet and he lifts one hand hastily to wipe at them.
Arthur's stomach sinks - He's already acknowledged his own faults and mistakes theoretically, but seeing the result of them physically standing in front of him… 

Alfred turns, taking long strides towards the guest room and slams the door hard enough for it to reverberate around the house.
Arthur breathes out through his nose and lifts a hand to run it down his face.

He'd stopped working on his thoughts a while ago. 'A break' he'd told himself, because he'd hit a wall, and it was just so much easier to fall backwards than forwards.

He sniffs, feeling incredibly pathetic.

This isn't about him . It shouldn't be Alfred's problem what he's dealing with - Alfred came and asked him for help, Arthur already has resources. It's about Alfred right now.

Not everything needs to always be about him.

—

Arthur sits in the kitchen for a long time with his hands folded and his eyes focusing on a choice spot on the floor.

He has an empty whiskey glass set out, the bottle still untouched beside it. And for once, he just thinks.

He pulled out the whiskey by habit, but hasn't touched it. He doesn't need it, he doesn't even really want it either - It's just so normal to reach for it by now, he didn't think about it.

He doesn't like drinking around Alfred anymore, anyway. And with how things escalated a mere half an hour ago now, the most mature thing to do now is to sit and think some things through.

He needs to be that father-figure he'd self assigned himself to, at a time where guardianship was the last thing he should've claimed.

He sighs and mentally curses his own obscenely long adolescence that absolutely should not have lasted that long.

He puts the whiskey back where he found it, caught between having just half a glass and sticking by his values, but ultimately decides that he needs to start pulling his shit together.

The floor creaks in a familiar pattern under his feet when he manages to wrestle his resolve into place and move towards the guest room door.
He can see cracks spreading like the branches of a tree along the hinges from the slam earlier, and he breathes in. Counting down from 10, focusing on only the task at hand then letting the breath go in a rush. 

It's just a conversation.

Two people talking about things that need to be talked about.

He raises a hand and knocks three firm knocks. Chest constriction nervously, he wills himself to stand straighter.

"Alfred?"

He expects to be met with silence, but instead gets a crude: " Go away. " Muffled through the door. " It's what you do best. "
Ouch . He deserved that one.

"Look, I know I haven't been the greatest-"

Alfred scoffs. "Understatement of the century- "

"-But, " Arthur cuts in.

"I don't hate you. And I definitely don’t want to hold anything against you."

Alfred doesn't have a snarky come back for that one. 

"I know it must've seemed that way."

He waits for some sort of response, but gets none of the sort. He feels the way the heater he'd cranked up earlier that morning makes him feel toastier than normal and he shifts his weight from one leg to the other squeamishly.

"I'm not very good with these sorts of things. And I know it's not going to fix everything." 

He closes eyes, hoping to everything above and below that he's managing to sound sincere.
"I'm sorry I wasn't there for you. Whatever the reason was, it doesn't change the fact that I should have been."

He slips the inside of his cheek in between his teeth and reopens his eyes. He casts them downwards to the floor for somewhere to focus his attention - 
The sun, as the morning broadcast forecasted, peeks out from the clouds and streams out through the cracks of the door.
It warms his socked feet and he focuses on that feeling. Relying on it to keep him rooted in front of the door. 

There's a slight shuffling from inside, but the door remains shut.

"... You don't hate me?"

The question sounds skeptical in tone and Arthur moves his eyes from his feet up to the handle. 

"No." He says firmly.

"Then why do you act like you do? " 

"I don't mean to."

"That isn't an explanation."

"Maybe not, but I can't very well give you one without in some way making it sound like an excuse ."

More shuffling from the other end. " THAT sounds like an excuse. " 

"I can't change what I've done in the past, but that doesn't mean I don't want to . I-"
Arthur sighs, frustrated. 

"-I couldn't ever hate you, Alfred. You're the closest thing to a son I've ever had. And I admit, I haven't been a very good example of a father to you and I regret that."

" ... "

"There are…" Arthur begins hesitantly, lifting his arms and placing them overcross. "Things that I struggle to let go of. Things that have hurt me. And I react to those things in different ways, but the most common one seems to be… Anger."

Arthur refocuses on the sun at his socks, the warmth that spreads there, a nice grounding feeling.
"And I take that out on people without intending to. It's really…" He sighs. "Not my intention. And it's not like I don't try to be different, it's just not that easy." He says. 

"It's actually… Pretty fucking difficult."

He trails off, feeling conflicted - A mix between restlessness and relief.
He hasn't really talked to anyone about things like this in a while, and getting it off his chest feels nice - He just doesn't really want it to be another thing on the boy's mind.

"I don’t hate you, but it’s quite fair if you hate me. I would be pretty surprised if you didn’t."

It falls back to silence and Arthur stands in his own mind for long enough to start worrying. Worrying about having said too much or too little.
The handle clicks and he looks up as the door swings ajar. He sees Alfred move back to sit on the bed through the slit in the cracked hinges and he feels winded.

He steps inside slowly and sits an acceptable distance away from Alfred on the edge of the bed. 
It feels strange, and it feels awkward. But it feels much less tense than it would have at any point in time before.

"Why did you leave?" Alfred asks after a moment.

Arthur looks over, then looks down at his hands. Frustrated at himself, a bit embarrassed.

"I don't remember the exact reason." He says honestly. "I don't remember a lot from that specific period of time, but I do know that it was definitely not a very good one. Not because of you. It was never about you."

Alfred waits another moment.
"... Why'd you come back?"

"... Well I-" Arthur stops, rearranging his words, then tries again. "-Eventually, I just…"

Alfred is looking at him, face guarded but also so, so sad at the same time.
Arthur presses his mouth together and slumps a bit. 

"I almost didn't. I wanted to and I'm glad I did, but I assumed you didn't want to see me again." He chuckles a bit humorlessly at that last part. "Sort of like I assumed you'd left those cuff links in some symbolic way of cutting ties with me."

"That's why you didn't say anything?"

"Yes." Arthur huffs. "Yes, it was."

The sun fades momentarily, casting the room into a cool, blue-ish hue and Arthur begins to pick at his nail beds while Alfred swallows a few times.

"So," He begins, and Arthur doesn't know what to expect from how tight his voice is.

"You don't hate me."

Arthur shakes his head slowly.

"And you didn't leave because you thought I was a failure."

Arthur, who'd cast his eyes back down and away, snaps his attention back to Alfred. "Of course not."
Alfred takes a shuddering breath and Arthur's face softens.
This is the second time this week he's broken down like this, this time it's just not hidden away beneath a duvet.

Alfred lifts a hand, wiping at his face vigorously.

"Come here, lad."

Arthur reaches an arm out, shifting ever so slightly to face Alfred better.
The room brightens, illuminating any and all shadows, creating a soft, airbrushed radiance to everything.
And Alfred's face breaks and he wracks out a few sobs, leaning forwards across the space Arthur's left between them and wraps his arms a bit awkwardly around Arthur's back, hiding beneath his chin like he did when he was little.

And he cries, and Arthur places his hand on his back and strokes it in comfort. Not sure what else to do.

"I really am sorry." He settles on saying. 
Alfred grips at his sweater, a heart wrenching series of wails following after it.

"You've been carrying that around for a while, haven't you, Love?"

Arthur manages to shift around enough to wrap Alfred up in his arms properly, and he sits with him sobbing into his shoulder for an indefinite amount of time.

He keeps rubbing circles at his back, thinking about how they got here. How this series of events called for something this heartbreaking and Arthur decides that if he thinks too much about it right now he's going to join in on the sobfest, and he can very well wait until his next session with the uncomfortable therapist chairs. And with the bleak face of a person he still doesn't understand can know him so well, when he doesn't even know himself like that.

He can only imagine how much Alfred’s carrying around to have him this far into the ground. The boy rarely ever shows anything but obnoxious optimism. It’s strange to see him crying, even stranger to see him actively make an effort to seek comfort for it.

By the time Alfred cries himself out, Arthur's just sitting and rocking him slowly back and forth - Like he would do when Alfred had had nightmares, when he'd actually been there to help him.
Neither says anything and Arthur has no qualms about continuing his rocking.

He's already sat a full night being a pillow, he doesn't mind getting a bit of back pain from sitting sideways for a while.

At least Alfred's hands aren't clawing at his clothes anymore, instead they're just resting flat over his shoulders, just barely holding a grip on him. It's not perfect, in a perfect world, he wouldn't even need to sit like this, but here he is.

A gurgling interrupts the comfortable quiet, and Arthur glances down.

"You alright?"

Alfred shakes his head weakly against Arthur's shoulder. "My head hurts." He whispers.

"And you're hungry."

A pause, then a nod.
Arthur hums. 

"You haven't eaten anything in a while, let's get you something, yea?"

Alfred tightens his grip stubbornly as Arthur makes an attempt to let go of him.

"Alfred."
He says, but the grip doesn't lessen. 

"Alfred, I know I carried you in this morning, but I cannot carry you now. I nearly threw my back out."

A small groan and Arthur pats his back a few times. "Good Lad."

"Stop calling me 'lad'."

"You want me to start calling you 'boy' again?"

Alfred reluctantly pulls away, face red and generally ill looking. He lifts his hands and wipes at it pitifully. 

"No, just say my name like a normal person."

"Sure. You drop the 'dude' and start calling me by my name as well, and I'll think about it."

Alfred sticks close to him the entire way to the kitchen, hovering beside him, holding his arms around himself and accepting the offered glass of water and advil. 
They pick the rest of the sorting up after lunch and clear the living room in time for dinner.

Chapter Text

The days don't stop blending together, but at least he doesn't feel chained to his bed anymore. Instead, now he feels chained to Arthur.

He tries to make meaningless conversation like usual. Small talk or inquiries about work or other things.

"You work a lot." He says.

And Arthur will scoff with his eyes glued to his laptop.

"Cheers. I might as well be self-governing at this point."
Alfred struggles to play ball on that one and usually it just ends there unless Arthur asks him a question back that he can bounce off of. 
That doesn't happen much though, Arthur does work a lot and Alfred can't really be too upset about it - He's run away from the same thing. 
He still hasn't called his boss to let him know where he is, and at this point the idea makes him feel just as sick as thinking about returning home. To that messy, lonely hole of an apartment he left in New York along with his workload.

It's around the 1 month mark that Arthur brings up with him a deadline. Or what Alfred thinks is a deadline.
Alfred's been tailing him around constantly for as far as he can follow. 
Arthur returned to his regular work schedule of leaving in the morning and returning home in the evening and while he's out, Alfred feels like a dog waiting at the doorstep for him.
A pretty ugly throwback, he thinks, an ironic sort of deja vu that he’s been getting a lot lately.

Arthur won’t leave this time though, he promised he wouldn’t. And where would he go, even if he wanted to?

"Have you thought about how long you'll be staying for?" Arthur asks. Casually and without concern. He barely looks up from his dinner plate as he speaks. It’s 6 pm, and it’s already getting dark.
Alfred pushes some potatoes around his plate, steadily losing his appetite.

"If you want me to leave, just say that."

He keeps his head down but he hears Arthur rustle a little, a small exhale leaving him. 

"Oh please, that's not what I meant. I'd just like to have an approximate timeline." He explains, loosely gesturing with his fork. Alfred makes a noncommittal sound, stabbing through the poor root-vegetable and dipping it around in sauce.

Arthur continued, taking a bite himself. "Are we talking another month, half or a full year?"

Alfred glances up to see Arthur looking at him honestly needing an answer.
Alfred looks back down at his food. Then shrugs.

He doesn't like to think about leaving at all… Putting a designated time on it makes it feel like he has to stress over getting ready for the trip back and to be on his own again.
For everything to go bad again. 

"Alfred."

Alfred clenches his jaw. 

"I don't know." He says. 

"Well, I don't know either, that's why I'm asking.”

His stomach churns and he sets the fork and knife down, appetite completely lost. The cutlery makes a sharp, uncomfortable noise against the porcelain and he debates whether to just get up and leave or to stay and wait it out. The guest room has been feeling a lot like his apartment lately. He doesn’t want to go in there before it is absolutely necessary. 

"Why does it matter though? I'm in your house , just tell me when you want me to leave and I'll leave." 

Arthur looks at him, chewing the last bit of food before swallowing it and calmly setting his own cutlery at the edges of his plate. “I’m not going to toss you out.” He says firmly. “If you feel like you need to stay here, then you’re free to do so. I don’t mind.”

Alfred looks up, affronted. "I'm not a charity case , dude."

Arthur leans back in his chair. "I'm not saying you are, but you came here for help - That’s hardly something you would do if you were feeling alright staying at home?”

"I never said I came for help , I just came to get away !" He snaps, throwing up a hand.

He sees the familiar little spark of a nerve twitching in Arthur's eye, then watches it slowly dissolve as he sits and watches for a moment way too long for comfort.

"Alfred." He begins calmly. "I'm not going to force you out if you want to stay here for however long it is you feel you need it, but I do require a timeline - Even a rough estimate is fine.” He explains. Alfred rolls his eyes. 

“There is no limit, I just need to know ."

"But why do you need to know?" Alfred presses. 

Arthur nods with a sigh - to himself or at Alfred, he doesn't know.

"Okay." He begins, and he pushes the food aside and places both hands folded on the table.

It feels like some sort of intervention and the room suddenly feels way too large. Or perhaps he feels smaller. It runs him down his back with cold, and he's glanced down before he can stop himself.
He sees his food, bland and tasteless, hardly any better than his own cooking, but at least his own looks more appetizing and less brown and beige…

Arthur’s voice is more soothing, much more accommodating than the irrational worry of some sort of punishment he’d expected to happen.
He breathes, but remains tense. A fleeting memory of pain makes him twitch in his seat and he resents Arthur once more for never being there to stand up for him when it mattered.

"I need to know whether to incorporate you into my plans-” He says. “Like the holidays or New Years eve. If there's a conference abroad I need to know what you’ll do then, if you’ll stay here or come along."
Arthur lists off on his fingers systematically and Alfred listens, casting his eyes up just enough to see his hands.

" And… " Arthur hesitates, tone taking on somewhat of an awkward pause.

"There are other parts such as the 6 months in summer where… I live with Francis. In France." 

Alfred lifts his gaze all the way to stare wide eyed up at him and Arthur in turn closes his eyes in apparent embarrassment and rubs the bridge of his nose.
"Don't say anything, I know . The point is- I do have a life outside work, however far out that sounds, and I need to know how to fit you into that for however long you decide to stay."

The sentence trails off into nothing and Alfred leans back in his own chair. Trying to relax and untense from his irrational scare from before. 

"So…"

He says, trying and failing to not sound skeptical.

"You're.. Like back with Francis? And you're, like, actually working ?"

Arthur makes a face and shifts in his seat uncomfortably. "I don't think right now is the time to talk about my love life; How long are you staying for, Alfred."

A small voice asks him to say he's never leaving, another part berates him for crawling back after working so hard to get away from all this.
But he feels seen and he feels looked after in a non judgemental way, where he doesn't feel like he needs to compensate for anything. Doesn't need to pretend he has everything under control when he so obviously doesn't and never really felt like he had.
Arthur sits in his chair patiently and holds the room without putting in any effort.
Alfred crosses his arms. 

"How long do I stay for you to talk about your love life?"

Arthur rolls his eyes. " Why do you care so much about that?"

"Because you and Francis again ?"

The tenseness in the air dissipates and Arthur just barely pulls a half grin, amused at the ridiculousness himself.
"We’ve both taken some steps in the right direction this century, now drop it ."

Alfred purses his lips but drops it.
Arthur keeps waiting for an answer and Alfred reluctantly makes himself a compromise.

Take the opportunity - Eat what’s being served, even if it’s just crumbs, but don’t lick the plate and leave once it’s empty.
He scratches at his arms, averting his eyes downwards to his lap. He just wants to destress. Give up control for just a little while and try to catch up at his own pace…

"Maybe…" He lifts his shoulders self consciously. "A year or two?”

Arthur smiles and nods. He looks satisfied and that urge to cry that has sat in his chest for the entire month he’s been in London flexes again and he blinks against it. 

"Brilliant.” Arthur chimes, so much lighter than earlier. He scoots his plate back in front of him and picks up his fork to point it at Alfred’s plate. 

“Eat the rest, there’s only a few bites left.”

Alfred looks to the plate then to Arthur indignantly. “But I’m full.”

Arthur picks up his knife and cuts a potato for himself. “It’s three bites, lad. You can do it.”

Alfred looks down at his plate mournfully, eyeing the sad brown mess.
He picks up his fork and knife, and he eats exactly three bites before setting the cutlery overcross and rising from the table with a grumbled “Thanks for the food.”

Arthur gives him an amused look. “You’re quite welcome.”

Chapter Text

Alfred hides in the bathroom with his heart in his throat and a metallic taste in his mouth. He sits slumped by the toilet, cold all over and shivering at the chill seeping into him from the tiles beneath him.

He doesn’t remember waking up, or what he dreamt. He just remembers being here, in the bathroom, crouched over the toilet and dry-heaving because he hasn’t eaten properly in weeks and he can’t muster up the energy to take anything so he can go back to bed. He knows that it won’t matter whether he sleeps or not anyway, he’s going to be tired no matter what, and he’s going to pretend that he’s not. He’s going to pretend that he’s chipper and hasn’t lost weeks worth of sleep over paperwork he doesn’t trust anybody else to do for him.

He chokes on his own breathing, his throat feels clogged up and tastes like bile and he gags fruitlessly at it. He’s been losing weight recently, he hasn’t had the time or energy to work out, so the food was the thing that went. He didn’t like the feeling of it stuffing against his insides as he sat down, so he began to substitute it for shakes.
He regrets it now. Nothing to throw up and make him feel better- Just the seat and his cheek resting on it.

The silence gives way for a gentle knock and he twitches at the sound. 
When did he have guests over? Why is someone in his apartment? Did he forget something? He lifts his head in alarm, the room spinning as he scrambles to grab a hold of something to steady himself - He gets a hold of something human, and the person gets a hold of him back.

“Calm down, lad. It’s just me.” Arthur says, crouching down beside him and placing a warm hand on his back.

Alfred’s grip loosens and he falls back to the toilet seat, eyes flickering over Arthur’s face for answers that he can’t piece together.

“What are you doing here?” He says hoarsely, clearing his throat a few times and knitting his brows together at how disjointed the situation is.
What’s Arthur doing in New York? They don’t have any meetings scheduled, do they? He’s pretty sure he’d know, and if they do and he forgot, Arthur wouldn’t care to go find him, they’re not that close. Matthew would - Maybe - But even then, he wouldn’t bring anybody along with him. He knows how much Alfred hates visitors. “Did I miss a meeting?”

He squeezes his eyes shut, lifting a hand to rub at them tiredly, Trying to think, to find his calendar in his head to try and remember the dates and deadlines for this month.
Arthur rubs his back roughly and shakes his head slowly.

“Not that I’m aware of.” He says. “Are you alright?”

Alfred opens his mouth dryly just to close it and give a small nod. “Yeah, I’m okay.”
Arthur drops his eyelids skeptically.

“Right, let me rephrase- What’s wrong? Are you ill?”

“What?” Alfred shakes his head lightly and tries to sit up straight. “No, I’m okay. Why would I be sick?”

Arthur gestures to the toilet and raises his eyebrows pointedly at him.
When Alfred follows his gaze he has to look away not to be sick again.
Seems like there was something to throw up after all… He doesn’t remember eating anything though, that doesn’t make any sense.

He takes a breath, a slow and gradual process of calming down from something and a headache blooming at the front of his head uncomfortably.

“But… I haven’t- And what are you here for?”

Alfred brings both hands to his head to massage his temples and curl in on himself. God he really needs to lie down- Maybe if he scoots some of his mess aside he can sleep on his bed for 20 minutes or something. He estimates that it’s roughly 4 in the morning? He has an alarm for 6, so maybe he can draw it out to 90 minutes if he wants to be generous with himself - Splurging a little - He’ll have to catch up on some things though, so is it really splurging-

“Hey, hey, no need for that! Breathe in and breathe out, come on.” Arthur moves his hand from his back to grip at the back of his neck firmly, gently shaking him to get his attention.

“You’re trembling like a dog- What’s all this about? Do I need to call a doctor for you?”

Alfred shakes his head firmly, protests tumbling out unbidden before he has the time to figure out what he’s really saying.
Doctors are a waste of time, they’re expensive and they tell him to eat and sleep more, as if he wouldn’t do that if he could- He’ll just take a few pills and sleep in again, he’ll wake up way more refreshed than he would if he took the long route of waiting around for his body to get better. All it wants to do anyway is buckle, so if he lets it and just restarts it every now and again, it’ll be faster and he’ll lose much less time doing that than wasting it gradually getting better.

Arthur looks caught between horrified and absolutely about to blow his lid off, and Alfred really doesn’t have the energy for a fight right now. He scrunches his face up and moves to stand, gripping the toilet bowl with one hand to push himself to his feet just to have his vision betray him and get him back to the floor.

He hangs his head down as close to his knees as possible and tightens his grip on the porcelain until his knuckles go white and he feels the seat creak under his hand.
Worst possible moment to feel faint; In front of England. England who’s still sitting around being shocked for whatever reason, as if it isn’t common knowledge that Alfred’s losing his touch with the world.

He’s probably come to taunt him about it and throw it back in his face with ‘ I told you so ’s  and ‘ Do better ’s.

Arthur has a single syllable out before Alfred cuts him off. “Whatever you have to say, I don’t wanna hear it.” He doesn’t even look up, he doesn’t need to and he doesn’t want to.
He’s fine looking down between his legs at the tiled floor and the…

Those are not his tiles.

He blinks down at them, squinting to try and see if they maybe he’s just seeing things again, but they’re the same, no matter how many times he tries to blink them back to normal.

“Fine. Stay here, I’ll get you some water.”

Alfred feels the hand leave his neck and hears Arthur exit the bathroom that isn’t his.
He looks up, scanning the walls and the layout. Dark green tiles sit along the wall over the bathtub, peeking out between an array of plants hanging around from seemingly everywhere.
A bath rug sits a bit away from him, a bit wrinkled, like someone stumbled on it and threw it askew.

Face the image of dawning realization, he finally looks out through the doorway to see the guest room door ajar. A blurry outline of the guest duvet messily lies halfway into the living room and right, he almost fell over it in his haste to get out here.

Mouth agape and head swimming, he reaches up and closes the toilet lid and pulls himself onto it. He didn’t get his glasses on and he stares at the bathtub with it’s blurry plants and shampoos and something that looks much too fancy to belong to Arthur.

He’s in London. Right, he actually went through with that.
Oh god and he’s been here for so long, how many deadlines has he missed back home?
Oh god he’s missed so much work , he didn’t bring his laptop either- What’s wrong with him .

He leans forward onto his knees and rubs his hands over his face, trying to pull himself together a bit. He needs to get access to a laptop of some sort. Maybe he can work through his phone or something, he’ll have to see about going back home soon too and-

He doesn’t want to go back home. Just thinking about it makes him feel sick again and maybe he should’ve stayed on the floor because he’s pretty sure if he had something to throw up earlier he might still have something for right now.

Footsteps approaches followed by another three knocks at the door and Alfred looks up tiredly to see Arthur stepping in with a glass of water. True to his word, he doesn’t say anything; He holds the glass out and Alfred looks up at him.
He doesn’t look mad or angry, he just looks resigned.

Alfred accepts the water and takes a sip from it.

It’s lukewarm, a bit on the warm side and while Arthur doesn’t visibly look upset it’s definitely a small comeback on his part to make the water slightly gross. Once again, he’s annoyingly stubborn when it comes to spite - He remains silent and waits for Alfred to speak first, but stays in the room. Lurking at the sink with his arms crossed.

Alfred takes another sip of water, this time placing a second hand on the glass to keep it still.

“Sorry about… All that.” He says finally.
Arthur shifts then crouches down to look at him properly. Alfred keeps his gaze trained on the glass in his hands, refusing to look anywhere else.

“Water under the bridge.” Arthur says calmly. Alfred sees him glance down then back up looking thoughtful.

“Mind telling me what you meant with ‘ taking pills ’?”

Alfred stays silent, moving a finger against the glass in his hands and biting the inside of his cheek. It’s not Arthur’s business what he decides to do to stay on top of things, it’s really not his problem. Besides, Arthur works just as much, if not more, so he really can’t say anything, unless he wants to be a big hypocrite.

“I mind.” Alfred says, slipping in a little bit of lightheartedness in hopes of getting away.

Arthur doesn’t think that’s very funny and simply waits for an actual answer.
Alfred hates him at that moment.

“It’s not a big-”

“I’ll decide whether it’s a big deal or not, Alfred. Have you been killing yourself to keep up with work?”

Alfred cringes at the bluntness of that question. It’s one thing justifying it to yourself, another thing is justifying it to someone else without sounding like you’re insane.
And he’s not insane. He’s not, he has the opportunity to take that short cut, so he’s going to!

“It’s not always to keep up with work!”

Arthur’s eyes widen a fraction and Alfred backtracks, hands beginning to shake. “Not like that! It’s just a nice break! No, wait- That sounds worse. I just have the privilege to be able to do it, y’know! Who else can say that they’re literally killing themselves over work?” He laughs at himself, but it sounds much more frantic than genuine. “It’s smart! I’m just being smart with my time, man! It’s not- I’m not crazy for that!”

The water in the glass spills onto his hand and he leans sideways to set it down onto the floor. It clinks against the tiles and he folds his hands between his legs when he sits back up.

It’s fine. If others had the opportunity they’d take it too, he’s not insane.

He’s not insane.

And yet Arthur’s looking up at him from his spot crouched on the floor in front of him, as if he’s grown a second head. He looks so worried and somehow pissed off about it at the same time, thinking of what to say to not make anything worse and it’s honestly embarrassing.
He’s hidden it so well for so many years and he slips up now .

He’s beginning to remember why he stayed away from others for so long, he doesn’t trust himself around them. He always says something fucked up and make everybody upset and he’s not like that. He’s not supposed to be like that, nobody knows him to be that, he’s just being dramatic about it and he’s not wording it correctly - Arthur’s reaction is just because he’s accidentally over-exaggerated how bad it is, if he knew how it really was he would understand.

“It’s seriously not that bad.” He assures shakily.

Arthur bites his mouth together looking at him. “Alfred, you need to see a professional about this.”
Alfred’s stomach drops. 

“NO.” He clears his throat. “No. No, I don’t-” He chuckles incredulously. “I don’t.”

And there’s that concern again and why does he keep making things worse.

“You kill yourself to stay on top of work, Alfred- That’s-”

“I’m not insane. ”

Arthur’s mouth hangs on the last word before closing and reshaping. “It’s unhealthy.”

“It’s not that bad, I’m telling you! You work yourself to death too!”

“I don’t physically kill myself for work, America!” Arthur snaps.
 

“I don’t think you’re insane but you’re not fucking well either!”

Alfred looks away at the title change, jumping his legs anxiously.
Arthur's voice calms significantly after that.

“You need help. Not just from me but from someone who knows what they’re bloody doing.”

Alfred doesn’t say anything and Arthur doesn’t either. Both marinating in the bad taste in their mouths over things they don’t know how to communicate.
It’s getting old with how often Arthur has to help him up from something this month. It’s getting ridiculous that he’s still trying and Alfred half expects him to get fed up soon. An alarm blares from somewhere in the house and Arthur turns his head towards the doorway. Alfred moves to stand; Deciding an alarm is the perfect opportunity to get out of this conversation when Arthur leans over and pushes the door closed with a heavy slam to muffle the sound.

“I’ve gone.” Arthur presses, placing both hands on Alfred’s arms to keep him in place.

“Whether you’ll call me insane or not, I don’t give a shit, but I’ve gone.”

Alfred gapes at him and Arthur continues. Looking increasingly more uncomfortable, but pressing on by squeezing Alfred’s arms harder for everything he doesn’t want to say being uttered. As if he can force some kind of his own sense into him, or maybe just to punish him. Alfred doesn’t complain either way.

“And I’m still going.”

Arthur swallows. “I’ve had a break from it recently, but I contacted her the other day to schedule an appointment. They’re being paid not to judge you, Alfred.”

Alfred feels his mouth dry out a little, looking down at Arthur like he’s never seen him before.
He can’t imagine him in a stuffy office, talking with some random person about stuff they’ll never be able to understand. And in a way, it feels embarrassing to know. That somehow the fact that Arthur needs a shrink makes him less trustworthy and less safe. He doesn’t feel like he can be what Alfred wants him to be, if he’s doing bad enough to need that kind of help .

He feels his chest tighten looking down at him.

He’s so small now. None of that strength or authority that made him feel rock solid back when Alfred needed him; Now he’s just some guy . 
Like Alfred is, like Mathias and Gilbert are. 
Like Matthew is.

He’s just a guy who has issues and why does he have to have issues?
Why does he get to have issues and why does he get to fix them ?

“What’s wrong with you?” Alfred hears himself ask.

Arthur’s face pales a bit and he hesitates in responding. Alfred makes outlandish guesses, thinking about all the times in the past where Arthur’s acted out strangely. 
Said weird things.

Arthur steels himself, holding true to not giving a shit what Alfred’s going to think and while it does help his case a bit, Alfred feels strange looking at him now.

“Quite a bit, it seems.”

“Yeah, but what’s wrong with you? What do you have?”

Arthur inhales, expandkng his chest a bit. 

“Will it really make you feel any better to know?”

Alfred doesn’t know, but maybe. Maybe it’ll help.
He’s starting to realize how little he actually knows him and maybe knowing what’s going on in his head is a step towards that.
Maybe he just wants to know it’s not as bad as he thinks it is. To be proved wrong and hear that Arthur isn’t mental. That he’s still that pillar of strength that Alfred’s wanted him to be- Has thought him to be, since childhood.

“Probably.” He says. “I think it’s better than knowing something’s wrong with you, but not knowing what it is.”

Arthur nods, the muffled alarm through the door turns off. 
Must have gone to snooze.

“Alright.” He sounds apprehensive and pushes himself to his feet  with a heave.

“Let’s get out of the bathroom and have a sit down then, yea? Bring your water.”

Alfred obliges and Arthur pats him on the arm gently.

Chapter Text

Arthur knocks a teaspoon on the edge of a cup twice, two clanks, before it goes into the sink and he sets the cup down in front of Alfred along with an aspirin.

Outside the world is getting ready to wake, the darkness that lures just before the sun rises hangs over the scenery outside the windows. Frost stings the grass, the kitchen lamp makes the darkened windows into mirrors and the chair creaks lightly when Arthur sits down to nurse a cup of his own.
And Alfred’s holding his head in his hands, rubbing at his scalp, all the while making a small sound of discomfort.

“You have an aspirin right there, mate. Go ahead and get it over with.”

Alfred groans a little louder, hands sliding down to his neck, head still hanging so close to the table, his bangs are fanning out across the wood.
Arthur lifts his tea and sips it patiently.

He’s still feeling quite put off with what he’s awoken to. He hadn’t slept well, had gotten up to walk himself tired, maybe get something warm, to find the bathroom-light on downstairs and a haphazardly messy scene from the guest room.
A crow caws from a spindly tree somewhere outside, the fridge’s electrical humming picks up and Alfred slowly straightens up and eyes the aspirin as if it slighted him personally.

And maybe in hindsight, it has. And maybe giving the boy a pill to swallow, instead of a soluble one, was a poor decision on Arthur’s end. He looks on sympathetically across the table.

There’s a sheen on Alfred’s skin, Arthur notes. He looks sickly, but not in the traditional sense - More in the tired sense. He’s got that paleness of nausea and a slight fever from the same thing, although what he’s got in his head, Arthur can only guess at.
It’s worrying him though. What with how Alfred hadn’t even realized where he was, had thought he was back home and the oddest part about that was how normal his predicament seemed to be to him. He hadn’t seemed surprised about being ill, and he still doesn’t.
Then the whole ordeal with the… Death, aspect.

Arthur watches him relent to the medicine and he throws it down with the remainder of his water.
He grimaces, looks at the empty glass that he sets back down.

“Hopefully that will ease the top.”

“Mm.”

Alfred slumps onto the table, eyes closing. He looks even more ill with his cheek resting against the table like that.
“Are you certain I shouldn’t call for a doctor to look at you?”

Alfred hums.
“I’m not sick.”

Arthur rolls his eyes, but doesn’t say anything and
Alfred stays on the table, breathing slowly in and out in calculated motions. As if he’s trying to remember the action and Arthur checks his watch for a lack of conversation.

6:45.

“Tell me what’s wrong with you.” Alfred mutters, voice coming out funny with his face squished flat against the table.

“Saying it that way doesn’t feel very motivating.” Arthur responds.

He hears a long, gradual inhale. “You were the one who said you’d tell me, dude.”

“I did, did I?”

“Mhm.”

“Well, then.”

They sit in silence again.
He has absolutely no clue how the hell he’s going to breach the subject in a way that feels proper.
He remembers the way it was explained to him and the way he hated every word to come out of that doctor’s mouth, but he can’t think of a single way to recreate it now that he needs it.
And the way Alfred’s looking in such bad shape is incredibly distracting.

“Do you…”

No, he can’t say that.
The top of Alfred’s head moves to resettle, he moves his shoulders and exhales deeply.

Arthur folds his hands on the table.
“I have trouble being present at times.”

He swallows the way his voice sounds in the silence. He isn’t scared, per se, but he’s aware of his tone and the way it travels. He doesn’t sound nearly as confident as he should.

“...Present?” Alfred grumbles.

“Quite.”

“You can’t think of any other way to describe it?”

Alfred places both hands at the edge of the table and pushes himself slowly back against the chair to sit up. He makes a grimace at the movement, then makes another grimace at Arthur.

“Didn’t you get papers and stuff?”

Arthur nods. “I did.”

“Can I see them?”

“If you can find them, be my guest.”

They both glance towards the living room, the small glimpse of it they can catch at least. At the books and the mess, the stuff lying around everywhere, in an organized chaos that only Arthur can maneuver through.
Francis did a good job with making it all look intentional, but the organization was entirely lost to the both of them.

Alfred groans, hanging his head back.
“You’re so annoying.”

Arthur huffs out a sharp laugh. “Quite, thank you.”

“And you don’t remember the name at all? Like at all?”

Arthur raises a brow, leaning back in his own chair, hands still folded at the table. “Well, I wasn’t finished talking.”

He almost laughs at the irritated face he’s met with. Alfred’s pale face takes away so much of the bite that he’s surely trying to convey, though.

It reminds him of the morning when he’d first arrived. Soggy, pale and looking like he’s drowning, barely holding onto something invisible.

Arthur draws a breath, then straightens up in his seat.

“Have you ever had the feeling that you’ve done something wrong?” He asks.
He figures that going for the more indirect approach works better in situations where he’d really rather bot elaborate.
Give hints, maybe a vague spin of a tale, and let the receiver figure it out themselves.

Alfred doesn’t sound very keen when he responds. “I guess.”

While it’s expected, Arthur treads more lightly on his volume, making it more straightforward and monotone.

“You don’t know what it is, but you know you have done something wrong. You try to ask what you’ve done wrong, but all you get in return are dirty looks and ‘You know what you did’, even if you really don’t?”

Alfred looks down and away, presumably thinking, Maybe just contemplative and listening. Arthur fiddles with his nail beds, picking at the skin, giving himself a taught stature, as if squaring himself up to be proper can somehow make him feel less vulnerable.

“And then, later,” He continues. “You find out what you did wrong. But it’s only then that you realize it wasn’t right and so a second realization comes along; You realize that so long has passed, that making an effort to fix it now, would be entirely too late. The damage is done and there is no point in bringing it all up again now.”

Alfred’s face scrunches up thoughtfully and he gives him a confused glance.

He takes another breath in.
“You then also realize… That you can’t trust your own judgment. Because your own judgment tells you one thing, but other people tell you another - And you don’t know which is true or false, because neither one ever really proved trustworthy. So you avoid other people, because you don’t trust yourself to be around them.”

Arthur lets his shoulders drop a bit and leans back into his chair to cross his arms. The fabric of his shirt feels soft under his fingers.

“Have you ever felt that way?”

Alfred doesn’t look like he has. But he certainly doesn’t look convinced that he hasn’t, either.

“I mean… Not… Like that, I haven’t. I’ve done lots of stuff wrong and all, but I never felt like… that, over it.”

Arthur’s gotten pretty good at pretending that doesn’t feel like being gutted, everytime something like that is the reaction. He taps his fingers against his arm to not dig into them and he nods, almost like he’s surprised.

“Ah. Suppose it’s just as well, then.”

Alfred starts looking awkward, squirmish and unsure what to say. He looks uncomfortable, resettling to sit up instead of slumping, looking everywhere but at Arthur, as if looking at him would mean he’d start feeling that feeling too.
Feeling of mindlessness and paranoia, as if feeling like you can’t trust yourself is somehow contagious.

He feels quite a bit slighted over such a reaction, but he tries to shrug it off. Goes over some silly graph he saw in a book once, of a target-looking drawing, with the center surrounded by a middle circle and an outer circle.
The center was things he had under full control, the middle was things he had partly control over and the very outer ring was things he had no control over; He thinks other people’s reactions to things were placed in the outer circle. Completely out of his control.
He can’t control minds, he doesn’t have that ability, no matter how much he’d wish he had it.

“Either way, I don’t quite remember the diagnosis.” He lies, forcing his shoulders down and easing the tension of his jaw. He can’t control Alfred’s reaction, he can control his own.

“Right.” Alfred clips. Body language not easing, and Arthur thinks it’s fine.
He’s not going to force him to be understanding, Arthur isn’t even understanding of it, so it’s fine.
it’s fine.

“Is the aspirin working any?” He inquires, dropping the subject. If Alfred has questions he can ask them and Arthur will answer. Will try to answer.

Alfred nods, bringing his attention back to Arthur briefly before looking back and away. “Uh, yeah. Yeah, my head feels less stuffy.”

Arthur gives an approving nod. The lad still looks pale and his skin isn’t looking any less sweaty, but he does look more lucid.

“And the nausea?”

“Better. Still feeling dizzy though.”

“When did you get up, do you think?”

Alfred mulls it over for a second. A hand lifting to rub at the back of his head as he thinks.
The windows are brightening, the reflection less prominent, as the outside wakes gradually.
The dim light from the sky falls onto the kitchen counters, the kitchen lamp seems less glaring.
“3 or 4, maybe?”

Arthur glances at his wrist watch again. “Well you haven’t slept very much. So it might be that.”

Alfred nods, then falls silent again.
It’s almost definitely more than just the lack of sleep. The lad has been catching up on years of rest in one meagle month, but it’s obviously not all.

Arthur decides he’s going to finish his tea, and he does so liberally.
It’s lukewarm and tastes a bit like dishwater, but it goes down either way and he pushes his chair back to set it to soak in the sink.

“Go and have a lie down.” He says over his shoulder.
“I’m headed out in about an hour. I’ll be home, same time as usual.”

He feels tense but he can’t figure out how to relax. It feels like a knot in his shoulders and stretching them doesn’t seem to be helping.

“Yeah… Sure.”
He hears Alfred’s chair scrape against the floor as he stands. Hears him pad across the kitchen to the doorway and listens to him continue on through the house all the way until the sound of the guest room door closes and he breathes out.
His hands find the edge of the kitchen counter, leaning his weight on it.
The outside buzzes and stirs as he stands there, the street lights turn off and the clock crawls itself along and Arthur regains himself with a few silent moments and a handful of deep breaths. In the brightening kitchen, he lifts one hand to cover his eyes, tired and prickly as they are and stands for a few moments more. Just to be more grounded; Taste the aftertaste of bad tea, smells the remnants of an untouched tea behind him, standing where Alfred had been sitting.

He checks the time, blinking a few times and sniffing, before setting himself into motion with a hardness to his brow.
He’s got to get dressed and grab some paperwork before leaving.
Maybe he’ll grab a coffee on the way, although he doubts he’ll have time with the queue this time in the morning.

The day passes dreadfully slow, the sky remains gray and overcast, occasional rain being the only indicator that things are happening at all and by the time Arthur’s dragging himself from his driveway up to his front door he’s haggered enough that he’s practically forgotten the whole ordeal from the morning.

The door swings open and he steps inside with a relieved sigh, pushing the door closed with his back against it and just standing there for a blessed moment of loosening his shoulders and undoing the nick in his neck that’s been more and more persistent lately.
He toes off his shoes, sets them aside as usual. The wooden floors are warm. They heat up his toes as he slowly mugs himself inside, like a wet cat, making its way around miserably.

The living room comes to greet him with the tv on and Alfred fast asleep on the couch. He’s on his side, curled up around himself both arms above the duvet he’s dragged in from the bed.
Arthur stands in the hallway and watches him. A small, tight line of his mouth and he’s breathing out an exasperated exhale through his nose. One that doesn’t mean contempt or annoyance, just exasperation at the absolute creature that’s planted itself in his house.

Alfred’s breathing is even, his face is slightly flushed, but not nearly as ill looking as the morning.
A cup stands at the coffee table, along with a glass of water and a plate of a half-eaten sandwich. Arthur makes a distasteful noise at the sight of it.
It looks dried and shriveled up, standing there so close to the radiator can’t be good for its contents.

He should throw it away, before it begins to smell. Should probably get the mugs, too, while he’s at it. He knows how awful cleaning moldy coffee is, he’s been there.

The tv, as it turns out when he approaches, is showing some type of reality show. He squints at the screen for a second. He sees men in trucks, navigating their way dramatically through snow and ice.
He’s pretty sure he’s seen that before, ‘ice truckers’ or something along those lines. He’s never watched it, his blood pressure gets enough of a work-out driving on his own.

“Alfred.”

He turns back to the lad on the couch, bowing at the waist, stirring him by the shoulder. He sees Alfred startle, as if awoken by a loud noise.
He gets a grunt in response, then a pair of eyes squinting up at him, glasses still on, looking for all the world like a newborn foal struggling to get its bearings.
“Hi.” He sputters. Then:
“Wha’time’s it?”

Arthur stands back up, finding the remote and turning the volume of the television down a few notches. “Supper time.”

Alfred blinks, then resettles his glasses and moves to sit up. “Well, that sucks.”

“When did you fall asleep?”
The plate with the sandwich looks even sadder up close, the bread crusty to the touch, dry and unappetizing.
He picks it up along with the cups beside it.

“I was gonna clean that.” Alfred says suddenly.

“I was. I just- I thought I’d have a nap first.”

He sounds like he believes it and Arthur isn’t going to ruin that illusion. He doesn’t really mind that much, he feels like cleaning the dishes is the least he can do for a lad who’s gone through so much trouble the past few years.

“It’s nice that you’re eating something at least.” He says. “Do you have an appetite for dinner?”

Alfred moves to stand, a quick glance goes in favor of the television and Arthur takes it as an invitation to come and join him in the kitchen.

“I’ve got quite an appetite myself, today.” He says. “I thought I would see what we had at home and make something of that.”

They move through the house slowly and Arthur promptly tosses the sandwich to the bin and the plate in the washer.
Alfred comes up to plant himself on the counter top, pulling himself up onto it and dangling his legs like a toddler.

Arthur decides not to address it.

“Honestly I don’t really think I’m brave enough to eat your cooking again.”

Arthur sends him a half-hearted glare.
“We can’t keep ordering out and I’m worried about whatever you might want to try making if you get hold of the kitchen.”

Alfred scoffs.
“It can’t be as bad as yours. I can cook a meal!”

Arthur gives him a disbelieving look and turns to search through his kitchen.
“Right, and I’m bedding the queen. You either eat what I’m making or you’re eating another sandwich, because you need something else than pizza and wraps.”

Alfred moves and Arthur turns to see him opening a cabinet with his foot, fishing out a pot. The floor resonates as he jumps down and approaches the sink.
He looks serious, maybe a bit annoyed, and he fills the thing with water and places it loudly onto the stovetop.

“What are you doing?”

Alfred cranks the heat up and grabs for the salt. “I won’t eat your cooking and I don’t wanna eat out either, so I’ll just make my own.”

Arthur raises a skeptical brow at the display. “And what exactly are you planning on making?”

Alfred pouts. “Spaghetti.”

“Spaghetti with what?”

“With pesto or something? I don’t know, I’ll throw something in it!”

“I don’t own pesto, I don’t have anything for spaghetti.”

Alfred groans, turning the heat off. “Then what do I eat?!”

“You can try eating my food? If you’re so scared of it, why don’t you help make it?”

They stand and look at each for a second, keeping eye contact for an uncomfortable amount of time.
It’s not a bad idea, actually. If Alfred’s so worried anything’s going to go wrong, he can just help out and see what goes in and how it cooks.

Alfred looks back at the pot and Arthur feels oddly proud of him for even wanting to cook in the first place. For the first time in a month, he even made himself a sandwich, and that might be small but it’s definitely a step forward.

“Y’know what? Fine. What are you making?”

Arthur glances around his kitchen a bit.
“Well, I’m not entirely sure yet. But I’m starving, so probably something with big portions.”

Alfred hums, placing a hand at his chin. “Tortillas? That can have big portions.”

“They aren’t very filling though, are they.”

“They can be if you put the right things in them!”

“And the clean up? They’re messy as hell.”

Alfred rolls his eyes but does give it thought. He turns the stove off and Arthur watches him get an idea. A small light dawning him.

“Then you’ll throw it together and I’ll clean it up! You can manage to chop shit, right? You cut fruit pretty good.”

Arthur chews on his cheek, turning the idea over in his head. He did sort of hope for something in the freezer, but he admittedly does not have much left in that to make much of.
He clicks his tongue and pushes himself towards the doorway.

“We’ll have to visit Tesco’s.”

Alfred follows behind him, sliding his socks across the wood noisily.
“Great! Then we can get pesto as well.”

Chapter Text

It’s summer in the late 70’s, and Arthur begins to float through day and night in a comfortable numb haze. People talk to him, interrupt that quiet stillness that settles over him and he hates it as much as he craves it.
People distract him, but so does the silence. His house sits and rots around him, a perfect mirror image of his own mind. A decaying relic of something that was once prized and grand and looked up to.

He begins to withdraw, the feeling of his own bones, the smell of his dusty house and his musky garden, it begins to seep into him and he finds that he falls into himself, like the snake eating its own tail.
He becomes one with solitude and she begins to whisper enticing promises of grandeur and ultimate peace.
A final escape, a leap from his last obstacle - His own mind.
His head is so loud, buzzing and thinking and making peace impossible. It's a constant droning of things he doesn't care about, and all he wants is peace and quiet. 
He wants to feel rested and spry.

The 60’s comes and goes, he’s barely blinked before he’s in a new decade and maybe that’s fine.
A small blip in the vastness of his mind, the emptiness is welcome and the detachedness even more so, with how much he’s being barraged with, it’s hardly a noticeable change.

He remembers how once, the feeling of the wind rushing around him, pulling and pushing at him as he stood perched at the railing of a ship, had scared him.
The depths of the ocean, the inevitable doom of eternal damnation. Lost at sea, stuck at the bottom, slave to the currents. It had scared him more than anything and he’d relished that surge of adrenaline looking down at it.
Knowing he held himself on the sword’s edge of doom, and knowing that one wrong move would be the end. It always managed to make him lucid. 
To feel real. 
Like he inhabited his body and that time flowed with each tick of the clock, for once.

The wind picks at him now, and he’s leaning maybe a bit too far. 

It’s like he sees it, far, far below him and he inhales through his nose.

The gate disappears and his stomach drops, giving himself into vertigo and the plummeting.

Francis sits in Arthur’s living room with the radio broadcasting music that bops and sways, and with a cup of espresso sitting in one hand. 
He’s jumping his leg on beat, sitting on Arthur’s old, brown velour couch that he got from second hand when his old one fell out of use.
Arthur hesitates in announcing his presence. He stands in the doorway, arms crossed, idling his approach and running through scenarios in his head that draws his face into a stern looking grimace.

His house, albeit not tidy to begin with, looks like the aftermath of a demolition. Furniture stands in the middle of everything, disjointed and nearly entirely drowned in boxes, clothes and relics from a past he pretends he doesn’t want to remember.
Arthur looks at it like he’s peeking over the railing of those long forgotten days at sea, seeing the whirling of the waves giving way to the dragging of the hull, and he thinks about how much the sea of clutter somehow mimics that, as he gathers himself.

Francis sits nearly haloed by the sun streaming in through the open living room window, and Arthur takes a hesitant step forwards through the doorway. Then another, and carries himself forwards with heavy feet, like treading through water, trying to go ashore but feeling uncertain about the terrain. Will it be welcoming? Forgiving and nourishing?
Or will it be harsh and fatal and deal him blow after blow and mock him when he’s down?

“I think you should leave.” He hears himself say.
He stops a few feet away, his voice is calm and demanding.

Francis turns his head to look at him, as if surprised. 
The sun makes his hair shimmer like sand and the rays hit his eyelashes in that mesmerizing way that makes breaking eye contact hard.
Arthur carries on, tightening his crossed arms, standing firm, looking at the strand and the cliffs, eyeing them for potential threats as they sip from espresso before him.
Francis’ surprise falls to irritation and he lowers the cup of coffee to set it unceremoniously on top of a box. He clicks his tongue and leans over to turn the radio down.

“I promised to help you out, so I will .”

That’s not the response Arthur’s looking for and he grits his teeth, grinds them together at the way the landscape paints itself with rejection to him. He doesn’t want Francis to help him, he doesn’t want help.
And who is Francis to come into his house uninvited and start telling him to clean, anyway? 
Telling him that he’ll clean, that he’ll organize, telling him it’s ‘ no trouble’ , indicating that it clearly is .
The fact that he even came here, just to bother him about his messy home is proof enough of the ulterior motive. 
It’s got to be. 
It always is .

“I didn’t ask you to help me. I didn’t ask you to come! ” He snaps and Francis frowns.

“Why are you even here? I still struggle with grasping that ridiculous explanation that you were simply ‘around’- Why are you here?! ”

His voice seems to stir up dust and the particles dance through the sunlit room. 
He’s thrown his hands out on impulse, scrutinizing any and all indications of a fight. The slightest twitch of the mouth or the eye, something he can look at to get proof.
A skeptical sort of laugh escapes him at the way Francis hesitates in responding.

“You’re here to make a mockery of me again, aren’t you?”

He looks down at him, the quiet playing of Gilbert O’sullivan swaying in the background.

Francis doesn’t rise to match his tone, he just keeps sitting on the couch, with that big sheet of paper taped onto it that says ‘Donate’ .
He’d had no say in the matter, not that he would’ve protested, but on principle, he’d been upset about it.

“I am not trying to mock you-”

“ Oh! Oh, so you’re here for your own benefit then, are you?” He spits. Francis rises to retaliate, but Arthur’s quicker than he is. His mind feels like it’s going too fast and he’s trying to keep up.

He needs to stop talking.
He needs to stop talking .

“ Poor Angleterre, ” He sneers in French, dripping as much malice into his accent as possible. He moves to look more fluid, in a derogatory caricature of Francis’ own mannerisms when speaking.

“His house looks like a landfill, he recently got back from eating concrete and asphalt and he’s wearing god knows what for the ninth day in a row. I must insert myself into his business like a cheeky cunt, so he’ll have to owe me for it later!”

Francis stands from the couch and Arthur eyes him dangerously.

“ I will not be mocked in my own language. ” He shouts, pointing a finger at Arthur’s chest and switching into English to play into the same game.

“ Especially not by a selfish, narcissistic dickhead like yourself! ”

Arthur scoffs, a feeling of recoil numbing his mind back into non-existence and he begins to feel the same way he did throughout the entirety of the 60’s. 
Like a soft blankness, that overshadows everything and puts it out of focus.

He knows he’s shouting, he knows he’s shouting things he should not be shouting and he knows they’re hitting the places they’re said to hit, because Francis rises to meet them head on, and in the beginning it might’ve been to rise to the challenge. But by the end, it’s defense. It’s an unthinking defense for Francis himself and he clings onto composure like hanging onto a fraying rope.

Arthur doesn’t even want to be fighting. He didn’t come in here for that. 
He meant to ask him to leave, to get him the hell out of his house, because he knew this would happen eventually. 
He knew it would, it’s the whole reason he doesn’t want anybody around him, because he’s a fucking explosive , he’s a terrorist with no self-preservstion what-so-ever.
And as much as he wants for himself not to be, what can he do, when he can’t even keep himself tethered to reality for long enough, to think before he speaks?

Francis’ eyes are blazing by the time he’s had enough and storms past him towards the front door.
Arthur yells something after him, a sick satisfaction at the sight of him leaving, like the feeling of winning a bet with himself, despite how he set himself up.

Of course he’d leave.

Not just because Arthur just screamed at him for nearly ten minutes, but also because he’d been planning on telling him to, from the beginning.
Arthur stands back, alone, in the living room. Surrounded by stacks and boxes and crates and paper and the radio.
He eyes it, breathing uneven.

A tune too chipper for his mood plays softly, a happy tune to dance to and he reaches over to turn it off.

The silence engulfs him nearly instantly and he stands in it feeling a dread catching up with him. A blackbird chirps through it, but it feels impenetrable in it’s oppressiveness. It makes him feel nauseous and his stomach drops. 

Chest tightening painfully as he recounts everything that just happened in as much detail as he can recall.

“Why…” He mutters, voice hoarse. 
He lifts his hands to scrub at his face. “Why did I do that?”

The bet with himself had been to wait and see what Francis wanted. What he would do or say.

Arthur moves to sit himself down on the sofa, letting his hands fall from his face to intertwine themselves and rest at his knees. He got impatient with waiting, because nothing happened. Francis helped him clean, got him to eat something and it was simultaneously surprisingly nice and excruciatingly awful.

He ended up just waiting for the other shoe to drop. And in some way, he couldn’t help believing that maybe Francis was toying with him. Like drawing out the inevitable, just to see him get antsy.

But why would he do that? He has plenty of other ways to make him uncomfortable, why the hell would he act decent just to make him feel antsy ?

He’s never been a master manipulator, he’s much too simple for that and even if he wanted to, why would he wait for so long just to be unpleasant?
He directs his gaze towards the door silently, picking at his nail beds, wondering if he could go after him. Whether it’d be too late to do that.

It probably is.

Besides, he’d probably make it worse. Dig himself into a deeper grave than he already has, and as much as he hates it, it’s probably good that he’s left to himself.
Nobody to blow up on, just himself, his house and his sea of rubbish that overwhelms him just by looking at it.

—

He’s sitting at his dinner table picking at mashed potatoes when he hears the front door click open and shut. He freezes, ceasing motion and locking his eyes in the direction of the hallway in bewilderment.

He checks the watch on his wrist, indicating dinner time, then wonders why he checked the time to see if he’s currently being robbed.
He doesn’t suppose a robber would choose dinnertime to break and enter and if he did, Arthur has to give him credit for his bravery.

He grabs a hold of his fork at the continuous sound of shuffling from the hallway.

He isn’t expecting anybody and the small hope that lodges itself in his throat, he swallows down and represses into nothing. Nobody with sense would choose to return after a spitting match like that. Arthur himself wouldn’t. 
So there is no way Francis would, either.

He gets out of his chair slowly, feeling ridiculous with the way he’s having a harder and harder time convincing himself he’s in actual danger.
He doesn’t even wield the fork for combat, he just holds onto it like was it a railing.

He doesn’t want Francis here, he doesn’t want him to be around, because he knows he’s going to handle it wrong.
He feels even more ridiculous when the sun itself steps into view, glancing into the living room first, then turning to look in his direction. They lock eyes and Arthur instantly wants to die.
Francis doesn’t look as angry as Arthur’s tiny hope would’ve painted him to look. He looks instead downtrodden and defeated, as he stands there with his arms hanging by his sides and his mouth in a line as he watches Arthur stand there like an idiot, holding a fork.

He feels like an idiot.

For other reasons than the fork. But he can’t say that. He can never shut up when he needs to, but he seems to be entirely mute, when for all the world, he should be talking.
And Francis seems to be waiting for him to talk. To say something like ‘sorry’ or ‘forgive me’ or maybe even ‘I didn’t mean what I said’.
But he can’t say it.
He wants to say it, but it feels like poison. Like killing himself again would be easier than to apologize and make amends.

Francis doesn’t move any closer, but he does eventually speak.

“Do you want me to leave?”

It’s like he sucks all the air from the room and plunges it with dark, murky water. Arthur feels like the floor has been swept from beneath him and he feels unsteady. Unsteady enough that he clenches the fork tighter and shifts his weight from one leg to the other. He can’t think of a single response to that and Francis breathes in from the airless air and continues.

“I will leave, if you say you want me to leave. And it will be for good, because I feel…”

Arthur itches to do something, in his state stood there like a statue by his slowly cooling plate of potato mush.

“I feel like we have silly arguments, because we are bored. But I am starting to think that you mean them. And have always meant them.”

He has not.
The majority of the time, he has not.
Because the majority of the time he can’t shut the hell up and he can’t be present enough to force himself to stop.

They stand at a standstill for seconds that suddenly tick by like seconds should. And Arthur realizes that looking at Francis is like looking at the swirling deathtrap of the sea.
Because he can jump in and give himself to it, but he won’t ever know if it will kill him or trap him. He can’t know and he doesn’t know, and he doesn’t like it not knowing.

The same sort of adrenaline perks him up enough to get him to breathe, but it feels restricted and too shallow. Francis just stands, eyes near pleading for him to react in some way and Arthur hovers that one leg over the edge.

Staring wide eyed at the abyss, feeling dwarfed to the expanse of it.
“I don’t.” He says, and it’s so quiet and forced, he isn’t even sure he said it at all.
But Francis reacts and he looks on attentively.
Like the small sound from Arthur was enough to halt his own spiraling.

“I don’t mean them.”

A bit of air returns to the room, the grandfather clock standing awkwardly in the hallways tocks ahead.
He’s surprised it still works.
Francis stands for a moment then lifts his hand to his cheek and looks away.
He sniffs, looking troubled and Arthur hopes that wasn’t the wrong thing to say.

He feels his palms growing clammy, a small tinge of panic at the way Francis looks like he’s about to leave again.

“Do you want me to leave?” Francis asks again.
Arthur swallows, placing the fork down slowly and crossing his arms instead. He doesn’t like the face he knows he’s making, like he’s lost for words and completely and utterly fearful.

“No.” He chokes out, immediately dropping his eyes away the second he’s said it and settling them instead at a stack of magazines on the floor.
He clenches his jaw, focusing on the room around him and the silence that follows.
He sees the corners of his eyes flickering, the fast paced droning of his heartbeat making him feel just as nauseous as before.

He feels mute again. 

He needs to say something.

“I don’t want you to leave.”

The silence continues and he looks up out of fear Francis has already left. That he spoke too late and was too busy focusing on his own breathing and his own mind to hear the footsteps and the door opening and closing.

But Francis is still there. Looking at him like he’s solving a puzzle, one hand held over his mouth, the other cradling his elbow, belting him across his abdomen. He doesn’t look upset, but he looks concerned. Relieved, too, perhaps. But confused and Arthur can’t for the life of him imagine what there is to be so confused about.

A small spark of irritation prods at his chest but he ignores it, chewing instead on his cheek and waiting it out.
Like he’d planned to do from the start.

“I want…” Francis begins and it’s Arthur’s turn to be attentive. “I want you to talk more.”

Arthur doesn’t think he does.

“I don’t understand what goes on in your head.”

Arthur doesn’t either. He really doesn’t, and he doesn’t believe ‘talking more’ is going to fix that at all.

But Francis is looking at him like he thinks it will, and he did come back and he is trying to understand it. Even if he won’t and even if Arthur doesn’t. And it’s both a gross thought, that he’s being charmed this easily, after centuries upon centuries of avoiding the personal aspect of their chaotic relationship. But it’s also… Quite nice.

Chapter Text

Alfred howls with a small pub-table of strangers, as Arthur downs a fifth shot in rapid succession without flinching.
He slams it down onto the table, his face pure power as he smacks his lips but ultimately does not pull a face. He doesn’t taste much anymore, and many would attest that to habit.
The table howls, the few that placed bets against him groans in defeat, as the next round is on them and Arthur feels that familiar burn run down his throat and warm his stomach.

This is the second pub they’ve gone to, on Alfred’s insistence and in what world could Arthur ever refuse him that? It’s been ages and ages since he went out to drink and he forgot that alcohol can be other things than a depressing, dry, sipping whiskey sitting alone in his parlor back home. The change in mood had been welcome; Although unexpected with how quickly it switched.
The losers of the bet order a round and it’s sat down in front of Alfred.
A small line-up for a shot-roulette, consisting of the same amount of glasses Arthur took, simply in different colors and smells.

A woman inquires about Alfred’s age, and Alfred yells to her above the music that today’s his birthday, and that he’s turning 21.
Arthur laughs at his antics, and Alfred laughs seeing him laugh. It’s refreshing to see him so energetic on top of weeks of him barely staying awake for a full day, let alone venturing outside. He’s sure the lad’s needed to get out, but it seems strange the first thing he wants to do is pub crawling.

The woman believes him wholeheartedly, the laughter coming across to her as mere excitement for such an important number.
The entire table has gathered that he’s American by now, the accent and the demeanor a dead giveaway.   Yet everybody knows the general consensus for the drinking age in the States and two more shots are added to his shot board in a congratulatory gesture.

Strange or not, Arthur’s decided not to question it. He supposes it can’t be that strange on top of everything, and if work really has killed him so much lately, it’s logical he’d want to let loose for a night.

Alfred pumps himself up, he’s never been any good with shots, always having to hype himself up to take them and as Arthur and the table watches, he’s never looked younger than he does sitting there now.
Surrounded by loud music and sticky and brown pub counters, giving himself a pep talk to take the drinks.

It warms a bit extra in his stomach, looking at him.

He’s gotten so big, but he’s just the same nonetheless. A child in a man’s body, controlled by his fears and led astray by his feelings.
Alfred lifts the first shot and meets Arthur’s gaze head on. He flashes him a wide, ecstatic grin and cheers before downing the glass.

It’s strange to think this same man struggled with hygiene and comprehension the past month. As he’s established, he just can’t get over how sudden this is.
After that morning of him being sick, he’s been acting skittish. Maybe even restless. He’s been irritable but in a relatively better mood than his ‘usual’, and it’s hard to figure out exactly how he’s feeling, he’s just… Acting erratically.

Alfred grimaces, his entire face going taut and tense, but he pushes through and goes onto the next one, then the next, and the next. The table cheers for him, and Arthur does too. A genuine elatedness that pushes its way out through his windpipe to join the myriad of noise.

Alfred downs the 7th and final shot and slams it onto the table so hard the glass cracks in his palm.

Nobody notices, they’re too busy teasing him for his faces and Arthur reaches over to take the glass from him before he can hurt himself. Grinning at the resounding cry of drunken victory from Alfred that spurs all the surrounding tables.

Arthur eases it on the alcohol the more incomprehensive Alfred becomes.

He keeps an eye out, sticking to his side, but at the same time giving him space to breathe. He wanted to drink, so he’s going to let the lad drink.
If he says he needs it, then what’s the harm in it. If it’s such a rare show of giving up control, Arthur isn’t going to tell him no.

Alfred quickly makes their ‘Just one drink, I swear, dude, I just wanna see if you make better mimosas than I do.’ - Trip into a full on drink -night, and they take turns buying for each other.
Alfred buys him whiskeys and rum, and Arthur buys him whatever fancy, colorful cocktails that strike his fancy at every single pub. 
Of which there are plenty .
And in all honesty, it’s refreshing. He knows Alfred enjoys a classic as much as he does, but he also knows he doesn’t enjoy them enough to actively seek out alcohol on a weekly basis.
But with cocktails and fancy concoctions, it seems that Alfred’s found his own favorite.
And it suits him - It suits him, because for once, he doesn’t look like a child trying to imitate the grown ups. He looks like an up and coming adult, enjoying what he enjoys, regardless of what others tell him about it.

It tugs at his heartstrings to see, but he admits he feels proud of the bloke. For all his faults, Arthur has double that. And how can he point accusing fingers when he himself is being pointed at.
Somewhere along the way, Alfred begins to make Arthur taste the cocktails with him. 
Drunkenly trying to sound sophisticated, judging them like he’s judging fine wine and at one point, he begins to imitate Francis. 
He swirls a moscow mule, with the mint leaf sitting perched delicately on top like he’s oxygenizing it and smelling it with the exact same facial expressions that pull almost identically over his nose, as it does with Francis’.

And he gets it so right that for the life of him, Arthur can’t help but laugh, even if he wanted to, it would have been impossible not to.
It feels strange to feel so untethered, but he briefly wonders about how long it’s been since he had a good laugh like that.

Alfred ends up staggering so much he hangs on Arthur whenever they aren’t sitting down. They stroll down across cobblestones that Alfred loudly denounces as a valid form of walking path or street and announces to every single soul in shouting distance, that he is banning cobblestone streets from the US, regardless of any consequence historically.

He is history, he yells, he’s all they need .
People turn and stare at him with varying degrees of amusement, and Arthur just pats him on the back whenever he manages to frenzy himself too much.
For a ‘just a few drinks ’ night out, Arthur’s pretty happy with himself that he managed to keep that promise to himself, even if he knows he wouldn’t have, if Alfred hadn’t surpassed him at the second pub .

He wishes he could indulge in equal amounts, but he’ll have his chance to. Sorting Alfred out is more important to him than getting pissed, anyway.

He begins to lead them towards home somewhere early in the morning, when Alfred’s speaking nonsense with feelings going rampant.
They sit at a McDonald’s with an order of fries for Arthur and a burger menu for Alfred, as he cries into his cheeseburger and chilli cheese tops over how good it tastes and about ‘how much he missed him’ .

Arthur lazily lifts a small portion of the chips to his mouth and chews them slowly and deliberately. He might not be as far gone as Alfred is, but his face is tingling and he can feel himself getting progressively closer to falling asleep. His movements feel sloth-like and he’s beginning to feel the way he’s coming on in years with the gradual aching that sits at his back and the creaking at his knees.
McDonald’s hadn’t been his first choice of restaurant, but it’s open and not too crowded, and he really did need to sit down.

“Dude.” Alfred weeps, sniffing and wiping at his eyes with the burger wrap messily.
“This is so fucking good.”

Arthur hums, eyes feeling heavy.

“Cheers.”

Alfred takes another bite of his burger and Arthur let’s his eyes close for a brief moment as he relishes in the fatty delight of the fries. Just chewing on them, really wishing he was home in bed.

“Y’know, I rlly miss’d you n’ your narc-ass s’much, ye’re so fun to b’round when you’re not bein’ a dick about everything.” Alfred continues, chewing his burger tearfully.
Arthur furrows his brows, placing the last of the fries into his hand and throwing them back into his mouth.
He proceeds to brush his hands together to free them of salt.

“Like y’re any better.” He says around a mouth full, but it’s playful.
He already knows he’s been a dick, he’s acknowledged that, but he’s not going to pretend Alfred hasn’t been, either.

“Bein’ th’center of attention’s gotten to your head a bit.”

Alfred huffs at him, reaching for his soda and taking a defiant, loud sip from it.

“Nuh-uh, brother. I’m humbl’ as can be.”

Alfred burps and Arthur has no sober hindrance to keep him from laughing at the timing.
It doesn’t help matters any, that Alfred looks surprised at his own eruption, and it just spurs Arthur on even more.

Alfred chuckles with him, half crying-half laughing, unsure what to do so he does both and Arthur really tries to calm down, but he really, really cannot.
His face has been hurting from how much he’s been smiling and that fact alone just makes him feel even lighter and more likely to keep going.

He feels his face warm, he’s not usually this merry and frankly it’s embarrassing.
If he saw himself right now, he would hide in his basement, never to return to the surface.
And yet he laughs, because he can’t fucking stop laughing, and he tries to apologize but just the look on Alfred’s face.

He looks so confused, maybe even a bit scared, sitting there with his hair a tousled mess of dancefloors and whatever else Arthur stayed far away from seeing. Some things, no matter how much he wanted to look out for him, he just isn’t meant to be privy to. Not to mention, does not want to be privy to.

“I’m that funny?”

Alfred slurs, and Arthur tries, he really does, to clear his throat and to compose himself.
He meets Alfred’s eyes, fully knowing he does not look any less like a mess, and fights his own mouth from betraying him. 

“No, I mean-I guess ye can be funny, but th’t’s not what I’m-” He clears his throat again.
“It’s silly of me.” He finalizes, and Alfred perks up a little.

“I didn’t think y’liked fart-humor.” Alfred chuckles, then laughs, almost matching Arthur’s enthusiasm and riling him back up again.
They sit in a corner of a McDonald’s early on a Wednesday morning, absolutely shitfaced and laughing at the pure improbability of Arthur Kirkland being an unwilling participant of the more childish side of humor.
He unconvincingly claims he isn’t, that he’s just drunk - But Alfred doesn’t believe him, and Arthur thinks about the amount of times sober, he’s had to bite his cheek not to laugh at any and all toots that might happen to slip, and what people’s reactions to them are.

Arthur is half-dragging Alfred along by the time they’re at his front door. He fishes around his inner pocket to get his keys.
Alfred sways, unsteadying the both of them.
Both warm from too many spirits and Alfred so quiet Arthur almost believes he’s fallen asleep when he finally gets the door open. It swings inside and Arthur drags the two of them into the warmth and the cozyness of the house.

His ears are ringing, head stuffy and tired, and he toes off his shoes, waiting for Alfred to do the same.

“We’re home laddy,” Arthur says tiredly, patting Alfred’s back a few times to perk him up a bit. 

“Take off ye shoes, I don’t want dirt in my house.” 
Alfred breathes in through his nose and lolls his head backwards in order to look up properly. His neck looks jelly-like in that way, and Arthur can see his glasses are completely fogged up.

Alfred blinks, squeezing his eyes closed before re-opening them a few times, absolutely out of it and looking completely disoriented.
He shakes him a bit, and Alfred tiredly lifts one hand to remove his glasses.
They slip off easily enough, and Arthur once again nudges at him.

“Shoes.” He repeats, and Alfred looks to him, unseeing, then replaces his glasses onto his face sloppily and looks down at his feet.
He stumbles backwards the second he moves one leg to toe at his heels and Arthur moves to support him as he maneuvers his shoes off.

They pad their way inside through the hallway and into the dim living room, the lamp Arthur usually keeps on in the corner greets them and Alfred stops to stare at it for a moment, before looking around the entire room as if seeing it for the first time.
He’s still entirely silent and Arthur’s own head is too stuffy to be able to make up for it with conversation of his own, like he usually would.
Instead, he stands in the middle of the room with an arm around Alfred’s back, keeping him supported so he doesn’t fall and hurt himself with how off kelter he is.
He looks around his own living room to try and see what might be so interesting about it, but he just sees his living room. His very messy, filled-to-the-brim living room. He needs to dust it off soon, air out a bit too, it’s getting quite stuffy.

He really needs to take a piss, too, for that matter.

“C’mon-”

He tries to move them along, but Alfred stays planted to the floor. He looks at him, slightly irritated.

“Alfred?”

Alfred turns to face him unsteadily. Expression pinched and on the sad side. He tilts sideways and stumbles a step or two, but Arthur doesn’t have the time to catch him before he catches himself and places his arms securely around Arthur’s shoulders for a tight hug.

Arthur freezes, unsure what to do, as Alfred squeezes him and begins to move them side to side, as if the hug itself is simply not enough of a gesture.

The grandfather clock strikes 3 in the morning, Alfred keeps rocking them back and forth and Arthur awkwardly places his arms at Alfred’s back for lack of anywhere else to place them.
Alfred smells of sugar and tequila. A mixture of that and old, cold leather that Arthur tries to keep his stomach right, before the smells combine with his own personal concoction.

He hasn’t had this much physical affection directed at him since Francis went back to France 4 months ago and it’s still not something he’s used to.
Especially not when it’s not himself who initiates it.

But he makes the effort and it isn’t because it’s not nice.
But it feels odd, maybe because of how rare a gesture a hug is, especially coming from Alfred. He stopped liking touch some time in Arthur’s absence and it’s something he regrets not being there to fix when he had the chance to. It’s also a point of worry for him, and it always was. He can only guess at what did it, and his guesses are not pleasant ones.

He rubs at Alfred’s back in the most comforting way he knows how and Alfred continues to rock them silently until Arthur starts to grow nauseous and needs to pry himself away. Alfred follows, but he seems reluctant to.

He looks red eyed, but Arthur’s pretty sure that’s from the crying earlier, and not from just now. His face is dry and so are his eyes, he just looks a bit spacey and completely and utterly hammered.
Arthur pats his arm with a reassuring smile.

“Y’alright?”

Alfred squeezes his eyes together again and blinks them open again, he opens his mouth and inhales to speak. 
“Buhh…” He breathes, bringing one hand to scratch at his head. “Huh?”

Right, definitely not. 

He gives him another pat, the hundreth of the evening he’s sure, and leads him towards the guest room. He protests at first, spluttering something about not being tired, but then switching to saying he’d rather sleep on the couch.
He goes reluctantly along to the guest bed eventually though and falls into it, back first.

Arthur watches him lie there, ready to pass out in his jacket and his jeans and once again, marvels at his ability to sleep virtually anywhere in any position in any condition. The lad breathes out, sprawled out like a star.

He reaches over and attempts to rouse him regretfully. He’s not going to let him sleep on his back like that - That’s a choking hazard waiting to happen.
He gets a groan and a rude swap at his hand, before a raspy, quiet. “Evry’ thing’s  spinning…”

Arthur gives an exasperated sigh, chuckling to himself.

“I can only imagine. On your side.”

Alfred groans again. “Don’t wanna…” He mumbles. “Nauseous.”
Arthur sets one knee onto the mattress and physically forces the boy onto his side, despite his protests on the matter, it’s not a hard task.

“All the more reason to lie sideways.” He assures.

He gets a myriad of complaints about that, but Alfred stays on his side. Although obviously unhappy about it.

“It was a good idea to go out. It was quite fun.” Arthur finds himself saying and reaches over to remove Alfred’s glasses. There’s a small splint near the frame on one side. He folds them and places them on the bedside notably. Alfred can get his own glasses fixed, maybe that could be a point to send him out for. Now that he seems to be feeling a bit better, it could be good for him.

“Arthur?”

Arthur pauses.
Alfred’s eyes remain closed and he remains on his side when Arthur looks over at him quizzically.

“Yes?” He says.

“... D’ye ser’sly see a therapist?”

His stomach feels like it freezes over. It’s not that Alfred sounds upset, frankly, he doesn’t sound much of anything. Apathetic, would probably describe it best, but something’s underlying there that he doesn’t like hearing. His face sours significantly, against his will.

“... I am not going to have this conversation with you tonight, Alfred.”

Alfred doesn’t agree. He inhales through his nose, eyes fluttering open and squinting at the overhead lights, before zeroing in on Arthur. It feels scrutinizing and uncomfortable.

“You jus’ don’t seem like th’type for it.” He slurs. “You don’t seem crazy-crazy and it’s-” He mutters something unintelligible that Arthur can’t make out. Then.

“It’s embarrassing.”

If he wasn’t already itching to leave, he is definitely looking for any outs from this conversation now. Because he can feel his throat burning with things he shouldn’t say and refuses to say. He feels tense and burning and defensive. Because in reality, he fucking agrees with the brat. 
It is embarrassing, because he needs it. He can’t help that he needs it, and he can’t imagine going back to living without it, and it’s embarrassing.

“I think,” He begins, forcing his tone to be even and to keep his mannerisms calm. “You need to sleep. We’ll talk about this in the morning.”

He reaches over to grab half of the duvet that Alfred isn’t actively lying on, setting his jaw, grinding his teeth.
“I jus’ don’t get it, you-”

“Tomorrow. ”

“-you’re not crazy!-”

“America.”

Arthur internally hates himself for the silence that follows.

He pulls half of the duvet over as much of Alfred as it can reach, effectively finishing his effort in keeping him warm throughout the night and stands back up straight to leave. He stops in the doorway, hand hovering above the light switch, and casts a brief glance behind him to see a pair of eyes looking at him.
He meets them, resentment lingering in the corners of his own eyes, meeting ones that look confused.

“Goodnight. See you in the morning.”

He doesn’t give Alfred a chance to reply, before he’s turned the light off and is walking through his living room to get to the kitchen.
He’ll deal with tomorrow’s hangover the same way he usually does. He’s going to make a meal, get water and sit with a cup of tea until it goes cold and hopefully, he can go to sleep.

But first, he's going to take that piss.

Chapter Text

Alfred wakes at the ass crack of dawn with his mouth dry as crackers and a throbbing headache at the front of his head.
The guest room comes into clarity as he blinks himself awake and looks around dizzyingly.
He’s lying sideways, his glasses are on the nightstand directly in front of him along with a glass of water and an aspirin and he stirs, just to be gripped by vertigo.

He hears a robin chirp in the bushes outside, rustling in the kitchen, Arthur’s muffled voice speaking to someone on the phone and Alfred lies there in the middle of all of it, and squints at the water and his glasses and counts in his head to ten before he reluctantly pushes himself up onto one elbow and reaches for the proffered medicine.

“Oh my god…” He feels urged to mutter, the room tilting nauseatingly the second he moves.

“Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god…”

The aspirin goes down smoothly with the water and he spots a small bucket, with the bottom covered with water, standing at his bedside.
Arthur must’ve wanted to make sure he didn’t vomit in the bed or on the floor to place that there. He’s sure as hell never done him that kind of service when he’s been drunk other times.

He clears his throat, falls back onto the bed pathetically and swallows against the bile that threatens to make use of the obvious pukebail on the floor.
He smacks his lips and lifts his hands to cover his face. It feels dry and flakey, the back of his hands feel like paper.

He should’ve kept it to just that one drink he’d initially invited Arthur out for.

He wouldn’t be feeling so bad if he had - Both hangover wise, but also guilt-wise.
He hasn’t forgotten what happened the night before, he hasn’t forgotten Arthur snapping at him and he also hasn’t forgotten the reason that he did.

And it sucks.

Because Alfred doesn’t want to talk about it anymore, he’s done talking about it. It’s stupid , and Arthur can do whatever he wants to do, but Alfred’s done with it - He shouldn’t have brought it up . Because now Arthur’s going to try talking about it with him, and he’s just fucking done .

He’s just going to pretend he doesn’t remember, that’ll work. Just pretend it didn’t happen and move on, that’s what he’s got to do.
He nods to himself, then immediately regrets it, at the following sensation of being on a rocking ship.

He spends more time in bed than he’d initially planned to. His phone is dead and the aspirin is slow to work.

Arthur’s phone call ends from outside the room and Alfred listens to him muttering to himself. Shuffling across the floor, the click of the washing machine door shutting, and the sound of buttons as it’s turned on telling him what’s going on beyond his own little bubble of misery.

He thinks he does the dishes after that, because of all the clattering.
A radio turns on at some point, delivering news he can’t hear all the way from his bed.

Similarly the robin outside the window keeps chirping, and he gets the impression it’s telling him to get up and get something to eat so he can get to feeling better, instead of sulking and feeling bad in bed with no effort to change it.

He imagines himself getting up, but doesn’t actually do it. 
He imagines going into the kitchen where Arthur is and saying good morning, all happy as he usually does at meetings and he imagines getting a scowl in return which he bitterly grins at. 
Or maybe that he comes into the kitchen and doesn’t say anything and just begins to make coffee.

Arthur tries to say something about the whole conversation from the night before and Alfred looks at him with the most clueless expression he can muster and is like ‘ Psh, what? Dude, I was totally blacked out last night, dude, I don’t remember anything, dude. Dude. You’re crazy. ’

He cringes at his imaginative self. What a loser, an awful liar to boot, stop saying ‘dude’ so much, dude and just get up.

“I don’t wanna…” 

He mutters helplessly. “I don’t wanna get up…”

He knows he has to though. He could take a shower maybe, to feel better.
He lies in bed for a bit longer, breathing in the smell of the duvet, a sort of wood-ish smell that permeates from everywhere in Arthur’s house.

It sounds like Arthur begins to wrap up whatever he’s doing in the kitchen and is starting to find other things to do, and Alfred decides that that probably means it’s nearing a time of day that is unacceptable to be in bed by.

He draws a breath and pushes himself up to sit back on his heels, bracing himself against his knees.
He blinks at the way everything feels like a funhouse, raises a hand to cover his mouth and swallows the spit that rises from the corners of his mouth.

He needs to charge his phone and he needs a shower.

At least his head has calmed down and as he slowly manages to drag himself off the mattress, fully clothed in clothes that smell like beer and shots, he thinks about how to go about meeting Arthur.
The living room is bright when he enters it and he stops in the doorway to let his eyes adjust to it.
He’s about to move towards the bathroom when he does a double take to the window to see… Snow.

Not the sleet kind of snow that Britain usually gets, but actual, honest to god, snow. And it’s falling in fat, soft cotton balls and Alfred can’t help the feeling of giddiness that travels up from his chest and warms his face. He hurries to the window, resting his knees on the couch and placing both hands on the windowsill to look out into the street.
Beneath his hands, the windowsill is warm from the radiator beneath it, and his breath fogs up the window and makes him gag when he smells it.
He’d briefly managed to forget how he was feeling and as much as he wants to go outside, he also really wants a shower.

“Up already?”
Alfred jumps and spins to see Arthur standing behind him, regarding the snow boredly.

“Should have known snow would summon you this early.”

Alfred knits his brows and throws a glance to the grandfather clock at the wall and gawks to see it’s only 8 am.
He looks back to Arthur, mystified. He’s been listening to him bustling around for hours , at least .

“When did you wake up?” He erupts, wincing at the volume of his own voice and bringing a hand to cup the side of his head.
Arthur seems to glance back to the time as well and hums.

“Early.” He states, matter of factly.
Alfred notices the smallest drop in his expression, as if the bags under his eyes got a bit darker just then.
They’re already stark enough as is though, so it’s definitely just his imagination.

“You’re insane.”

Arthur hums, pointedly unamused.

“ Right .”

And just like that, the exchange is becoming dangerous and Alfred gets back off the couch to get that shower before Arthur decides to bring up the ‘talk.’
He sees the slight glint in Arthur’s eyes and makes a vague gesture, pointing behind him and cutting off whatever he was going to say.

“I’m taking a shower.” He says hurriedly and begins towards the bathroom.

“A long one.”

He doesn’t give him a chance to say anything in return and steps away.
The bathroom is warm and smells faintly of soap and mouthwash. He can see the snow falling through the small window at the end of the room, and he watches it until he stops feeling so shitty.
He still definitely feels like crap, but at least the feeling of cowardice fades.

He turns the shower on, strips and gets in - Then immediately sits himself onto the floor with a sigh and lets his forehead rest on his arms.
The water drums onto his back like warm rain, and he focuses on the feeling of it enveloping him. Finding the sensation that much easier to ground himself in, before he can get lost in his own head.
Arthur’s going to keep trying to bring it up, he’s stubborn like that and Alfred can’t keep avoiding him. How would he even go about that, this is Arthur’s house .

The steam of the water makes his face feel fresher and his eyes less dry. He tries to think about the nostalgia of the place instead. Tries to remember what the bathroom used to look like before it was renovated back in the 60s. 

He thinks it was brown with yellow tiles that had sunflowers in the middle of them. He would’ve probably liked staying here then, if it wasn’t for the way Arthur was so painfully off the rocker during that and the following decade, the fact he’s come to be as calm as he is today is honestly a shock. He wonders how he did it.

Then remembers Arthur looking at him like he’s scared, telling him he’s been seeing a shrink and stops wondering.
It’s like looking down at a dog. 
Like a feral dog that’s been trained and forced into submission, it feels gross to see Arthur being like that.
He must’ve been put through some pretty nasty shit at the institution to be able to walk around like he is now.

Docile. And tame.

Alfred swallows and wills himself to go back to focusing on the water pattering on his back, and the warm feeling of it running along his skin.
Arthur’s still mulling about when he exits and he hurries to the front door, hastily calling out that he’s going out for a walk.

He doesn’t stick around to get a response and does end up avoiding confrontation in the end, simply by dodging outside into the snow.
It crunches beneath his feet.
The snowfall itself has stopped, leaving just an overhead gray mass of clouds, but the snow on the ground makes up for it well enough.
It’s not a thick layer by any means, but it’s enough to leave tracks and Alfred breathes in the frigid air and feels it all the way down into his lungs, just to be breathed out warmer.

He realizes it’s the first time in over a month he’s actually been outside properly by himself. He’s just been hanging around Arthur constantly, the thought hadn’t even occurred to him that he could just go outside.
He looks around at the buildings. Fronts and stone, some probably older than he is, patterned similarly to what he’s seen of old rome.
A marketing screen interrupts the architecture with an ad for a perfume he doesn’t recognize and the reverie is instantly broken. He has enough of those screen back at home, good to know they’re inescapable across the atlantic.

He sees quite a few people commuting to work on his walk. Foot Traffic is surprisingly active and he narrowly manages to avoid someone on an electric scooter nearly running into him.
He gets a curse thrown at him, trademark of the British, it’s almost exciting to be surrounded by something so familiar yet so foreign.
He hasn’t traveled outside of work for years , the last time he actually just took a walk among another country's people on his own was… He can’t even remember when that was.

Arthur’s people are lively, not the kind of lively like he is, but lively in the spiteful sense. Like everything breathes and thrives on pure spite, to prove that it can.

From what he’s been hearing of the politics recently, what with Arthur having filled the silence with it mostly, things haven’t been doing very well. And the spite really shines through for that.
He wishes he could live out of spite, too. But he lives because he has no choice not to. 
Spite feels so much more like a choice.

He turns down a smaller alleyway, wedged windingly in between two buildings. A Victorian street lamp stands unlit along the wall and he eyes it curiously, as a modern LED lamp greets him up ahead.
Cobblestone, then flat street.
He walks for a long time just looking at the buildings and the people. He eventually lands in a coffee shop with a plain espresso, sitting by the window and staring out of it.
The snow has gradually become lumps of sleet on the road and he can see a lot of it on the sidewalk becoming pretty icy.

The time rounds noon and he sighs over his drink and leans his head in his hand.

He didn't visit England much when he was little. He can only count twice or thrice he actually went to London before he was abandoned at that mansion back in Virginia and from what he can remember from it, depending on where you went, it was somewhat of a dump. Not all of it, obviously, but a lot of it was a mess, courtesy of the late 1600s he guesses.

Nothing was very nice then.

It’s not too bad now though. Everything has its charm.

He checks his phone to check the time, to see another batch of missed calls from various people back home he does not want to talk to.
He let’s them remain unanswered, though it feels heavy in his stomach to ignore them. He feels anxious about it. 
Because he doesn’t want to go back. He can’t go back, there’s no way…

He takes a mouthful of coffee and checks his email.
Just as full as his missed call log with so many work emails he begins to feel ill.
He exits out and decides to open his messenger before deciding whether he should just destroy his phone and go underground, to see the group chat he, Mathias and Gilbert made a bit ago with unread messages

He taps it, jumping into an apparently ongoing discussion about lentils vs beans, and as he scrolls up, he sees he’s been tagged in a lengthy message from Mathias asking him if he’s alright.

‘ Heard you’re staying in England, is everything okay? ’

The dropping feeling in his stomach becomes like a vacuum that sucks into itself. It’s embarrassing enough to actually be here, but others knowing about it and asking if he’s okay is just too much. He can’t just go around acting like a baby. He considers answering the emails, but the overwhelming feeling of dread tells him there is absolutely no chance.

So he reads the conversation he’s missed, and watches it gradually go from Mathias and Gilbert discussing what might be wrong until Gilbert says something about beans being good for digestion if he’s having stomach problems, followed by Mathias arguing that lentils are much more effective.

He actually laughs at some of it and shoots out a ‘I don’t like lentils.’
Both of them stop typing abruptly at the same time and then start up almost immediately.
He gets shotgun messages about if he’s okay and he parries with excuses even he wouldn’t have believed if he’d read them from anyone else.
Neither Gil nor Matty 2 believes him, but he guesses they decide to drop it, in favor of Mathias telling him that 

‘ It doesn’t matter if you like lentils or not, sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do to stay healthy. ’

Followed by Gilbert:

‘ Okay, Mr. lentil-man with the Lentil-metaphors. ’

Alfred doesn’t see how it’s a metaphor.
He changes Mathias’ nickname to ‘Lentil-man’ and stops thinking about it.'

He sits in that conversation until he’s done with his coffee and then a little bit longer.
He’d forgotten how fun conversations tend to be with these two and by the time he tells them he’s leaving, he feels much lighter than he had previously.

The walk home isn’t anything special, he takes the same route, nervous he might get lost otherwise with how winding and confusing this city is built and he stops by a bakery to get himself a puff pastry. It crumbles when he eats it, and the wind makes some of his hair fly into his mouth, but it tastes pretty great otherwise and he isn’t going to complain about the weather either, since he did go outside for that sole reason.
He hadn’t anticipated the sudden wind though and the fluffy snow he’d stepped out into earlier in the morning, has deteriorated into sleet, with lone chunks of white visible sparsely in areas that don’t get as much foot traffic. 
He takes another bite of his pastry and scurries along the sidewalk, littered with salt that makes ugly discolorations on his shoes that he’s definitely going to forget to clean when he gets back.

Maybe Arthur’s forgotten about the talk last night by now. Alfred’s crossing his metaphorical toes that he has, as he walks the walk back, which is starting to seem suspiciously longer than when he’d gone out. And he’s about to check his phone for directions, when he rounds a corner to find himself on Arthur’s street. He sighs relieved, crumbles the pastry bag and pockets it, then wipes his hands off on his jacket.

Classy, he knows.

He walks along the old Victorian houses, some in better shape than others, but none-the-less colorful, until he reaches the one with Arthur’s car parked out front.
There’s no light in the windows and he can’t see any shuffling about either.
When he opens the front gate and looks to the front door, there’s a small note taped against it and when he gets up the porch steps and takes it off, it reads: ‘ Work called. ’

He grimaces.
It’s odd. He hadn’t thought that Arthur worked this much before visiting him. But the dude practically lives at parliament; and sure, it makes sense in light of the whole crisis and all, but it’s still excessive and despite wanting to avoid him, he feels disappointed.

The door is unlocked when he twists the handle and he enters with a shiver. He can’t really say it’s excessive that Arthur works this much when he’s come here to take a break ( An unwarranted and entirely unnecessary one of course ) from it. But alas, not much he can do.
He decides to order in for dinner. He has the appetite of a horse, something feels like it’s changed and he’s not going to question it. 

Appetite is appetite and energy is energy - No matter how sudden the change is.

Chapter Text

Alfred continues his personal game of hide-and-seek for a few days after their night out drinking.

He ignores any attempts Arthur may make to breach the subject and he feigns ignorance, brushing him off with a raised brow and a ‘ Dude, what are you talking about? ’ until Arthur will drop it for the day and Alfred will be blissfully left alone for 24 hours, before he’ll have to dodge and avoid the confrontation yet again.
Which admittedly turns out not to be very hard, with how little Arthur is actually around.
Alfred begins to recognize a pattern after a few days of actively avoiding, but passively observing, Arthur’s daily routines. 
He’ll leave for work at around 9 or 10 in the morning, and usually, with varying exceptions, he’ll come home at around dinner time and Alfred will make sure to be unavailable both before Arthur leaves for work and after he returns home.

Which means he begins to take a lot of walks in those few days. He sees more of London than he ever has, and he’s almost convinced that he’s interacting with it more than Arthur himself is.
Arthur in turn leaves him notes, saying when he’ll be late or to tell him to get something from the store that he’s running low in stock of.
Alfred will then go and get it and leave it with the receipt on the counter whenever the notes are shopping lists, otherwise they keep talking to a minimum.

Alfred keeps the talking to a minimum.

Arthur continues to try and offer him easy ins to conversations he does not want to have.

The pattern continues as a fixed ritual, until Arthur doesn’t come down for breakfast one morning.

Alfred’s dressed and ready to head out on his first walk of the day, the coffee shop he found a few streets down has a discount in the mornings around the time Arthur comes down for breakfast. But 8 am rolls around and Arthur doesn’t come down like usual.
The house is quiet, with no sounds overhead. Nothing indicates Arthur’s even up there, and Alfred stands looking at the staircase with one hand on the front door and the other tapping against his thigh in trepidation. The realization has been gnawing at him all morning. He got up at 7:30 and usually by then, Arthur’s first alarm goes off and Alfred is awake to hear it.

Today there was nothing.

Maybe he just left for work early or something?

Alfred sighs through his nose and lets his hand fall from the handle to wander towards the bottom of the stairs.
He hasn’t found a note anywhere. 
And as has been the case all other days , if Arthur’s plans change from the norm, he leaves notes the night before for Alfred to find in the morning. He’s already looked around, but the entire ground floor is absent of any signage or disclaimers about Arthur diverging from his very predictable life .

He strains his ears more, focusing on the air so much it feels like he can hear his own blood flowing.
All he hears is muffled London ambiance from beyond the front door and the sound of the living room clock. 

Even the radio in the kitchen isn’t on.

Arthur tends to forget to turn it off when he leaves, so Alfred usually leaves for and comes back from his morning walks to find it playing, but it stands silent as the dead in its spot on the windowsill and Alfred does not like that kind of silence.
He tries to remember whether Arthur has said something about plans, but he hasn’t actually been in the same room as him since two days ago, so he knows they haven’t spoken.
And Arthur doesn’t just sleep in, he has a million alarms going off every 5 minutes to prevent exactly that.

It feels very wrong.
Sure, he’s avoiding direct contact, but being entirely without the dude and the signs that he’s around feels incredibly disconcerting and very scary.
Like he just up and left.

His teeth bite down on his tongue anxiously with his eyes cast upwards at the softly lit top of the stairs.
He sets a single foot on the bottom step and leans forwards, as if leaning will allow him to peer up through the floor and check the rooms without actually ascending.
The sun rising usually means a good mood for Arthur, maybe he’s just gotten up earlier to see it rise? But the movement would’ve definitely woken him up in the process and the radio would have been on.

He remembers he’s got his phone, but calling him feels out of the question. Somehow that’d be more awkward than just…

“Dude?” He calls.
He takes the step up, hand gripping at the railing as he waits. All that greets him is the chirping of birds outside and a lone car driving past the front door.

“Bro, are you up there?” He tries again.

His voice resonates around the walls softly, but once again he receives nothing in response and it annoys him as much as it unsettles him. The house feels emptier than when he’s usually alone in it.
Is Arthur dead up there? What’s going on?

Alfred squints, warding off the gradual escalation in his head and finally decides to just brave the stairs.

Avoidance be damned, he doesn’t like how anxious he’s beginning to feel.

“You better not be dead up there, old man! I’m coming up!”

The steps creak under his weight, the wood visibly worn down and old, but kept well enough to be functional and they carry him up until he steps off and finds himself on a small landing.
The dark wooden flooring from downstairs continues on the 1st floor, and a streak of morning sunlight falls in through a window at the end of a short hallway to his left.
He looks down it curiously, to see two doors. One slightly cracked open, revealing what seems to be a bathroom and a closed one, most likely Arthur’s bedroom.

The air feels denser and warmer up here and he can see dust particles dancing to and fro playfully in the sun that streaks onto the floor.
It gives the hallway a warm glow and Alfred almost thinks he sees certain particles flickering rhythmically, glimmering oddly before abruptly darting out of sight.

He hasn’t been up here at all since he arrived.

He doesn’t actually think he’s ever been upstairs at all . 
Last he saw the house, he’s pretty sure it was only a few years. The wood and carpet wasn’t worn down, and the floor didn’t creak nearly as much.

The ground floor plan was really the only plan he cared to occupy. Mostly because he was always itching to leave and the ground floor had the front door easily accessible.
That must be how he forgot the cufflinks, too.
The air smells faintly of earth. Not moldy, like wet plant soil, but more sweet and tangy. A sort of citrusy quality to it that reminds him of an orchard.
He thinks back to the plate of oranges and frowns, that twinge of something rising back up to occupy his chest.

He rubs at it absently, turning his head to find a third door to his right.
It looks older than the rest of its kin, with an intricate handle, styled like the manor houses he’s sure Arthur still owns and he inspects it from afar.
The handle looks almost too old sitting in a Victorian home, but it doesn’t stand out enough to be eye-catching. If he didn’t already know what the Victorian era interior looked like, he wouldn’t have pegged the handle to stand out at all - Although knowing Arthur, the thing is probably handmade. The lock too, he’s sure.

He decides he’ll check the bathroom and the bedroom first, before trying his luck with the Narnia -room.

Maybe he’ll even find Arthur in there, doing whatever weird stuff the guy does whenever he actually has freetime.
Aside from his needlework and gardening, Alfred’s almost certain that Arthur’s hobbies escalate into weird- weird territory, very quickly. 

He begins slowly down the shallow hallway with his arms loosely coming to rest at his sides. 
Books and boxes, furniture and trinkets litter along the walls; Some he recognizes, some he doesn’t, but all in all it just adds to the odd mixture of feelings about being on unchartered territory. Such as an unsettling treasure hunt - Maybe he’ll find a corpse, maybe the house will actually just be empty. Either way, meandering along, he glides his eyes across everything to search for some sort of clue.

A small table stands beneath the window at the far end, a vase of lush flowers and a small lamp sunbathing on it and on the walls hangs dozens of framed photographs.
A few of them catches his eye and pauses him in his step to have a closer look at them.
He sees some of himself, some of Matthew, Jack and Kaelin. 
He sees Arthur’s brothers and Arthur himself in some of them, too, with varying degrees of quality.

The ones of Arthur seem smaller and less apparent, but they’re there, and Alfred sees he’s with Francis in a number of the newer ones. 
They look, to Alfred’s surprise, content beside each other. Francis seems to be poking fun in most of them and Arthur doesn’t seem his usual kind of bothered. 
He almost looks like he’s in on it, like he’s genuinely enjoying it and his face looks so much more clear of any lines and worries, than it does in the surrounding sea of bleak and depressing expressions.

Alfred lingers on those bright looking ones, skeptical of the enthusiasm, before he moves on.
He skims over the rest, only caught by a particularly shimmery couple of pictures a bit to his right. 
The franes looks gold plated - Worn and chipped in places, probably from several relocations throughout the years and he inches towards it curiously just to stop mid step. A shiver grips at his skin and trickles down his back.
The frames contain kids’ drawings.
Two drawings sit in one frame, together. 
The corners withered and the paper itself looking frail, yet after more than 200 years, you can still see what they’re supposed to be. Faded as they are, he doesn’t need a time machine to know they’ve been meticulously looked after.

One resembles a tree with two small figures under it. Each smiling, holding a big, round apple.
He remembers making that one, of himself and Matthew.
He’d ruined his clothes with the coal pencil. 
It never really got out of the fabric and while Arthur was there, he made sure to keep all the coal pencils far out of reach to avoid a repeat. He’d given him lead pencils instead, but they were never as fun.

He flicks his eyes to the second artpiece, a pit in his stomack.
The other drawing resembles two people under a sun and a cloud. 
One is big and one is small. They’re doing archery.

The light flickers across the worn and browned paper through the frame. Accentuating their age, Alfred feels morose. The simmering anxiety from before becoming apparent again.
The second is drawn more softly, the lines are less erratic and more rounded.
There’s no doubt about who drew it. Matthew’s always been more patient than Alfred ever has with arts and crafts, afterall.
Arthur kept them.
After so long, he really did keep them.

Alfred frowns and steps away. He balls his hands into fists, then flexes them back out a few times, breathing in the stuffy air.
He’d expected him to have thrown them away after the coal incident, he’d been pretty pissed about the linen.
Or at least he would’ve lost them…

It’s probably best to not think too hard about it. When has reminiscing ever brought him anything but trouble.
He turns away towards the bathroom which is, unsurprisingly, unoccupied. The silence that permeats the entire house sort of made that to be expected, but he can’t help himself from feeling slightly disappointed.
The bathroom itself looks near identical to the one downstairs, except this one’s a bit bigger and clearly more used.

The faucet, porcelain and the metal look as good as new and the little mess he sees in there feels fitting. Like it does everywhere else in the house, it feels lived in. 
The mundane kind of messy, not negligent kind of messy.

A towel is haphazardly tossed over the toilet seat and he can see a toothpaste tube still opened on the side of the sink.
On the floor is a pair of slippers and a window stands half-open by the shower.
He goes to close it, glancing at the way the mirror has small toothpaste splatters on the bottom edge and the shower curtain is missing a few hooks.

He pulls the window shut, spotting frost on the glass, glistening like crystals against clear, blue winter sky.
Paired with the drawings, the pictures and the old door handle, it makes him envious.
It makes him realize that he doesn’t have anywhere this homey for himself.

A belated realization, but this is far from what he’s forced himself to get used to back at his own place.
Just seeing these small signs of life and domesticity is hitting him how little of that he has himself.
How… gross his apartment has become. How much he’s let it fall apart to neglect, and thinking about it as he drags himself from the bathroom back out into the hall, he’s let himself crumble right alongside it, and he doesn’t really fit in here at all.

With all this organized mess, that makes the pæace feel clean despite how much is in it. How it just feels lived in, rather than neglected.

The bedroom door opens without sound and he gets a full view of a room that could not be more Arthur if there’d been an attempt.

The air is cooler in here and he can see another open window by an only partially made bed.
He sees an old wardrobe with a lengthy mirror attached to one door.
A hanger with a shirt on the knob, a few drawers stand open and match the rest of the room in a moderate mess, that still manages to look and feel manageable.

Unlike his own bedroom.
Piles of laundry and dirty sheets, he doesn’t remember the last time he’d done laundry or the dishes.

Everything has just been work.
Arthur’s room, besides his bed and the wardrobe, has two bedside tables.

The right side has a pair of old glasses; Frilly ones that look fragile enough to fall apart if you so much as look at them and a novel that looks crisp and new. It has a single bookmark in it, the cover looks like a cheesy crime-thriller and there’s a half-finished sheet of painkillers, lying near the edge with a tissue packet and an empty glass of water.

The other side of the bed, the left table, stands partly empty - With the exception of what looks like a small stack of hair ties and a toiletry bag with a silky handkerchief tied to the handle.
It’s strange. His head reels slightly as he takes it all in. Sees the room lit up softly, the high ceiling, the way Arthur’s always kept his dresser in the corner nearest to the door, for reasons Alfred’s only wondering about now.

It feels like he’s come home from a very, very long trip away, just to find that nothing is the same. 
Or maybe it is the same, but he’s become so estranged and far removed from it, the tiniest of changes seem radical and strange. 
He feels at home, standing in a place he can recognize, but it feels uncanny. Like an imitation of what it’s supposed to be.
And it’s frustrating, in a distressing, awful way that he’s felt so many times before. He’d believed he’d managed to distance himself from the feeling - But standing in it now, it feels overwhelming and he steps out before things escalate.

He decides to check the last room and move back downstairs.
He figures Arthur left early, he hasn’t seen a note anywhere, and he doesn’t suppose the old man would be expecting him to go upstairs and check on him in the first place.
Maybe Alfred’s lack of response to everything got him to drop the point of leaving messages altogether.
That sits wrong with him and it mixes right in with his feeling of uncanny.

He begins to feel bitter over the fact Arthur would give up like that.

Disappear when things was getting a little bit too complicated and Alfred begins to stray from the helpless, dying little baby child that everybody coos for. Where he begins to need more than the bare minimum, that’s of course when people, Arthur , will call it quits.

He passes the drawings in the hallway and glances bitterly sideways at them, just to see his own face reflected back at him in the golden frame of his childhood.
He stops mid step, realizing with a start that he does not recognize himself.
His face isn’t what he remembers it being, he doesn’t feel like he can pinpoint when he started to wear glasses or when he began to look so much like a ghost.

The face of a boy, who draws with coal and flint, the face of a child who’s dirtied and muddy from activities so simple and exciting, that the worry of a house, too big for a single man to occupy, is so far from that boy’s mind it be an unimaginable situation; That face trapped in the drawing, is not what Alfred is looking at.

Alfred is looking at a face that waited half a decade for a man that never showed. With a twin brother distancing himself to the point of non-existence, living in a manor too big and empty, with the purest belief that if he just waits a few days more, Arthur might step foot back home.
He’d had to get work eventually. Waiting around didn’t get him any company, and while the staff were nice, they weren’t talkative. 
He’d forced a positive light on abandonment, he’d almost convinced himself he was happy Arthur hadn’t returned. 

Because Alfred had turned it for the better and had used it as a motivator to expand his own potential to be self-sufficient.

Now, looking at himself, he doesn’t see that aspiration and integrity he was so proud of back then. He sees a sunken face sitting behind glasses that started out as a fashion statement.
He sees a man who doesn’t notice the sky or the stars above him anymore, he just sees smoke and oil and his hands shaking in the evenings.
He doesn’t aspire towards anything anymore, all he wishes to do most of the time nowadays is sink into his bed and sleep.

He touches his face with a hand bigger than expected and it’s making him feel sick. 
When did he get this old? 
He isn’t even that old, but he doesn’t remember a time where really ever felt allowed to feel young either.

He hesitates in continuing on, transfixed to his own reflection, the hallway doesn’t really feel real.
The light appears airbrushed when he casts his eyes down at the third door and takes a step towards it.

Everything he looks at makes him want to throw up.

He tries the old handle, fingers touching the ornate metal, careless of its intricacy. It feels odd under his palm.
He just has to check for completion’s sake.
The door opens silently and smoothly, letting into a study that looks picked right out of the 19th century.
Oak bookcases line the walls, small gold plates, inscribed with categorized numbers sit on the shelves and every single case is stacked with books .

He looks around, momentarily caught off guard, not because it’s a sight he hasn’t seen before, but due to the sheer rightness of it all.
Of how correct it is that Arthur’s held onto every text imaginable throughout the years. It doesn’t reverse his gradually declining mood, but it does spur him onto cautious curiosity.

He sees parchment and scrolls, lying alongside computer printed copies of whatever work he can’t read from a distance.
A large painting of the sea hangs directly in front of him, two windows sitting on either side of it.

The room smells faintly of leather and wood.

The faint hint of salt and the sound of creaking.
It takes him a moment to step inside. Debating whether it’s worth it, what he even really needs in there, but curiosity trumps the devastating feeling of homesickness and he wanders to the nearest book he sees and picks it up.

It looks freshly reviewed, not a single speck of dust covering it. He flips it over, the cover is unmarked. As is the spine.

Alfred goes behind the main desk and sits down at it.
He opens the book he’s found to the first page.

‘Hieme usque ad aestatem’

There’s no author to speak of, and from the little latin he knows, he thinks it means “ Winter until Summer ”

Looking inside, unsurprisingly, the remainder of the pages are scrawled in latin as well.
It’s obviously Arthur’s handwriting, but rougher and much more unstable. It doesn’t match the font on the first page, so someone else titled it.

He skims a bit of the page he’s flipped to.

“... Practicing latin.”

He mumbles, deciphering both the language and the hand writing, his brain working overtime. 
It doesn’t help that the d’s and the b’s are interchanged liberally for one another so it’s a gamble to guess if he’s looking at ‘ad’ or ‘ab’.

He recognizes phrases here and there, lots of prayers and lots of mundane stuff. He’s supposing it’s a sort of diary, and going off from the title, he’s guessing he was told to practice his latin by filling out a page each day, winter through summer. He must’ve been really young at that point, then. It explains how utterly tattered this book is, too, but he’s pretty sure book binding like the pages has been bound was only much later that came about - Arthur must’ve rebound it.

He flips onto a random page further in where the writing becomes significantly more legible and the latin less prone to error, although still with the interchangeable b’s and d’s.
He can’t help but smirk at it, thinking about how Arthur still has to stop and think, or shake his hand, to figure out which is left or right.
It’s good to know he always had that issue.
It’s less fun to read and translate what the page actually says. It feels more stiff and formal, and it details, from what Alfred can gather, an episode with a friend of sorts. Or a companion, named Julius.

The grammar is tricky, like it was purposefully written to be hard to understand.

He recognizes the word for fire and penance. But he can’t figure out if those are connected, or two different stories and the more he tries to read, the more grim the situation seems to become.
He stops reading at ‘ mort et coct’ . The concept of the words ‘dead’ and ‘cooked’ that close together just isn’t on the list of things he wants to think about right now and really, he shouldn’t even be here.

Alfred places the book down and rises from the chair and pushing his way out of the door.

It closes behind him with a heavy click, a finalized huff of air that drives Alfred back towards the ground floor.
He feels lightheaded as he heads down the stairs, the image of his bedroom with his bed half-full of papers and old food.
The pizza boxes that have started to smell.
He thinks about the days blending together, all the ways he didn’t think, the ways he felt automated and dead ; Whether that be technical or literal, he knew he didn’t feel a difference either way.
He doesn’t feel like it’s fair. He’s tired of being alone, but right now, he’s almost equally as tired of being around Arthur. With his dumb therapy and patience he’s never held before.
Alfred heads out and lets the frigid air shock his thoughts into the back of his mind and heads off to get his morning cup of coffee.

He thinks about sending Arthur a text asking him where he is sometime in the evening, but shuts his phone off before he can. That’s a level of desperation he’s not ready to stoop to. Besides, Arthur lives here, obviously he’ll come back at some point.

He technically lived in the house in Virginia too, though.

Alfred leans his head sideways and bumps it against the railing of the stairs.
The house feels the same kind of big it did in Virginia and he found himself gravitating towards the front door. He stares ahead at it idly, arms cross, phone stuffed so far into his pocket it can go to avoid accidentally embarrassing himself more than he already has.

How many times has he played this exact scene out in his childhood? 

Waiting. 

Sitting at the front door, with nothing else to do. With a fully explored house, too vast and too terrifying for a single child, left idle.
Not knowing if or when that front door might open up again.

He doesn’t know why, but a part of him, very far, very deep inside of him, is beginning to cry. Because a part of him, that deeply hopeful, buried part of him, just wants that front door to swing open for once. For once when he’s anticipating it, he just needs it to swing open.

To see Arthur stepping inside and seeing him and greeting him like he’d prayed he’d do every night until he accepted the fact he was probably gone.

He hadn’t told him why he was leaving back then either. But at least he had said he was going away, unlike today where he’d just not been there.
It doesn’t change much though. In the end, he’s still left and in the end, Alfred has no idea why.
It’s easy to think it’s his fault. That he overstayed his welcome or acted too childishly and Arthur just got fed up with him. 
It’s probably that.
He got fed up with him enough to leave his own house and wait it out until Alfred goes back home.

Alfred swallows an unexpected lump crawling up to choke him and huddles in on himself on the stairs. He’ll wait for a bit longer, let logic play a part in the hopeful anxiety in his chest that stares at the door in anticipation.
Who knows, maybe when the door doesn’t open, and Arthur never returns, Alfred can finally pull his shit together and go back home. He’ll return to work, man up and pretend like he was never here in the first place.

He has no idea what the time is, he has no clue for how long he’s been sitting there, but he knows it’s been long enough to get him to feel so frustrated that his breathing begins to grow irregular and his eyes are starting to sting.
He wipes his face, curses and begins to get up, fed up with how pathetic he’s being-

When he hears the smacking of a car door from outside.
He freezes.
Eyes growing wide and gluing themselves to the front door, with a growing sense of urgency replacing the borderline despair he’d spiraled himself into before.
The telltale sound of the front gate opening and closing scatters his thoughts so much that it all goes blank and he sits there, tense, chest swelling with fear and boundless excitement that all culminates to him staying frozen in place.

A key inserts into the lock and it clicks open. Then the door is opening; It’s a slow push inward, a gust of frigid air billowing in about his feet.

And Arthur steps inside.

He’s disheveled and grumpy looking, older than the image Alfred had anticipated and built up in his head, but it holds just as much terrifying victory to see him in the doorway. Despite Arthur being so much older than he was over two centuries ago, Alfred’s hands tremble just slightly, with energy he has no way to let out with dignity intact. 
He almost forgets he’s supposed to be ignoring the guy.
Arthur pushes the door shut behind him and takes his shoes off, shrugging out of his coat with movements that are tired and irregular.

“You look terrible.” Alfred blurts.
Arthur startles and snaps his head up.
He directs a bewildered, lightly pissed off look directly at Alfred, before it softens up and a long, drawn out sigh replaces the nerve.
Alfred feels like crying, he can feel his eyes growing glassy and he wipes his face swiftly while Arthur gets back to hanging his coat up.

“ Thank you, so much.” He says sarcastically.

“Did you get any more bread?”

Alfred lifts a hand to wipe at his face for a second time, before giving him a confused look. 

“What? Dude, there was no note.”

Arthur looks at him oddly, turning to face him fully for a moment before picking up his shoes to put them onto the shoe rack further in.

“Yes there was, I left it for you on the fridge.”
Alfred shakes his head, rising from the stairs to step down and follow him.

“There was no note. There was an old one from like, yesterday, but nothing for today.” He explains.

Arthur brings his briefcase with him to the kitchen and Alfred hesitates to follow. Standing with his entire body quivering, he takes a few seconds to compose himself. Breathing in deep through his nose and exhaling through his mouth.
It’s a nauseating thing, almost having accepted wholeheartedly to have been abandoned again, just to be proven wrong in the most everyday manner possible.
It’s a sense of relief, overwhelming enough that his entire system is a mess.
He sniffs and hardens his resolve a little. Just enoigh to move into the kitchen, just in time to see Arthur holding a sticky note and an exasperated expression.

“I did write a note, but it seems like I brought it with me to work.” He sighs, crumbling it up and tossing it into the trash.

“It was just asking you to get some bread. We’ve run out.”

Alfred stands with his hands under his arms in the doorway, watching Arthur look at him first with annoyance for himself, then with a prickle of suspicion, before finally settling for a thinly veiled concern directed at Alfred.

“Are you alright?”

Alfred tenses.

Arthur had intended to return home all along. He hadn’t abandoned him, and he’d just been in a hurry - And now that things are calming down little by little, Alfred’s still not in the mood to talk. He doesn’t want to talk, especially not about feelings .

“Alfred, are you alright?”

“I’m going to bed.”

Arthur looks like he’s going to try and stop him, but Alfred turns before he can think better of it and starts to head towards the guest room.
He thinks he hears a confused ‘ good night? ’ from behind him as he goes, and it’s a good idea he’s going to bed, because he severely needs to lie down.

Chapter Text

Alfred stares ahead blankly into his empty fridge.
His eyes squint against the light, flickering uncertainly around the barren shelves, nastied by mold and grime he hasn’t had the energy to clean out.

If it smells, he’s stopped noticing it. The chill caresses his ankles and shins, he keeps staring, at the verge of being satisfied with his conclusions; He doesn’t have anything to eat yet again.
But his head feels heavy, he forgets what he’s looking for, then stares in hopes of finding it, just to remember and move to close the fridge. But then he’ll forget anew and check again, just in case he’d overlooked something.

He glances momentarily sideways at the kitchen counter. Or what’s visible of it.
His entire dish cabinet is emptied onto it, used and dirtied, some lounge in his sink with scraps adding to the smell and cups sitting sticky and unappetizing alongside. Others he knows sits clean in the dishwasher, ready to be emptied and refilled, by hands and a person who musters the energy and time to.

It’s sat like that for over a month, and before that, it had sat full and dirty for weeks.
There’s the sound of water dripping sporadically, mixing in with the electric whirring of the fridge, which stands open in front of him still. It illuminates the pizza boxes with moldy cheese-topped crusts, of leftovers he never got around to finishing and china boxes equally as far along in their decay.

He got an email about the smell from his landlord, apparently his neighbors have been complaining, but what do they know?

They don’t know who he is or what he does. They don’t know their role, that their blood runs right through him, the lifeblood of personhood, their very existence simply makes up a portion of him .
And he puts that into keeping law and order, peace and prosperity, justice and equity - He does his job, because his job helps weigh the scale equally. Even if the tipping of it, is making him bleary eyed and slightly confused.

He thought he had left overs. But maybe he didn’t, he probably forgot about them and left them too long.
Or maybe he ate them, although he can’t remember when he would’ve had the time.

He closes the fridge finally. 
A slow motion that makes him feel restless and nervous, with the dimness of his apartment, he doesn’t own a lot of lamps.

He has overhead lighting, but it gives him headaches, and the headaches hinder his work progress, and if he falls behind on more work, he has even more to make up for.

So he doesn’t turn on the overhead lights. They stay off, and he creeps around in the dark. 
Maneuvering through laundry and bags of trash from half-finished attempts at cleaning that didn’t get anywhere before he’d dropped and stayed down for a few days.
It didn’t help with the smell, but his head was lighter for a day after and he caught up a bit on reports.

“Guess I’ll order something.” 
He mutters, filling the darkness with something besides the static that hums inside his head. An urgency and a desperation for something that itches and claws beneath his skin, like the need to run and hide, but the danger is from all around and he can’t think of anywhere to go.

So he goes back to his laptop.

Word and excel sit side-by-side on a double-screen, numbers and percentages of reports he needed to have done by last week, with numbers that relate to reports entrusted to him for next week.
A continual project, numbers that correlate, he messes up one he’s butchered the other, and he’ll need to restart the whole thing from scratch.
The chair creaks when he sits into it, the light from his laptop hurts his eyes and he clicks open his overfilled browser window to think of somewhere to order from.

He goes through a mental list, but it won’t come into focus, he can’t think of any names or places, all that he can do is stare. Blankly.

Nothing comes to mind. Not even numbers, not work or sentences, his mind feels completely empty, but at the same time excessively full.
Filled to the brim. 
Like it’ll explode, and it makes him feel skittish.

With a trembling hand and a sensation of something watching him, he opens his browser history to check for the last place he ordered from.
A list of source material for work fills the page, and he scroll through it; Down, down, down, the screen reflects in his glasses, his clothes feels sticky and uncomfortable, his hair is sticky and greasy, he can feel it lump together and press against his forehead-

JustEat.

His laptop fan turns on softly, like a sigh.
Alfred clicks the website and watches it load in with options for food and restaurants, all rated and alphabetized, he’s already logged in and the website welcomes him back.

His apartment hums around him obnoxiously quiet, a void of sound, magnifying every creak and crick of the building tenfold, a floorboard from another apartment  makes him jump and puts his hairs on the end.
He swallows, intently focusing on the screen. The food options; He scrolls down, he isn’t in the mood for anything, he can’t really remember when he ate last, he just isn’t feeling hungry.
He scrolls some more, fingertips feeling icy cold; An ad for Ryanair pops up on the side, innocuous, but it’s something different, and he looks at it with the attention one gives to spot-the-difference pictures.

Why is he getting ads for vacation travel?
Why’s he getting ads for RyanAir?

He hasn’t said anything about planes or travelling, he hasn’t been interacting with it at all.
He clicks it. With no motivation for it, no plan of action, a pop-up window leads him to Ryan Air’s website and he sits with his back hunched and his hands clenching briefly in an attempt to warm his fingers, and he tries to think of what he’s supposed to be doing.

His mouth is dry.

Is he booking a ticket?

Where would he go, he doesn’t have any conferences, he hasn’t had any of those in a long time.

Does Ryanair fly to Canada?
The imagine of Matthew’s tired face from his last visit interrupts his thoughts and he frowns, a sickening twist in his gut forcing him to block out the possibility.

Ryan air doesn't fly to Toronto from here.
Actually, Ryanair doesn’t even fly to America .

He finds that he’s back to wondering why he got an ad for Ryanair and why he’s on their website.
He wonders what he was doing in the first place, what led him here.

The back of his neck itches, he feels very aware of how dark it’s getting, about how pressing his workload is, how much he can’t compute anything at all. No comprehensive thinking crosses him, but the stress is there and he feels it like the urge to flee.

He can’t think of how, so he sits frozen.

With Ryanair’s website open in front of him.

He was booking a ticket. But not to Toronto.

Ryanair .

He hesitates when opening a new tab, but it’s what he was doing, it’s what he opened the browser for.
He books a ticket for tonight, it’s only 7, he doesn’t need to pack much so he packs light. Stuffs dirty clothes and laundry into a duffel, brings his charger, brings his phone and a toothbrush.

He won’t stay long, just a visit. 

He just wants to check on some numbers abroad. Somewhere where he doesn’t feel surrounded and watched, somewhere he can focus and somewhere where the darkness doesn’t make him feel like he’ll be swallowed and choked.

The trip to the airport doesn’t linger in his memory as more than the factual knowledge that he must have underwent transport to be able to check in at JFK airport at around 8 pm.

He doesn’t have luggage, he has a carry-on and he brings it with him through security with nothing to declare.
Tense and stiff, he floats through most of it, he finds his gate and waits at it with his eyes fixed on the floor with little need to blink. Swimming in his head, he’s preoccupied by what he’s going to say. What he’ll do, when he lands.

There’s an overwhelming need to throw up pressing at him, a feeling of fear between his shoulder blades, a rubber band wrapping around him; He boards a plane with his carry-ons in the overhead compartment and silently pleads with the plane to take off. 
As if leaving is as urgent as evading capture.
He’ll take a taxi from Heathrow airport, he might have Arthur’s address somewhere in his phone notes, and if not there, then he knows where his house is and he’ll find the address on google maps.

He’s jumping his legs and picking at his nails.
The plane takes off and he watches the aisle and the light-up on the floor; He didn’t get a window seat, but he doesn’t need it.
As long as he doesn’t land back in New York, he can deal.

The floor bleeds together into itself the longer he stares at it. The quiet rumbling of the cabin, the blankets the stewardesses hand out wrapped around his shoulders, the quiet yet crowded ambiance of people wanting to sleep their way through the flight, Alfred slowly begins to think.
He thinks ahead, imagines the rejection, imagines and dissects scenarios where Arthur declares him entirely estranged. That he’s been disowned, ties cut permanently. Nothing left but work-relations and business ties.
Where he turns Alfred away with his usual scoff of distaste for everything American; Everything that makes up what Alfred is.

He knows Arthur’s come to respect him, he’s been forced to. He’s had no other choice, Alfred made sure of that; 
But respect isn’t the same as contentment. 
It’s not proof that he gives a shit anymore. 
It’s not proof that he cares about him or wants to see him eat at his table, because respect proves nothing beyond equal terms. 
And equals have no need to like each other, they just acknowledge the capacity the other has, to prove themselves a possible threat.

Alfred breaths in through his nose, clenching his prickling hands together in a white knuckled grip.

He’ll deal with that as it comes.

He’ll deal with that when he lands.

Chapter Text

Alfred is avoiding him.

Obviously .

There are very few things that Alfred can be any less obvious about, than when he’s stepping around you.
It feels disconcerting and uncomfortable, and Arthur noticed it the second it began.

Physically evading approach, actively keeping conversation superficial and short, it didn’t take a genius to figure it out.
Especially not with the evasion of eye contact.

Alfred’s always been adamant to keep eye contact during conversation, he figures for intimidation purposes or for being able to see any and all changes in expression so he can catch signs of deceit early on, the fact that he’s been looking askew, down, up, instead of trained directly at Arthur’s face was the biggest tell he wasn’t thrilled for chatting.
He had sort of already guessed something like it would arise after their night out drinking; Drunken words, sober thoughts and all that, but it doesn’t make the situation any less frustrating.

Alfred was the one to bring up the therapy issue in the first place, so how is it fair he’s the one to be avoidant about it now?
Arthur had been alright not talking about it for a while before, the only reason it’s been brought back up is because Alfred decided to do so - Besides, Alfred came to him for help. 
He might say he didn’t explicitly ask for it , but you don’t show up on someone you barely talk to doorstep, because you ‘want to get away’ .
So why is he insisting to regress and avoid, now that things were finally starting to look like they might be getting better?

It reeks of self-destruction, and Arthur won’t stand for it. He asked for help, if he doesn’t want it, he’s going to have to say that.

It’s also not like Arthur hasn’t tried to clear things up; He’s tried to breach the subject for days, even just to say that ‘it’s fine. They don’t need to talk it through’, but he can’t even get that across, because the lad isn’t home at all when Arthur is- And with the extra workload he’s taken on until mid-december, he can’t even dedicate time to create a plan of approach that Alfred hasn’t already worked out.

The lad has learned his schedule. And he can’t change anything up without messing with his plans and deadlines, so that’s not even an option.

He sighs, and looks up to see Alfred in the hallway in  the reflection of the kitchen window.

The sun hasn’t properly risen yet, it slumbers just beneath the horizon and Alfred is unsurprisingly getting his jacket on in the foyer, getting ready to go out for whatever morning-ritual he’s set himself up for these past few days.

He’s up late though.

He’s usually gone by the time Arthur comes down for breakfast and judging by the sitting-on-the-stairs incident from the evening prior, it feels elaborate.
He hasn’t missed a single morning, why would he miss one now?

It’s worth a shot.

“Alfred?”

An opening is an opening, no matter how feeble the chances are that the lad will bite.
Alfred freezes mid-motion in the hall, before slowly turning towards the kitchen. 

“What?” Alfred calls back apprehensively.

He breathes in and turns to face him. His tea still soaking, sitting hot on the counter.
“While I have you, come in here. I’m not going to shout all the way into the foyer.”

Alfred looks hesitant, glancing towards the front door, before admitting defeat and trudging his way across the floor.
He settles at the dinner table, pulling out a chair for himself and slumping into it begrudgingly. 
He’s never looked as much his age.

“You don’t seem to mind shouting any other time.” Alfred mutters.

Arthur gives him a look, but decides to brush it aside.
It’s not the time and it is, annoyingly, a fair observation.

“You said you’d be staying for a while and December is coming up.”

Alfred perks up, a twinge of dread overcoming him. 
He looks surprised in the worst possible way and Arthur thinks he knows why, the stack of paperwork on his desk at parliament ringing some bells, he’s pretty sure he read a deadline for some time around new years. He’ll have to prioritize that, he’s already finished his own.

“I’ve been thinking;” 

Arthur continues, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible at 7 in the morning with a wildly uncomfortable looking Alfred.
“Would you fancy spending the holidays in one of my vacation-homes up north? Specifically by the coast, with Francis and Matthew.”

Alfred seems to go from looking dreadful to downright worried and Arthur watches with some concern as he crosses his arms and leans back in his chair.

“Matthew’s coming?”
He asks.

Arthur nods, leaning back against the kitchen counter.

“I’m calling to check in with him this afternoon. I need to see about his schedule.” He explains. “Then ask if he wants to come around the 20th.”

Alfred is looking uncomfortable and even more ready to flee than before.

He might do well getting away from the city, who knows how long ago it was he had the opportunity for that .
Regarding the Matthew case though, he did mention some strain, he just didn’t think it was bad enough for him to sit and get uncomfortable about the topic of a visit.

He leans one hand onto the counter, placing the other at his hip.

“I know you mentioned there has been some bad air between the two of you recently, but you can’t avoid each other forever. And I know it would be an ample opportunity for the two of you to actually talk things out.” He says. “Now, it won’t be for another few weeks, but I’m airing the idea with you now, so you can think it over, yeah? 
I’m not going to force you. If you’d like it better, you can stay here and have the house to yourself for christmas. Then the three of us spend the holidays up near Leeds.”

Alfred purses his lips and looks askew. Thoughtful and stubborn, the latter option doesn’t seem to get a very positive reaction, surprisingly. Although he did mention he didn’t wish to be alone when he arrived, having an entire house on his own might not work out very well after all.

“Would that interest you at all, lad?”

Alfred sits in silent contemplation for a moment longer, the soft music of the radio giving the moment an ambient feel to it and Arthur takes a moment to check Alfred over properly.

It’s apparent he’s begun to eat, at least more than before. 
His face is fuller and he’s regained a bit of color, but it’s done little in helping his sunken eyes and semi-permanent face of despair, that rules over him when he relaxes his face. His jacket still looks a bit loose on him and his nails are still brittle and prone to breaking, and it hits him how quickly the change had come about.

Not quick enough to be immediately apparent, but Alfred obviously isn’t doing any better than when he first arrived. He just seems to have grown more sporadic and impulsive.
He’s gone from practically incapacitated to being on edge and paranoid, and in hindsight, Arthur traces the escalation back to right around the time of finding the cufflinks.

The matter of getting him some professional help presses on heavier, but it’s not something he can bring up now without it resulting in Alfred leaving before they’ve had a chance to finish the topic at hand.
He grits his teeth.
This is becoming more and more frustrating of a situation.

“Is it the white stone one? The house.” He asks.
Arthur nods.

“Yes.” He says.

“And Francis is coming?”

“Yes, he is.”

Alfred nods to himself, fingers pulling at a worn spot on his leather jacket. 
Small brown flakes fall from the leather-bald spot down onto his jeans, flowing further downwards to land on the floor.
He’ll vacuum that up after work, Arthur thinks, even if he gets back late. It won’t be longer than a 10 minute sweep of the room, he doesn’t need to do the whole ground floor.

Alfred glances down, noticing Arthur looking at the mess and unfurls his arms, stuffing his hands into his pockets.
He decidedly stands.
“I guess it’s fine. Whatever.” He says flatly.

A few more flakes drizzle as he stands and Arthur follows their fall down to the carpet.
“Mhm.” He quips, before looking back up with a finalized inhale.
That was that conversation, at least he managed to get something out of it.

“I don’t know when I’ll be home today.”

Alfred makes a noise of acknowledgement and pushes the dining chair back in. He’s quick to move on, gliding across the floor back out to the front door to put his shoes on.
Arthur reckons his tea is finished stewing and cooling down by now, so he turns to take it.

“Also there’s a blizzard headed our way, it should hit today or tomorrow!” He calls over his shoulder. 

“So don’t go out too late.”

“I don’t need a curfew, dude! I’m not a kid!” Alfred snaps. He opens the door and closes it a bit too forcefully.
The tea is indeed ready to drink, and Arthur glances across to the window in the dining room, Alfred’s figure looks both ways before crossing the street and heading right.

Arthur clicks his tongue.

“Then stop acting like one.”

Sometimes Arthur wishes he’d never dropped the habit of smoking.

He stands in the courtyard of Westminster with a few stray smokers huddling themselves in their jackets. Puffing their feeble lives away, with a cancer stick Arthur frankly wishes he was in possession of himself.
It would be a pleasant distraction for the moment, and while he knows that a moment quickly escalates into addiction, he also knows the most it’ll mean for him is poor cardio and a bothersome amount of coughing.

He grumbles, huddling with nothing but an old receipt in his pocket to occupy his hands with and presses his phone a bit closer to his ear and listens to the dial tone until it’s cut short by a soft:

“ Hi, Arthur. ”

Arthur straightens and breathes out a small cloud of air. 
His footsteps echo through the archway behind him and he begins to pace slowly.

“Hello Matthew. How are you?”

A quiet ‘ Oh, excuse me.’ , followed by shuffling footsteps tells him he must be at work. He sounds like he’s finding somewhere to speak privately, and the sound of a door opening and closing must be the privacy he’s looking for.

“ I’m okay. ” He answers, just slightly out of breath.

“I haven't been sleeping a lot lately, so maybe just a bit tired. How’re you?”

Arthur cracks half a smile.
“I’m well, thank you.”

Matthew gives a polite ‘ That’s good. ’.
It’s a light feeling that comes with speaking with Matthew. Arthur hadn’t even realized it’s been this long since they had a conversation, and he finds that he’s missed their talks quite a lot.

“How has work been? As hectic as for the rest of us, I presume?”

Matthew hums thoughtfully and speaks with a tone that Arthur can tell is greatly filtered to sound less tired than he actually is.

“ I don’t know how it’s been for the rest of you, but yeah, it’s been pretty tough. It’s okay though, nothing I can’t handle. ”

“And the sleep you mentioned?”

“ Just some dreams. ”

Ah.
So he’s having trouble with those again.
Arthur pauses in his pacing to glance upwards in thought.
The gray mass of winter hangs dark and gloomy with the threat of snow above him.
It’s cold, wind whistles between the buildings reminding him of tall siv sitting at lake-shores.

He hums, picking at his brain to remember the exact ones Matthew told him about last time they spoke.
He has many, it’s a job to keep track of them all, but he has a feeling the worst ones are what’s keeping him awake. He’s claimed to sleep through the less scary ones, but if it’s keeping him awake…

“The ones where you fall through… The ground?” He asks carefully.
Matthew falters for a moment on the other end, breaths stumbling, before he shakily supplies him with:

“ Yeah. I don’t really wanna talk about it right now. ”

“Cheers, I can’t imagine it’s very pleasant.” Arthur says calmly. 
Matthew agrees. “I try to let bad dreams stay dreams.” He laughs nervously. 
“I have enough to deal with to start getting existential in the daytime.”

Arthur grimaces, but doesn’t push it. If he’s at work, it’s probably a bad idea to start getting into the details of it, besides, he doesn’t have forever and he’d really rather have some time left of his lunch break to actually have lunch.

“I did call to ask you what your plans were for christmas?” He asks. “Specifically 20th December until 1st of January.”

“ Uhm, I’ve asked for two weeks off during the holidays to catch up on sleep and maybe see my therapist again for a few sessions, but… Otherwise I don’t really have anything planned. ” Matthew replies. 

“ Why'd you ask? ”

Arthur picks up his pacing again, deciding the movement makes him feel less cold.

“I was wondering if you would like to spend the holidays here with Francis and I.”

He falters, wondering once again about the strain between him and Alfred. Because is it a strain, or is Alfred imagining that it is, with no further evidence than his paranoia about it being complicated?
He should’ve asked for elaboration back then, it would’ve been pretty useful right now.

“And Alfred… as well.”

A pause.

“ Alfred’s coming? ”

Arthur checks the box in his mind that confirms the situation is a mutual experience and the tension is indeed not one-sided on Alfred’s part.
Judging by the fact they’ve both asked the same follow-up question in the exact same, nervous and surprised, tone of voice.

“ I haven’t heard from him in a while, I thought he was preoccupied with work? ”

Arthur’s fiddling with the receipt gets it to break and crumble in his pocket.

“He came to stay with me just a bit over a month ago. Quite out of sorts.” He says, scanning his surroundings for a trashcan.

“He mentioned that he’d considered going to you first, but said something about ‘having done that too many times already’ although it’s not my place to say. I thought it could be an opportunity for the two of you to have a proper chat.”

“ I never said I didn’t want to talk to him. ”

Matthew says, sounding offended and Arthur almost feels the need to defend himself. He spots a bin and heads towards it. Picking up every piece of paper he can find in his pocket and collecting it in his palm.

“You haven’t said it, but with how things are going at the moment, I’m not so sure Alfred is eager to speak with you , love.”

The breath that Matthew lets go of is a genuine sigh this time.
Arthur begins to seriously consider that smoke.

“Besides, you might not have said you don’t want to speak to him, but you haven’t tried to, either, have you?”

“ I have nothing more to say .”

Arthur pulls his mouth into a line.

“ I’ve already tried talking to him about this lots of times, I just wish he’d listen to me for once. ”

“I understand, but I really think this is something you need to sort out with Alfred directly, lad.”

There’s another sigh, followed by a long pause.
He can hear Matthew breathing in and out rhythmically and he waits patiently, tossing out his receipt stumps and taking up slow walking back to where he’d stood before.

“ Okay. ” Matthew says quietly. 

“ You’re right. ”

When Matthew speaks again, it’s almost as soft as before, but with a hint of a snarkiness that Arthur rarely hears him use.

“ It’s been a while since we got together like that outside of work anyway. It would be nice.”
Arthur nods, beginning towards the doors back into the building.

“I do hope so, but I wouldn’t have high expectations.”

Matthew huffs.

“ No, I guess that’s for the best. It could be worse though, eh? At least you listened to me. After throwing a plate at me. ”

“A sore spot to poke at, lad.” Arthur cringes.

“ I know, that’s why I said it. ”

Arthur looks sideways at his phone as if he could look across at Matthew incredulously.
“You can be downright devious at times, are you aware?”

“ I’m aware. I did live with you until the 80s, you can probably guess where it comes from .”

Arthur scoffs, pushing his way back into the building, shivering at the warmth that engulfs him and warms his face.

“Undeniably, you got it from the housemaids. It couldn’t possibly be from me.”

Matthew laughs, a genuine, hearty laugh that reminds him of just how right a decision it was to listen to him. No ego is worth more than the sound of this, or the knowledge that someone you perceive as your child, don't fear you and what harm you’re capable of.
Fear is only useful with people who’s threatening you, not people who're close to you.

“Will you get back to me about the 20th?”

Matthew’s laughter tapers off, regressing back to a light sounding voice. “ Yeah, but I’m pretty sure I’ve decided. Does Alfred know I’ll be there? ”

Arthur smiles.
“Yes, he had the same reaction that you did.”

“ Oh. ”

“Don’t think too hard over it, lad, worst case scenario, Francis and I will be there.”

Matthew hums in agreement, the sound of a door opening in the background follows.
“ Okay. I’ll get back to work. Thanks for calling, Dad. ”

Arthur stumbles on a single stair step, Matthew sputters out some excuse that doesn’t sound believable, even to the most oblivious of people.
Arthur doesn’t have a chance to reply before Matthew’s hung up.

He stares at the call-log screen, absolutely flabbergasted, standing half way up a flight of stairs, looking around as if someone would’ve overheard to bear witness.
Nobody’s around, the people having their smoke break outside went back in a few minutes ago and all Arthur has is his phone and his own mind.

He really shouldn’t be this surprised, but he also never expects it when it happens.
It happens occasionally, never on purpose, that specifically Matthew will hit him with ‘Dad’ or some variation of it, but it just never ceases to shock him. 

He breathes in, he needs to get it together. He’s a grown man, there’s no use in getting thrown off by your own child addressing you accordingly. He pockets his phone, abstracting from, but not repressing, the warm feeling that lingers in his chest for the remainder of the day.

Chapter Text

It’s the last of the paperwork Arthur has yet to finish. Just a small stack left, a clipped together bunch of instructions, giving clear and concise demands for numbers and statistics of a country he no longer oversees.
It’s just a formality. 
An oath. An NDA. To ensure Alfred’s peace for the time being. To ensure he can rest and relax, without having to fret over mathematics that is so below him, he shouldn’t even have had the work assigned to him in the first place.

A sign of superiors’ laziness, that Alfred is too loyal to recognize.

The lad shouldn’t have been doing paperwork for people whose entire job is to crunch numbers. He should’ve only had to focus on politics and international affairs, assigning him simple statistics and public opinion on top of work that’s already hard enough to manage on its own, it just takes away from work far more important; 
And worst of all, it simply drags him down in the process - It should’ve been overlooked earlier, his absences from worldmeetings should’ve led to a check-up following the passing of the NPRP-act back in September last year. 

If his memory serves him right, Alfred was among those who wasn’t even present during the conference where it was announced as passed.

Arthur leans his head in one hand, leafing through and reviewing a half-finished report, checking the math absentmindedly.

He should’ve stepped up and been curious about Alfred’s behavior, he had noticed it shifting, but he didn’t think it could ever be as bad as it turned out to be.
He probably just assumed he had had it a bit rougher the past few years, just like the vast majority of all countries. 
Still, he should’ve asked.

The math checks out, the numbers align and he scribbles down key-numbers and on which pages they are found on a small notepad to his side, to remember them for the remaining half of the report. An easier access, instead of going back and forth, leafing through the papers constantly.

He should’ve asked.

A sigh pushes itself through his nose and he lifts his hand to rub at the bridge of his nose. He takes off his reading glasses, sitting back in his chair and checking the time.

It’s getting late.
The blizzard warning has been pushed back to hit some time in the morning and Arthur debates whether he should stay and finish, or if he should bring it with him home to finish it up properly tomorrow and call it a time. Focus on some of his own, less-pressuring paperwork until their drive up to Flamborough in two weeks. Rest up until then, and focus on getting Alfred to be less of, an admittedly righteously so, arse.

He doesn’t quite know which would be best, either way, he’s going to need a copy of the foreign reports and he’s only going to get that from the parliament building, so either way, he’s going to need to come back before his vacation.

He runs his hands down across his face.

“Bother.” He mutters. Staring at the computer screen as if it personally slighted him and tapping his cheek with one finger in thought.

He should probably get home and sleep. He won’t get anything done tomorrow if he doesn’t rest and it’s not like he’s being paid for overtime, so staying is really only a favor for his future self, with less paperwork and more time to take things a bit slower.

Mind made up, he begins to pack his things. Rechecking everything is packed or tucked away, drawers locked, cabinets locked and he has everything.

He says goodnight to the few coworkers who've decided to stay longer, closes the doors and turns off the lights that need to be turned off before venturing down and through the main doors, immediately staggering at the barrage of wind that bites at his face and tears through his clothes.

He curses, the heavy doors close behind him with a clunk. 
He needs to learn to close his jacket before stepping outside, instead of battling against the wind with getting the coat properly buttoned, because he simply can’t be bothered when he’s in a hurry to get home to sleep.

He hurries to his car, watchful of ice, but the majority of the parking space is salted. The presence of it is hard to miss, with how loudly they crunch beneath his shoes and taint their sides white.
He looks forward to the warm cup of tea he’s going to sit with once he arrives home. And the bed he’s going to pass out in after a hot shower.

The drive home is cold. The trip is too short for his car to heat up in time and the sleet and the snow already on the ground makes for a dreadful commute. It’s tiring to look at, despite how pretty the lights reflected on the street might look, the brown snow and the shabby, ice-water that remains after a round of salt is downright depressing.

He parks where he usually parks, locks his car like he usually does, and approaches his house that is as dark and depressing as the brown slush on the streets.
At least the light in the living room is on, as usual.
Like a small welcome home, it makes him feel more at ease when he opens his garden gate and makes his way to the front door. Keys jingling in hand, he presses it through the lock-

To find it already unlocked.
He furrows his brows at it, retracting his key and pressing the handle down.
A gush of wind ushers the door open and tosses Arthur’s hair every which way in the process, he almost loses his grip on the handle for a moment.

The inside is expectedly dark, but it feels like there is a draft. It pulls at the front door, a hollow whistling goes through the house and Arthur hurries to check the planter for the spare key, to find it secure in its place; Meaning Alfred should be home.

Arthur steps inside before the door can smack his fingers in the doorframe and turns on the hallway light.
The house smells like fresh air, a soft chill hanging around his ankles. It pulls at his coat, moves his hair and he toes off his shoes and puts them aside before venturing further inside.
Coat still on, bag in hand, he checks the windows for any that is standing open until he finds the culprit; 
The back door.

He approaches it quizzically, straining his ears and focusing on his surroundings to listen for any sound beside the wind outside and the rocking and creaking of the house.
He stands there for a while, listening. One hand grasping the door handle, the other clenching the handle of his briefcase.
The windows groan with the wind, the buildings whistle and moan, and Arthur listens for so long he begins to crazy.

He gives it a few moments longer, before he pulls the door carefully shut and locks it.
He stands for a few extra moments, listening now with the door closed, grasping the lock of the door absentmindedly in his efforts.

Nothing stands out. He doesn’t hear anything in particular that’s upsetting and scanning the backyard he didn’t see anyone there. 
Particularly not Alfred, whatever he would be doing out in the backyard at this hour.

He glances around, the darkness soft and the shadows easy.
Nothing is misplaced or missing, everything stands as he left it, with the exception of a glass and a plate in the sink. A paper bag from a café he thinks he’s passed a few streets down, but has never taken the time to visit lies with a half-eaten croissant inside it, and when he glances towards Alfred’s- The guest room , the door is closed and the light is off.

He lets his hand fall to his side.

Rubs at his neck, he doesn’t have the energy.
He’s going to have a cup of tea, shower and go to sleep.
He can deal with the backdoor issue and Alfred not remembering to lock the doors in the morning, right now, he just wants to sleep.

Chapter Text

Alfred dreams.

He dreams dreams he cannot know are dreams, and he’s sitting in a rocket.
It shoots upwards at impossible speeds, hurdling faster and faster and faster, the engines roar, like explosions of guilt and regret. 
They make him deaf and scorch and eat his skin. Metal and glass splinters hit his eyes and make him blind. 
They impair his vision. 
He’s not allowed back on the fighter plane.

He isn’t allowed in on the rocket and he’s useless and broken, he can’t be of service and he’s nothing but a burden with no function anywhere. 
Belonging to nothing.
No point of direction or decision for meaning.
A puzzle piece that’s misshapen, fitting nothing and nobody.

He can feel himself being compressed, every atom of his being pressed down and against his seat. 
Nausea grips him, threatens to choke him should he throw up and drown in his own sick, but he’s urged to relax, to breathe. 
But his lungs are too small - What a ridiculous request, what a stupid demand.
He can’t rest, relax or breathe, there isn’t enough time. There’s no room.

He doesn’t pass out, he lives through the pressure as it gets worse and worse, the outside is near impossible to see.
People are chatting in his ear, he can’t distinguish the meaning or the language, but he knows they’re telling him to go reach forwards and dispatch the butt end of the rocket.
Gravity presses his arm down, forcing it to be still, relaxed and rested, despite his best efforts to obey. 
To make himself useful and prove himself, but his arms stay planted against his seat. 
Glued down, with no possible way to succeed his orders.
The voices grow louder and more demanding doubling the pressure, it sets the rocket going forward faster. 

He cries out in frustration at himself, fighting against the pressure, straining and ripping at his own muscles to the point it feels like they might tear up completely. 
To reach forwards and reach that fucking panel, do something worthwhile for once .
The urgency tightens him further and the rocket grows smaller and the air grows thinner.

He directs his eyes forwards and sees stars.

Real stars, approaching him.

The blue sky gives way to violet, then darkness.

His eyes widen, and it stings.
Tears drip sideways along his face, the shards of glass that cut into his eyes crystallize into gems and cut along his skin into his hairline.

He knows there is no air in space, he will continue at this speed forever with no chance at all at passing out. No chance of a break, he can’t close his eyes because it hurts too much to.
He won’t be able to sleep or eat or drink ever again. 
All he’ll know is the pressure and the knowledge he wasn’t good enough. 
He wasn’t strong enough to finish what he started, because he shouldn’t ever have started anything in the first place.

He looks sideways to England, his engineer. 
He didn’t know he was there, he wasn’t there before - 
Yet he knows he was, he was there since launch. Whenever launch was, if launch ever happened.

But of course, England’s always been there; To judge him, scorn him and hate him. 
To remind him how big of a child he is, for everything he decides to do.

“England!” He shouts. His vocal chords fry, they feel hot and strenuous and he fears they might tear right alongside the rest of him.

England wears no spacesuit and he’s sitting on his laptop. Typing away, the darkness looms around him like a constant state of nighttime.
Alfred watches, breathing fast and unchecked, his lungs expand too far and restrict too little, he’s using up his oxygen too fast, but he can’t stop breathing, no matter how badly he wished he could.
The pressure doesn’t seem to touch England, like he’s resistant to gravity and he’s typing away at work. 

Always working .
The decider of his attention and his time.

It fills him with resentment to look at him working, unfazed and uncaring, apathetic to Alfred’s struggling; He sits paralyzed while England does nothing but mind himself.

He screams his name again and he gets a hum in response. 
Irritated and unbothered, England doesn’t even look up.

The engines continue to roar, the voices continue to scold and urge him. 
How can he be so selfish? How can he be so cowardly and not bring his work with him?

He’s heaving loudly, breaths rattling in his throat, he’s wheezing for air that he’s breathing too much of.

His helmet tightens and constricts his airways. It feels like a noose with how tight it sits and he tries with all his might to reach the control panel again.
He needs to dispel the butt end of the rocket, he’s gotten an order.
When it’s over and done with, they’ll go smoother. They’ll be lighter and they can maneuver better.
He won’t be pressed to the seat, he’ll be okay, he just needs to reach forwards and finish this one demand. Just one more demand, it’s just reaching forwards and pressing a button.

The outside becomes completely void; The stars disappear; No sun or moon, just the ever building knowledge that he’s running out of time.

He cries out, throat tearing, his entire body feels hot and sweaty, his legs are wound up in a chord and his arms will not budge .
He thrashes against it, but it does nothing .
The spacesuit makes him feel claustrophobic and clumsy, like his limbs are too big for his body.
His fingers are too bulbous and he sits like a convict waiting for slaughter- Waiting for his helmet to decapitate him and get it over with.

He begins to scream.

An ever building pressure that feels crushing and excruciating, his feet cramp up and his ribcage feels like it’s going to bend inwards. His ribs piercing into his insides, like stepping onto a roach, he feels about to pop.

He screams out Matthew’s name for help, begs him to push the button or get Alfred off. Get him home, get him help, but Matthew’s locked down just like he is. 

Struggling and wriggling just as much as Alfred is, and Matthew doesn’t hear him over his own screaming and begging for help.

He decides to try for England again, screaming at him to do something. 
To stop working and fucking do something! 
Help him, get him home and get him off this stupid rocket.
He wants to sleep, he wants to dream and eat food and he wants to go outside and he wants to be held and to know someone is there when he wakes from a nightmare.
He wants to be small again, he wants to feel like he’s alive again and he wants to go home .

And England seems to hear him, for just a moment.
He meets Alfred’s eyes, looking confused and concerned, and it feels and looks an awful lot like an open bedroom door and a lamp that’s always on in the living room.

“What is it, Lad?”

“ HELP ME! ”

Alfred wakes in a cold sweat to a dark guest room.

He throws open his eyes, panting and heaving enough to make him dizzy.
The duvet stick around him, sweaty and wet. The covers have separated from the duvet itself; Feeling like a wet bag, holding him in place and constricting his movements.

He kicks it off, panicked and pushes himself up. He draws his legs up close to his chest and lets both of his hands entangle into his hair and grip at it.
There isn’t any more gravity on his arms than usual and they lift fine. His biceps don't feel overworked, his joints don't feel like they’re going to break and his fingers feel the normal size - They aren’t too big where they grip at the roots of his hair and his nails feel real where they scratch at his scalp.

He squeezes his eyes shut, then flings them open again. The void behind his eyes makes him claustrophobic, the darkness of the room even more so.

He lifts his head to cast a look around, heart racing. He can hear his blood rushing in his ears and a nagging anxiety creeping up his spine.
Shadows seem like they’re moving, his vision betrays him and makes him see things that aren't there.

It takes him a moment of holding his breath when he thinks he hears something unnatural. 
Like a whisper of a demand. 
His mouth tastes metallic as he makes the leap to throw his legs over the bed’s edge and slams his hand onto the lightswitch by the door.

The room erupts into stark, strong overhead lighting and he immediately winces. 
His head throbs as he forces his eyes to adjust to the environment. Looking about it frantically, searching for any reason to feel as scared as he does.

Clothes lie tossed onto an old armchair, where he’s tried to tell himself to fold them, but never got around to it.

The boxes he and Arthur managed to sort through are gone, replaced by an electric floor-fan and a small bookcase that stands half-empty, filled only with the few books that Alfred has bothered trying to read during his stay here.

He swallows.

The room is the same as it had been when he went to sleep, but it feels strange, unrecognizable and threatening. Like the shadows are too deep, hiding anything that doesn’t want to be seen, but has no problem being an unwelcome observer.

It reminds him of his apartment with the shadows that watched him. 
His palms grow clammy and he feels afraid to move.

He doesn’t like being in there by himself.

The entire first floor is his, he has no idea what the time is, but he’s sure it’s late.
Arthur’s probably sleeping upstairs, but Alfred can’t hear him, so how can he really be sure he isn’t actually in New York? How can he be sure his bedroom didn’t always look like this. 
He very cautiously goes and gets his glasses. Hands shaking as they lift his glasses onto his face and sheds focus on the room at large.

His mind doesn’t feel awake.

It feels like it’s still sleeping and the remnants of the dream sits fragmented right under his skin.
The windows aren’t covered, and the outside is pitch black.
He sees his reflection through the blinds, standing in his boxers and an old, worn t-shirt, and he pales at the nothingness that sits beyond the glass.

He turns his head to look at the bedroom door in horror, remembering the starless vastness of space, glaring at him and mocking him.

His heart jumps into his throat as he steps up to the door. His hands are unsteady as he begins to pull it open.
With quivering shoulders, he didn’t honestly know what he’d expected.

Pitch black with no shadows or windows, probably. 

But he finds the living room beyond the door swimming in warm light from the lamp by the window. The one that is always on.
The windows are dark, and the outside is still pitch black, but he sees a street light and a car parked beneath it.

The wooden floor shines a warm caramel color where the light hits it, inviting and soft, the entire room looks like a safe point with relics that he recognizes from so long ago, it feels familiar and predictable.
There’s no hesitation as he scurries out to situate himself to the couch.
He slams the lights off inside the guest room and closes the door, hurrying to the couch with the lamp and the warm flooring like a fish into water.

He grabs a couch pillow and a blanket and settles down with his head in a position to watch the guest room door. 
To watch it from his place of safety, in case it begins to ooze or creak open, with nothing beyond it but void space with no stars or suns or moons.

He settles in the best he can, despite how scratchy the blanket is and how flat the pillows are.
The couch isn’t particularly comfortable, but he doesn’t mind it. He can sleep on it, if it means sleeping comfortably and safely.

A sigh through his nose pushes him into the springs, and he tiredly picks off his glasses, and reaches over to place them on the coffee table. 
His heart is still beating too fast, but he doesn’t feel that crawling panic at his back anymore. 
Instead he feels drowsy and warm, out in the living room. 
He closes his eyes again, making sure to think about any and everything unrelated to space. 
He thinks about the lamp and the warm flooring, the lightness that comes with walking in the snow London has been dealt recently. He fills his mind with any and everything pleasant he can think of, until he dips under into unconsciousness.

And wakes up with nothing to see. 

He’s floating in the middle of a vast nothing. 
Stiff and frozen, his breath comes out in icy puffy clouds that crystalizes and freezes right in front of him.
There’s ice on his eyelashes, and he feels his eyes dry out no matter how much he blinks against it.

There is a light somewhere ahead of him. 
Shaped like an L, it makes him think of the cracks in a door.

He squints at it, against the icy dryness and his glasses not letting him see the full extent of the lightsource. 
He distantly thinks it’s bad he isn’t shaking at all, remembers Arthur telling him time and time again that the shaking is good. 
That as long as he’s shaking, he’s going to be alright.

But he isn’t shaking, he’s not even feeling cold. 
If anything, he feels like he’s been this cold forever. It’s nothing new anymore, he can’t feel it.

As he’s looking at the silhouette of the door he begins to notice it’s getting… Smaller.
He begins to move, tries to swim towards it. 

He shouldn’t be able to, but he somehow knows it’ll work. 
Except he doesn’t move, he feels his hands pushing water aside, but he doesn’t go anywhere, like something firm and cold is clenching at his ankles.

He looks down at his feet, sees his work suit, the navy blue of his legs warped and stretched in an arch. 

When he moves them, they seem to travel in a full circle.
He watches his breaths come faster, the crystals hanging in the air around his head and he begins to kick in an attempt to get away. 
Light doesn’t bend that way without reason, he’s studied Hawking, and Einstein, he knows relativity and Hawking’s expansion of that theory; 
He knows what this is and he’s not supposed to be in it .
He knows this isn’t possible, he knows he should be dead and gone, but he isn’t and it makes him feel stupid and unknowing. 
Like studying science was never enough to get him anywhere, because in the end he’s wrong. He studies what others have learned and fails to build onto it himself in ways that matter.

But even so, he doesn’t want to go.
He doesn’t want to disappear and get swallowed by a black hole of the wrong laws of physics and the distortion of a void that can’t possibly be space.

But the more he fights, the more frantic he becomes.

He’s already tired, he’s already cold and he’s already tried this a million times before. 

But he can’t stop himself from panicking. 

From tears prickling at the corners of his eyes or from a scream ripping from his chest when his entire calf is distorted by a dense singularity that shouldn’t be there. 
And which should be anything but cold.

He reaches and stretches out for the door, gripping at empty space for the warmth of that light and the quiet muttering of life beyond it.

He shouts for it, his voice swallowed up until there’s nothing, and he shouts louder, the cold biting at his skin in his efforts.
The light beckons for him with something reaching back for him.

It comes closer, or maybe he manages to crawl up to it.

The door opens fully, the light shines on him in warm rays and he aches to reach it. 

To let it envelope and soothe him into comfort. 
It begins to tug him towards it, equalizing the pull of the darkness to a point of splitting him in half. 
He’s being torn in the middle, legs and arms being pulled in different directions and he begins to fear the light as much as he craves it.

His organs spill out and he stretches his hand as far as it will go with a scream of agony, until something grips his hands.

It yanks at him violently and pulls him in as he has begged for it to. 
He regrets begging for it. 
He regrets wanting it, because it’s splitting him in half.
He regrets reaching out, regrets wanting help. 

The darkness is still tearing at his legs, still pulling.

Now a tug of war between the dark numbing chill, the monotonous existence of not thinking or existing; 
And the safety and comfort of feeling hopeful and brave, yet existing and thinking, being tangible and real, coming from the open door in front of him.
He screeches through it.
He wants to step forward whole, to have his entire body with him, what’s the point of being safe, if half of him is ripped apart? 
How can he walk forwards without legs to carry him or a stomach to fuel him.

He finally breaks in two, his legs dragged back into the abyss while the rest of him

Wakes up.

The living room springs into his eyes as he throws them open, the sight of the softly illuminated ceiling, with the light from the street falling into mix with the living room.
He pants, heart galloping, and he’s sweating just as much as before. 
He sits bolt upright with a gasp, hands rushing to feel frantically at his abdomen.
Forehead greasy and his bangs stick to it.

He pushes the duvet off of himself, hands trembling, he looks down in desperation. 

He digs his nails into the crevices of his stomach, stretches and examines the skin for tears or seams or surgery scars, anything, but with a harsh exhale, he finds himself whole and his legs in functioning order. 

Still moveable, attached and there and he slumps his shoulders forwards and buries his face in his hands. He stands in the middle of the living room, shaking, mind racing.

The grandfather clock ticks along rhythmically and he times his breathing with it. 
In for three counts and out for four.
He can hear the quiet rushing of the water in the radiator, the distant sound of traffic outside and he looks around the warm living room when he feels brave enough to face it.

It welcomes him back with ease, soothing the vertigo that holds him in a deathgrip and threatens to make him feel sick enough to vomit.
His head hurts, a dull throbbing at his temples and he blinks rapidly, unsure what day was yesterday and what day is today.

A quick glance to the grandfather clock tells him it’s to be just around 1:45 am.
He looks sideways to behind the backlean of the couch, to the street outside. 

Completely dark, dead asleep.

Snow falls at the streetlamps and he feels overwhelmed with the need to get outside.
He needs to move and to breathe, and he needs his heart to calm down and for his body to stop feeling so tense and on edge.

His feet carry him towards the back door, sends him careening outside with a random jacket and a pair of slippers and he swings the door open.
The cold hits him like a freight train, but he steps out into it nonetheless.

The roar of a single motorbike accelerates in the distance before it fades gradually.
Small pitter patters of the snow hitting the surviving bushes and flower pots planted around the yard, spreading a soft layer of glistening white all over and it pulls him into a bout of unnatural clarity he didn’t think he could have.

It feels like hyperfocused tunnel vision. 
Something pushing at his back and itching at his feet and he briefly forgets where and who he is. 
What he is.
He just knows he is, and he’s outside in the snow of London, where he isn’t supposed to be.

December’s coming up. 
Christmas. 
New Year . 
He’s going to need to finish a stack of folders on his desk before the end of the year, to wrap it up and to shred some documents before the new year.
He’s been planning on hosting a Christmas party this year, as usual.
He’s promised to, so he has to. He can’t be here, why on earth did he leave?

His anxiety turns into jitters and he feels like he actually is going to be sick.

He needs to return. 
He needs to leave and he needs to go back home. 
He has to get back home, what was he thinking coming here out of nowhere, without his laptop or anything important.
How stupid is that?
How can he expect and demand respect when he pulls shit like this?

He has to go back home. 

He has to go back home .

Chapter Text

Alfred floats like an insubstantial idea of a person. 
He feels his bones ache and twist and hurt, and they weigh down his feet like shackles or ankle weights.

The street beneath him is gray and wet with sleet and snow, his shoes make a slushy sound as he wades through it with sure strides that don't match his soundness of mind.
Snow obscures the streets, makes everything flurry and white and uncertain.

He needs to go back to work, he can’t keep staying here.
He’s being pulled at, between the door and the void, and he imagines standing on a tightrope. Balancing in the middle like a circus act, the main attraction of a shitshow of a performance.

He stumbles, trips over his own feet but keeps making the attempt to go. 
Wind pushes at him, his glasses wet and condensed, but he presses on.

He doesn’t remember how he got here, he can’t remember getting dressed or if he packed away his stuff or the blanket on the couch or if he locked the door.

It doesn’t matter. 

He doesn’t want to leave, he wants to turn and go back, but there’s something unsafe about the comfort that that brings, and it’s mind over matter. It’s a question of discipline and work ethic, he wants to stay, but that’s the laziness talking.

The unambitious part of him that wants to sleep in Arthur’s guest room and argue about food and who gets to decide what to watch after dinner. Where his biggest worry is remembering to shower, remembering to eat and to brush his teeth and go outside, without a looming guilt over every action he does, costing him time he could spend more productively.

He doesn’t deserve it.
Leisure is for when you’ve finished your work, and Alfred is a month behind.

The metro greets him ominously yellow, for a very early morning.
Stragglers and late workers wait on the platform and Alfred arrives down to it with soggy wet shoes and a jacket that isn’t his own, hanging heavy across his shoulders.
It had been the first thing he’d grabbed on his way out. He must have missed his bomber, it must have hung differently than usual.

The tracks look at him and he looks at them until it grows to be too transfixing and he looks up at the departure screen. 

He concludes that he can’t read it.
He has no idea what stop he’s going for, just that he’s headed for an airport. An airport where there is a desk with an employee, where he can book a ticket for the earliest flight to NYC. To pay his water bill, to clean everything out, to finish work.

He ends up sitting between two people on the first train that arrives.
The metro goes, the cars jostle and he can smell the woman’s perfume beside him and it seeps into his nose and makes him feel dizzy.

The train comes to a stop a few times, each time the people on either side of him shuffle, and he tries to focus on the floor. Linoleum and blue, dirty and sticky. Wet.
A pair of feet belonging to a stranger is directly in front of him, and they remind him of his boss’ shoes. 

He bounces his leg impatiently, he remembers he doesn’t know what stop he’s supposed to get off at. He doesn’t know how long he’s been on. The perfume of the woman has switched out, it’s not the same people that sat beside him when he got on.

Does the airport have its own station?
Maybe he should ask someone.
But maybe he’ll wait for a second, because his heart is going too fast and he feels out of breath. 
His mouth is watering and his stomach feels like it’s plummeting, a sensation of lightheadedness that sits clutched behind his eyes.

The conductor’s voice comes on over the intercom, speaking of something for too long and Alfred realizes it sounds muffled and quiet, like the driver isn’t speaking loud enough into the microphone.

His breathing picks up, in and out of his nose too fast, he can hear blood rushing in his ears and an iron taste rising in his mouth.

He swallows, grits his teeth together, the front of his head prickles and buzzes.
Small tiny particles move about his skin. The tips of his fingers begin to feel cold, his stomach is churning and he’s swallowing again, then again. 
Because the sides of his mouth waters as if he’s bitten into a lemon, and he feels hot. 

The back of his neck grows hot.
Sweat beads his temples and his hands shake. He wrings them, breathes in but not out. Eyes squeezes shut, then open in an attempt to make the static clear up.
He blinks, then blinks again. 
The intercom rings out across the train as it comes to a stop.

“ ..Covent Garden. ” Alfred gathers.

Checking the nearest door, his head feels too light and detached from his body.
He stands with gravity lessening its pull on him the second the train is still and stumbles to the doors. 
He doesn’t think about who he’s stumbled into on his way out, or if they’re looking after him, he must just look drunk.

He almost believes himself to be, as well.

Because if he isn’t drunk and he’s floating, what if he begins to fly upwards? 
Into the sky, into space, into the nothingness where nothing and nobody can reach him.

He gets off with the edges of his vision darkening. 
A vignette that engulfs him with static dancing at the corners of his eyes.
He finds a set of stair-steps and sits onto them with a shaky exhale that doesn’t empty his lungs at all.

The fresh air is nice though, he’s glad he got off.
But it isn’t his stop, he’s pretty sure it isn‘t his stop.

People pass him on their way up the stairs while others come down them. There aren’t many, but there are enough.
He can’t find it in himself to care.
He can’t think clearly.
His body feels light, like he’s going to start floating upwards into the void any second. 
That nothingness is going to get him, and this time it won’t just be a dream when he’s ripped apart.

He groans in dull frustration at his uncertain hands pulling his phone out. 
He needs directions. 
He needs directions to the airport.
Or something…

He presses the speaker option the second the phone is ringing, locking eyes with an underground ad-screen and tries to even out his breathing and making up for how little he can hear.

His head is cotton, ears ringing.

The phone rings muffled a few more times, and Alfred leans sideways against the wall, squeezing his eyes shut, trying to focus on something other than his stuffed ears and his loosening grip of consciousness.

The sweat at his back makes him feel cold, he distantly tries to think of a plan of what to do if-

“ Alfred? ” Arthur’s voice comes out barely audible, he almost thinks he imagines hearing it.
He doesn’t open his eyes, his eyelids won’t do his bidding. They’re heavy and impossible to lift, thinking feels like a chore.

“Can you come and get me?” He slurs, unsure if he actually said it out loud with how heavy his tongue is.
“I don’t know… Where I am…”

A vague sound of confusion from the phone registers before blood rushes from his head and he feels the curtains close.

He doesn’t think or feel. 
He can’t see or hear. He can’t feel how cold he is or the sweat that’s drying up on the back of his neck.

He doesn’t worry about his phone falling onto the ground or how he slumps backwards and for a moment he looks so elegantly dead, in the ugly, disgusting luminescent lighting of the English underground. 
Gum and spit and urine stain the floor in an abundantly vile coalesce of humanity.
People ignore him, the distant sound of cars roar above ground and Arthur’s shouting out to no one for an eternity, that is really only half a minute.

Alfred draws a breath in, fills his lungs fuller than his stomach with air he hates the taste of.

Abrupt consciousness weighs him down. Presses him heavy and human against cemented steps that jarringly presses into his spine painfully.

A dirty, fluorescent ceiling light blinds him and he squints against it. Grafiti sits along the upper walls, words he can’t read or make out. Nonsensical and artistic.
The world spins and he pushes himself up slowly, bracing himself against the handrail along the wall.
He swims, nauseated and disoriented, his head feels light and his skin feels clammy and cold. 
He feels sick, inside and out. He feels defeated.

His back hurts from falling backwards and he sees his phone lying an arm’s length away, still on, and he reaches it sluggishly, with pale, dry hands and purple-tinted nails.

The screen is slightly scratched as he lifts it towards him, but otherwise it’s fine.

“- llo?! Alfred?! -”

“I’m here.”
Arthur sounds like he’s going to throw up with the force with which he sighs in relief.

“Passed out.” Alfred supplies helpfully.

He might just go out again, with the way he’s trembling. He runs a shaking hand through his hair.

Nothing feels okay.

A train arrives, the loud screeching of metal hurts his ears and reminds him of his own undergrounds back home. With the rats and the singing of people who can’t afford to remain silent.

“ Jesus christ. ” Arthur gasps. 
Alfred envisions him pacing around the house, in slippers and all, scurrying around as if standing still would make him just as prone to collapsing as Alfred feels.

“ Where are you? What do you see? ”

Alfred looks up through his foggy glasses, squinting at the platform in front of him. 

He reads the signs he can focus on and relays them with clouded words over the phone. 
Ignoring the people who come and pass him. The ones that look at him, the ones that look about to check if he’s alright but think better of it, shuffling up the stairs with a guilty conscience that’ll pass the second they’ve got other things to focus on.

“ ‘Covent Garden’?! How did you- When did you leave? ”

Alfred shudders.
Runs a hand down his face, breathes, stops breathing, breathes again.
His glasses are fogging up, he really wants to lay down, he really wants a bed and some warm tea with milk and honey. 

He really, really wants a burger and he really can’t cope with how much he has no idea where the hell Covent Garden is as opposed to the airport. Or compared to Kingston upon Thames.

“I don’t know , dude.” He shakes his head slowly, voice a mess. He heaves a mixture of a heavy sigh and a dry sob.

“I don’t know what I know anymore! I don’t know you! I don’t know Matthew and I don’t know how to get to the goddamn airport! ”
He clenches his hand against his temple, a ball of frustration pressing against his esophagus, straining his muscles into knots and springs.
He wants to punch something, or some one . He wants to scream at whoever made him, whoever has the controls of life, and tell them off for fucking him over from the start. Though he has a feeling he’s already got that someone on the line with him.

Pretending he’s always been there for him, pretending he never even left in the first place.
His voice goes unchecked, breath irregular and he goes from panicked to feeling so excruciatingly lost.

“I just want a burger and I need to get to the airport so I can go back to work .” He presses out, breath hitching.

“I have so much to do, Arthur. I have so much shit I need to get done. And I can’t sit and mope around here for two fucking years, that’s insane! ” He cries.

“I feel like crap, I have no clue where ‘ Covent Garden ’ is and I sure as hell have no clue how to get back home , either, because how far is Kingston ?!”

He doesn’t mean to call it home and he shuts himself up with a wobbling lip.
He wants to correct himself and defend that, no, he does not feel at home or safe or secure. 
And he definitely doesn’t feel like he’s getting more and more strength to take on life the longer he stays.

That, no , it doesn’t feel like someone’s starting to beckon to him from the bright side of the void, with the door ajar, waiting to be pushed lightly open. Someone to tell him ‘It’ll be alright!’ and that if he falls, it’s just about getting back up. 
That someone’s waiting for him to get there, even if that might take forever.

He covers his eyes, pushes his glasses aside and leans sideways against the wall.

“I’m just so. Fucking. Tired .”

There’s a brief pause before the telltale jangling of keys makes his stomach do another flip and he feels like passing out again.
Not from vertigo and nausea, brought on by the crushing realization that he’s going to be massively delayed on work, that he’s never going to catch up, he’s never going to be okay again.

But from something closer to relief.

“ I’ll come and get you. ” Arthur says and Alfred’s hands shakes a little more, a bit less restrained and a bit more unstable.
“ Is anybody around you? ”

Alfred glances around, sees a few people that stand looking pointedly in the opposite direction of him.

“No.” He lies.

The front door closes and locks, the sound of rushing wind and hurried footsteps sounds from Arthur’s end.

“ Stay put, I’ll be there as fast as I can.”

“Alfred.”

Alfred jumps at the feeling of someone touching him. 

He pries his eyes open, heart skipping a beat and he looks bewildered up from his legs to see Arthur.
He’s crouched on the steps beside him, with his most casual clothes and a too expensive coat thrown over it. Sitting with a hand on his arm and a stern, restrained expression guarding his face.

“Come on.”

He rubs his arm a few times.

“Let’s go.”

Alfred smells something delicious, the kind of delicacy that he never smells from Arthur and he glances down slowly, eyes feeling crusty and tired, and he sees a McDonald’s paper bag clutched in Arthur’s second hand, along with his car keys.

“What’s that?” He asks quietly.

“For the drive home.” Arthur replies.
The word home once again makes him feel the need to clarify home isn’t here, but it feels like a futile argument, considering his situation.

He lets himself slowly be helped up, letting Arthur catch and hold him as his head rushes and his vision prickles for the umpteenth time in a bit over an hour. 

He waits to catch his breath and Arthur waits for him silently to recover, before urging him up the stairs. Alfred follows along willingly, with stiff legs and ass frozen beyond belief.

They emerge into a still dark morning.
Wind blows fresh and crisp, filled with snow and sleet hurdling at Alfred’s face as they exit, daylight and traffic going all around and he groans pathetically at the cold.
He can’t feel his hands and his feet are starting to feel just as numb.

Arthur’s hand sits firm in between his shoulder blades, guiding him on and Alfred follows all the way to a small, gray Volkswagen, parked half-illegally at a bus holding spot on the side.
Arthur pulls the door open for him, lets him plop himself down, before going around to the driver’s side. 

He breathes out, chest quivering and shoulders jumping from the cold. He hadn’t even noticed he’d been shaking before, he’d just been tired. He’s still tired.

The smell of faux leather and a sweet, faint smell of citrus envelopes him and he closes his eyes briefly.
Breathing it in, reaching behind him and getting the seatbelt on blindly, relishing in how warm the car is. How comfortable the seat is and how private and enclosed, so far removed from the public it is, too.

The driver’s side opens, followed by a rush of wind ruffles as Arthur sits himself inside and slams the door shut after him.
Alfred fumbles the buckle into place, waits for it to say a small ‘click’ before he lets his arms fall limp into his lap.

There’s a moment of quiet, only interrupted by slight shuffling, the noise of resettling; Then a warm, delicious smelling bag lands in his hands and he looks down tiredly to see the McDonald's bag Arthur had been holding before.

Innocuous and harmless, but Arthur doesn’t step foot in a McDonald's without good reason, and as Alfred looks inside at the contents, he has gone and gotten him his usual menu-order.

He looks up and over as Arthur buckles himself in and ignites the engine wordlessly.

The car comes alive with a quiet hum, display beeping and settling. Arthur undoes the handbrake, indicates and pulls out.
Rolling calmly along the street, saying nothing and looking straight ahead.

Alfred looks back down at his meal.

The burger he’d wanted earlier sits packed among a small order of fries with a standard dip.
A small scribble that says ‘no pickles’ catches his eye on the burger wrapping.
He unfolds the wrapper and takes a bite, chest straining and vision swimming. He stares into nothing, nauseated but starving, his eyes prickle and his throat feels constricted. 
He considers with tired reluctance asking to be dropped off at the airport, but instead takes another bite of his food and focuses on how delicious it is.

The streets become less and less populated the further out they get, quieter and suburban. 
Families with kids, families without them, most waking up for school and work. Their mundane lives that Alfred’s always envied, living among snowy streets. A simple existence, with simple relationships and simple problems.

They’ve been driving for longer than Alfred would’ve imagined they’d needed to, to get home.

Arthur still hasn’t said anything else.
Alfred doesn’t like the quiet.

“Thanks.” He says, before he can stop himself.

He hears Arthur take a sudden, gradual breath in.
“Not a problem.” He says on the exhale.

“Isn’t it?”

Arthur keeps his eyes on the road.  “No.”

The way he says it doesn’t sound very convincing.
It sounds flat and monotone, and Alfred gathers that it might, in fact, be a problem.
He frowns, pursing his lips. If it’s a problem, then he could’ve just said no, and not come.

They drive for another minute or so and Alfred watches the scenery pass by outside. A dull throbbing behind his eyes, he can faintly see his own heartbeat at the edges of his vision. His face is reflected back to him in the window, periodically visible, illuminated by passing light poles.

“Are you feeling alright?”
It sounds just as flat as every other sentence before it when Arthur asks it, but Alfred looks across to him nonetheless. 
He gets a brief glance from him. The same stern and unreadable expression to match his tone and Alfred looks back out through the window and swallows.

“I’m fine.”

His veins are pushing past their capacity at this point and while he feels exhausted and sick, the sour mood isn’t lost on him. Inhibitions and filters have fried themselves to death on his part by now, and he doesn’t think before he hears himself speaking;

“What’s it to you?”

He sees Arthur’s hands clench at the steering wheel.
A small gesture that he wouldn’t usually take notice of. 
It looks like thinly veiled restraint. 
Patience meeting an end and he finds a cathargic satisfaction in it, despite his conviction it won’t go anywhere at all.
If he’s learned anything from the past few weeks living here, Arthur’s become docile like a dog. Trained and tame. 
He never bites anymore, there’s no real fire like there used to be and it gives the impression that he’s stopped caring.

“You are being a massive dickhead right now, do you know that?!”

Alfred startles, looking sideways with his heart rate spiking.
Arthur doesn’t look at him, just keeps driving, takes a left turn, watches the road.
He looks angry as ever, and the tight, white knuckled grip on the steering wheel continues.

Alfred opens his mouth to retort but Arthur cuts him off. Voice beyond angry.

“You come here out of nowhere with some dogshit ‘ I don’t want to be alone right now ’ explanation with no context - Then expect me to just ignore how absolute shit you’re doing, not ask any questions, because you ‘Never asked me for help, you just needed to get away ’ as if that makes any sense whatsoever!” He snaps.

“You confess to me by accident that you’re working yourself to literal death WEEKLY, then-”

“-It’s not- ”

“ -Then when you’re offered help , you take that help and you stuff it so far up your own arse, you spit it back out as these delusional excuses for you to go out of your way to get WORSE .”

Alfred clenches his jaw.
“I’m not forcing you to help me ! Like I said, I never asked- ”

“And you think I’m just going to stand by and let you kill yourself?! Over and over and over again?! ”

“Oh, as if you haven’t stood by and done just that since I turned 70!” Alfred shouts.

“You only decided to care about how I’m doing when I came and told you point blank! Don’t go calling me the asshole, when you’ve never stuck around long enough to actually give a shit about anything that isn’t yourself!”
Arthur indicates the car to the left and pulls over. 

One hand unclenches from the steering wheel and grips the handbrake.
It creaks with the force Arthur pulls it back with and Alfred watches as Arthur turns his upper body to face him, eyes blazing.

“Do you really believe that I wouldn’t have helped you sooner, if you’d bothered to ask sooner?!” He yells. 

“You can’t expect me to go and ask if you’re alright, when we both know perfectly well, that if I had asked, you would have taken it as an insult of some sort!

But yes , I’m sorry I didn’t go up and ask you if you were alright! I’m sorry I didn’t notice sooner, but I have things that I deal with, too, and if you don’t actively ask for help, you can’t expect to receive it! ”
Alfred fumes in his seat. The nail beds he’d been picking at rips open and bleeds, a small, unimportant sting that just adds to how everything all over begins to feel like pins and needles.

“You said you saw yourself as my father-figure , then fucking act like one! You’re supposed to notice the little things, dude, you’re supposed to be the one to reach out! I’m not taking your ‘ I’m sorry’ s because that’s not fucking good enough! It’ll never be good enough!”
Arthur’s face contorts weirdly and Alfred curls his hands into fists. Engulfing his bleeding nail beds into his palm, burying his nails into his skin.

“You don’t have to forgive me, I’ve never claimed to be a saint, I damn well know I’m not! But I don’t see how that matters, when I’m making an active effort to be here for you now! When you’ve asked me to be! ”

“I didn’t ask for this you to be there for me! I want the you that I know! I don’t want this-” Alfred stumbles, lost for words, distraught and angry and sad .

“-This joke of a person! You’re not at all who I know you to be anymore! You’re a fucking joke .”

“Do you think I love going to therapy once a week?!”

Alfred swallows thickly, locked into place and spitefully keeping his eyes on Arthur’s.

“I dispise the exercises, the help, the fussing and the humiliation of having to sit in an ugly, uncomfortable armchair and vent about feelings with some woman with a notepad, who asks me constantly if I cover up feelings with anger, because it’s fucking easier! ” 
Arthur shouts, voice sharp and purposeful.

“Do you think I fancy that?! That I’m enjoying going in each week to hear the same rubbish spouted at me, as if ‘feeling my feelings ’ is some new concept I haven’t heard of a million times before! It’s written in every single self-help book ever written, yet none of it actually explains how it’s done! It would be so much easier to just get pissed and not have to think about anything ever again!”

“Then why keep going?! If you hate it so much!” Alfred spits.
Arthur lifts a hand to his face and holds it there for a moment, obviously swallowing back things he doesn’t want to say.

“Because unlike getting pissed every bleeding night, and ignoring the problem ; It fucking helps, Alfred . ”

“Helps with what?! With changing, like, everything that makes you yourself?! ”

“ YES! ”

Arthur’s voice rings out and lingers in the air statically.
The roads are blanketed white from snow, the window wipers work overtime keeping up and the aircon spouts out warm air and hums alongside the engine. 
It smells faintly of dust and warm bread.
A lone bus passes by and Alfred holds his breath.

His heart is hammering, his jaw is clenched and he doesn’t move.

Arthur swallows and he’s looking like the veins in his forehead are about to pop and he places his hand back to cover his eyes, taking a moment that Alfred doesn’t dare interrupt.

“All you’ve known of me throughout your life has been the entire problem .” He continues, upset but controlled. 
Voice and tone taut, like a compressed spring.

“You’ve only known me as being-” 
He grimaces, letting his hand slide down his face to emphasize his point presenting his palm flat out into space.

 “ Angry and restless and never staying in one place for long, why in the world do you miss that ? Why can’t you accept that I’m trying to get better? ”
The anger fizzles out. Leaving behind it something exasperated and resigned, something Alfred doesn’t associate with his image of him.

“Because ‘ getting better’ isn’t in character for you!” Alfred snaps. 

“You don’t ‘ get better’ , you get worse! That’s what you’ve always done !”

“And that’s where you get it from, is it? You’re just doing what you’ve seen me do?!”

Alfred opens his mouth just to close it again, taken aback and alarmingly lost for words.
He feels like his skin is on fire, a chill sitting in the pit of his stomach, he feels sicker than before and it shows in his face. The way he pales and grasps after words to describe an indescribable feeling of panic.

“I’m not like you.” He sneers.

“I’m not you. ”

Arthur holds his eyes for another few tense moments, anger pulling Alfred’s entire body tight and wound up.

“Maybe if you start taking a turn for the better, it won’t come to that.” He says slowly and turns back to front, face schooled, back to being composed, as he forces the hand brake back down.

“Because as it is now,” Arthur continues, checking the mirrors and pulling out onto the snowy road. 

“You’re a mirror image of myself when I was your age.”
Alfred looks down at his empty bag of food and clenches his teeth together tightly enough for them to start creaking beneath the pressure.

“Nothing good ever comes from ignoring your problems, Alfred. All it does is push people away and makes for an awful lot of self-loathing.”

Alfred lets his nails bite into his palms once more and moves his head to stare out into the street. The darkness slightly brighter, a blue-gray hue of dawn rolling in across the sidewalks and gated gardens as they pass them.
It’s along the same lines of what Matthew’s told him, just more harsh and less pillowed. Where Matthew tried sprinkling it into hints and synonyms to the actual thing, Arthur’s delivered it for him on a plate and forced his head into it.

Arthur’s equally as stubborn about it as Matthew is, and he hates to think about how Matthew reminds him of Arthur more than he would’ve liked to notice.
He lived with him for much longer, Alfred never understood how he could stand it.

Maybe because he’s a neon-sign broadcasting all the thing Alfred hates about himself, and the sudden absence of those traits makes him feel like he’s being left behind, when all he did was follow the example of the very person who raised him.
He moves to pick at his bloodied nail beds once more. Angry and confused, definitely uncomfortable.
Denial is a river in Egypt.

He glances back across at Arthur. His face is a mixture of the same tiredness that Alfred’s feeling and that same sternness he’d worn when he picked him up.
Alfred looks back out of the window. 
Watches the blizzard barreling everything in its wake, and focuses on how warm he is. Tries to ignore the awkward tension and the slowly building sense of rejection that pulls up the question; Should he ask to be dropped off at the airport?

The rest of the drive is silent.

Alfred might’ve dozed off some time during it, because he opens his eyes to the sound of Arthur yanking the keys from the ignition and exiting the car.
A gust of cold air makes him shiver, blinking against the light and zeroing in on the patterning of snow hitting the windshield, and the soft sound of wind billowing about.

He straightens with a sniff, face sour and unbuckles his seatbelt. His one hand reaches for the door, but it’s pulled open before he can grasp it and he looks up to see Arthur.
He bends down ever so slightly, a hand grasping onto the door, the other at the side of the car.
Alfred prepares for some remark to deal the final blow, or to finally be told to get his things, he’s catching the next flight back home.

That he’s overstayed his welcome, that Arthur’s finally come to his senses and realized how stupid this entire set-up is. How incompatible they are to be around each other for more than two days without ripping each other to pieces.
He can hear the words in his head, already formed, and he has a response at the ready.
Already at the tip of his tongue.

“You’re going with me to the clinic tomorrow.” Arthur says, voice laced with foreign maturity and gentle assertiveness. 
In stark contrast to the shouting match from before or the unknowing teenager that tried and failed to be there for him when he needed it a long time ago.

It prickles at his eyes and he breathes in a wet inhale through his nose. Unintentionally sniffing, he lifts a hand to wipe it.

“And then you’re getting someone to talk to. Because I’m not going to keep playing this game with you.”
Alfred looks at him, searching his face.

He looks firm, but he doesn’t look resentful. Gray hairs glimmer in his bangs, and Alfred feels his chest tighten uncomfortably.

“...Yeah.” He says dryly.

“Okay.”

Arthur nods and lingers for a moment longer.
Alfred grasps the empty fast food bag and clenches it noisily.

“And I’m… Sorry. For shouting.”

Alfred hates him for saying that.
He was never this mature or grounded with him before. And he can’t decide whether to feel disgusted or relieved. The mixture between both is just making him feel even more lost than he felt before.

“Yeah.”
He swallows, looking away to tighten his jaw and even out his breathing. It doesn’t go very well.

“Do you still feel faint?”

Alfred nods, sitting sideways and getting his legs out of the car and onto the ground.

“You didn’t have to come and get me. I would’ve found my way around eventually.”

Arthur frowns at him, hair whipping about haphazardly as he looms in the doorway.
Alfred moves to get out, to push his way past, just to do something else. To think about something else, something that isn’t how close he is to running back to the underground just to get lost again, this time with the purpose to not be found.

But the hand Arthur had had on the side of the car reaches in, the other following suit, until Alfred’s pressed firmly in a hug, with a hand clutching the back of his head, cradling it into a warm and slightly scruffy woolen coat.

He freezes mid-motion, ear pressed against Arthur’s chest, hearing his heartbeat going haywire.
His breaths stumble, an arm is wrapped around his back.

“Don’t ever pull a stunt like this again.” Arthur demands quietly.

“I’m getting too old to work up this much of a sweat before sunrise.”

The hand on his head moves its thumb up and down, in a careful stroking pattern and Alfred begins to lean forward, eyes growing prickly and wet, he tilts his face to submerge it in old, antique wool and Arthur secures his grip on him a little tighter, exhaling a shaky breath.

Alfred’s arms eventually reach up around Arthur’s back, McDonald’s bag still clothed in one hand the other pressed flat in place.

“You’re literally getting gray hairs.” Alfred croaks.
Arthur huffs and Alfred feels it beneath his cheek. The thumb in his hair stops moving, and Arthur slowly begins to release him.

“I’ve had those for a while, but you’re certainly not helping matters any.”

Alfred lifts his hands and wipes his face, desperately trying to make himself more composed than he really is. Arthur keeps both of his hands on Alfred’s shoulders and Alfred meets his eyes just in time to catch him looking genuinely shaken up.
It’s replaced quickly by something harder to read and he’s given a few gentle pats on the arm, before he’s gestured out of the car.

His vision swims as he stands and he braces himself against the car, shivering and orienting himself of his surroundings.

Arthur leads him inside the same way he’d led him out from the underground, with a hand at his back and little else to say.

Chapter Text

A nightmare jolts Alfred awake. He throws his eyes open, a fearful burst of adrenaline to pictures already fleeing his memory. 

He tries to prod them back to center, to rationalize their image, but it runs and hides until all he’s left with are remnants of fear that has nowhere to go. It just sits like a dry mouth and a tight chest. Eyes flickering around aimlessly, expecting to see something tangible that was never there.

He turns his head, eyes straining to adjust to the dark.
Shadows dance along the walls, shapes and figures he knows he’s imagining, but which look so awfully threatening regardless, as they stand guard in the corners and wait.
Wait for him to close his eyes and fall back asleep. 

He lingers on those corners, body stiff, heart hammering and a prickling heat starting to burst through his skin.

Something moves and he darts his eyes to it, a slight shuffling followed by a sigh.
In the faint glow of the dying fireplace, he makes out Arthur’s shape. 
He lies sleeping on a spare mattress on the floor and to Alfred’s nauseating relief, the shadows and the darkness shies away from the place where he lies. Engulfed warmly.

He has shifted into a different position. 
Onto his back, with one hand thrown out above his head, clunking against the foot of a cabinet they moved aside to make space for the tattered mattress where a hole runs along part of the zipper. It exposes the yellow foam beneath, like a grin that doesn’t see toothpaste very often.

Alfred swallows, willing himself to relax.

Wind howls around outside with snow and ice thrown onto the window panes.

There’s a distant murmuring of the ocean, a lone gull crying out in distress.

A soft snoring emits from Arthur on the floor and draws Alfred’s attention back to him.
The arm that isn’t sprawled out above his head lies loosely on top of a dull-looking quilt. He sleeps in an ugly brown sweater. Worn thin, but the stitching is strong enough to resemble a shape.

Alfred breathes in deep through his nose.

“Just a dream.” He whispers to himself. To the living room with the dark wooden ceiling, with wooden beams that brand a botched paint job. 

“It’s not real.”

They’re spending Christmas up north; A harbor town, in one of Arthur’s smaller homes.

They arrived yesterday evening to the heating taking its time to warm up. 
Pipes sputtering and complaining, Alfred had been the quickest to be fed up with it and lit up the fireplace.

At the time the blizzard hadn’t made landfall yet. It had been pitch black by the time they’d arrived, stars brighter than Alfred’s seen them in years. When he looked out to sea, standing by the car, dark looming clouds had swallowed the starlight in the horizon.
A distant roar of a storm, sending waves of ice cold wind across the land from the north. White tipped waves at sea, colliding with a blackened sky-

Something rattles from somewhere in the house and Alfred jumps. A lump growing in his throat, goosebumps rising at his arms. He jolts upright, swings his legs over the edge of the couch and leaves his blanket behind.

A worn carpet sticks to his socks as he takes a few hurried steps forwards. 
His pant legs feel restrictive and his sweatshirt sticks uncomfortably to his skin.

He crouches down on the floor, heart at a gallop.

“Dude?”

Arthur doesn’t stir. Deep in sleep, ignorant of the noise and the darkness. He breathes, evenly, in and out.
Embers in the fireplace sizzle quietly. A crackling pop sounds from one of the stumps of burnt firewood.

“Hey.”

He receives a single, unconscious hum of acknowledgement for his efforts.
Another creak from behind him, that reveals nothing out of the ordinary when Alfred swings his head around to look.
All the sees is the end of the living room with the door ajar, opening up to pure void. Alfred places an urgent hand on Arthur’s shoulder and shakes itm voice coming out in a harsh whisper.

“Arthur.”

There’s a sharp inhale followed by Arthur rapidly blinking himself awake. He looks around the room, disoriented and pushes himself up onto his elbows. 

“What?” 

He blurts, quickly wiping a hand down his face and scans his surroundings again before focusing his attention directly at Alfred.

“What time’s’it?”

Alfred extracts his hand and folds it together with his other one. Sitting on his knees on the floor with anxiety clawing at his damp back.

“uh, I don’t know. Late, probably.”

Arthur looks around for a third time, looking at the windows, then looking back at Alfred. He rubs the inner corners of his eyes tiredly.
“Good lord…”

Alfred chews on the inside of his cheek. An undercurrent of guilt mixes in with his queasiness and it’s not very fun, when the walls are staring at him.

“You told me to wake you… You know, if I needed anything.”

Arthur nods in understanding, sighing softly through his nose.

“I did say that. What is it?”

Alfred remains still, clutching his hands together.
Arthur looks exhausted. 
Driving all the way up here through snow and sleet, arranging the entire trip, driving him to the doctor’s office- 

The graying of his hair seems more prominent now. Sterling silver in the light of the fireplace.

“Uhm, could I…”

He hesitates, wondering if it’s even worth the effort. If it’s worth the embarrassment to ask.
He’s fought worse things than shadows. He’s seen worse things.
He’s felt worse things.
But he always hated the sound of creaking, and he’s always hated the idea of ghosts.

He thinks about the sounds of the wind and the uncomfortable feeling that something’s looking at him.

He feels like a child and he covers his face like the idiot he is.

“Man, this is so weird.” He says.

Then nothing else. He tries to will himself to calm down. Breathe. 
Let his heart slow down and maybe think about something else. Think about breakfast. Think about seeing Francis tomorrow. Of seeing Matthew.

But that makes him feel more anxious than before.

Alfred just can’t win.

Arthur raises an inquisitive brow at the silence.

“... What’s weird? Spit it out.”

Alfred breathes deep, removing his hands to wipe the sweat of them onto his sweatpants.

“Could I like, sleep… Here?”

Alfred swallows.

“With you?”

The back of his neck tingles. 
Arthur looks momentarily confused, before raising his brows in exasperation. He even has the audacity to roll his eyes.

“Is that all?”

Alfred grimaces. 
He begins to say something, then thinks of something better than that, fumbling his sentences together incoherently in his head and moving his mouth uselessly like a fish trying to speak them.

Arthur takes the opportunity to motion flippantly towards the couch behind him.

“Get your own bedding.” He says tiredly. 

“I’m not sharing a blanket with you.”

Defensive and looking back at the darkness that toes the edges of the couch, Alfred bites his teeth together and rises from his place on the floor.

“Right. Sure, yeah.”

Arthur lies scooted to the edge of the mattress, one hand supporting his head, the other strewn around Alfred’s shoulders. Alfred has placed his own pillow on top of Arthur’s elbow, laying his head just below Arthur’s own. Right at chest height.

Alfred can smell the old, worn wool of Arthur’s sweater as it has warmed. An earthy smell, that reminds him of finding worms in the garden. 

Wet soil. 

Black earth.

When Arthur breathes out in a rush of air, it stirs the hair at the top of his head. 
Presence pressing in around him like the relief of stepping under an overhang during a downpour. A safety blanket.
Something to hide behind and stay safe from prying eyes, Alfred’s heart slows to a calmer rhythm. His hands are less clammy, his back doesn’t run down with cold.

When Alfred moves to get more comfortable, lying directly on the floor, the hand that sits at his back rubs his shoulder a few times before settling back quietly.

Alfred lets his arms cross.
He doesn’t know what to do with his hands, without making it awkward. And he really doesn’t want things to be any more awkward than they already are…

“This is so weird.”

Arthur makes an irritated noise.

“It’s weird if you make it weird. I wouldn’t agree to it if I thought it was too outlandish.”

“I’m 400 years old, dude.”

Arthur pries an eye open, though Alfred doesn’t see it, he can feel it.
Arthur looks at the top of his head skeptically.

“And you think that’s old?”

Alfred makes eyes at his sweater-clad chest. Missing a face to make eyes at. 

“It is old.”

“I am old, lad. 400 years might seem like a long time by your standards, but you are not old.”

Alfred opens his mouth to protest but Arthur cuts him off. Voice serious and deliberate and carefully stern.

“Listen to what I’m telling you. I have lived for two millenia, there are bigger things for me to worry about than you, needing a cuddle, at 400 years old.”

The wind whines loudly around the house and the same creaking from before stirs from within the darkness.
Alfred swallows, but doesn't feel the same urgent need to run like before.
Arthur’s arm remains solid around his shoulders. Weighted and warm and Alfred directs all his anxiety into it. As if channeling his fear and discomfort into something protecting him, will bring everything scary to an abrupt end.

It mostly works.

Arthur himself remains still and unaffected. Unphased by the noise.

Alfred feels safe.

“I didn’t say I needed a ‘cuddle’.” Alfred grumbles.

“Is there any reason I should feel ‘weird’ about you wanting to sleep on the floor with me then?”

“No, but I’m just too old for it! I’m- It’s- It’s just weird.”

“How is it weird?-”

“It just is, okay?!”

Alfred unravels his arms to cover his face with a huff.

“I’m too old to sleep with my dad because of a stupid nightmare.” He muffles through his palms.

The fireplace crackles.
Dying light makes the living room darker than before. A snare whips against a flagpole from the backyard outside.

Alfred doesn’t uncover his face and Arthur doesn’t comment on anything that is irrelevant to the topic…

“You're the one who asked to sleep here.”

“I know.”

Alfred half expects to be shooed back onto the couch then. Or for the arm to vanish, withdraw away to show him a back, turned in exasperation and disdain.

He lets his hands fall limp.

They lie between the two of them. Now oddly chilly.
Arthur shifts, Alfred’s eyes narrow.

“Alfred.”

The tone of voice is the kind he uses to make a point come across more democratically than it really is. Knowing he’s right, Alfred listens with half a mind. He doesn’t like being wrong.
He has a certain way of seeing things make sense, and this is certainly not one of them. It feels emasculating to need this. It feels boyish and unserious. It feels shameful and anti-individualistic. 

To need someone else for comfort. It sounds terribly pathetic to him.

“It’s not weird. It never was. We’ll talk more about it in the morning.”

Alfred prepares himself, then.
Lets his arms cross back over with an unnecessary shrug of the shoulder. He makes sure to settle down, moving and rolling his arms in hopes of getting the disappointment over with.

Arthur’s arm lifts. 

Weight moving away from his person, and leaving him untethered and weightless. He feels momentarily shot through the chest, breath leaving him in a rush through his nose as he stills and ceases movement.

He glares halfheartedly at Arthur in front of him.
Not at his face, but at the part of him that he can see.

He’s argumentative at heart. A competitor, and he loves winning. He loves being right, he lavishes in the feeling of victory whenever he comes out on top- But there are downfalls, where being right makes him feel nauseous with disappointment.

He’s about to get up and just move on back to the couch, when the arm returns.
Heavily and unceremonious, it wraps itself back around him and gives him a few pats on the back before relaxing.

“Close your eyes, Alfred.” Arthur mumbles.

“They are closed.”

“They are not closed. Don’t you lie to me, young man.”

The world feels terribly comforting.
Alfred tightens his grip on his own arms painfully, digging his nails in.

“I don’t want to close them.”

“Mhm. And why don’t you want to?”

“... I feel stupid. And like you and nobody’s going to take me seriously if I do.”

Arthur let's go of a thoughtful hum.

“Because of what exactly?”

“Because of this.”

“Because you’re sleeping on-”

“Yes.”

The shadows seem idle and curiously listening in. They swallow Alfred’s voice and leaves him feeling choked up on humiliation battling familiar and comforting security.

“And how will they know? I’m not going to tell them.”

“..You’ll know. And I don’t believe you, if you say you won’t tell Francis. You and him are in some sort of symbiosis , and he sure as shit can’t keep secrets-”

The old man decides to start laughing.
A drawn out wheeze that indicates humor. One that doesn’t happen very often. And one that Arthur himself seems to try to battle as it unfolds right now.

“A ‘symbiosis’?” He wheezes.

“Yes. A symbiosis.”

“I have never heard you use that word before. And then about something like that-”

“Not the point.”

Arthur doesn’t reply right away. There’s a breathy silence of Arthur too obviously making an attempt to be quiet.

The arm around Alfred moves away momentarily and Alfred cranes his neck to look up.
Arthur’s covering his mouth, trying to quiet down a wheezing laughter that tumbles out of him unbidden.
Alfred watches him. He forgot Arthur knew how to laugh.

Or, laugh in a way that isn’t obviously for show. To showcase some kind of stronger persona that has a more intimidating nature, than how his laugh actually is. Because Arthur laughs like all the air in the world couldn’t satisfy him. And he’ll end up coughing or complaining about his chest hurting.

Alfred can’t help but bite back a comment about how inappropriate a moment it is. He can’t feel too embarrassed about himself when Arthur’s out of breath and losing his cool from something so little.

It might be because he’s tired, though.

Arthur predictably coughs into his hand, willing himself to suck in air and quiet himself down to compose himself and maintain his giggling.
Because that’s what it is.

And Arthur hates that he does it.
Alfred doesn’t, it gives him massive amounts of blackmail.

“Are you done?”

“Shut up.” Arthur's voice cracks and he clears his throat to try again. More composed, but no less out of breath than before. 

“Shut up.”

Alfred resettles his head back to how it was, letting it rest on the pillow Arthur’s bottom arm lies beneath. He still doesn’t close his eyes, he watches Arthur breathe and listens to him coughing away the remnants of laughter neither of them had expected to happen.

“Sorry about that.”

“No, no, don’t be.”

Another cough.

“Not like I was trying to be serious and vulnerable or anything.”
Arthur’s arm is placed back around him and the final, steadying breath Arthur heaves rustles the top of Alfred’s hair again.

“You could just stick to your usual vocabulary.”

“Oh yeah, blame the victim.”

“Who else should I blame? Myself? Don't be ridiculous.”

Alfred does actually find that a little funny and he does begrudgingly let out a chuckle.

“In all seriousness.” Arthur says, sounding much too winded to sound as serious as he’d sounded before.

“I do not see you as any less of a character for needing support. And I do take you seriously, I’m not going to tell anyone. Francis neither.”

“... You literally just laughed at my word choices.”

“Alright.” Arthur erupts, as if throwing his hands up in defeat.
Alfred chuckles again.

“You did not specify which part you wanted me to take seriously.”

“All of it.”

“All of it?” Arthur asks incredulously. He sounds dubious. “Sorry, no, I don’t think that’s going to work.”

“Really? ”

“I mean, you’re plenty scary when you want to be, but there is no way I could take everything seriously. I could never take your taste in film seriously, Alfred. Absolutely no chance.”

“Sharknado was an ironic genius, dude-”

“And that’s that. Close your eyes and go to sleep. We are not having this discussion again.”

“But-”

Arthur places his hand over Alfred’s eyes, keeping it there for long enough that Alfred begrudgingly does close his eyes.

The arm returns for the last time to hold him and Alfred, this time, keeps his eyes shut.
The inner corners sting and start to water. The sensation of closing them after keeping them open for too long.

He was more tired than he thought.

“You just don’t understand art-”

“Goodnight , Alfred.” Arthur mumbles. But he sounds amused.
Arthur’s arm presses a bit firmer around him.

The snare outside continues to crack against the flagpole, the wind continues to howl and the rustling of the house and the windows and the loft remains a cacophony of noise- But instead of it scaring him and bringing the shadows alive, Alfred eases into it like an afterthought.

Arthur’s snoring returns a short amount of time later, and Alfred lets the ambient creaking orchestra send him back into sleep.

The car is icy cold and the aircon is pummeling the windshield when Alfred and Arthur sit into it the next morning, headed for Leeds airport.

Alfred sits packed in three layers, with one of Arthur’s old ratty sweaters to replace his much too thin sweatshirt, sitting beneath his bomber like a bulky sock.

Yet he still manages to feel cold, sitting with Arthur in his black parka that looks relatively new. It crinkles crisply, in the way winter jackets tend to do as he loves to buckle in and starts driving. Checking his mirrors noisily, Alfred settles into his seat with his shoulders up to his ears.

The blizzard overnight has left the morning crystal clear and painfully cold.
Dark clouds retreat back over a restless horizon, and straight above, the sky sits endless and deep. Pale blue, purple and orange mixing together the palette of winter.

The streets are slippery, only salted the second they get onto a main road and Arthur has banned all conversation until they reach the highway.

Alfred jumps his legs to keep warm, until the motor heats up enough for the air vents to warm the air up.
By then they’ve managed to make it through to the highway. Accelerating, but not by much, on a road much sturdier looking than the path leading down to Arthur’s old house.

Arthur sniffs, lifting a hand to itch at his nose.

He’s been sniffling and sneezing a lot the past few days and Alfred is starting to suspect Arthur might be threatening him with a cold.

He glances sideways.

The tip of Arthur’s nose and the tips of his ears are tinted red and he looks as huddled into himself as Alfred is, though he’s much more composed about it, needing to concentrate on the road and everything.

He sniffs again.

Alfred breaks the vow of silence.
The quiet is making him uncomfortable.

“Sooooo…”

Arthur sits back more calmly into the driver’s seat. He looks just about as neutral as before.

“Is now the time you tell me about why you and Francis are a thing again?”

The intake of breath that follows is objectively funny, though they don’t need Arthur swerving out of indignation.
Arthur clears his throat and keeps his eyes trained on the road in front.

“I seriously do not understand your interest.”

Alfred laughs boyishly.

“When else are ya gonna talk about it? Or do I need to ask Francis when he gets here?”

“Absolutely not .” Arthur quips, but it packs no heat. Only appalled irritation and to Alfred’s surprise, a hint of indulgence.

“It isn’t all that exciting.” Arthur admits after a moment.

Alfred shrugs.

“Boring stories are still stories.”

Arthur levels him a brief sideways glance before flexing his fingers on the steering wheel and resettling himself. Probably to drag it out.

“...Something shifted, after the war.” Arthur begins and Alfred pays minute attention to the somber and mildly vulnerable tone that comes with that dawning.

There’s a crease between his brows and if Arthur wasn’t driving, Alfred gets the impression he would have crossed his arms.
Instead, being on the road, Arthur begins to drum his fingers.

“I haven’t felt as frustrated with him and he hasn’t gone out of his way to irk me much, either. It was like an unspoken solidarity that formed, but for the life of me, I can’t tell what changed. It simply did and neither of us wanted to address it before...” 

He trails off, looking thoughtful and pinching his expression in a visible attempt at recalling a detail.
Alfred watches him curiously.

“The 60s?” He finalizes.

Alfred quirks a brow. 

“Isn’t that, like, super late when you say it changed in the 40s?”

Arthur clicks his tongue. 

“If you hadn’t noticed, we were both pretty preoccupied with some massive rebuilding and patching up after the war, lad. I only properly came back to health around ‘79.”

“Oh. Right.”

Right.
Right, he actually helped send a shitton of money to help restore. Because nobody was doing okay. Like, at all.
Arthur decides to move on.

“Matthew was still living with me at the time, adamant on the therapy-issue.”

Alfred hums, imagining the scene. Thinking of the times Matthew brought it up in passing towards him as well.

“He can be strangely stubborn when he has something set in mind. Much like the rest of you.”

“Wonder where we got that from.”

“Cheeky.” Arthur sneers lightly. “ Anyhow , it got to a point where I might have had a..” He sighs audibly.

“Significant overreaction when the nagging got to be too much. It had me willingly sitting in a doctor’s office the following day.”

“Mattie can be real scary.”

Arthur hums in agreement.

“Francis never went, despite Matthew’s insistence. He still hasn’t gone, but it’s getting to a point where I’m considering giving him the same talk I gave you .” He continues.

Alfred awkwardly keeps any comments about that to himself.
Arthur moves on unhindered

“He has never left though. And really, that’s most of it; He’s always been around to bother me and just knowing that it’s not going to be easy to actually get him to leave-”

Alfred thinks back to the photos of Arthur and Francis back in London. He looks at the blink of an expression Arthur wears now. Light and distinctly happy. 

“It helps a tremendous amount.”

Alfred hums, chewing on his words before spitting them out.

“It’s just never worked out before, why should it be any different now?” Arthur almost laughs, lighthearted and genuine.

“If it never worked out before, Alfred, we wouldn’t still both be trying.”

“You’ve broken up and reconciled more times than I’ve ordered a happy meal; That’s too many. That’s too many times, man.”

“I know it’s not a perfect fairytale romance, but really, it doesn’t need to be. We work with what we got, and what we got is plenty.”

“Just doesn’t sound very permanent.”

Arthur side eyes him and Alfred bites his teeth together. “It’s a good thing then, that it’s not your concern whether we are or not. He knows me and I know him. And that’s all there is. As I said, it really isn’t all that interesting.”

“It’s not that it isn’t interesting…” Alfred just doesn’t understand it.

He’s only ever seen them argue, whether it be over something really small or something massive that has them physically fighting, he’s never understood why they stick together.
It doesn’t feel right, it feels disjointed and stressful and it feels a whole lot like codependence.

But Alfred decides he doesn’t need to understand anything, because why’s it his problem, when it isn’t even really a problem to begin with?

Arthur looks happy enough and he hasn’t really spoken to Francis in a while, but he’s sure he must feel the same.
He also realizes he can’t imagine them being apart.
A throwback to the night before, they work symbiotically - Either they hurt each other or they nourish each other, but in every outcome no matter what stage they’re in, they’re together.

The heating begins to warm the car up. Alfred can no longer see his breath in front of him and he looks out across the white expanses of a dawning winter morning.

“I just wanted to know for sure what to expect.” He settles on eventually.

Arthur shifts gears, gradually slowing the car as they come up to a branch off towards Leeds.

“Expect Francis to complain about the weather.” He says. 

“And expect him to be wearing something extremely impractical, because he never checks the forecast.”

Alfred lets out a laugh.


---

It itches beneath his skin like worms, standing amongst a crowd that huddles together too tightly at the airport.

Arthur looks up at the arrival screen, a flight delay from France, but none from Canada and it occurs to him then that the weather must have migrated on down through europe. Maybe it’s picked up speed and he begins to wonder about rearranging plans in case Francis doesn’t make it up in time.

He’s been alone with the lads numerous times before, this shouldn’t be a challenge - But the times he’s been alone with them previously, they haven’t been grown and they haven’t been on terms bad enough that Alfred’s picking at his skin beside him.

He lifts a hand to interrupt the itching. A hand to brush away the worry and Alfred lets it fall with a frustrated sigh. Opting instead to place both hand at his hips, and looking around the airport.

High ceilinged and modernized. Arthur doesn’t care much for its foreignity.

“Take a breath, Alfred. It’s going to be fine.”

“Easy for you to say.”

“Don’t get cheeky with me, it’s just Matthew he’s not going to bite you.”

Alfred gives him a dubious look and Arthur rolls his eyes vehemently at it.

They stand around for a while. Arthur with his arms crossed, nervous with an excitement he denies himself to feel beyond tapping his foot and straining his neck to look through the crowd at the arrivals filing in.

He scans their faces, their hair and glasses, until eventually a particular face with a particular way about him steps through.

Arthur’s stomach swoops. It’s been much too long since he saw him outside of work.

“There he is.”

Alfred straightens and Arthur lifts an arm to sway Matthew’s searching attention towards them.
He gains it swiftly, Matthew’s eyes lock first onto Arthur, then falls sideways to Alfred.

It’s not obvious; It wouldn’t even have been noticeable if he hadn’t been looking, but Matthew’s smile from spotting Arthur falls a fraction to see he has company. It leaks from his eyes and falls into something closer to polite, and when he approaches them with his luggage and looking more tired than normal, Arthur decides to be the one to center the attention.

“Matthew.”

The boy in question comes to a stop directly in front of him, reaching his one free arm around Arthur’s shoulders, pointedly turning his face out and away from Alfred’s spot beside them.

“Hi.” He breathes, stepping back and releasing him. “Sorry it took a while. Luggage was a mess.”

“No bother at all, how was the flight?”

Arthur takes one of his bags for him before he can insist on carrying everything on his own.
He looks almost equally as awful as Alfred did when he first arrived, but it looks controlled in a way it hadn’t with Al.

“I honestly expected it to be worse.”

Arthur chuckles at that. Always one to undermine the worst of things. Overall a bad flight then, he’s assuming. Ryanair is not known for their comfortablity after all.

“Naturally it could always be worse. Good thing we’ve already set everything up for you so you can have a proper lie down when we get home.”

Matthew nods gratefully. “That sounds like a plan.”

“It does, doesn’t it.”

Matthew turns sideways towards Alfred and Arthur looks between them nervously.
It’s a good thing Alfred got himself into the conversation, but maybe the timing could have been better and Arthur fishes out any emergency fly-away topics he can think of, just in case things do not go like they should.

Alfred freezes up, hands buried in his pants pockets, he looks like he’s been caught not paying attention and now that he’s being scoped out for it, he doesn’t know what to do.

Arthur’s about to step in and make an attempt to mediate when Alfred seems to gather himself and smiles sheepishly. 

“Long time no see, how’ve you been doing?”

Matthew seems to want to mimic his stance, but with his luggage, he’s only able to place one hand into his jacket pocket. His shoulders hoist themselves up slightly, and Arthur sees the same happen on Alfred.

“I’ve been okay.” Matthew claims. Or, lies, much rather, but Arthur isn’t going to say anything just yet. That’s a conversation for Matthew alone. 

“Just a bit stressed out about stuff. How are you?”

“Oh, you know. Same old, same old.”

“Right.”

“Yeah..-”

“So, work, huh? It’s been a lot?”

Alfred looks at him oddly, eyebrow twitching and Arthur takes that as his cue to intervene.

“Francis’ flight is still delayed, why don’t we find something to eat while we wait for him, yea? It’s been a while since Al and I had breakfast, when was the last time you ate, lad?”

Matthew turns back to him, Alfred following suit with a thankful yet pinched look about him.

“I didn’t have time for breakfast this morning.” Matthew says. “I’ve only had what they serve on the flight, and that’s not really anything, is it.”

He receives a soft smile and Alfred is quick to move up to stand beside him.

“It is not, let’s get you something filling.”

Arthur agrees readily, setting their course towards an airport restaurant with a drop of sweat sitting at his hairline.

It’s another hour before the screens of Arrivals shows Francis’ flight making landfall.

Arthur’s managed to barely get the boys to behave and steer clear of any conversations they could have, literally anywhere else than Leeds Airport, by commenting about the food, then other kinds of food and have now gotten them in light conversation about discussing the different flavors of m&ms. And whether they actually taste any different.

Arthur has apparently been disqualified from the start by both of them, in that he insisted they all taste of way too much sugar and while they definitely do, he’s just glad the two of them can find a temporary truce in a common enemy.

He might also just be mixing m&ms up with skittles.

Because he thinks he can enjoy one of them, but he cannot remember the difference and he cannot be arsed to ask so he rests his head on one hand and stares out at the arrivals beginning to filter in.

He looks for someone impractically dressed, yet disgustingly fashionable. He looks for a single suitcase that rolls across the ground smoothly with no dents or bumps and he looks for someone that is coming out through the gate right now.

Arthur perks up, stretching his neck out to be sure before standing and motioning for the lot to follow with a suppressed urgency to his movements.

The boys look back before they stand slowly, then watch Arthur hoisting one of Matthew’s bags over his shoulder and beelining it from the restaurant. 

He moves with an excitement that does not match that of someone who actually cares that the coat Francis is wearing is too thin for the weather and who is going to be a victim of the complaining later.

It’s more the urgency of someone excited, yet desperately trying not to be embarrassing about it -
And then failing at it miserably the second Francis throws his arms dramatically about him with an exhausted groan and hangs on him like a dead man.

Matthew’s bag does not hinder Arthur in the slightest. It sits like ait on the shoulder Francis’ face doesn’t rest on. 

Arthur moves his arms to rest around Francis’ middle, head going sideways to rest against his and he sighs something comfortable that Francis responds to in equal parts upset and contented. 

And Arthur cannot think, because he’s too busy untensing and de-stressing in time with Francis pressing a kiss at his cheek when he pulls back away.

“You look terrible.” Arthurs scoffs. As usual.

“I haven’t slept much.”

“You have probably also not made an attempt to, rosbif.”

He has, actually. But Francis doesn’t need to know that.

“I’m glad you made it.”

Francis flashes him a smile. “But of course, I wouldn’t miss another one of your spontaneous holiday events for some stupid politician.”

They step apart just enough for Francis to actually start to fuss about how tired he looks, commenting on his hair getting too long and fluttering his hand at his nape for emphasis.
Arthur moves his hand away in exasperation, brushing his worry off because who cares that his hair is getting longer, it’s just hair.

But the comfort is nice.
He won’t admit it to anybody, not even to himself, but he missed Francis worrying about things he shouldn’t even care about.
He missed having him around. He always does, whenever they aren’t together.

Francis turns to look behind him, face lighting up into something no less excited but excited in a much different fashion than he shows with Arthur.

He steps sideways, hand moving from Arthur’s hair to flourish out in an expectancy for a hug.

Alfred leans in to hug him easily enough, in that natural friendliness he fishes out when he doesn’t feel comfortable enough to say he would rather not.

Matthew isn’t as polite about it and he accepts a bisé from Francis but not the hug.
He blames it shamelessly on his luggage, when it hadn’t stopped him when he’d come up to hug Arthur earlier.

No matter, it’s universal knowledge that Matthew and Francis get along somehow even worse than Arthur and Alfred does. And Arthur wants to say he and Alfred has sorted some things out the past few months.

“Arthur.”

Arthur directs his attention to Alfred. “Do you want me to drive?”

“Why would I want you to drive on snowy roads here ?”

Alfred wrinkles his nose in offense.

“I know how to drive snowy-”

“He means that they drive on the left, Al.”

Alfred looks sideways just in time for Matthew to look elsewhere.
Arthur presses his lips into a line and sighs through his nose quietly.
Francis looks between them confused and Arthur resettles Matthew’s bag on his shoulder.

“It’s alright, lad, I’ll drive. Thank you for the offer.”

Alfred nods but doesn’t say anything else, and neither does Matthew.

Matthew has himself a lie down the moment they get back home.
He toes off his shoes and hangs his coat before he slithers off with a quiet announcement of where he’s going.
He’s been in the house so many times he could navigate it blind and he goes to the guestroom which Arthur has practically assigned him as his own.

Alfred hangs back in the entrance, hands by his sides and hesitant to undress for the grocery run they’re doing to stock up for Francis’ cooking.
Arthur goes to take off his shoes.

“What’re you doing?”

“I’m following Matthew’s example and taking a nap.”

With the past few days hanging over him, he has a lot of sleep to catch up on and a nap by the fire is really the grandest possible thing he can think of at the moment and he says as much.

“So I’m shopping with Francis on my own?”

Arthur hangs his jacket and rubs his hands together to warm them absentmindedly.

“You don’t have to. Francis is perfectly capable of shopping on his own.”

“Uh- Have you seen his shopping list? Even I would have a hard time carrying all that.”

Francis smirks as he comes back out from the living room. Coat and scarf still on and waving his hand. “It’s Christmas, so we need special food. Blame the holidays.”

Arthur places his hands at his hips, standing a bit away from the front door to let Francis put his shoes back on.

He looks at Alfred who looks at him with pleading eyes, standing with bright, blinding snow behind him, like he’s about to step through to the next plane of existence.

Arthur squints against it, glancing down to where Francis is nearly finished with one boot.

Strange.

He doesn’t remember Alfred having any trouble with Francis.
Though the way he acts whenever Francis is around has always had a certain distance about it, one that Arthur hasn’t particularly ever cared to look too much into before. But of course, that had to come back and bite him in the ass.

Nevertheless, he needs to have a talk with Matthew and Alfred needs to get reaccustomed to being around people that aren't Arthur. No matter how evidently difficult that seems to be at the moment.

“It’s going to be a quick trip.” Arthur encourages. “And you’ll have a chance at buying yourself groceries too, you’ve been complaining about how little I have to snack on up here.”

Francis stands back up, rising to his full height beside Alfred, and managing to still be half a head shorter than him.
Arthur briefly frets about looking that short next to the lad as well and hurriedly begins to approach with no further intention to think of it.

He places what he hopes is a reassuring few pats on Alfred’s shoulder to send him off.

“The sooner you go, the sooner it’ll be done with.”

Alfred gives him one last forlorn look, uncertainty raining from how slowly he steps back outside and out of Arthur’s reach. Francis steps out after him, a few shopping bags in hand for the big haul.

Arthur withdraws his hovering hand before it can be obvious that’s what it was doing and crosses his arms instead, moving forwards to close the front door after them.

“Remember that my kitchen isn’t built like yours, frog, there’s a storage limit!”

Alfred walks to the passenger side and Francis waves adieu, followed by him blowing Arthur a kiss, like the embarrassment that he is.

“May I come in?”

Matthew looks up abruptly from his suitcase to the doorframe.

Arthur stands idly watching.
Matthew doesn’t like taking naps. He’s never liked naps and would rather power through the day, no matter how little sleep he’s gotten, he doesn’t like wasting time.

“You could’ve at least knocked first.”

Arthur waves a dismissive hand. “The door was already open.”

“It was ajar actually.”

“And how is that any different from having it be open?”

Matthew sighs, looking at him flatly before turning back to unpacking his suitcase.

“Is this going to be about Francis?”

Arthur lurks at the doorway for a beat before trudging his way inside to sit on the foot of the bed.
Matthew is standing, bent down and rummaging around in an aimless pattern that Arthur won’t bother deciphering.

“No, it’s about Alfred.”

Matthew glances sideways at him, before pulling out a sweater and placing it with two others on top of the pillows.

“...What about him?”

Dangerously showy of him to pretend he doesn’t understand the insinuation, considering how passive aggressive he’s been since arrival.

“Well, first of all you can start by cutting the cheeky comments you’re throwing at him.”

Matthew snorts, as if that’s funny.
Arthur pulls a grimace.

“I can understand that there’s been a mishap between the two of you, but you’re not going to solve anything by indirectly insulting him.”

“Sure."

Arthur’s face flattens to the same degree that Matthew’s is and he places both hands on his knees and begins to stand.

“Wonderful. I’m glad we’re in agreement.”

Matthew continues his fumbling in the suitcase and Arthur watches him for a moment. Looks at how his hair has grown nearly as long as Francis keeps his, how it falls over his face and hides most of it.

“I’m assuming there’s going to be no trouble with the two of you going out to chop firewood when he returns then?”

The way Matthew’s face clears from his hair when he looks over and straightens up is almost amusing, if it wasn’t for how petrified he looks.
Arthur shrugs.

“What’s with that look, I thought you agreed on a truce?”

“You-”

Arthur smiles. The kind he smiles only when he knows that Matthew’s own wit has karmic consequences.
Matthew groans.

“You’re the worst.”

Arthur hums, beginning to turn back towards the door.

“Someone has to be. I’m going to lie down for an hour.”

The only reply he gets is a grunt and something probably supposed to be a threat muttered under Matthew’s breath. Not loud enough for Arthur to make out, but the lad is good at keeping himself quiet.

Chapter Text

Alfred scratches his nose after a sneeze and grimaces.

He looks at his hands, then checks his nails, checks the seat and looks sideways at Francis who drives mechanically, almost impatiently, into Aldi’s parking lot.
Alfred furrows his brows at the smell of rot. It’s somehow metallic. A quality of moldy trash and musty leftovers that’s been in the fridge for too long. He sniffs again.

“Dude, did you let one rip just now? It smells awful.”

Francis gives him a side-eye almost as nasty as the smell.
“If you are trying to cover up for yourself by blaming me, then you’re doing an awful job. Nothing smells.” Francis says. He pulls into a parking spot and pulls the hand brake.

“Grab the empty bags from the backseat.”

Alfred sniffs his jacket. The smell is still present, but it’s distinct in the way he can’t figure out where it’s coming from. He sits with it for a second, then promptly opens the car door and exits along with Francis, immediately to be smacked in the face by wind.
He does smell salt and car-junk from the roads, but the rot lingers, even when he rubs his nose fervently, it does not go away.

Francis gets fed up with waiting for him and grabs the bags himself.
He’s gotten a cart and is calling for him by the time Alfred’s mind is back to the parking lot.

It’s weird, because he doesn’t remember having anything to do with any trash or food or anything. And the underlying metallic twang doesn’t really help him either. If he didn’t know any better, he’d say it smells like blood.

A lump of slushy snow breaks under his foot as he’s hurrying across the soddy and wet asphalt to where Francis is waiting for him by the doors.
He steps aside for a woman and a man, allowing them more space to exit and Alfred shakes his foot of the slush.
His foot is wet.
He probably had a better option than to wear sneakers in weather like this, and yet he did not take it.

“Arthur was right.” Francis huffs. “You really are not all there.”

“What?” Alfred stumbles to follow, blasted by the fans of the gangway.

He looks down with a grimace. The floormat is completely soaked.

“What was that?”

“It doesn’t matter. Look for Parsley, leeks, potatoes, tomatoes-”

“Isn’t it easier if I just take a look at the shopping list?” Alfred asks, finally grabbing hold of the side of the cart and walking along.
They enter into the fresh produce first, and Alfred grabs a net of onions as they pass them and place them into the cart.
Francis clicks his tongue mildly. “I don’t have a shopping list. I have it in my head.”

“Okay, well, onions are never off the table. What about mushrooms and lemon and stuff?” He asks, pointing towards a small basket of honey melon. “We could eat that dish where you put ham around-”

“Why don’t you go get what you think you need, then I will grab what I need, and we will be done with this faster.”

A shopper presses past them and Alfred steps back slightly. Francis seems like he’s in a rush somehow and his tone sounds hard-pressed trying not to snap. His face looks smoothed over in an active attempt to look pleasant and Alfred shies away from it enough to agree.
It seems to be a relief, and Francis leaves the cart for him to drive, before he moves swiftly onwards.
Alfred looks after him with a sour taste in his mouth to accompany the lingering smell in his nose.
Something’s definitely up. But as much as he’s curious to figure out what, he’s not really in the mood to care.

Slowly, he begins to grab vegetables he’s seen in Arthur’s fridge before, as well as more vegetables he’s pretty sure Arthur’s never even considered eating in his entire life.

He finds a few fruits he imagines would be nice to snack on, albeit his appetite isn’t stellar, so he doesn’t grab a lot. Just the standards, before he’s moving onto other sections, all the while keeping an eye out for Francis.
The frenchman comes over to him when Alfred reaches the canned food section, with items that seem entirely disjointed from each other and many that he can’t imagine would ever go well together.

He doesn’t get to comment on it before Francis is off again.

Alfred continues scanning for food he doesn’t feel like eating. It’s hard to shop for dinner without an appetite, he thinks, then sighs.
It’s hard to shop for dinner in general.
He doesn’t recall the last time he actually cooked any. He hasn’t had time or energy, and he absolutely did not have the space to do it.'

He winces inwardly and leans forwards onto the handlebar.

Apropos, the rot that sticks to his nose reminds him of his own kitchen.

He can imagine the metallic undertone and the source of it by the image of his own hand lying limply in front of him. It churns the last crumbs of appetite he might have had to dust and he swallows back nausea.
There’s no use in going around actually shopping anymore, he might as well just tail Francis and get home. Maybe to lie down or have some water.
He for sure isn’t feeling very well anymore.

Francis is looking thoughtfully between two different cuts of the same meat.
Deep red, with white tendons and ligaments, with blood lying pooled and condensed within the packaging.
Alfred feels lightheaded as he comes to a stop right by him. He leans heavily on the cart and rubs at his eyes uncomfortably.

Francis places the winner cut of pork among the vegetables and fruits, and joins it with more meat that Alfred pointedly looks away from.
He can only smell blood now.

“Hey, uh, Francis?”

“What is it?” Francis asks impatiently. He looks across to him, expression falling ever so slightly into concern.

“Are you okay?” He asks, slower and more deliberate this time.

Alfred nods. He gives a thumbs up and flashes a smile he hopes is somewhat normal-looking.
Francis doesn’t look convinced.

“I’m awesome, I just need to call Arthur real quick. Gotta ask him if he needs anything, you know he’s super picky about stuff.”
Francis doesn’t look convinced, and he actually looks like he’s about to intervene when Alfred hurriedly steps back and walks away to take shelter among the aisles.

The phone rings five or six times before Arthur groggily comes through the phone.

“Yes?”
Alfred stands hunched down, one arm wrapped around his middle, trying not to speak too loudly.

“Hey man, just calling to ask if you need anything?”

Arthurs grunts from the other end. “You woke me up to ask me something Francis would know?”
Alfred closes his eyes for patience and starts pacing by the instant noodles. “I guess.”

“I’m alright, thank you. Talk to you when you’re home-”

“Are you sure there’s nothing?”

Arthur pauses.

“...Yes, Alfred. I’m sure.”

The pause continues with neither Alfred nor Arthur saying anything. Neither hang up, and Alfred’s chewing on the inside of his cheek, waiting for Arthur to get the hint.

“Well, if that was all.” Arthur says and Alfred’s stomach drops. “We’ll talk when you’re back home. Bye.”

The line is hung up and Alfred looks at his phone scornfully. He still feels gross and stuffy, and really, he doesn’t know what he expected.
Maybe the same reaction that Francis had to him. But maybe that doesn’t carry through over the phone.
Francis is waiting by the cash register for him and Alfred joins back up with an apologetic smile. “He didn’t need anything.” He says.
Francis eyes him suspiciously. He scans his face, clearly gives him an entire once over. “I could have told you that.”

“Can never be too sure!”

Francis loads the conveyor belt and Alfred gets the bags. He focuses on anything that isn’t his nose. Focuses on his hands packing milk and yogurt, cooking cream, cans and tins, pointedly being quick about tossing the meat more haphazardly into the bags last.

“Go ahead.” Francis tells him on their way out. “I forgot- I forgot the biscuits. I’ll be quick!”

He rushes back in and Alfred pushes the cart towards the car unthinkingly.
The bags load themselves into the trunk. The cart returns itself across the slushy, wet and patchy parking lot to the cart shed, and Alfred’s sitting and waiting in the passenger seat listening to the wind and the cars. Watching the sky and jumping his leg like he’s running from something.

The car door opens and jars him enough that he makes a full body jolt towards the window.

Francis drops a packet of oreos into Alfred’s lap and settles himself into the driver’s seat with a sigh and a single hand adjusting his hair.

“That is for you.” Francis gestures towards the oreos with one hand, as he buckles in with the other.

Alfred turns the packet around a bit. Surprised and only mildly suspicious.

“Thanks. But, I didn’t ask for anything.”

“I know.” Francis says.

He turns the engine on and checks the mirrors.
The car groans unhealthily and Francis curses as he forcefully releases the parking brake.

“Should I pay for my part of the groceries-”

“Of course not. You’re on holiday, enjoy it.” Francis backs them out gracefully, looking all around, before he gives Alfred a small reassuring smile. He looks back ahead, and Alfred leans back heavier into the seat.

“Are you okay?” Francis asks again, as they return to the road.

It’s an innocent enough question. Oddly perceptive as well. “I just need something to eat.” Alfred sighs. He can’t fathom the idea of food, and it’s a blatant lie that Francis accepts at face value.

“We will make something when we get home then.”

Alfred nods. “Yeah, sounds good.”

—

Alfred and Francis come home in an odd mood, Arthur notes.

He looks up from the couch as they enter. Both their faces are tense in each of their own ways.

Alfred beelines for the bathroom after tossing a pack of biscuits and two bags onto the kitchen counter and Francis stacks his own bags of groceries on the dinner table before he’s heading for the bedroom with a suspicious attempt at hiding his hand from view.

“Francis?” He calls. He gets up from the couch and makes his way over to the open door.

Francis is unpacking his luggage hurriedly in search of something. He rummages through a brown toiletry bag. Checking between the tubes and tubs of cream and whatever else, before stamping it useless and moving on.

He checks a smaller shoulder-strap bag. Checks all the rooms like a madman, grimacing in frustration at the fruitless pursuit of something.
Arthur eyes his hands. How one in particular only searches with two fingers, and he squints enough at it to notice an unopened pack of cigarettes clutched within it.

“I thought you quit.” He remarks.

Francis looks up momentarily. Guilitly hissing through his teeth. “Don’t start.”
He casts his eyes back down on what he’s doing to avoid looking him in the eye, and Arthur leans sideways into the doorframe with crossed arms.
Arthur doesn’t say anything, but watches with amusement as the bigger bag offers no more answers than the toiletry bag did, and is harshly abandoned with a hissed curse.

There is one last bag to check, it seems, and that sits on the floor.
So does Francis, the second he notices there are more places to search.

“I haven’t started anything.”

“I know what you want to say.” Francis presses in defeat. “And I know. I am not happy about it either.”

“You made it a full 2 years.”

“And it was the hardest 2 years of my modern life! How can you blame me in these distressing times? Never have I had to deal with this many things at once. It’s a nightmare.” Francis blubbers dramatically. He throws a hand to his forehead in distress, the most irritating thing being the fact he isn’t doing it in exaggeration.

“I’m well aware.” Arthur says flatly.

Francis finally closes his hand around something his eyes say might be the item he’s searching for.
He pulls it out, ready for a triumphant catch, just to be bitterly disappointed to find that it is a small, empty tin of mints.

It’s not exactly the answer he’d been hoping to find and Francis covers his face with both hands. Pack of cigarettes pressed up against his cheek along with the empty box of mints in his desperate need to hide himself from the shame.

Arthur looks on.

Watches the entire circus of bags and small shampoos and conditioners scattered around the bed and the floor, before he pushes off the doorframe and walks across to the nightstand that Francis usually uses.

He slides the drawer open and grasps hold of the one thing Francis swore he’d leave here, to keep his own word.
But Arthur never really cared what he chose to do, it’s Francis’ own principles he’s tossing out. And given the situation, it’s not something he’s going to deny him.

He understands.

They’re all under pressure. More or less, it doesn’t really matter, they each cope in their own ways, and if Francis wants to smoke for a time, Arthur can’t say he sees an issue with it as long as he doesn’t smoke indoors.

“Here.”

Francis looks up, sliding his clenched hands down his face to make eye contact with the lighter held down at him.
He looks tiredly up at Arthur, before slowly reaching for it.

“Merci, mon coeur. Mon petit papillon. L’amour de ma vie.”

Arthur waves him off.

“No need for all that. Just don’t smoke inside, it’s tasteless.”

“Of course.” Francis hums. “I’m sorry.”

“Are you apologizing to me or yourself?” Arthur asks.

Francis places the mint tin to the side and stands. He brushes off his knees.

“Both?”

“There’s nothing to apologize to me for.” He soothes. “Afterall, it wasn’t me that asked you to quit. That was all you.”

“Ah. But that was a version of me that was not drowning in all kinds of problematic politicians and people being dissatisfied about everything.”

Arthur hums in agreement.

There’s not much else he can do, he already knows. He gets it.

Francis is the only person being harsh about it and even then, there ought to be some sort of sense within him to see it’s perfectly understandable. They’re eternal, and Francis has tried to quit many, many times before. And in Arthur’s mind, he’s succeeded several times, by not smoking for 20-30 years at a time. He would call that quitting and starting anew later on.

The times he succeeded in quitting, he always had a full pack and a lighter at hand.
He always liked to have the opportunity if he felt the need too strong. To have control.
He said the inability to live out his urges made him want it more than if it was right at his fingertips.
That having the pack made it a choice, rather than a condition.*
Arthur’s never been hooked on smoking, so he can’t say for sure which is best, but he assumes whatever works, works.

Francis certainly finds meaning in it, so what’s the harm?

“Is it Winston?”

Francis looks down and shakes his head. “Marlboro.”

“Starting out heavy, are we?”

“It has been a really frustrating season, Arthur.”

Francis begins walking towards him slowly. He runs one hand down his arm, caressing his forearm slightly before he passes him by towards the back entrance. “I don’t know what I will make for dinner.” Francis sighs. “I will think of something.”

“As long as I don’t need to figure it out, take all the time you need. I feel a headache coming on.”

Francis smiles at him reassuringly before he leaves.

Arthur looks about at the mess and sighs.

Not his job to clean.

He’ll have to pester the frog about it before bed later.

—

Alfred trudges up the stairs to the 2nd floor guestroom. The wood creaks heavily beneath his feet. He runs a hand over his face.

The nasty smell in his nose has gone away finally, and it only took a very long shower and a lot of water to get rid of it entirely. He feels totally hammered though. He feels as if he’s been turned inside out, all of his insides splayed out everywhere.

“Arthur asked me to bring you this.” Alfred says.

He enters politely through the door to the guest room; Assigned ownership by Matthew from way before Alfred reentered the old man’s life. Stories of times he wasn’t there to witness, written on the small marks on the floor, the wooden beams, the color of the paint.

It’s reminiscent of lace curtains in a log cabin.
Looking at Matthew’s luggage, Alfred imagines the smell of varnish.

“Oh.” Matthew reaches out and accepts the small plate with fruit.

His nails are cut too short and he eyes the fruit with a bitter smile pulling the corners of his lips up. A look of silent resignation crosses his eyes before he looks back at Alfred.

“Thanks.” He says.

“You’re welcome.” Alfred replies.

Matthew steps away and places the fruit on the empty nightstand.
The room is small, but barren, safe for the essential bed and dresser, the nightstand and a few lamps.
The window is uncovered. The landscape outside is white and snowy, glimmering under ambivalent weather and a darkening sky.
A forest lies nestled among the landscape a bit aways, bordering the coast.

Matthew stands in the middle of the floor, as barren as the room.

His complexion is pale, he always loses color from october through february and he seems to ice over the same way his lakes do.
Alfred can only stand and watch him restlessly. He has no clue where to start thawing the ice. And he has a feeling he would get frostbite if he tried.
And yet, awkwardly, he gestures towards Matthew’s luggage. It looks messy. Half-unpacked, strewn among itself, pulled out and put back in.

“Need help unpacking?”

The place needs personability. It needs something to make it look lived in.
The barren walls and the empty floor makes him feel queasy. The bed neatly made. The pillows look ornamental.

Matthew looks over at his messy suitcase.

“No, it’s alright.” He says reassuringly and turns a smile towards him that reaches nowhere near his eyes. “I got it.”

His tone is even and his voice is cool. He steps over to unzip a sports bag and Alfred lifts a hand to scratch at his neck.

“Cool. Awesome. Holler if you need anything.”

Matthew waves at him, a smile still etched crudely onto his face. “Thank you, Al.”
Alfred nods and exits into the hallway, closing the door after him with a soft click that feels strange.

The hallway runner meets him with indifference. His stomach is tight, he feels disappointment clogged in his chest and he rubs at his neck with worried brows. Unsure why he suddenly feels like he’s done something wrong.


—

He goes and finds Arthur in the kitchen making another fruit plate.

He’s peeling an apple. The skin sprawls in spirals by his hand.
Pliable at the knife’s edge, teasing towards the ample skin of Arthur’s thumb.
Alfred is momentarily gripped by the anxiety that drips crimson from a blade and he gets a whiff of the metal he smelled earlier.

He stops approaching and rests uneasily in the doorway and Arthur turns to look at him.

“Did he take it?” He asks.

Outside, the snow glows beneath dusk. Stars twinkling above.
Alfred settles against the counter by the sink.

“He put it on the nightstand.”

“Well, at least he didn’t refuse it.” Arthur sighs and holds out an apple. “Here. You peel one too. For yourself.”

“I’m not hungry.” Alfred says but takes the apple. He fishes out a vegetable knife from the cutlery drawer. The silverware clinks together at the disturbance. “And we’re eating dinner soon, anyway.”

He sets the blade to the apple with twitching fingers. He’ll peel and cut it and save it for later, maybe.

“There’s always room for an apple.” Arthur says. “Think of it as an appetizer.”

The skin feels rubbery when Alfred touches it.

“Fruit does a great job at getting your stomach going.”

Alfred begins to peel.

He watches himself thumb the edge of the knife, the apple’s skin retreating as the crisp, white meat exposes itself beneath. “How was the nap earlier?” Alfred asks stiffly.

“It would have been better without being interrupted.”

Alfred pauses his peeling. A small spark twitching at his eye.

“I know you hate shopping, I just thought it would be easier to call you to be sure. And maybe if you weren’t up so late on your laptop, you’d sleep better.” Alfred says bitterly. He sounds like he’s parotting Arthur himself and he purses his lips in distaste.

“What’re you doing on it anyway?”

Arthur’s movements stutter for a moment and the long, continuous string of apple skin breaks onto the kitchen counter. It lands with a wet flop and Arthur clears his throat, before he moves the apple skin to the trash. He doesn’t look at him at any point in time during his pause and Alfred watches his movements closely.

“It’s overtime.” He admits. “Left over work I never caught up on that I thought I’d get through for the new year.”

Alfred raises his brow skeptically.

“Isn’t that exactly what you told me not to do? Why can you work on holidays when I can’t?”
Arthur begins to peel the remainder of the apple. He places it onto a cutting board and puts the knife at the top.

“Because I don’t kill myself in order to finish it.”

The ball in his chest sinks in time with the apple splitting in half. It rolls limply on the cutting board.
Arthur cuts it up into sections and Alfred slowly directs his focus back to his own fruit.
There’s a cut at his finger and he removes the knife from it’s job with surprise. The blood paints the white underbelly of the apple the same color it had before it was skinned and he steps off to hold his finger and the apple under running water.

“Hypocrite.” He mutters.

Arthur places his slices of apple onto a plate while Alfred continues peeling his own apple under the faucet.
Arthur procures a small tub of sugar and a fruit fork.

“There’s a plaster in the bathroom cupboard upstairs.”

Alfred turns the water off.
His finger is still bleeding and the apple is bare.
He places it to the same cutting board Arthur had used and takes the bigger knife to butcher it.

“Yeah.” He says. “Thanks.”

Alfred slices through the fruit in a single cut, the knife’s edge thumping heavily against wood; Like an ax, burying itself into a stump.

—

Alfred eats his apple on the couch with a plaster on his finger and static at the back of his mind.*
He doesn’t know why nobody else is finding the space emptier than it’s supposed to be.
Francis is half-asleep, leaning sideways onto Arthur.

The room is warm.
They’re watching an episode on screen of an elderly woman’s hand being forced onto a hot plate and Arthur’s watching it intently with his arms crossed over his front.

Alfred directs his attention towards the stairs, away from the scene.

He wonders about Matthew.
Wonders if he ate the fruit.
Wonders if he got his things unpacked properly.

Midsomer Murders chimes its theme song as Barnaby walks across a gravelly driveway on screen and Alfred breathes in and rises. Arthur eyes him, eyes directed instantly in his direction, Francis’ own confused ones following suit.

“Going to bed?” Arthur asks quietly.

Alfred considers it for a moment.
The howling and moaning, the shadows and the feeling of eyes watching him from every single corner of the house.
He thinks about the woman’s hand on the hot plate and squirms inwardly at the skin that stuck to the plate. He thinks about the cut on his finger.

“Checking on Matthew.” He decides.

Arthur looks at his wrist watch. “He’s asleep by now.” He utters. “What do you need him for?”

“I just wanna check if he needs anything.” Alfred continues. “It’s fine if he’s sleeping. I won’t wake him.”

Arthur hums, then nods. “Any qualms about your own bedtime?”
Alfred doesn’t wanna think about it. If he ignores it hard enough, maybe he won’t even need to sleep at all. “I’m not tired.” He lies.

Arthur looks right through him, in the way Alfred wishes he did through the phone earlier.

“Do you need me to sleep on the floor with you for another night?”

“It’s fine-”

“Yes or no?”

The wind isn’t as bad as it was the previous night and yet Alfred swallows.
The fireplace is dancing warmly a few feet away and the guest mattress Arthur slept on the night prior is nearby.

He begins to back up and away, in the direction of the stairs. “‘Yes’…”

Arthur gives him a thumbs up. “One hour.” He says and turns back to the television.
Francis mutters something to him and Alfred turns, ignoring how much he feels like a child.

—

Alfred stands silently outside Matthew’s room.

No light or sound comes from within and Matthew’s no doubt asleep.
He grimaces at his own shadow falling on the wood. He doesn’t feel like he’s in on the joke.
There’s never been any reason to check in on Matthew, even if he’d been awake.

Alfred just doesn’t feel like he understands the situation well enough to stay away. He doesn’t know what kind of deal Arthur has with him, but he doesn’t think Matthew being alone is a great idea when he looks like shit the way he does.
There’s an air of confidentiality between Matthew and Arthur in the ways they communicate wordlessly.

The fruit, the smile, the underlying bitterness that Matthew oozes unapologetically whenever they talk. Like he’s here against his will, as if he couldn’t just have chosen not to come.

It’s not strange that he’s annoyed about Alfred being there. That was never a surprise.
But he doesn’t like the camaraderie with Arthur that Alfred isn’t in on.
As if he’s being estranged or kept out of getting through the skin.

Quietly, Alfred pushes the door open.

The door handle is slightly loose and jingles softly at the intrusion. He casts his eyes to the bed to check for movement.

Nothing.

Matthew lies on his side, back to the door, fast asleep.
The foot of the bed where the suitcase stood is still clear.
Luggage still not fully unpacked, safe for toiletries and a towel.

Alfred takes a cautious step through the threshold.

The plate of fruit on the nightstand is eaten.
Standing on the edge, pushed aside for Matthew’s phone and a glass of water. Half drunk. A small packet of aspirin lies tucked beneath the porcelain rim of the plate.

Alfred presses his lips into a line.
Things are off.
More off than usual and with careful steps, Alfred sneaks closer.
The feeling in his sternum is back.

Matthew’s face is peaceful when he approaches.
His glasses placed neatly beside his pillow, he lies only half-covered by the duvet and it reminds him of his own first night in England.
Jetlagged, sick and exhausted, he hadn’t even had the energy to get out of his clothes.

Alfred leans back slightly.

Matthew’s still in the clothes he arrived in.

He breathes out through his nose and leans forwards. Arm outstretched, his hand lands securely on Matthew’s shoulder before he has time to think about what he’s doing.
His brother stirs, turns and opens his eyes to look at him, but gains little insight through the dark - Blind without his glasses, he squints confused up at him.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to wake you.” Alfred begins. Matthew’s face instantly schools itself, and he reaches for his glasses.

“Just thought you might wanna get out of your clothes and stuff. Sucks to wake up in jeans, trust me.”
Matthew blinks blearily and slowly pushes his duvet aside.

He’s still wearing his belt and socks, even. His feet reach the floor and he rubs his eyes tiredly while Alfred reaches his hand over to grab the empty plate from the nightstand.

“Did Arthur send you?” Matthew asks hoarsely.

He sounds terrible. Alfred looks at him and smiles. Just a peg, not so dazzling.
He doesn’t have much to smile about, maybe it’s just a habit.

“Nah. Just felt like dropping in.”

Matthew doesn’t seem to fully understand that and Alfred isn’t about to repeat himself.

He doesn’t know why he checked in.
He just doesn’t feel like it’s fair he’s being left out of the game or that Matthew’s holing himself up like some type of hermit.

“Anyway… G’night, then.” He says, retreating back towards the hallway with the plate.

“See ya tomorrow.”

He leaves the door ajar behind him.

The sound of it being pushed shut reaches him once he’s on the stairs.

—

“So he did eat the fruit then.” Arthur notes upon his return.

Alfred places the plate in the sink and rinses it off.
Francis brushes his teeth in front of the television, one hand at his hip, he’s half asleep on his feet.

“Yeah. He was asleep, so I thought I’d get the plate.”

“Good lad. Some sleep will do him good.” Arthur says.

Midsomer murders are still ongoing and the candles lit on the dining room table are blown out as Arthur pushes in the chairs.

“Is he like, doing alright?” Alfred asks finally.

Arthur looks up at him and nods, confused. “Yes? Probably a bit knackered, but who isn’t this time of year.”
Alfred reaches for a towel. “Sure, but is he though? Like, he looks like crap.”

“It’s not my place to say.” Arthur says. His tone becomes more secretive than it had been.
“He needs as much rest as he can get.”

It finalizes the conversation. Ends the possibility of questioning, and Alfred’s drying the plate off and putting it back where it belongs.
“Could at least check up on him or something.” Alfred mutters bitterly.

”He’s a grown man, Alfred. If there’s something he needs from me, I trust that he’ll ask.”

Francis walks past and catches Alfred’s eye.
His face is unreadable, but he glances briefly to Arthur before looking back at him.

He disappears into the bathroom and Alfred dries his hands in a teatowel.

Feeling put out, he decides to set up the couch for another camp in the living room with Arthur.

—

Alfred lies awake on the couch most of that night. The shadows are playing tricks by the fireplace again and Arthur’s snoring less than he did the night previous.

He glances restlessly at the windows. Glimpses of stars peek out through a thin cover of clouds.

He begins to think about the upcoming christmas.

He’s gotten Arthur something, but he didn’t know Matthew or Francis would be here too and it feels pretty awkward to be giving gifts to only one person, especially when he doesn’t know for sure if they’ve gotten gifts for him.
But he doesn’t know what Francis wants. He doesn’t know if Matthew even wants anything.

He’s never really had a wishlist, so he’s only ever gotten him cookbooks or gift cards to random places he’s sort of guessed he shops at.
Like fancy boho coffee shops and hunting stores.

He looks back up at the ceiling. He doesn’t even know if he likes fancy coffee, but who doesn’t like fancy coffee?

His stomach feels strange. Like it’s trying to eat itself.
There’s something palpably heavy over the darkness that night, even the sound of wind would be welcome to the oppressive nothing that penetrates throughout the house.

He sits up with a quiet sigh and runs his hands down his face.

He feels sick.

The dinner from earlier threatens to make a reappearance and he closes his eyes against it and swallows it back the best he can. Ignoring how that seems to make it worse.

Maybe if he rides it out it’ll be fine, it usually is fine. The image of his thumb bleeding springs back to mind and it replays at a molecular level. The feeling of splitting apart, he springs his eyes open to rid himself of it.

Maybe he should go into town and see if there’s any cookbooks for sale. Maybe they have authentic, small-english-port-town coffee he can get a bag of.

Maybe…

Alfred pulls the blanket off of himself and sits on the edge of the couch to rest his head in his hands. Cold sweat gleams on his face and his neck and he swallows. He sighs in trepidation when the smell of rot returns.

Maybe if he got something different this year.
It’s a special year, afterall, not necessarily in a good way, but it’s been a long time since he spent Christmas with Arthur and Matthew.

And Francis, he supposes.

He blows air out in a stream and sniffs. His vision is turning spotty.

He begins to jump his leg to get the blood flowing, but it doesn’t help.
He turns back to the pillow and lays his head down onto it when the room starts spinning.

His body is restless, he feels cold and too hot, while he sweats through tremors.
He’s growing tired of random bursts of dizziness.

Since the subway incident they’ve become more and more common. Every other day, he’s getting dizzy and sitting down wherever he happens to be and it’s embarrassing.

He lies sideways for a while and inhales the laundry detergent on the pillow case, the rot that hangs in his nose still present, but lessened and he focuses on the room; on Arthur on the floor. The feeling of corduroy against his fingertips, where his fingers reach the part of the couch uncovered by the bedsheet.

He stops shivering, his breathing evens out, and he swallows back bile pressing up his throat and wills himself not to throw up.
The shadows laugh at him and this is probably the time to wake up Arthur, isn’t it?

He can’t make him magically better though, and he’s already done what he could. And what he could do, was a long-term solution that doesn’t help him right here and right now.

It’s completely normal, Arthur’s doctor echoes in his head.

It’s normal to become sick or bedridden for a while after a long ordeal of stress. You’re likely going to experience a bit of physical discomfort for a while, so make sure to take extra good care of yourself this christmas.

Alfred swallows yet again and lifts a hand to cover his mouth. Normal or not, it doesn’t make it less unpleasant and it doesn’t help him get any sleep either.

He doesn’t wake Arthur in the end.

He just remains horizontal, until he drifts off in the cold early hours of the morning.

—

The chirp of a robin from the garden stirs him back awake and Alfred grunts. He feels a twitch go through the entire length of him, as his eyes fly open and he scans the living room like he’s checking for danger.
He’s met by a dead fireplace and the usual smell of carpet and wood. The walls and corners are as they have always been. The light fixtures are still old, the lamps that hang and stand still riddled with dust Arthur has yet to clean.

He untenses, rolls onto his back and closes his eyes for a moment to collect himself.

The nausea still swims in his stomach and he breathes deeply to not disturb it, as wakefulness slowly brings him back to life.
He opens his eyes and glances towards the mattress where Arthur’s supposed to be sleeping. He finds it empty.

Nothing has been put away or folded like it usually is. The blanket is rumpled and Alfred swallows against his own grogginess before he painstakingly slowly pushes himself into a sitting position and rubs his nose with a sniff.

The house is quiet, the weather outside is still and clear, and Alfred watches the sky in its own dawning hour and finds comfort in how little there is for him to think about.

He goes through a sort of routine, once he’s up. Starting in the bathroom, he brushes his teeth and looks for too long in the mirror at the way his hair is growing long around his ears and slopes down his neck. He washes his face, goes about his business and moves onto the kitchen for water.

It’s cold. He feels the way it runs down his throat and into his stomach, chills his insides all the way and he shudders uncomfortably.

Arthur’s still nowhere to be seen.

He looks curiously out through the kitchen window and spots the rising smoke of a cigarette, accompanied by Francis huddled outside.
He paces the front of the kitchen window slowly, presumably because of the cold, and Alfred squints suspiciously.

He didn’t know he was still smoking, but at least he’s kicked the habit of doing it inside. All the world meetings with him and a handful of others smoking up the entire meeting room in the 90s comes to mind and how gross sitting in what could well be described as a corporal hotbox was.

Setting his empty glass into the sink, Alfred moves to investigate further.

He steps into a random pair of boots, hauls on whatever jacket is available to him and forces the door open with a harsh shove.
Francis immediately turns to look at him. Nose red from the chill and Alfred eyes him as he steps down.

“Good morning.” He says stiffly.

Francis moves the cigarette slightly out of the way and Alfred huffs inwardly. At least he knows it’s gross.

“Bonjour.”

“Not having a morning coffee with that?” Alfred gestures to the smoke and Francis glances down before sighing.

“I am trying not to make a habit out of it.” He says regrettably.
Ashing into a napkin, Alfred comes to stand beside him with a significant gap in between.

“Uh huh. And how’s that going for you?”

“It was going pretty well, actually.”

Alfred hums and crosses his arms. He doubts it.

Birds flock a small handful of seeds on top of the garden set. It stands beneath a plum tree, not as cool looking in winter, but definitely something he’d be sitting under during the summer. He imagines the mess of fruit on the ground. He’s looking forward to summer.

Francis takes another drag of smoke.
He turns a side eye towards him, before pointedly looking away.

“Christmas in two days.” Alfred says conversationally.

Francis exhales.
“Are you looking forward to it?” He asks, but he doesn’t sound all that interested.

Alfred shrugs.

“A little.” He replies. “What are you getting for Arthur?”

“I won’t tell you.” Francis says.

“It will not be a surprise anymore if I do.”

“I can keep a secret.”

“I am not taking my chances.”

“Hey! I can.”

The frenchman huffs and stubs out his cigarette against the underside of his shoe. He holds the bud in his palm, and stands quietly for a second with him. The sun slaves beyond the horizon, stars still sprinkled across the dawning sky.

“Speaking of, where is Arthur? He’s usually up around this time.”

“He’s in bed with a headache.” Francis explains somberly. “He did not talk much, so it’s a bad one.”

Alfred worries his brows. “Is he alright?”

“He isn’t speaking, so I don’t think so.” Francis says.

The cold morning feels refreshing enough that Alfred sighs through his nose.
Arthur’s been there for him for so long, that it feels petty if he doesn’t return the sentiment, even just a little. He could make him a plate of fruit or a cup of tea or something.
He’ll maybe have to google what’s good for a migraine, he can’t remember ever having had one that wasn’t spurred on by something. Like being hit in the head.

“I’m gonna go check on him-”

“Don’t.” Francis grabs him by the arm to stop him and Alfred whirls around in surprise. “Don’t check on him. He’s evil when he’s like this. He will be out when he’s doing well enough.”

Alfred frowns indignantly. “We’re just gonna leave him on his own like that?”
Francis nods. “Oui. It’s for the best. For you and me - And for him.”

“How’s it best for him that he’s in there by himself?”

Francis clicks his tongue at him. Clearly frustrated, as if Alfred’s not quite getting it.
The feeling of being left out returns and it sours him further.
He rips his arm free and steps up to the back door, that binds when he presses his shoulder against it.

“It will stress him even more when there are people trying to talk with him!” Francis argues.
Alfred waves him off and shoulders his way inside. The warmth fogs up his glasses, and he spends the time stepping out of his boots to clear them.
He wanders inside with his jacket still on. Through the kitchen and the living room, beelining for Arthur’s bedroom.

The door is closed. Visitors are unwelcome, and yet he pushes the door open and peeks his head in regardless.

The room is dark. The blinds are drawn and the air feels oppressive. Slightly chilly and dry, it smells like an empty, defrosted freezer.

“Arthur?”

He receives no reply. The only indication of life being the controlled breathing of the figure that lies stiffly on top of the covers.
Confused, Alfred steps inside and makes his way around to the side of the bed Arthur’s lying on.
He’s on his side, one arm covering his eyes, the other resting down along his side.

The duvet covers him only partly and he’s half-way dressed for the day in a short sleeved shirt and a sweater that lies on top of him, yet to be put on. He’s still only in his slacks and he’s without socks. Alfred presses his lips together thoughtfully.

“Dude?” He tries quietly.

There’s a twitch in Arthur’s face, and he stirs. Sorely moving his arm from in front of his eyes, and forcing only one open a crack to look at him.
It takes a moment of Arthur looking like he’s gathering the strength to say something, but is interrupted, it seems, by a flare up and whatever noise that was meant for words comes out in a painful grunt.

He moves as if he’s writhing, Alfred thinks with discomfort, to press his eyes back into the nook of his arm, the other pressing into a fist for the duration of whatever wave of pain has gripped him.
It takes a moment before he breathes again. Alfred hadn’t even realized he’d held it.

And for a few, eternal moments of watching Arthur force some semblance of control back into himself, he unfurls the hand he’s clenched down along his side, and he points towards the window.

Alfred looks in the pointed direction curiously.

“Do you want me to open it?”

He receives a thumbs up in return and he does as asked. He opens it only a little, struggling to maneuver around the latch without letting in too much light from the blinds.

Cold air pools along his hand and he makes his way back to squat down by Arthur’s bedside.
He’s breathing again, in an obvious box pattern and his hand has clenched into a fist again.

Alfred thinks on it for a moment. Watching Arthur’s face half obscured and the part that isn’t, very obviously pinched.

He recalls Arthur pressing a cold hand to his own face when he was out for the count back in November and awkwardly, Alfred experimentally moves his hand up and places the back of his fingers flat to the part of Arthur’s face that isn’t pressed into an arm.

It lands on Arthur’s cheek and he jolts. Arm springing away from his face, he looks disoriented across the bed to Alfred and squints at him with a confused frustration that he doesn’t seem to know what to do with.

Alfred keeps his hand on his cheek and moves it upwards to Arthur’s forehead now that he’s dropped his arm enough for him to do so.

He’s warm, but not warm-warm.

Which is a surprise, with how stiff and clenched up he is.
Arthur’s eyes shut as quickly as they’d flown open. He grabs Alfred’s wrist and pulls his hand off, before he places it instead to the back of his neck and let’s go.
Alfred’s keeps it there, only adjusting slightly so he’s pressing the coldest part first.

Arthur places his arm back over his eyes for the third and final time and breathes out a long, strained breath.
Alfred stays there for long enough that his legs start to fall asleep. He switches hands twice, until they’re not cold anymore.

He isn’t sure whether to leave though, but he doesn’t have to wonder for long before the breaths Arthur has been gradually deepening mouths out into a few, hoarse sentences.

“Alfred?”

“Yeah, dude?”

A deep breath that goes all the way down his body powers the strength Arthur uses to remove Alfred’s hand and pushes it back to himself. “Fuck off.”

Alfred leans back, offended, but the delivery isn’t like it usually is, and sounds more like a plea than an attempt to be snarky.

Despite the offense, Alfred stands and stretches his legs out. He quietly murmurs out curses at the needles, pats at his legs and wriggles his toes to get through the worst of it.

Arthur remains deathly still and Alfred leaves as quietly as he’d entered.

—

He sits by the dinner table with Francis for breakfast.
The radio plays from a shelf in the kitchen, relaying domestic news that Alfred doesn’t have any business paying attention to.

Francis is reading in a newspaper and Alfred’s scrolling through his phone.

Neither say anything. Neither feel the need to, it’s just breakfast and the news. Arthur suffering quietly in the bedroom and Matthew presumably still asleep upstairs.

Alfred thinks back to the night previous.

Matthew does seem to need the sleep, he just hopes he’s actually getting the right kind of sleep and not just going unconscious for a week just to jumpstart himself like Alfred did.

He scrolls through gift ideas on pinterest, leaning more into the idea of making something himself.

It somehow seems like it would be more fun to give to someone, but the problem remains the same; That he has to admit, he has no clue what Matthew actually likes.
He thought he liked polar bears for a long time, and while he does like polar bears, it’s apparently not to a point where he appreciates everything being about polar bears.

“Shocker.” Alfred mutters, rolling his eyes at himself, and takes a bite of his toast.

He kept it plain, the nausea of the morning still hasn’t subsided entirely.

“Oui, British politicians are predictably stupid.” Francis chimes and Alfred looks up quizzically.

“What?”

“Weren’t you commenting on the radio?”

Alfred blinks, then rubs his nose bridge. “No. Sorry, I was just… Muttering… To myself.”
The allegations he has in his head of being crazy are becoming a little hard to beat and he chews his toast slowly and closes his phone for a mind break.

“Ah.” Francis looks back down at his newspaper, unimpressed. And somehow unsurprised. “Well, nevermind then.”

They fall back to silence.
The sun is fully risen now, glaring in through the kitchen and bathing the floor in warm sunlight. Alfred leans forwards and eyes the horizon.
It looks freezing out there, he thinks. From the morning, he’s sure it is freezing, too.

He turns to look at the radio casually. Listening in, it does paint a grim picture of the politicians actually. Not directly, but it’s implicit that things could be more… Uniform.

He finishes chewing his toast, and gestures towards Francis to get his attention. Needing a distraction.

“You talk with Matthew a lot, right?”

Francis meets his eyes and scratches his stubble a little self consciously. “Probably not as much as I should, but, yes? Why?”

“Could you help me with finding a gift for him? We’ll go into town or something.”

Francis’ eyes widen and he lowers the newspaper down to the table. “Are you crazy? Christmas is in two days, you don’t expect me to go into that madness with you?”

“Well… Kind of? You’re sorta the only guy here that’s good at giving gifts.” Alfred says.

Francis purses his lips at the flattery, but he folds his newspaper and sits back attentively regardless of the obvious bait held out in front of him.
“What are you thinking of getting for him?”

“I was thinking about something that he can’t get in other places. I need to step up my gift giving game, because I’ve never seen him use any of what I’ve gotten him over the years.”

Francis wrinkles his nose at him.

“You’re the one who keeps giving him cookbooks.”

Alfred cringes.

Francis frowns distastefully. “He doesn’t need cookbooks, he cooks by taste. He has always cooked by taste.”

Alfred frowns and sinks into his shoulders.

“Well, that explains why I’ve never seen them around.”

“But, if you insist on having insights into his life…” Francis muses. “He has recently become interested in bird watching.”

Alfred perks up. “Bird watching?”

“Oui. Bird watching. He got a pocket encyclopedia of birds from Jan.” Francis explains.

Alfred presses his lips together and Francis looks at him deadpan.

“Netherlands.”

“Right. Knew that-” he clears his throat. “I didn’t know they knew each other that well?”

There is a quiet realization crossing over Francis’ face then. Something like pity, maybe a bit of disbelief at the fact Alfred wasn’t in on that.

“Jan sends him flowers every year, Alfred. They have been close since the war.”

Alfred fights down his own surprise and lets the moment pass without a single word on his end.
He does remember something along those lines, but he didn’t know it was anything personal.
He also doesn’t really know why Matthew never told him… Or if he ever actually asked.

“What about getting him a pair of binoculars?” Francis chimes, smoothly changing the subject.

“Wouldn’t he already have those?”

Francis shrugs knowingly. “Maybe he only has a pair of old ones he doesn’t have the heart to replace despite how old and ugly they are.”

“You’re saying he needs a new pair but he’s too stingy to get new ones?”

“I am not, not saying that.”

The time rounds up to 10 am and Alfred crosses his arms.
It would be pretty cool to get him something he’ll use and appreciate for once. Maybe he’ll talk to him, too. Maybe he’ll talk to him about Jan more, that could be pretty cool.

He nods.

“Yeah, I’ll get him a pair of binoculars then.”

“Fantastic. Now you just need to figure out where you can find a pair of those with such short notice, and then you are good.”

“In town.”

Francis pushes his chair out to stand. “There is little to nothing out here, cheri. Good luck with that.”

“You’re coming with me, you know.”

“No, I am not.”

“I’ll tell Arthur you smoke-”

“Ha!” Francis whips around triumphantly and points a finger at him. “He already knows about-”

“Inside.”

Francis pauses. “But I did not-”

“It’s not hard to make it smell like it.” Alfred smirks.

Francis’ mouth falls open in indignation. “You would not.”

“I so would, dude. I so would.”

—

The wind breezes from the southeast. The ground is slippery and hilly, and finding a parking spot had been a pain only worth the reconciliation of the brotherly love that Alfred’s getting fomo on.

They’re descending a set of stone steps, down towards the main street.

The ground is barely cleared and the iron railing, covered in snow, has clear spots where people have scooped the snow off for fun or accessibility.
Despite the chill, gulls overhead hang ornamentally in the air. The sky spans wide and vast above, and if he tilts his head back subtly. Let his skull hit the base of his spine and look directly ahead, the blue will culminate in a richness akin to a gaping, empty abyss.

He keeps his head straight ahead, the ocean slowly falling out of sight the further down the go, until it’s obscured by buildings and Alfred shudders into his jacket.

The bandaid on his finger is peeling and he scratches at it mindlessly in his pocket.
Francis huddles into his three layers next to him, frowning, and glances angrily around the storefronts.

He spent half an hour putting on layers and making himself look presentable in them. Pointedly changing in the living room, in front of the tv screen as it was turned off, to avoid disturbing Arthur stewing in the darkness of the bedroom.

Alfred gives him points for thoughtfulness. Though he could’ve done without having to wait.

“Where are we looking?” Francis grits out. “It is freezing.”

The street they come down onto is very much not as sparse as Alfred might have thought it was.
He’d expected people, this close to the holidays, but he admittedly underestimated the amount of people by just taking the town’s size at face value.
Thinking about it, though, even Aldi had been pretty packed, for a small town.

Francis evades a couple walking towards them and Alfred walks closer to the wall.

“Maybe a huntsman store?”

“I don’t think you are going to find a hunting store that is open.”

“A fishing store then?”

Francis shoots him a look.

“I mean, it’s a harbor town? Isn’t it a bit of a requirement to sell fishing stuff?” He continues.

They walk past an open pizzaria. A smal, local one, with the smell of grease and oil wafting out warmly into the sunny street.
Alfred’s stomach churns uncomfortably and Francis straightens with a sigh.

“I think there is a fishing store down by the shore.” He says finally.
“Maybe they have fresh fish, too. Arthur likes to fry them.”
Alfred breathes in the fresh air once the pizzaria is passed. “You’re gonna fry fish for him? Why not just buy them fried?”

“They are not as good when they are not fresh. Fried things rarely are.”

“I mean… I guess, but nothing’s better than fresh.”

“Rice are.”

“Rice?”

Francis nods, but doesn’t otherwise elaborate. He just keeps walking along the street, looking out of place, yet much more fitting to the setting than Alfred.
It’s not really for sure he doesn’t fit in, he’s not walking or looking particularly different than any other guy, he just feels like he sticks out like a sore thumb.
Something about the place feels like it’s too small to fit him.
He feels like an elephant in a glass store at times. Particularly in places like this.

Small towns back home still hold him well, he knows how to integrate himself, he feels in the people the friendliness and fondness for what it is.

Here, he feels hard pressed to fit in. Something about his steps feels too loud, something about his posture is too wide.
Francis nudges him and they turn down through a small, cobbled alleyway. It leads to another small staircase and they descend it in silence.
Music wafts up through the streets. It echoes on the buildings, disappears up into the sky and the nearer they get, the more obvious it is that it’s coming from a pub.
Someone is playing a guitar and singing christmas carols. A small cassette sits in front of him, filled with holiday kindness.
They pass him down to where the masts of ships begin to appear between houses and small shops.

“Alfred, can I ask you something?” Francis says.

Alfred looks at him in question, squinting against the sun bearing down too close to the horizon.

“Why are you here?”

Alfred’s stomach twists. It was probably inevitable that he’d have to talk about it sooner or later. He knows Arthur’s already filled him in somewhat, but of how much, he isn’t sure.

And he isn’t actually sure if he thinks that’s okay.
Having to talk about it to Francis sure doesn’t feel great.

“I needed some time away.” He says vaguely.

Francis purses his lips. “Away from work?”

Alfred shrugs.

Francis continues. “But why with Arthur? I didn’t see you two talking any nicer to each other the past few months than usual, I can’t make sense of it.”

“Maybe you don’t need to make sense of it. Maybe there isn’t a reason.” He explains.

“And maybe I don’t know either, because why would I be running back to England after trying so hard to get away from him, right? How does that make sense?”

Francis opens his mouth to cut in, but Alfred doesn’t feel like he can stop it there. His hands glide free from his pockets without his bidding and he continues. Words streaming out like a waterfall.
The smell of rot returns, pungent and vile. The bitter sweetness of decay, the trash and fruit and moldy leftovers surrounds him.

Because no, if Francis wants to know, he should know. If Arthur’s just going to go and tell everybody how pathetic he’s been, then fine. That’s how it’ll be.

“Totally not because I had no say in it. I could’ve just went on with how it usually goes with this stuff. I could’ve just done my work. I could’ve just called Mattie, and chat about how awesome I think my job is and how awesome it feels to have so many people depend on me and ask me for favors and trusting me to handle everything - Because that does feel great!”

He laughs, despite himself, almost bordering on frantic. Francis is looking at him with a pinched face when Alfred turns to emphasize his point.

“So why did I go back here? I don’t know, dude! I don’t know, because I- I don’t- It doesn’t make sense that I’m here! I didn’t even know what I expected when I came here, I didn’t- I don’t think I thought about anything-”

“But then, did you stay because-”

“-Because I wasn’t turned away?” Alfred asks sharply.

Francis says nothing to that. He watches instead with a half wince and crosses his arms. He doesn’t look in any way how Alfred would expect him to.

He just looks on with sympathy.
Sympathy that looks an awful lot like pity.

“Or because I’m too lazy to go back to work? Choose your pick.”

Another pause hangs over them and Francis stops walking at a corner. The sun shines directly at it. Reflecting in the storefront windows and the snow banks that glitters, untouched, in the corners of the town.

Alfred stops a few steps ahead. His head is full of cotton, his chest is constricting.

“Alfred.”

Francis begins. He sounds exasperated. “You are the only person I know that would call you lazy.”

Alfred feels his thoughts fall flat on the ground.

“That’s not true, though. Like it seems to be the general consensus that I’m-”

“Let me tell you a secret.” Francis says. He reaches into a pocket and pulls out his pack of cigarettes and a lighter. Alfred watches in puzzled distaste, but inches closer anyway.

“The way you view yourself and the rest of us,” Francis begins. Putting the smoke between his teeth and lighting it swiftly.

“Is not very true to how it actually is, cheri. You look at all of us like old men. You see us as stupid and old fashioned, but you also see us as wise and as someone you need to impress.”

Alfred opens his mouth to cut in, but Francis holds up a stern hand to halt him. He blows smoke out to the side and gestures a finger towards him.

“We have all been young, Alfred. We have all tried to make ourselves look big and strong, and we all know what it’s like to want recognition and admiration from the people we secretly and shamefully admire. That is nothing new at all. And you are no different, no matter how much you tell yourself that you are, you are not.”

“I-”

“Non. Let me speak.” Francis takes a drag from his cigarette and repeats his motion from before.

“We do not think you are lazy and we do not think that you are stupid.” Francis presses and Alfred’s mouth dries out.

“Many of us admire you for your ideas and your innovation. You are strong, you are passionate, even if you are misguided.
And we can get very fussy about that misguidedness, because we miss being young and we miss the inspiration you young countries have.

But we also know, better than you, the ways the world can be cruel. That is why we are harsh and that is why we are critical. You are brilliant and you are respected. Do not doubt that we respect you.”

A car rumbles past on the street and Alfred draws his stiff shoulders further up towards his ears and stares as Francis smokes a cigarette on the corner of a building.
He stands there quietly with his head echoing the words and sounds around him and he casts his eyes around the place to try and reorient himself into reality. To try and make sense of everything around him, because he can’t figure out how to accept what he’s just been told.

He’s never felt very respected, he’s never really felt secure in his position and status; It’s always felt artificial and too large for him to hold. But holding any less, feels like falling behind a race he’s never felt able to keep up with anyway.

All his head can procure for him, is a mantra of It doesn’t feel true.

“And… It’s very few, if any of us, that feel like we know what we’re doing.” Francis adds. “We’re all unsure.”

Alfred looks back at him.

He looks sincere. Very sincere.

Alfred can’t really grasp a response, so he simply nods. Agrees because he doesn’t know what he would say in rebuttal, even if he tried.

The store that most closely resembles a shop with gear for outdoor activities is the shop they end up entering.

Fishing poles, hooks and waders are all good indicators of a store meant for fishing and the few sparse, miscellaneous items that seems entirely unrelated to fishing, adds to the overall impression of a store for literally anything.

Alfred wanders around looking at shelves full of fish food, bait and insects while Francis has gone off to speak with the store clerk, who replies quietly and in terrible spirits. He doesn’t sound particularly thrilled, and when Alfred’s decided he’s smelt enough of of the store further back, he goes up to adjoin Francis at the register.
A set of binoculars sit ready on the desk and Francis is examining them closely. Checking every si gle part of the things like he’s going to take it apart and reassemble it again and the clerk is watching him not-so-keenly, clearly irritated over the spectacle.

“What’cha doing?”

Francis places the binoculars down gently and frowns. “They are too small.”

“You just said the previous ones were too large.” The clerk complains. Francis waves it off dismissively. “Yes, and they were too large. They were way too clunky.”

Upon closer inspection, Alfred finds the binoculars he finds to be abnormally pretty. The steel frame work sits around sleek leather grips and a lax leather chord to keep it around the neck.
A small case sits empty in the side and Alfred steps close enough to touch.

“Can I look?” He cuts in.

The clerk eyes him and waves at them offhandedly. “Sure. Let loose, not like it’s gonna make him any happier.”

“Thanks.” Alfred smiles and lifts the set from the table to his eyes.

They have a good weight to them, a sort of sharp and quiet over them that he’d personally prefer over anything fancier.

Something he does know about Mattie is how little he cares about aesthetic when it comes to equipment of any kind and these binoculars are probably going to be the newest thing he’s had in decades.

Alfred lowers them back into his hands and fiddles with the adjustments. Weighs them in his hands and finds that they are collapsible.
He looks brightly at the store clerk and fishes his wallet out of his pocket.

“I’ll take ‘em.”

Francis gapes at him and the clerk seems to almost sigh a breath of relief, as he accepts them with a graceful nod and places them into the case and rings them up.

“They’re maneuverable and he can have them in his pocket.” Alfred says, before Francis has a chance to protest.

“Also there’s exposed steel and leather on it, so if he’s wearing gloves they won’t slip and they’ll be easier to clean.”

He pays and accepts the bag with the receipt. Francis doesn’t argue, other than expressing his distaste for the crudeness of the shape and the mismatch of the design and the colors.

Things Matthew won’t care about anyway.

They don’t talk on the way back.

The silence is palpably instigated from Alfred’s end and Francis simply upholds it for whatever reasoning Francis has for doing most things.

—

The house is eerily silent when they return home.

The dust barely stirs, the house barely creaks and like on impulse, Alfred beelines for Arthur’s room.
He senses the discomfort of the morning over the entire house. The oppressive air much more palpable beyond the door when he’s hit by a wall of cold air from Arthur’s bedroom.

He squints inside.

Arthur’s sitting stiffly on the edge of the bed, and is slumping in on himself.

One hand to the side of his head, the other clenched on his leg, which jumps restlessly in what Alfred’s assuming to be pain.
The sweater from earlier has fallen from his shoulders. The duvet is entirely uncovering him and the window still unsettles the blinds from when Alfred opened it a speck that morning.

He wonders how long Arthur’s been sitting there for.
It can’t have been very long, Alfred tries to assure himself, as he steps carefully inside with the binoculars still in one hand.

He’s still in his jacket, still wearing his gloves and as he rounds the bed, he places a hand on Arthur’s shoulder when it’s apparent that he’s swaying.
Arthur stiffens further, draws in a sharp breath and with a great big effort, he rolls his shoulder sorely and Alfred awkwardly removes his hand.
Arthur groans at the movement. His shoulder settling back into place slowly and jankily, like the mere twitch has set him out of wack.

“Give me a few minutes.” He bites out hoarsely and Alfred cringes inwardly. He sounds awful.

“I’ll be out soon. Go on.”

Alfred smiles crookedly, trying to look reassuring.

“It’s cool, I can wait.”

“Go on.” Arthur says again. His voice is clearer this time. Clearly irritated.

He sounds like he’s on duty for an active military drill with the seriousness he pours out.
Alfred chews the inside of his cheek.

“It’s really no problem, dude.”

He doesn’t get a reply to that.
Arthur breathes, leans himself forward to rest his head in both his hands.
He looks like he’s having some kind of episode, Alfred thinks.

Clutching the gift in his hands, Alfred tries to reach out again.

Just to check, to be sure things don’t escalate to the wrong places. He knows how bad he’s been himself, if Arthur’s doing even near that, maybe he should try and help him out a little.

Maybe.

His hand barely manages to brush against Arthur’s shirt before his hand is snatched and gripped painfully tight. He yelps, about to say something, but he’s cut short, words dying on their way out at the nails that dig painfully into his wrist.

“Don’t make me repeat myself.”

Alfred has to wring his hand free and step back a little to escape.

Arthur slowly and mindfully lowers the clenched hand he’d gripped Alfred with back to hold a tight grip on his head.
Alfred stands frozen solid for a moment. Watching Arthur, as he rides through a headache that Alfred’s never been around to see.

Arthur’s always left before getting to this point and in all the years he’s known him, Alfred has never had a clue about how bad it really got.

He never had a clue…

He leaves the room the same quiet way that Arthur’s told him not to and shuts the door with as much grace as possible. It clicks quietly behind him, and he breathes out in a rush and looks down at his wrist.

Small, red scrapes stare back at him from where Arthur dug his nails in and he winces down at it. Tenderly touching it, it elicits a sting.
Francis steps out from the kitchen and looks at him knowingly.

“I told you. He’s evil.”

Alfred looks askew, rot permeating through every part of his nose.

“I’ll check on Mattie.”

He places the binoculars in his luggage in his own room before he slowly moves towards the door at the end. It’s shut, and he somehow doesn’t feel like opening it.
He feels dejected, in a way. His wrist buzzes and blisters, and yet he feels numbness spread throughout himself and he feels bitterly vengeful.
He feels out of the loop, he feels left out and he feels like a stranger stepping back into a theater he left before his role was solidified properly.
With a breath in, he knocks on Matthew’s door, pretending that he doesn’t feel like he’s working overtime in a whole nother department than accounting.
He turns the knob and pushes the door open when there isn’t a reply. He’s still wearing his jacket and the room that meets him is warm, in a stark contrast to the room Arthur was in.

Matthew’s lying in bed.

Presumably the same exact position he’s slept in, Alfred can’t really tell anymore.
He stands in the doorway and slumps his shoulders.

It’s exhausting to check in on people, he thinks.

Standing in the hot and dark room, he unzips his jacket and drags his feet inside without further invitation.
And then he sits at the end of the bed by Matthew’s feet.
The blinds are drawn, the water on the bedside table has been drunk and Matthew seems at least to have changed out of his jeans.
He sits in the warm darkness for a time. His ears burning and his back sweating enough that he shrugs himself out of his bomber and holds it in his lap.
He turns his head. The tufts of Matthew’s hair visible over the duvet.

“Looking forward to christmas?” He tries. Apparently the only conversation starter he can think of today.

There’s a heavy sigh from where Alfred can’t see a face. He waits a beat for a reply that doesn’t come.

“Come on, dude, you can at least say ‘yes’ or ‘no’?”

Matthew remains quiet and Alfred groans.

His skin feels sticky, his nose has begun to remind him of a trash fire and he’s jumping his leg restlessly. He feels frustrated with how stupid everyone is acting. He feels like he’s all alone, the only sane person in all this mess of people who want to make everything so damn complicated.

These people are nothing like what they used to be. They’re not as simple, they’re not as he’s known them his entire life.

“If you’re going to be jumping this much, do it outside.” Matthew mumbles suddenly.

Alfred looks over. “I’m not jumping.”

“You’re shaking the bed.”

Alfred looks down at his leg and promptly stills it. He takes instead to brushing at the skin Arthur’s scratched, picking at the bandaid and eventually settling forwards and resting his chin in his hands.

Matthew shifts, the down feather rustling at the action, before settling again and his voice is much clearer when he speaks up again.

“What do you want?” He asks.

Alfred sighs through his nose.

“Nothing. Just wanted to check on you.”

“Why?” Matthew asks. “You ‘checked on me’ last

night as well, and if Arthur’s the one asking you to do it, then-”

“Arthur hasn’t asked me to do anything, dude! Why do you keep thinking I check on you just because Arthur’s asked me to?” Alfred snaps, sitting up again and looking over.

Matthew’s exposed his face from the covers entirely and is peering at him blankly. He looks tired. Very tired.

His eyes are dull, his hair is ratty and the fight leaves him entirely at the sight of him.
And among it all, Matthew looks disappointed.

He’d looked disappointed when Alfred brought him fruit yesterday.
He’d looked disappointed when Alfred checked on him last night and he’s looking at him with even more disappointment now, a crease at his forehead and a deep frown.

“Sorry.” Alfred digresses. “Arthur’s got a migraine. He hasn’t asked me to do anything but leave him alone.”

Matthew looks momentarily shocked and looks hastily towards the bedroom door in alarm, before he settles down. The disappointment that seems to become a permanent part of his face resettles and he slumps further down into his bed.

“Is that why you’re here then?”

Alfred looks at him in confusion. “I’m here because I wanna be.” He says. “You look awful.”

“You’re no better yourself.” Matthew retaliates meekly. Alfred rolls his eyes.

“Sure. Whatever. At least I’ve started showering.”

Matthew gives him a stinky eye, but doesn’t otherwise retaliate.

Alfred doesn’t leave.
He doesn’t really have the energy to leave, and Matthew doesn’t immediately ask him to get out either.
They sit in a tense long moment of nothing.
Just breathing. The tenseness weighing them down somewhat, neither of them really willing to put words or addresses on anything at all.

Matthew eventually tells him to leave and Alfred gets up and shuts the door behind himself.

—

Alfred stands in Arthur’s ratty knitwear tucked into his pants to prevent cold air from peeking through.
He wears his bomber over it and crosses his arms and huddles in the cold.
The air is crisp and the sky that had been clear all day has become spotted by clouds. Dark, ominous things, that hang bulbous and fat at the horizon, warning of more snowfall.
He’s tilted his head directly up, the dark blue abyss opens its maw and gapes over him. He imagines the stink of meat and the humid feel of a mouth closing on him-

“Isn’t it cold standing out here like that?”

The stars retreat back into its place from where they had almost resembled eyes, twinkling far above, far out of reach and Alfred turns to look behind him.
Francis steps outside and closes the door behind him.
The woodwork is old, he pushes harshly at it a few times to get it fully shut.

“It’s not as bad as it is back home.” He says in earnest. Uncrossing his arms to rest his hands in his pant pockets, moving casually towards him with his gaze downcast.

“There isn’t really any windchill, so it’s fine.”

Francis seems to disagree, but doesn’t make any move to openly protest.
He simply steps off from the small porch and into the snow. His feet step along the house wall, away from the snowbank engulfing the small porch steps.
Alfred looks at him and stops a few feet away, a conversational distance, but not one too companionable.

Francis strikes a match, smoke at his mouth.
The fire illuminates his face warmly and he takes a deep inhale from a thin cigarette.

“Considering you’ve quit for such a long time, you sure have been going at it today.” Alfred comments.

Francis exhales from his chest and he looks so relieved by it that it’s almost annoying. He huddles in the coat, crossing his one arm across himself to rest in the crook of the elbow that sports the smoke.

“It has been a stressful couple of years.” He says.

Alfred looks on unimpressed. It feels frustrating to watch 2 years be wasted on the first evening he has of the holidays.

It’s almost disappointing, in a way.

Despite it not being Alfred’s problem, it feels like a let down. To watch the nonchalance Francis has about taking a slow drag of smoke and puff it out equally as slowly, as if he’s savoring it. Celebrating that he went 2 years without it.

“Uh huh. But why not find some more permanent means to cope than to just start smoking again?”

Francis eyes him for something he seems to need an answer for. Gazing at him inquisitively as he switches his weight around to keep warmer, he eventually glances back away.

“I’m not one to resist rising to an occasion.”

Alfred begins to move snow around with his feet idly. He doesn’t want to go back inside, it feels like admitting some sort of loss in an imaginary battle of some sort. And the cold is grounding, it feels comfortable and familiar.

“What kind of occasion?”

“It is an occasion that requires last resorts.” He says, tipping ash into a napkin he fishes from a pocket. The attention on the cigarette naturally emphasizes what he means. A subtlety to his evidence, it’s melodramatic and incredibly provocative how flamboyant it is.

“So a last ditch effort, then?”

“Something like that.” Francis shrugs.
“I am not happy with it.” He continues and Alfred inwardly rolls his eyes.

“But I saw no other option.”

“But doesn’t that just make it a cycle?”

“It does.” Francis says. Then laughs a little.

Alfred furrows his brows. “What?”

“It’s ironic, to be lectured on permanent solutions over cyclical coping mechanisms by you.”

Francis doesn’t lessen the way he’s staring at him. Even taking in another lungful, he never takes his eyes off him. He never ceases to pin him to the spot, to know where he is.

“That’s different.” Alfred says.
Francis shrugs. “I won’t argue. It is different, but the scenario is the same.”

“Except I’m making the effort to break mine.”

That seems to have been the step that he was toeing at before.
Francis glares at him.
Truly glares at him.

Watching him so sharply, the way he stumps the remainder of his smoke out under his shoe and packs the butt neatly away in the napkin says everything that he doesn’t say aloud. The look he sends his way before he steps up to the door drips with a resentment that lightly begins to border into pity.

The stiff wood flings open at the first forceful shove Francis delivers it and he throws back a cold:

“Dinner is in 10 minutes.”

Before he slams the door back shut.

Alfred stands back in the snow and watches through the small utility room window how Francis places the coat back on a hanger in a closet and toes off his shoes. His face is set heavy, but not in the way it had when directed at him. In a more reflective, kind of hurt way.
It makes him sigh and wander back around the garden he’s stood in before.

He feels incredibly on edge. Uncomfortable with being inside, now also uncomfortable being outside.
The weather begins to remind him of Covent garden and the memory of a cold sweat seeps to his neck and makes him shiver.

Between rock and a hard place… He trudges his way back towards the house.

“Alfred.”

He stops on the doormat, glasses fogging up and obscuring Arthur, as he comes walking towards him with a towel in one hand, smearing his sleeves up with the other.

“While you’re dressed, could you go out in the shed and grab an ale or two?”

Alfred looks at his shape, not bothering to wipe his glasses from the fog if he’s going outside either way.

“You want a beer?”

“And I was wondering if you wanted one.”

Alfred blinks. “Oh.”
He does like beer, it’s just not often he really lets himself have one just to have one. But it’s not too bad an idea.
It’s Christmas in about a week, and he hasn’t felt all that cheery, it could be nice. It even kind of feels inclusive.

Embraced in a sort of commodity he doesn’t see much at home. A slow, domestic sort of ritual, he guesses it is. It makes him think of when he’s in the rural parts of home, watching Christmas and Thanksgiving through the windows of neighbors. The warm lights of the windows spilling out like gold onto the snow.

Arthur watches him expectantly for an answer and Alfred nods once to gather himself.

“Uh. Yeah.”

“Brilliant. Just pick whichever for yourself, I’ll have a pale ale. Whichever one.”

Alfred turns, reopening the door with a funny, fuzzy feeling tingling in his chest. “Sure.”

“Cheers.”

“Oh, by the way-”

Arthur stops to look back at him, both of them halfway through the door. “Are you… Doing okay?”
Arthur looks back to the kitchen before he looks back over at him with an expression Alfred can only describe as indecisive.

“Tired. But better.” Is the reply.

An exasperated, annoyed something mixes in with the familiarity, and Alfred presses his mouth together tightly. It doesn’t ruin the mood, it doesn’t add to it, it simply sits alongside it and he rolls his eyes outwardly through his foggy lenses. “Cool. I’ll be right back.”

The cold welcomes him back with an icy cold breath up his jacket and he huddles his way towards the shed furthest away in the yard. His wrist itches.

He hasn’t gotten a single word from the situation from earlier.
Arthur walking out, groggy and completely mute to down a couple of painkillers and water was all he was given, until later, Arthur emerged much more like himself.

Alfred grabs the nearest bottle that says IPA in letters large enough for him to see even without his glasses and he grabs for himself a bottle of heineken.

Ale was never his strong suit, it’s too thick-tasting and leaves him feeling like he’s drunk a bottle of coffee grounds dusted into a beer and in a lot of ways, it makes sense that that would be something Arthur gets a kick out of.

If he could eat the smell of citrus and smoke, Alfred’s sure it would be the only thing he’d ever eat.
He closes the shed behind him and treks back to the door. The beers are cold enough to nip lightly at his hands.

Francis and Arthur both stand in the kitchen idly chatting about whatever Alfred doesn’t care about. His nose starts running as he places the beers on top of the washing machine while he removes his jacket and hangs it on the first hanger he sees.

He sniffs and steps out of his shoes, bringing the beers in with him towards the dinner table.

He watches the shape of Matthew on the couch. Covered with a blanket, he faces away from the table, breathing slow and deep. The tv is on, showing some sort of talk show.

There’s a single glass of water, half empty, set up at one of the plates on the table and Alfred places his Heineken straight across from it and glances back to the kitchen.

“Arthur? Where’s your spot?”
Arthur turns to look towards him, gesturing vaguely at the entire table with the hand that isn’t holding and drying a ladle.

"Wherever the ale is.”

Alfred places the ale immediately to the right of his heineken and pulls out his chair to sit down.
His toes are prickling as they warm up and he sniffs as his nose adjusts to the temperature.

The room is warm, the kitchen lit softly and the table set is covered with a single coaster for the stew. The lid is still on, steam oozing from it gingerly in a slow ascent through the air.

He removes his glasses and wipes the fog from them onto his shirt, seeing a blurry bottle opener be set down on the table to his right.

Francis, he sees as he puts them back on, has moved towards the couch and is rousing Matthew. Meanwhile, beside him, Arthur sits down and moves to open his beer.

“Should’ve brought it in earlier. It’s too cold.”

“That’s what you get for drinking ale.”

“You’ll never catch me choosing a lager over an ale, Alfred.” The bottle cracks open.
Matthew says something soft and quiet from the couch and Francis replies equally as tender.

There’s condensation forming on the glass of the heineken that he moves to open.

His cheeks are growing warm, the fuzzy feeling of being enveloped returns and he sees the entire table all at once. A silent and gradual landing. Touching ground for the first time, an anxious footfall to the ground.
He feels dangerously lucid and Arthur offers him a pint for his beer. He accepts it and pours.

Matthew and Francis seat themselves at the table. Francis is directly in front of him, but he can’t even bring himself to feel bad.
He feels real and grounded. The beer tastes sharp and refreshing and he focuses on the tinge of fruit that sits at the roof of his mouth.

The stew is served. Francis offers to pour for him and he accepts the offer in kind, not missing the way he looks directly at him with the same hurt he’s had in the utility room, but with a more softened edge when he smiles at him.

Matthew’s looking like he’s falling back asleep. Arthur makes a comment about leaning his elbow on the table and Matthew eyes Alfred’s heineken. He watches it for a minute, before rubbing his eyes and asking if there are any more.

Alfred goes out to get one for him. He doesn’t think for the first time in a while.

He eats dinner and he drinks a beer. A tinge of guilt and a smidge of anxiety follows him to bed. But most of all he feels okay.

He feels alright.

Chapter Text

For the first time since they arrived at the vacation house, Alfred sleeps in the room Arthur originally gave him to sleep in. The bed is much more comfortable than the couch. The mattress is softer and his back and his neck thanks him a million times over for relenting to the bed.

He was worn out enough last night that he’d followed Matthew up the stairs. Arthur and Francis went to bed first and the shadows that awaited him the nights previous somehow receded as he walked amongst them - Giving way like water and remaining only at the corners.

The upstairs felt safer when he wasn’t the only one up there.

Morning comes sooner than Alfred would’ve wanted it to. Sleep unveils itself too early and he curls up under the blankets. Not hungry, not thirsty - And to his great annoyance, also not tired anymore.

The blankets rustle and crinkle around him. A sound he thinks each snowflake settling on top of each other would sound like if he could hear it.

The room is chilly, the door is shut. The blurriness of everything soothes him slightly when he eventually manages to find the courage to actually look around. To stretch his legs out and shiver. The way the blanket grows colder at the edges. Away from the ball of warmth he’s curled into overnight.

He retreats back into it begrudgingly and lies there for a time. Brows furrowed, the warmth not feeling as comforting as it had before.

He opens his eyes again, vision unclear, staring ahead into the dim room.

He has to take a leak.

The hall is dark to saunter down and the bathroom lights blind him when he switches them on. He feels sluggish and off kelter, going about his business with his eyes half-closed in a squint and he washes his hands in warm water.
Thoughts evade him. The morning is early, his skin feels dry and remnants of yesterday’s dinner lingers in his mouth.

He looks himself in the face and bares his teeth. He forgot to brush them.
He eyes the toothbrush, then decides against it.

It’s too early for the strong taste of anything. He doesn’t know what time it is, but the house is quiet and he’s pretty sure he’s the only one awake.

He looks back at the toothbrush thoughtfully.

“... Gross if I don’t… Gross if I do…” He mutters. He stands and ponders for a time too long and waves it off. He’ll remember it later, however later that may be.

The hallway is dimmer than before when he steps back into it, and he stops to adjust to the light. The runner is rumpled and he looks sideways, curiously peering into Matthew’s room before stopping in his tracks.

He can look into Matthew’s room?

The door is wide open. The bed is empty, and when he steps inside, Matthew’s nowhere to be seen.
He walks over to the window and peeks through it.

The sun hasn’t risen yet, the sky is just barely bright enough to see the ground and the outlines of trees stand on the horizon. Everything still spells it too early to be going anywhere. Heavy clouds hang over the landscape, snowflakes spilling out forebodingly.

He turns back to the room. The bed is disturbed, the nightstand has the same amount of painkillers and sleep aids as yesterday.

He furrows his brows.

Then he heads downstairs.

A chill swims around his ankles at the bottom of the stairsteps. The ground floor is dark, only the faint ticking of the clock disturbing the quiet. He shivers and rubs his arms.
He doesn’t remember it being this cold when they went to bed. Arthur keeps his places just above room temperature, except for his bedrooms. Those are cold.
He looks to the closed bedroom door.

It’s… Well, closed. No way the cold can be coming from there.
He wanders into the living room then, to check the windows and the fireplace. The embers are all long dead, the ashes the only thing that remains.

The couch is as they left it and the windows are shut.
He looks sideways by chance, casts a casual glance to the kitchen and towards the horizon. It faces out to sea, the heavy cloud cover has not yet reached all the way to where the sky and sea meet, and the faintest trace of twilight hangs over from the water.

The clock on the microwave tells him it’s 6:20 am.

He rubs his eyes and enters the kitchen. The chill is stronger there and he looks at the windows quizzically.
No condensation or anything else between the panes. When he reaches forwards, there’s no draft from the cracks but the glass is cold.

“Weird.” He hums and leans back, turning his eyes towards the utility room.
Through the dim light of morning, he squints at flurries of snow ushering inside. A thin veil of white covers the floor, then melts and becomes water before it can cross the kitchen boundary.
Alfred takes long strides to the doorframe, eyes widening in realization of the back door standing wide open.

Wind rushes up to meet him, the snowfall that’s growing gradually heavier insisting on it’s right as guest and Alfred steps barefoot into a pair of wellies off to the side, before he wades across the icy room to close the door.
He pauses mid action, eyes catching on faint footsteps, leading from the backdoor through the garden and continuing through the gate towards the coast-walk.

Alarmed, he looks around him. A pair of boots and a winter coat is missing, along with the spare key to the backdoor.
Matthew’s empty room comes to mind, the unmade bed, the sleep medication and painkillers.

“Shit.” Alfred grabs a coat for himself and zips it as far up as it’ll go and exchanges the wellies for the nearest pair of winter boots he can find.

He steps out hurriedly and shuts the door behind him.
He pulls the hood up and over his head at the wind ramming into him sideways and begins, hastily, following the tracks out from the garden.

Matthew hadn’t, admittedly, expected it to snow when he stepped out for air. It’s not unwelcome as much as the wind is, but it does make him wish he’d packed himself warmer.

He crosses his arms over himself on the bench, watching the clouds slowly but surely quell the light out across the sea.

He hasn’t been sleeping very well lately. Too many things to worry about; work, keeping himself fed and well rested, personal achievements like keeping himself zen - Stuff like that.

Stuff that shouldn’t necessarily stress him out as much as it does, but checking in with himself becomes so wholly irrelevant when work’s breathing down his neck or when Arthur calls to tell him Alfred’s had a mental break at the deepest metro-station within London limits.

He hadn’t really enjoyed that conversation. He didn’t need to journal or do much soul searching to recognize when old jealousy reared its head, but knowing what the feeling is has not made it any easier to deal with. If anything, he’s now just feeling guilty for having it in the first place.

It’s a dizzying mess of emotions he has now. One part of him is relieved he doesn’t need to convince a wall to get help this time, but another part of him feels betrayed that said wall decided to seek help elsewhere. And that he decided to listen this time.

It makes him feel somewhat like a waste of space.

It also makes him feel bitterly angry.

What makes Arthur’s words of advice any more substantial than his? What makes them count more?

He’s just said what Matthew’s been saying all along, the only difference is the insistence and the consequences that Matthew never had the courage to lay down. He never felt that he held enough significance to raise barriers.

And sickeningly, it turns out to be true.

Alfred did end up looking elsewhere the second Matthew gave even the slightest hint that he was done trying to help him.

If he’d set down consequences or been firmer, it would’ve just happened earlier.

Far below, dissatisfied gulls cry out at the weather. Wind whistles and howls among the fields and the cliffs and the trees, and he breathes in wetly through his nose and closes his eyes against it all.

The sky in England feels closer than it does back home. The clouds hang nearer to the ground, the air feels less harsh and sticks to you like it’s trying to drown you.

The tightness in his chest is back.
It clammers vice-like at his ribs and makes his breathing irregular. Yet he sits quietly through it.

It’s a love-hate relationship because when he doesn’t feel guilty, these days it’s hard to feel much of anything at all.

At least the tightness is something. He doesn’t really like it when he doesn’t feel anything. Ironically, he thinks with a swallow, he recalls Arthur saying the exact same thing to him a while ago.

They’d sat side by side, both of them looking forward to an angel fountain in a park somewhere, avoiding eye contact like the plague. He remembers feeling hollow. Like Arthur had taken the tightness from his chest for himself, and left everything feeling much emptier than it’s ever felt before.

They hadn’t spoken much aside from that. Matthew wondered if Arthur forgot he was there at all.

He’s always been the last to be found in games of hide and seek. Alfred was always the first.

“Matthew!”

Matthew starts in his seat, turning his head sharply behind him at his name.

The bench he’s found sits nestled between spindly, naked trees. The outskirts of a small wood, and beyond the fickle shelter of branches, the snow is pelting down in the direction of the house.

For a moment, all he sees is dark twilight and banks of snow.

Then a figure, emerging from the snowy path.

“Mattie!”

Matthew’s stomach sinks.

He watches dumbly as Alfred stands for a moment, looking out across the sea, then scanning the area.
Matthew stands, his legs partially asleep. He hadn’t even realized how cold it had gotten.

Alfred’s eyes lock onto him and he begins to lightly jog towards him.

“Matt!”

He covers the distance surprisingly fast, considering the snow and grips Matthew by the shoulders before he can do much to defend himself.
Not that he would, there’s not really much of a point, Alfred would just grab his hands or his wrists instead as anchorage.

“What’re you doing out here, man?! The weather’s awful, you’re planning a funeral?”

Alfred’s nose is red from the cold and his glasses are speckled with frozen snow. A small speck of ice trails down the glass lense, then settles at the frame’s corner. He looks genuinely frazzled, in the way that only Alfred can look concerned.
Matthew clears his throat from a small frog and resists the attempt to remove the hands at his shoulders.

“I couldn’t sleep. So I took a walk.”

Alfred sighs heavily and slumps his shoulders in exasperation. Matthew waits stiffly for him to speak again.

“You sleepwalk to the weirdest places when you’re not home and when you take sleep meds, dude. I thought you’d sat down and gotten snowed over or something!”

A stone lodges itself in his chest and he grimaces. “I haven’t had that problem for years, Al.”

Alfred is about to rebuke but stops. The words die on their way out and he looks guilty from a realization Matthew can only guess at.

“Well-” Alfred begins instead.
“Whatever, dude. Just- Let’s get back inside, it’s freezing cold out here.”

Matthew raises his arms and pries Alfred’s hands from his shoulders. They’re angry red and freezing cold, Matthew realizes, and they curl up instinctively without anything to hold onto.

“I’ll be fine for a while longer, you go on ahead.”

Alfred eyes him skeptically, giving him an unnecessary once over, as if snow isn’t mounting into the winter boots Alfred’s put on haphazardly with sweatpants that stand no chance against a windchill.

“You’re much worse for wear than I am. You’re not even wearing gloves.”

“I’m also not wearing socks, but I didn’t really feel like I had time to find any with you on the loose.”

Matthew looks down in shock at the snow soaking the bottom of the grey pants that sit half-tucked into the boots.
He looks back up, meeting Alfred’s eyes with as much exasperation as possible.

“You have no business telling me what to do, when you’re this stupid.”

Alfred frees one of his hands to gesture broadly over the snowy landscape. Matthew hadn’t even realized he never let go of them.

“Uh, I thought you were freezing to death out here!”

“So you decided to join hypothetical-me in freezing to death? If I’d been snowed over, you’d be looking for me for hours!”

“If you were still alive, the snow would melt off your face before you could be fully covered, I’d find you faster than it’d take me to run up and put on socks and find gloves!”

“No, it wouldn’t, Alfred!”

“Yes it would, Matthew!”

They stand tense and quiet for a long moment. Alfred’s suppressing shivering and Matthew’s growing increasingly more subdued by the minute at the fact.
He lets Alfred’s remaining hand go and allows it to fall down to his sides.

“Let’s go. Before you turn to ice.”

Matthew takes a few steps past him and stops to make sure he’s following. His chest calms, settles then leaves nothing but a bitter aftertaste at the corners of his mouth. Tucked in between his teeth and his cheek.
Alfred places both hands into his pockets and begins trekking up beside him, keeping pace with him on the way back to the house.

The snow comes in thick flurries now, the horizon covered and the tracks left behind by Alfred’s searching are softening around the edges.

Matthew doesn’t say anything when he sees how thorough Alfred must have been. He eyes the work, recognizes the effort for what it was, and thinks about the reaction he’d given.

He feels guilty again. And he swallows at it thickly, as he opens the garden gate and allows Alfred to step in before him.

—

Matthew can’t shake the guilt once it sets in, and it usually overstays its welcome by a few days if he’s lucky. It makes him feel like being swallowed up by the floor, the whole point of leaving the house was to deal with his own head without making it a big deal.

He knows what he’s dealing with, he just also knows that if he asks for help, it won’t be given to him how he wants it, and how he wants it was never an option.
Arthur’s not going to help him like he helps Alfred, because Matthew can help himself. Has always been so good at helping himself.

Arthur isn’t going to bring him fruit on a little platter unsolicited and he isn’t going to catch him when he turns up at his doorstep.
He would do it, maybe, if Matthew asked him to. But the trouble is just that fact - That Matthew needs to ask it of him at all.

“Hey.”

Speaking of the devil, Alfred knocks once on the door to Matthew’s bedroom and steps in.

Matthew had retreated back upstairs immediately as they’d gotten inside. He didn’t wait to see what Alfred ended up doing, by now he doesn’t really think it matters either way.
He can hear voices from downstairs, meaning Francis and Arthur have gotten up as well and he does not want to be among that. Not yet. He doesn’t feel like being reminded constantly that in Alfred’s absence, Matthew’s visits to Arthur had been significantly less talkative, and much, much more tense.

He doesn’t reply to Alfred’s greeting, but he doesn’t need to, for Alfred to pocket his hands and lean against the wall.

“You haven’t gotten sick, right? This close to christmas?”

Oh, he’s sick, alright.
Alfred continues, unaffected, at his lack of reply.

“As long as you’re okay to come down for a game of scrabble, I guess it’s fine. Otherwise I’ll bring it up here.”

“Scrabble?” Matthew asks skeptically.

Alfred nods. “Yeah, let’s play a game.”

Of all the things in the world that Alfred could offer him, that he does not want to do the most, it’s playing a boardgame downstairs with Alfred. The audience would be biased, Matthew knows it.
He doesn’t want to get up for it. He can’t shake the feeling that he’s taking up unnecessary space.

And yet, Alfred is looking at him expectantly. Despite how bitter it feels to look at him, despite how angry Matthew is at him, a small part of himself feels relieved that someone sees him at all.

Enough to follow him out into the dark to find him, enough to stand and stare at him relentlessly until he caves and joins in for a stupid activity like scrabble.

He looks blankly at his brother and swallows back the lump in his throat wishing it was Arthur.

Matthew spent so long trying to help him. He spent so much time trying to make Arthur feel better, thinking it was Alfred leaving that was the reason he was unwell - When it was very clearly beyond any of them. And that’s when the guilt began.

Really what isn’t there to feel guilty over? He’s guilty for being selfish, for being avoidant, for wanting more than he’s given - He just has to ask and it’ll be handed to him. One sentence, it doesn’t even need to be very long, and he’ll have what it is he’s crying for, so why does it feel so unfair?
Back then, when it was just Arthur and himself, he tricked himself into believing that Alfred was the reason Matthew was overlooked. And he kept believing in it. And he still wants to believe it.

Because not believing it all to be on Alfred, means that Arthur just doesn’t think about him that much. It means that Arthur and Francis just doesn’t see him enough.

“You alright?”

The bed dips. Alfred’s sitting on the edge, looking down at him awkwardly. He’s trying to show some kind of motherly concern, but he’s terrible at it and somehow that just makes everything feel so much worse.

“Sure.” He forces out. It sounds pathetically small, vut Alfred nods once and pats the top of the covers a few times before he stands.

“Get on the floor, I’ll bring the scrabble up here.”

“I never said I’d-”

“We’re playing using the oxford dictionary, by the way.” Alfred cuts in. Matthew halts, then furrows his brows, watching Alfred stand by the doorway.

“Why not Webster’s?”

“Scrabble’s about letter points, dude.” Alfred says, a smirk creeping onto his face. “The oxford dictionary throws in tons of useless letters, perfect to up the letter count!”

Matthew blinks.

“I guess…?”

Alfred knocks on the doorframe twice, his mood elevated, before he slips out and heads down to get the game. Matthew lies there, stomach freezing, despite the covers making him feel feverishly hot.

—

Francis wakes to the smell of instant coffee and the usual freezing temperatures of Arthur’s rooms.

He rubs sleep from one eye. Turns his head sideways to spot Arthur draped flat on his back, with one arm reaching towards the headboard and the other holding loosely onto his blanket. His blanket, which has been kicked off of the entire bottom half of his body.

Francis will never understand how anyone can enjoy keeping their bedroom teeth-chatteringly cold, and still kick off their covers and be entirely comfortable that way. Arthur has always run hot, particularly in winter, so it makes sense. But it doesn’t make it any easier to comprehend, for a man like himself who prefers his entire home, bathroom and all, to be evenly tempered and warm.

Francis looks past him towards the alarm clock next and reads the time.

9 in the morning.

They’ve slept in late, Francis thinks. Or, late by their standards.

He sighs, surprised he can’t see his own breath and stays that way for a time. He likes mornings. The coffee, the sound of birds chirping. His favorite mornings are listening to Arthur’s morning radio droning on while Arthur himself sits with a newspaper as if reading along to an audiobook.

Francis lifts a hand from his own duvet and places it nimbly on Arthur’s chest. It is, as expected, warm to the touch. Even through the shirt he sleeps in, he’s warm.

“Arthur.”

Arthur remains dead to the world. As usual.
Francis shakes him a little and creeps closer. Drawing his covers along with him to avoid freezing.

“Arthur.”

There’s the slightest interruption in Arthur’s breathing and he stirs only mildly. “Mhm?”

“It’s 9 in the morning, mon coeur.”

Arthur sighs, but doesn’t otherwise move. “Mm.”

Francis smiles discreetly.
It’s funny how calm Arthur’s become over the years. Francis remembers him waking at the slightest creak back in the day, springing upright fully alert by even just the softest mention of his name. Now he’s replying to him in his sleep. Not moving whatsoever beyond a grunt when Francis wraps himself and his own blanket around him to steal some of the warmth he’s so generously producing.

He settles down easily though and Francis feels the hand not reaching for the headboard, land on top of his own.

“God, ye’re freezing.”

Francis closes his eyes as Arthur turns begrudgingly to hold him. It’s not every morning he’s this generous, sometimes he’ll push Francis off of him just to spite him - It’s a roll for luck, really, whether Arthur’s in an affectionate mood or not.
Francis’ mornings always start in an affectionate mood.
Arthur’s affection fluctuates unevenly throughout the day, depending on how stressed he is.

“It’s because you insist on keeping your rooms this cold.” Francis hisses. “If you want to sleep cold, you can sleep outside.”

Arthur hums, the smugness evident in his tone. “Doesn’t soond too shabby.”
Annoyed, Francis repeats his drawl back to him, as if he wouldn’t have rather committed himself to death in their youth, rather than speak in that tongue.

“‘Soond’.”

Arthur smacks his back lightly. “Shaddap.” He drawls.
“Maybe I’ll sneak back in and put snow down yer back.”

“If you do that, I am leaving you. I will pack my bags and I will never return.”

Arthur laughs and it’s the first, proper sound he’s made that morning. Francis feels it tumble around him.

“Wouldn’t be th’ first time ye said that. But look a’ ye now.”

Arthur is lucky they’ve known one another for as long as they have. He’s lucky that Francis finds camaraderie, understanding and home here, because if he didn’t, god knows he would’ve stayed away from this stupid, insufferable island for the rest of his life if he could.
Ironically, Francis ducks his head further in towards Arthur’s chest rather than away in irritation.

Arthur is also lucky Francis’ mornings are his most tolerant.

“You have cursed me.” He mumbles earnestly.

Arthur raises a hand and brushes his hair back. Francis sleeps with a braid that comes loose most of the time, and it’s the strays that Arthur lifts off his face with the precision of someone who’s looking.

When Arthur speaks, it’s more conscious than before. Wakefulness taking effect finally and deliberation seeping into his tone.

“Don’t insult me. As if I would waste magic on the likes of you.” Francis hears the You’d come around with or without. And he doesn’t speak against it, because it’s frustratingly true.

A curse is nothing but wishful thinking.

Of all the things that make up who Arthur is and what he does to annoy him, he’s the only man Francis has ever seen be genuine in whatever feelings he’s had towards him, through and through. He’s the only man who’s seen all parts of what makes Francis ugly and terrible, and still finds reasons to stick around.

“Connard.” Francis mumbles.

“Bâtard.” Arthur mumbles back.

—

“Connoisseur isn’t spelled that way.”

“Yeah it is.”

“You’re missing an s and an i.”

Alfred looks down at the spelling of ‘connorseur’ and squints, rereading it and mouthing it as he goes and Matthew pushes his glasses up his nose for the umpteenth time in as many minutes. He needs to get them fastened. They’ve been slipping a lot lately.

“Look in the dictionary.”

“Dude, I got it.” Alfred picks up some more letters from his letter pool and starts to rearrange things. “Watch.”

Matthew does. He watches the extra ‘r’ remain in place, as Alfred spells out ‘connoirsseur’. Admittedly, it’s close enough. He just needs to remove the extra ‘r’, but Matthew isn’t going to tell him that. He’s leading by a few 100 points already, and it feels great winning at something.

“Connoisseur! Boom, points to me.” Alfred fishes out an additional two letters and fiddles a bit with his tile-rack with a subtle wrinkle of his nose.

Matthew looks at the word.

“It’s still wrong.”

“I added an s and an i!”

“Again, check the dictionary.”

Alfred leans his head in one hand begrudgingly, elbow on his crossed legs. To their right, the oxford dictionary lies opened to the ‘f’ section from the last word that they weren’t sure how it was spelled and looking through the dictionary has taken more time than playing the actual game has.

“I do not want to rifle through that thing any more, dawg.”

“You should’ve picked a different game, then.” Matthew counters. He wonders when he started to wish they had played a different game. Or that he’d wished they played a game at all.

“I thought I’d win by just adding a bunch of ‘u’s and double consonants, how was I supposed to remember ‘ax’ can be spelled with an ‘e’! I literally never have to write ‘axe’ the fancy way.”

Matthew is about to ask if they should call it quits finally when Francis’ voice comes from down the hallway.

“Alfred! Come downstairs and explain why there’s a small flood by the back door!”

Oh, yeah. Right. That.
Alfred turns, appalled at only his name being mentioned, towards the bedroom door. “Why are you accusing me?!”

“Because you’re the only one who would forget something like that!”

Alfred turns back to Matthew in indignation. “You ditched me back there. It’s you that forgot to close the door behind you.”

“I did close it!” Matthew protests. “I tried to be quiet, I didn’t want to wake anybody up.”

“The backdoor is like, the only door in this whole house that doesn’t close properly, dude. You gotta slam it!”

“I didn’t think that far.”

“Duh!”

“Alfred! Downstairs! Now!” Francis presses.

Alfred frowns. Obviously dismayed.

“You go clean it up, it’s your mess.” He says.

Matthew sees the logic, but he really doesn’t want to. Less than anything in the world, he wants to go downstairs after this morning. Less than anything, he wants to have to dry up snow-water in front of Francis or Arthur or otherwise. He wants to be seen, but not judged and even just the thought makes him want to disappear.
Alfred continues to look at him. Looks at him like he did sitting on the edge of his bed, and Matthew ascertains that he’s scanning him for something.

It’s a fair thing to ask, Matthew knew the door bound, but getting out of his room was top priority earlier and he wanted to be alone. Entirely alone.

Alfred rolls his eyes and runs a hand down the lower half of his face.

“Alfred!” Arthur’s voice joins in, and Alfred gives Matthew a judgemental look. It stings, but not at all as bad as it would have downstairs.

“You seriously owe me for this one.”

Matthew watches Alfred rise from the floor.

“Coming! Geez!”

The room feels like it rushes full of air and Matthew watches Alfred’s back recede as he steps out into the hallway and walks determinedly down it.

He hears the subtle scolding voice of Francis as Alfred arrives downstairs. Hears Alfred talk around how it happened and thinks about how little a gesture it is to do this, but it’s more than Matthew ever expected coming here.

It’s help that he wished he’d be met with. A hand he was prepared to wait the entire holidays for, and go home disappointed with more weight added to his chest than when he arrived - And yet he feels relieved and he has a hard time accepting it.

Because the helping hand outstretched to him is Alfred’s. His brother, who he’s told himself he hates because he pushes him into obscurity.

With a tight throat, Matthew slowly packs up the game of scrabble and looks at the tiles Alfred had in his pool.

It’s set up to form a 7 letter word and Matthew wrinkles his nose at it.

‘Butcher’.

Matthew tips everything into the tile sack and packs the rest of the game, with an abstract image of a cooling disk full of fresh meat, lingering at the forefront of his mind.

—

Alfred is the one to remind the party that Christmas is in 3 days and they still don’t have a tree erected in the living room. A scandalous remark, really, when Alfred usually pulls out his plastic christmas tree december 1st, and has it standing for the entire month until after new year. It changes colors, and thinking back on it, he actually kind of misses it.

Matthew carries the ax beside him as they walk among firs of various sizes. Arthur took them to a local tree farm, one that Alfred hasn’t been to in who knows how long. He forgot the smell of sap and pine needles, and he forgot how soothing it is to be surrounded by it. It overshadows the smell of decay that’s been hanging over him the past few days - It’s been making him feel dizzy whenever it’s really bad.

He can’t find anything inside his nose and when he looked in the mirror with his phone flashlight nothing looked out of the ordinary up there. Boogers and nose hair, but nothing weird that shouldn’t be there.

It honestly disappointed him. It would’ve been so much easier if there’d just been a cut or something up his nose that made it smell like a butcher shop all the time. But since there’s nothing, he doesn’t know how to get rid of it, other than rubbing his nose a bunch.

“Alfred, if you need to blow your nose use a tissue.”

“I’m not picking my nose, man, I’m rubbing it.”

Arthur lifts a brow but doesn’t comment further. He probably still thinks henoicked his nose just now, like a traitor.

“What about this tree.” Francis interrupts and stops by the ugliest, skinniest, sparsest tree Alfred has ever seen. He grimaces, even decorations wouldn’t save the massive gaps between the branches.

“No.”

Francis looks at him defensively. “It’s the perfect height and width for Arthur’s shoebox of a living room.”

“It looks like it’s been robbed of home, honor and privilige.” Arthur cuts in with a sympathetic expression aimed at the tree.

“Surely we can find a good size tree, without stooping to adopting one that looks like it smokes ten packs a day and got fired last tuesday for drinking on the clock.”

Alfred laughs at the absurd accuracy of that statement, looking at the tree as if he can imagine it’s name. It really does fit the bill perfectly, with the exact proportions and pricklyness. He aims his attention to Arthur, who aims his attention to him with sympathy for the tree still evident in his brow.

“It looks like you from the 50’s, dude.”

The sympathy quickly erodes into indignant shock and it’s Matthew who sputters and covers his mouth not to laugh this time.

“I’m sorry? That does not- Did I look that haggard?”

“You did.” Alfred chuckles. “All the way up through the 70’s.”

“Jesus christ.” And despite the jab, Arthur’s not growing mad or angry or furious, he’s sporting a growing, incredulous smile and Alfred cannot believe it. Because he seems like he’s finding it genuinely funny too.
Francis seems dissuaded enough by the comment to withhold his opinion when Alfred eventually finds a tree.

It sits by the cusp of an actual forest. Trees much taller than the christmas trees growing all around, they ebb and sway in the winter wind and the creaking trunks echoes throughout the dim underbrush.

Matthew takes charge in felling. He hacks with precision at the trunk while Alfred holds the tree by the crown, ready to lift it when it comes free.

He feels the shudders through the entire thing with each swing Matthew takes and he’s suddenly overcome with a twisting, crawling unease at the growing give of the trees balance.

It… Feels as if they’re chopping away at someone-

A loud blaring of a ringtone makes Alfred jump and he turns his head sharply to Arthur, who’s patting himself down searching for which pocket he put his phone in.

Francis leans in closer to look at the caller id when Arthur frowns deeply and utters something under his breath. Francis says something inaudible in reply, and Arthur holds up a hand as if to say that whatever Francis’ protest is, he knows and doesn’t have time to discuss it.

Arthur casts a fleeting glance up at Alfred and they lock eyes for a moment. Arthur’s expression looks strange. Purposefully subdued, as if he’s trying to cover something up and is making sure he doesn’t have any unwanted attention on him in doing so.

It clicks and locks into Alfred’s nerves as Arthur speaks: “Sorry, one moment.”

And then he steps back to accept whatever call that was, and is walking a back in the direction of the car.

The tree comes loose then, and Alfred catches it as it tips over. Separated from its life.

Alfred feels deeply uncomfortable.

“Al?”

Alfred looks at Matthew, who’s looking at him inquisitively. “Are you okay?”

Is he? He doesn’t really think so, his head feels a bit foggy.

“Yeah.” He says and he nods as he says it and he smiles in an unsure way that Matthew obviously catches. He can see it in the furrow between his brows. “Just got a little woozy.”

Francis is annoyed when they come up to him, but he does his best not to show it. “We might have to cut some of the branches, or it’s going to reach into the fireplace.” He says.

“Let’s try placing it first.” Matthew says. “We might just ruin it if we cut it.”

“Yeah.” Alfred agrees. He breathes in, holds it and breathes out. “It’s a pretty cool tree, it’d be a shame to ruin it.”

Francis doesn’t protest, but he looks skeptical.

—

“What was the call about?” Alfred asks on their way back. They’ve ajoined Arthur at the booth to pay and have loaded the tree onto the top of the car, with ropes that look a lot like they’ve been “borrowed” from the fishing port. Alfred sits in the back with Matthew, and he leans forward to peer curiously at Arthur behind the wheel.

The guy looks at him for a moment, then clears his throat.

“A mishap between clients in the office.” Arthur explains to the road in front of them.

Alfred frowns. Once again, he finds it unfair that he’s been withheld from working, if Arthur’s allowed to forfeit himself a break.

“They wanted my opinion on whether to let the opportunity fall away or whether to salvage the client most likely to leave the negotiations and agree to a compromise.” Arthur continues.

That sounds scarily similar to scenarios Alfred’s been called up for. He recalls his boss asking him for favors;

‘Could you come in and advise me on our next course of action for this agreement? It’s crucial to our nation.’

‘Please recheck these files and make sure they’re correct, I don’t trust these idiots to do their jobs correctly.’

‘Check these too. And then stop by the station downtown, I don’t want to make that trip myself.’

In the end, now that he thinks back on it, it had really gone from favors to demands pretty quick, hadn’t it? How many times could he just have said no?

Alfred leans back in his seat, a sudden feeling of carsickness overcoming him.

“What did you end up telling them?”

“To compromise, but not to make the deal favorable enough to one party that it’ll break the deal off entirely. I said I’d be in touch about details.”

Alfred nods. “I’d do the same, breaking a deal is never good if you’re gonna make profit, you’d much rather go lower than throw away the opportunity entirely in some cases.”

Arthur glances back at him in the rearview mirror briefly, as if satisfied, before looking back at the road.

“Cheers.”

—

Alfred and Francis hauls up the two boxes of decorations that Arthur had standing in the basement. The cardboard is cold to the touch and spiderwebs cling to the corners and to the bottom in dusty lumps. Spiders long gone, the web entirely abandoned.

The actual ornaments and decorations are intact though, and look well cared for despite obviously having spent a good few years untouched in the basement.

And speaking of…

“Maybe we should throw these out.” Alfred says, holding up a small stack of ancient candy canes and one or two pieces of old, dried shortbread from the bottom of the box.

Matthew eyes them and nods with much the same ick on his face that Alfred is sporting. “Maybe. Unless you’re hungry.”

“Yeah, I’m good. I already ate.” He stands to toss it out, passing by the door to Arthur’s bedroom standing ajar, the sound of talking muffled but distinct and he loiters slightly closer.

Since the phone call, Alfred hasn’t been able to shake that something suspicious has been going on right under his nose. Arthur’s been working a lot lately, he’s been acting dodgy and is purposefully vague about certain subjects that pertains to office work.

Subtly, Alfred glances around for Francis and Matthew, making sure nobody’s there to see him, before he takes the last remaining steps to the door and focuses his attention to the floor to hear better.

Arthur sounds monotone and entirely apathetic. As if whoever he’s speaking to is of so little interest to him, he might as well be speaking to a door.

“I’m not going over it again.” He hears Arthur say.

“I’ve stated I will do the work once and then you reexamine the contents if you wish. It’s what you’ve got so many employees for. Your distrust in my or his execution of tasks is quite honestly not his or my problem.”

Alfred lifts his brows at the floor. Go Arthur.

“Yes, that is what I’m saying. Do you want me to say it again, or do you want me to finish the remaining work and file it before February?”

Alfred steps back, surprised, but slightly more at ease. Alfred wishes he got a chance to tell his boss off that way. God knows it’d make his life ten million times easier.

He continues on to the trash and throws the bits out, wondering if he should ask Arthur to talk to his boss like that for him. He’s sure he’d be able to get him to step off with an attitude like that.

They flare up the tree and bedazzle it in every single trinket they find within those two boxes. The tree shines and glimmers in warm lights and colors that warms up the entire living room.

It feels homey, Alfred thinks as he steps back with Matthew and regards the tree proudly. Very homey.

—

Matthew’s greatest ever achievement has always been his resilience to change.

With vigor, he clammers to the train car as it turns and twists, and manages eventually to sit himself onto the floor by the bars of the fence. He’s never allowed in, was forgotten at the departure of the station, but he’s not all left behind.

There are bits of him that he couldn’t bring along for the journey.

Clinging onto the outside of a moving train is an effort he can’t amount to with luggage. He leaves his personal items behind, because he couldn’t chance waiting for the next train. He already missed one, who knows, if he misses another it could be the last.

Clinging on has been the greatest victory of his lifetime.

Or that’s what he tells himself. Because losing himself like that - doing so much, killing so many, to be forgotten entirely by those who he wants attention from the most is humiliating. Everything he does he’s embarrassed by doing them.

Matthew sits in the living room with Arthur, Alfred and Francis, on Alfred’s request that he stay rather than hole up upstairs.

The weather has cleared up some, the temperatures have crawled above freezing and christmas is in two days.
The christmas carols that drawls from the radio in the mornings has stopped feeling warm and the food and the sugar cookies taste like they always did.
Alfred pokes him in the side and he turns his head. His neck feels stiff, he’s sitting perched on the far end of the couch.

“Check it out.” Alfred whispers, then flicks a piece of candy wrapper across the room.

It flies towards the armchair and straight into Arthur’s face and Alfred settles down and looks back at the tv when Arthur flinches.
Matthew sees him look directly at the perpetrator, a knowing irritation in his brow, before he picks the aluminum between his fingers and flicks it right back.
It hits Alfred on the lense of his glasses and he flinches the same way Arthur had done.

Matthew doesn’t really get it, he just smiles awkwardly, caught in the crossfire again.

“Are you done playing like a pair of children?” Francis quips from the other side of Alfred.

Arthur looks incredulous and Alfred grins in the same smug way he does whenever he gets away with something.

“Don’t look at me, look at him.” Arthur protests. The laptop perched on his lap slides forward and Arthur scrambles to steady it. Francis clicks his tongue.

“At your big age- You decided to shoot it back.”

Alfred hands Matthew a small ball of aluminum wrapper in secret. It’s the first time he’s been dealt an opportunity to participate, but it doesn’t fall in his nature to pull it off.

Matthew rolls it between his thumb and forefinger idly, the edges prick his skin and Alfred nods subtly in the direction of Arthur.
Arthur, who’s focused on Francis, head turned, oblivious.
A nervous, warm anxiety cooks in his stomach. Indecision never suited him, but it’s all he’s ever worn.

Alfred doesn’t urge him or watch him, he looks at the tv to not look suspicious. Arthur and Francis are still bickering, and Matthew swallows and aims.

The wrapper lands right into Arthur’s ear and he winces and moves a hand up.

He leans his head sideways and momentarily, Matthew is full of that same guilt and regret he felt when Alfred stopped coming to him for help. And the same scummy feeling he had when he left Arthur for good and heard no word from him until he eventually reached back out.

Alfred laughs beside him.
Arthur, as he digs the wrapper out, flicks it more harshly back at Alfred with a devious and vengeful sneer.

“You absolute muppet!”

Alfred doesn’t reveal the sniper to have been Matthew.
He just laughs and hides behind him at Arthur’s onslaught and in some way, Matthew wishes he’d revealed the truth. Maybe if he had, he wouldn’t feel so left out when Arthur aims an exasperated half-smile at Alfred rather than Matthew.

Francis rolls his eyes at the scene and stands to make lunch. Matthew volunteers to follow him. He’s more comfortable in the kitchen than he is in the living room.

“Honestly.” Francis says. Probably to himself, but loud enough to invite for company.

Matthew huffs out an attempt at humor.

“Yeah, tell me about it.” He agrees.

He knows what Francis is planning on making. The snacks between lunch and dinner are always the same, and as he finds the cutting board and the few small bowls Arthur has around, Francis has already gotten out the cheese, meat and the vegetables.

They look at one another for a moment, before Francis smiles and hands him a vegetable knife. He accepts it with a smile of his own.

He hates how familiar the silence is, and he hates how easily he finds his own mind quieting in it.
Cutting a few cherry tomatoes like he does it at home and tossing a bit of oil in a pan to sauté the added veggies that Francis tosses in.

They work around one another quietly, but it’s the most at home Matthew has felt since he arrived. He doesn’t feel like everything he does falls beside the mold and the urge to please hums only as background noise - Left behind by the television noise in the living room.

“Am I alone in thinking we are the only two with common sense in this house?” Francis speaks eventually. It’s an off-handed attempt to lighten whatever mood Matthew’s exuding.

Matthew smiles crookedly.

“I don’t know if I’d include you in that duo.”

Francis clutches imaginary pearls and clicks of his tongue and Matthew laughs dryly when a hand smacks him on the shoulder lightly.

“I raised you more respectfully than that.” Francis says incredulously. Matthew shrugs.

“Should’ve put a little more elbow grease into it, eh? Maybe if you did, it would’ve stuck better.”

“Please, spare me.”

Matthew chuckles humorlessly and grips the pan to roll the contents. His hair falls into his face and he blows at it like usual. The windows fog up by the steam and Francis shuffles over to arrange a cheese board, before starting on the dishes.

There’s always been steps to kitchen-etiquette that Matthew’s indubitably learned from Francis.

Dishes are always done during cooking, not after. It’s a habit he remembers Arthur despising, during the time they lived together. It’s a habit he’s felt at odds with since moving in with himself. After having neither Francis nor Arthur to tell him whether to do this or that.

He has stuck to doing the dishes during cooking some days, and allowing them to soak others. He’s settled for doing habits differently depending on who he’s around.

“Have you had nice dreams lately, Matthieu?”

Matthew sets the pan down and turns down the heat to let it simmer a little. “Uhm, not any nicer than normal.” He replies. “Why do you ask?”

Francis merely glances over his shoulder at him. It’s brief and too quick to read and he hears a small sigh, followed by a shrug. “You have been sleeping a lot, so I thought you might have dreamt about good things?”

It hits him very suddenly how much he’s needed to hear someone say it, but how violently disappointed he is at who has noticed him. He stands there uselessly, he opens his mouth to reply and brush it off, but he can’t think of a single thing to say.

So he just dries his hands in a towel, and runs his palms down his pants for good measure, before he begins to pack the vegetables and the cheeses back into the fridge.

“No.” He says. “Nothing special. It’s been a pretty eventful december and with the dark and all, you know - I get super tired during winter time.”

Francis hands him the sausage and the crackers. “I thought as much.” He replies and Matthew swallows down the turmoil. “But it is christmas, so try to stay awake. You will ruin your hair by lying down so much.”

“As if my hair’s my biggest worry right now.” Matthew quips.

“It should be, you look terrible.”

It seems the only people who seem to notice are also the two people he didn’t think would notice it.

He dries a knife and bites his teeth together. His glasses are lightly fogged up from the pan on the stove and he makes sure the knife’s edge doesn’t face himself.

Pragmatic and careful. Matthew’s fine, he’s always been so good at taking care of himself.

He doesn’t give into the urge to turn the knife the other way around and places it back into the knifeblock where it belongs with a thunk.