Greenish Concoction

The sunlight seemed to smudge with smoke on the far east horizon, blending with the wisps of clouds and turning everything a dreary purple grey. Francis was singing. And Arthur didn't have the heart to tell him to shut up. Not when he'd been singing all night to escape the nightmares, and not now.

"Frog. Get your ass over here." Francis turned, smiled at him. But in the smoky half light, it wasn't nearly as glorious as his other smiles, didn't light up the world with it's force and it's purity. Arthur felt sick with it, felt sick with Francis's sickness when he saw him so pale and thin.

It took Francis a moment to lower himself to the ground, biting his lip as pain returned in full, fingers slipping through the mud. Arthur clenched his fist so that he wouldn't give in to the need to steady him, to offer him concerned words. This was Francis. Francis wouldn't break.

"I had to resist the urge to crawl into your bed last night, petit lapin." Francis whispered huskily into his ear, eyes narrowed and wolfish, lips chapped but still moving erotically slow. It was supposed to be a pointless pass, but he didn't know what he was admitting.

Didn't know that Arthur knew about the nightmares that made him toss and turn, the insomnia that had plagued him since he was a child, the terrors that woke him up screeching. Didn't know that he heard Francis outside his tent every night, wanting desperately for Arthur to scare the monsters away.

"I know." Arthur murmured, pressing Francis down until his head was on his shoulder, holding out his lit cigarette for Francis, listening to his lungs rattle as he inhaled the poison.

The smudges on the horizon grew dimmer, the sun over powering the smoke. Arthur watched it with narrowed eyes, cursing the world and cursing the war, and cursing the sun and cursing Francis when he had nothing left to curse when the blonde traced his fingers around his lips, leaning up for a slow kiss. Looking at him with his swirling blue eyes as though he would break without at least this. Made Arthur feel like he was glass.

Arthur hated. And he hated. And he hated until he didn't know what he was hating anymore.

Francis was singing again, deep and rumbling on his place at his shoulder, eyelids drooping and face seeming to become instantly older in the moments before he fell asleep. He was singing some ballad of a knight and his journeys through the underworld to find some princess, his song so sad and slow that it made Arthur's heart ache.

But Arthur couldn't tell if it was from the song, or the heartache he had suffered the day before, and the day before that.

"Don't let me fall asleep." Francis whispered desperately when he realized he was nodding off, for a moment looking so panicked, so pathetic, so broken that Arthur had to remind himself. This was Francis. Francis wouldn't break.

"Don't let me fall asleep."

There was no point. Francis always fell asleep in the morning, and Arthur always let him, twisting his soft hair in his fingers and rocking him to keep him asleep. Anything to keep him asleep. Anything so that the nightmares wouldn't get at him. Anything so that he wouldn't have to comfort him in his arms, thin body shaking apart with sobs. Thin body seeming like glass.

He urged Francis's head into his lap, whispering comforting words. "Hush poppet, hush and rest." and wished that he didn't look so tortured when he finally closed his eyes. Wished that his fingers wouldn't gently trace his lips and beg for another kiss before he was lost.

Wished that he was powerful enough to fight off the demons that lived in the shadows on the inside of his skull.

Owari.