Perhaps it wasn't every two in the morning, but often Matthew found himself in anxiety - disturbed - by his dreams.
His dreams seemed more real than his waking hours. Every one was so clear in his mind; every dream of the same pattern, every night Alfred walking away, hand-in-hand with another man. Always a different one, always faceless, yet familiar, as if he'd crossed their path at least a thrice.
"I'm sorry," Every night. "It was always him."
He used 'him' because he could never remember the names he used. He didn't want to - for if he did, it was sure he would be driven past insane at just the slight mention of something even similar to the wretched sounds.
At first he understood it as a simple jealousy, but the dreams seemed to become more and more intense, and he was swallowed up in the realization that perhaps dream Alfred was right to leave him. Soon they became his obsession, his inner war, and he found himself terrified of how his mind - merciless, sadistic, almost - loved so much to torture him until he was ready to collapse in rage.
Sotmetimes he thought it was a sign.
Buto any thought of it was pushed far, far away, as far as they could go - for his inner voice utterly terrified him.
"Please don't go ..." Every night. "I'm sorry, I'll be better."
And he was left alone.
"I love you ..."
Sometimes, Matthew wondered how such thoughts - such feelings - hadn't already driven his weak body to a death's silence, how no metaphorical scar left on him from every disease, every injury inflicted on his centuries seemed to reawaken.
Perhaps possessiveness was a thing nurtured by time.
But this couldn't be possessiveness - if it were a feeling of possessiveness, he might feel just the slightest bit of control. This was possession . Insecurity to insanity. Want to need.
I'm a terrible, terrible person. Even worse a lover. But I love you. I need you. I'm selfish, useless. Stuck in my own happy-go-lucky world while you drown under the weight of the whole world's glare. All those times I couldn't help you, no matter how much I wanted to. I don't want to see you in those sorts of pain. All those times I couldn't take your hand, erase those scars. I'm so, so sorry. You deserve better than me.
But I'll try, Alfred. I'll try.
Because I love you, so, so much.
Please, please don't go.
Inner demons would be the demise of him. Them both, because in the end, they fought themselves in their own little spheres, and they could only watch their other's eyes glaze over under the pressure of time.
Young for a nation never means young at heart, sadly.
"Please don't go ..."
Matthew's voice. Small and sharp against the white noise of dark dawn and hideous yellow streetlights. A sword glinting in the stone, resting too long admist the boulders of the lake to be taken out without crumbling to rust.
It wasn't every two in the morning, but often Alfred found himself close as humanly possible at his lover's side, because they were both needing comfort, and were always somehow eachother's dying fire under the bridge where vagabonds came and went.
"I'm right here."
And Alfred long understood that inner demons would be their demise. His thoughts were so often plagued with tears and needing, because the Canadian seemed to drift further and further away from him, not in sight but in sound, as if his ears were slowly, slowly failing him.
"I love you."
You're my lighthouse in the storm.
Please, please don't go.