Nothing could explain the complete and utter, all-encompassing loss that Arthur felt at that exact moment. On this exact day, the day he and Francis had planned for months, Arthur should have stood in the exact same suit he stood in now, with the exact same tears welling up in his eyes.
Though the tears were supposed to be of happiness, not this — this nothingness that Arthur felt. His shoulders tensed and his elbows dug stiffly into his sides as he stared downwards. Today was supposed to be his wedding day, not Francis' funeral.
Arthur swallowed and the lump at the back of his throat didn't budge one bit. His stomach twisted and turned. If Arthur didn't pull his mind off of what happened around him, he would most likely have to run to the nearest bathroom and empty his stomach of its contents. His stomach did have a tendency to hold a coup against him whenever he felt stressed, upset, or any other range of intense emotion.
Oh God, and he still had to cancel their suite at the expensive hotel downtown. The expensive honeymoon suite. Tears burned his eyes and he blinked to try to force them away. He wiped at the corner of his eye angrily with his sleeve. They were already red and swollen from him running through the exact same motion many times throughout that day.
He twisted his lips into a smile with much difficulty, and Arthur knew he looked more mocking than sincere as he bared his teeth and clutched the handful of dirt hard enough to compact it into a muddy ball. His arm didn't want to co-operate as he forced it to extend stiffly over the gaping hole that held Francis' coffin.
Eons passed and his fingers slowly extended and the dirt suddenly dropped downwards. He easily saw the glimmer of the polished wood as it gaily reflected the morning sun. Trust English weather to belie his emotions.
Dirt caked his palms and his nails had managed to gather dirt under them as well, but Arthur paid little attention to this, opting instead to drop the aforementioned hand and whisper sullenly to the dark hole before him.
"I love you, Francis."
He did not say it often to Francis when he had been alive, preferring to show his devotion in more subtle ways. Usually, he made that Francis woke up with a cup of coffee in the morning, but that was more because Arthur didn't want to have to suffer under a very grumpy Frenchman's ire. Often, texted Francis and ask about some or other thing as a way of asking 'Are you okay?' without actually using the words themselves. Sometimes, he would even attempt to make breakfast, though that rarely turned out well. Still, Francis ate what he had made before jetting off to work.
Arthur was lucky in that regard. Francis was — had been — the manager of a new restaurant that had opened up a short way away from their home. Naturally, Arthur did not know, nor did he care, about what was going to happen to Francis' workplace.
While Francis had slaved away at the restaurant, the amount of effort he put into the damn thing was more befitting of an owner than a mere manager, Arthur had a simple job, an accountant. Things could, and would, get frustrating at times. But he found the job comfortably boring and didn't wish for more pizazz than what endless numbers followed my red and black ink entailed.
Francis' life dream had always been to open up a café of his own, titled with a seemingly unpronounceable French name (The Emerald Rose, or something of the likes), and Arthur would handle the accounts in the back while Francis worked with the customers in the front.
A hand on his shoulder jolted Arthur out of his twisted reverie and tossed him back to reality with all the finesse of a concrete block falling from a skyscraper. He turned around, and his muscles tensed even more than they had already. A few blinks cleared his vision and allowed Arthur to clearly see Alfred, who he thought of as an annoying younger brother despite them not being related.
"...Arthur, are you okay, man?" he asked. Worry lined Alfred's brows and his lips were set in a grimace. The first few words of Alfred's sentence were forever lost to Arthur.
"Er, yeah, of course I am. I was just thinking about-" Arthur had been thinking about the future he and Francis were going to share that would never come true. The tears came again in full force and he wiped them away with his free arm before continuing, "Things, I was just thinking about some things."
Alfred's demeanor changed into one of pity. "Oh."
Arthur didn't know what Alfred had meant by that and he was beginning to feel irked at the expressions he could easily read on Alfred's face. He did not need anyone's pity for crying out loud!
"Hey, Artie?" Arthur turned his attention back to Alfred and he didn't pay full attention to Alfred as he continued, "I know you're going through a tough time and I'm never going to be able to understand it, but if you ever need to talk I'm always here for you."
Alfred wore a large grin as he cupped Arthur's hand within his own. It was reminiscent of when Arthur used to do that to Alfred as he explained to him about the downfalls of life and how one must never let oneself be bogged down by circumstances outside of one's control. Arthur should probably heed his past self's advice.
"Thank you," Arthur said after a few moments of silence.
"You're welcome! I don't mind doing anything as long as I'm able to help you." As if a switch had been flipped, Alfred was smiling goofily once again. It didn't make Arthur feel any better — it just reminded him of the cloud of gloom that had followed him for the past few weeks.
He chuckled humorlessly and gently pulled his hand away from Alfred's, shoving them into the too-small pockets that were not meant for hands – especially not a hand that had just been clinging onto a pile of dirt for dear life just moments prior. Arthur forgave Alfred when he wiped his hands on the thigh of his trousers, he had just been holding Arthur's dirt covered hand.
"Do you have any idea of what you're going to do now?" Alfred asked in a small voice.
It was painful to think of a future without Francis. Arthur fought back a wince. "I don't know. Right now, I'm living day to day, hoping that tomorrow will be different."
Hoping that tomorrow he would wake up in the morning with sunlight streaming on his face as he felt tempted to rip the blankets off of Francis so that he could at least have some warmth before he rolled out of bed and began the day.
"How about we go out for breakfast? We never do that anymore." Alfred was right. The last time he had spent one - on - one time with Alfred was when he announced his engagement to Francis. That felt like it had just been the other day, even though it had been nearly a year ago already.
"You are not dragging me to a seedy McDonalds that offers their Happy Meals for 'half price'," Arthur scowled, but he felt no force behind the expression and quickly dropped it.
"Hey! That was just a mistake. I was thinking more of the McDonald's a few blocks away from mine."
Arthur nodded tersely. Maybe listening to Alfred talk about his latest fad would help him get his mind off of things, even if just for an hour or two.
"Great. I'll meet you at ten?" Alfred asked.
"I'll be waiting," Arthur answered.
The rest of the day passed in a flash with Arthur in a dazed state, and before he knew it the funeral was over. Not that he could remember much of it. Only tearing up and trying to blink away tears many times before he got fed up with everything, including himself, and let rip with the alcohol.
It was Alfred and his younger brother, Matthew, that had been his saving grace at that point in his terrible day.
"Come on Artie, let's get you home," Alfred said soothingly.
"I'm not a delinquent, if you could stop talking to me like a kid." Arthur lost control of his tone and it trailed off into a wail, all traces of scathing venom gone.
He had not been drinking. He would say that with his both of his hands on the Bible and everything. Though maybe he shouldn't be putting his hands on a Bible to promise anything while drunk.
Matthew opened the door to Alfred's car, "Come on Arthur, I'll sit with you in the back." He smiled softly towards Arthur.
Arthur didn't even notice the car door open, or Matthew speaking to him. Instead, he just stood there, his reddened face contorting into pure pain as he couldn't help but just let the tears flow.
"Why does it have to be me, dammit! This was supposed to be the happiest day of my life or some other drivel. It wasn't supposed to be— " he gulped — "it wasn't meant to be this." He hit his sides in childish anger.
Alfred grabbed him by the shoulder and Arthur tried to shake him off. He pointedly ignored the soothing thoughts that Alfred voiced and instead focused his attention on the maelstrom of emotions swirling within him.
It just wasn't fair.
Nothing in his life had been. He barely noticed Alfred and Matthew manhandling him into the car. It was just so unfair that he had been blessed with misfortune his entire life, and now — when he was finally starting to think that his twenty-three year streak was about to break—
The car started up and rolled out of the parking lot. The seat was warm from the sun and the tires crunched over the gravel. Arthur let his forehead rest against the cool window as he watched the blurry background slowly roll away. First, he was couldn't make out the coloured blobs of people that were still milling in the parking lot. Then he lost track of the building he had spent the last few hours in as it blended in with the others surrounding, and finally, the car turned right, and he lost sight of the road altogether.
The car ride was mostly silent, comprising of Matthew slowly rubbing Arthur's back in soothing circles as he furiously continued to wipe at the tears welling at the corners of his eyes with a tissue Michelle had given him earlier that day.
It took him a while before he finally noticed his surroundings growing familiar. Areas he had visited only once or twice in his life vanished and were replaced by the neighbourhoods he knew better than the back of his hand from the days he has been a knobbly-kneed child that had an all-encompassing urge to explore everything around him.
Arthur turned away from the window and stared at the headrest of the passenger seat. Everywhere he looked reminded him of Francis. When he looked outside he could see the route they would take when they walked to the small shop on the corner of Tennyson and Ronwill, and the alley they had drunkenly made out in when they had been too pissed to know where they were and what they were actually doing passed by in a blur.
He absentmindedly rubbed a scar on his hand, his fingers trailing over the raised skin, and he tried to pull his mind away from the endless loop of memories involving him and Francis that insisted on playing over and over again in his mind. Their first kiss, Francis' proposal, the event that had led to him getting the scar in the first place — he and Francis had gotten a bit frisky in the kitchen and it had not boded well for Arthur's hand at the end.
The car rolled to a stop and Arthur still didn't notice anything until Matthew stopped rubbing his back and the silence that had been oppressing the entire drive rose to a deafening level. Francis had always been generous with touching Arthur, a reassuring pat on the back or the simple act of letting a part of himself rest against Arthur at any given time. The absence of any human touch at the moment just amplified the loneliness.
But they wouldn't understand how Arthur felt. They wouldn't get how he longed for nearness above all. He would never understand why the only person that knew him like he knew himself was ripped away from him to leave him an empty husk of a man.