A/N: If you're reading this, you should listen to Adele's "Love in the dark". I could not copy the lyrics into the story, as per website policy. I took the lyrics off, and I hope you enjoy this.
Arthur watched, eyes blurring as tears threatened to rise. He felt his face burn with anger, he could feel his heart slowly turning to ash as the flames of heartbreak tore at it viciously. His green gaze never left the other man, the young man that he had given everything to, yet betrayed and broken. Through the broken and dull blue eyes, he could see the shattered heart within. Alfred had been the more innocent one. He always had, and would always be that way. It was Arthur who had hurt him, betrayed him. It had all started by a small, inconspicuous something, but neither of them truly remembered what. It had all slowly but steadily spiralled out of their hands.
Arthur knew how it had all come down to this. This moment, a snapshot of their lives, where he stood in the doorway with tears in his eyes, while Alfred watched him with unfeeling eyes. How the American had changed - he was a different man. They had been in love, really and completely. But with time, over the years, they had slowly been driven apart. Their lives, careers, interests had taken up more and more time, slowly separating them. They had less and less time together, slowly giving up on trying to even fix the situation - every time they tried, they opened wounds that stung for longer and longer every time. The black crows of pain had settled along with their disillusion, tearing at them voraciously like a million times before.
Neither of them could say it was love anymore. The distance between them made them nothing more than strangers who used to know each other, two people whose names were clearly engraved, but the faces not so much. Both of them had changed so much, both of them had dark rings under their eyes, a cynical blandness clouding their lives. Arthur knew that it was mostly his own fault - he had hurt Alfred too many times.
Alfred took a step towards Arthur, but when the other backed away further, he whirled around, passing a hand over his face. Exasperation, despair, everything he felt showed right on his sleeve where Arthur could see it, despite his efforts to remain faceless, trying not to break down in front the last man he wanted to see him cry, fall apart, be weak. Alfred glared at Arthur, his eyes trying to express a strong emotion one last time, but the emotion fell apart as soon as it left Alfred, too fragile for the strength needed.
Alfred had been so full of life, youth, and ideas, love and perfection. He was a dream come true, and an angel on earth. But faced with the cruelty of the real world, Alfred had slowly changed - his ideas morphing into broken dreams, his love dying on the way from his heart. Arthur had known it all, his pessimism and cynicism usually taking too far. Arthur knew that Alfred was almost unreal. His own lack of judgement had been their doom: Alfred had been faced with the aridity of life, and its dreariness had burnt Alfred's dreams like wings of feathers, that had now gone black. His electric eyes had turned grey, his heart colourless. He had lost hope, his vibrant youth had gone cold and empty. The life had slowly seeped out of him, and with that, Arthur had seen that Alfred wasn't who he used to be. His eyes had deadened, his words hollowed and smiled had become crooked. It wasn't because of the change - it was because Alfred had lost all his love towards Arthur, and Arthur couldn't love someone who had died inside. He was the shell of a man he used to be.
Arthur had apologised many times before, he had argued and yelled at Alfred, but now, as they stood in silence, the words flew away, and he couldn't grasp a single one of them. He was too far away, too far gone and detached from the situation. His heart had left, broken, leaving him to deal with this alone, and now he had only his mind left - a mind that failed him now, when he tried to find a last word, a last good-bye.
They had been told by so many people that they were poisoning each other - they had seen the unhappiness, the hurt in the relationship long before either of them had, and despite all of the pair's assurances that everything was fine - nothing was. Had it ever truly been fine? Neither knew, whether or not they had been doomed from the start. And it hurt, God it hurt so much.
It seemed like the entire world around them had shifted, tilted off its balance. Neither knew which was left or right, up or down, right or wrong. Both had fought so many losing battles that they had only served to disorientate them off the map. They were lost in a dark forest, alone, without the other for comfort, because their roads had parted far before entering these woods.
Arthur contemplated just leaving now, wordlessly, and leave it at that. But both needed some sort of closure, and Arthur didn't know what to give Alfred - a last insult? A broken good-bye? A last expression of his feelings? All of these had been done so many times, whether it was through slamming doors or the abuse of vocal chords or the torture of hearts, but both knew exactly what the other wanted to say, without them having anything to actually say. Both stared blankly at the other, trying to say something with wordless eyes and shallow emotions.
Arthur now knew neither of them could have ever gone on like they used to - they were too ill-fitting for each other. A glass half full and a glass half empty never clearly filled a glass anyway - the water had frozen halfway there, or evaporated into thin air. They had fallen apart long ago, but he'd realised it too late. It always went that way? They slowly hurt each other, but the killing blow came at the peak of the pain, the accumulation of the ache heightening with a swift, lethal strike to both hearts and minds. Arthur didn't remember when was the last time he had felt true and unadulterated love, instead of dull throb every time he saw or heard the other man. They had been through so much together, and that's what had torn them apart. They had fought and struggled for too long, doubts slowly settling in their thoughts to constantly feed on their consciences.
He could see that Alfred was trying to be strong, but that it wouldn't be long before he broke down, melted and fell onto his knees, the weight of the pain from the world pressing his shoulders and pouring out in a fountain of hurt. He knew that as soon as he walked out of the door Alfred would do that, but he also knew that he would not be there to see it, would not be there to hold the man, comfort him and tell him it all will be fine. Because they were both tired of those lies, Arthur would walk away, and Alfred wouldn't try to hold him back.
A last frightened and desperate plea, scared of the darkness of loneliness, of being alone in the dark, of being alone in the world. They would no longer see each other, except in haunting dreams and spectral sights - and those dreams would ghost in their memories every time their minds were left unattended and wandered off into its darkest corners. But those memories haunted them already, and they both knew that the longer they continued, the more hurtful memories they would have, and the more they would suffer forever.
It seemed like everyone hadfallen apart so quickly; Arthur couldn't name a single couple that had been together longer than a month now, because they'd all shattered into a million pieces - like broken mirrors, reflecting each other twistedly, distorted images of love and pain, where these both mixed between each other amongst the blood from the hand that had broken the glass in the first place. The memories hurt so much, so much, more than anything had ever hurt him, but this way, Arthur could say that he had loved a man like Alfred before the world had hit them both hard - the human nature of easily hurting others was a natural factor, but Arthur should have tried to preserve this golden treasure as much as he could.
His voice was hoarse from screaming, shouting, yelling, sobbing, crying, pleading and begging - he didn't know which he'd done more, having lost count very quickly after the argument had begun. But all of his pleas had fallen on deaf ears. Arthur remembered every one of their fights, their arguments; he remembered what he saw, he remembered what Alfred looked like, what Alfred said - the tone, not the words themselves. The gist, but not the sentences. All of those were just a blur of letters that had been spewed at each other at random, trying to find either the most hurtful thing to say or the words that would create the most guilt.
They both wanted the other to stay, but knew it wasn't possible.
They had both killed each other, and they had no hope of healing together - they had to do it alone, or not at all.
It was clear that they had no other option, they both had to accept defeat. They should have been able to work it out together, but as they couldn't, they knew that they could no longer cooperate, they both surrendered their arms in front of the other, laying their hearts bare while protecting their selves for as long as possible. They couldn't try anymore, because every time they tried they only failed more - and failure hurt more and more every time it happened.
They had fallen apart and the pieces had been scattered into the wind, falling for evermore into the depths of the sea and the height of heavens, sunken into eyes and hearts and minds, dissipated into air, and it could not be fixed, not with even the strongest of the strong.
Arthur turned to open the door, and sighed. He took a step towards it before he heard it. He heard it one last time, before a separation forever.
"Don't..." the voice broke halfway. "Don't bother coming back around here. I won't stay anymore."