X-X-X

The faint opera music floated in the air, produced by an antique-tic gramophone in the large dining room. Mathew had never understood this kind of high and delicate musical art. He found it too complicated and deep for him to bear.

Every time he was caught in an high note of anger, encouragement and thirsty desires to fight; his head felt crazy, like a storm crawling and shrieking, waiting for the moment it could break through the wall – high and mad to destroy everything it loathed. Every time he was pulled into a stream of low bass wailing for sorrow and death and life; his throat burn as if some cruel men set fire in there, choking him with smoke and thick as though ton of stones weighed it down, sharp and heavy enough to rip the part apart. Every time the music offered him a peaceful tone; his teeth would bare in disgust and incredulity; because it was like laughing and mocking at the reality, provoking soul rather than calming it.

But as he was sitting at the long dining table, with expensive flowery table cloth, flames set from the egging–white candles, dancing like weak dead souls under the mockingly charming light of the chandelier right above, silvery forks, knifes and spoons, red, blue, purple flowers in the china vase in the middle; he could heard the opera sound so calm, so calm that it didn't provoke him like normal, yet rather brought him a vaguely dread feeling.

The singer voice was so sweet, singing like describing a beautiful and comfortably off town – markets were crowed with food and richness, fields were endless and fat with green and yellow, people with smiles, friendliness and excitement… He could see them all when he close his blue hues to let his artistic sense and imaginations run wild.

He could tell the pride implied in every note, and he would have grinned if he hadn't caught the performer's voice slowly turned low and faint. Like a transition.

The servants around bow their head to greet the new comers and immediately, Mathew straightened his posture.

[The tone returned to its normal sonority in a slow motion.]

He held his head in an average level, not too smug but still prideful and respectful. His father walked past him, ironed black pants and pearly white shirt tucked in neatly with a mild-golden silk handkerchief fold in his left breast pocket, and sat in his head–chair.

[Grimier and grimier.]

Heads were bent a little deeper. His mother must have just stepped in. But his ears noticed something else and his fingertips ditched into the wooden chair-handles.

[More and more uninterruptedly and fast.]

Wheels collided with the brown-red carpeted floor, making silent rustling sounds. He held his breath, his heart pounding hard, scared, like it could burst in any second. His nails clutched harder, so much enough to draw out blood. His eyes stared ahead, unchanged as his father turned around from a small conversation with the new butler to glance at him - Daring him.

Mathew listened to the footsteps of his mother stopped near where he was, opposite with her seat. He found his legs weakened and slightly shook under the table – which he was glad for. A big sweat formed itself behind the back of his neck, rolling down his spine with an invisible deadly cold shiver. No doubt he would have to change his beaten, sweaty shirt tonight.

The hostess finally sat down, and his father signaled for the servants to bring out food.

[Faster and thicker.]

Control. Control. Control yourself – His brain mumbled as food was served in his dish. Act normally. Act normally.

"Mathew, can you fix Alfred's napkin?" No. His muscles were stiff, his back soaked, his throat dry, his nostrils stuck, his eyes burning. No. Please. Please. Please. Don't. He turned to his right, calm facade; but every motion of his neck felt painful and for every turning millimeter his mind weeping and begging.

[Like shrieking and wailing. Between the harmonies, he heard warm laughter.]

Matt looked at Alfred, who was in a wheel chair looking over everything with blank, dark cerulean eyes. His brother sat there with a crooked and wrong done napkin, head tilting a little bit aside.

[Mathew could have laughed, because Alfred was always messy as though a child. Yet now things were different. No, they were the same, but just got worse. Much, much worse.

He would have laughed and then been shaken with tears whilst still laughing like mad. Mad. Afterward he would hiccup. Crying. Shouting. He would want to tear his hair out. He would want to die, over and over again.]

He reached out his hands, trying his best not to allow them to shake. There were stones in the pit of his stomach and sour throat. He realized he was no longer breathing. Alfred's cloth, clean and neat and nerdy, brushed pass his finger and he just wanted to rip all of it out off of his brother. Alfred was never fond of those kinds of clothing. He never like them, he would complain, he would frown, he would be sad. God, please, he despised them.

Please.

It felt like hours until the napkin was fixed. Matt settled in his seat again, his heart shattering everywhere but he didn't found the need to pick them up, just sitting and nobly devouring the food which tasted like ash and burnt sand.

As usual, his mother started first, always her, "So Mathew, I notice you've been acting strangely lately. And yesterday you came home late, dirty coat," she searched his face, but he didn't bother looking up at her. "What's wrong with you, Mathew dear?"

The gramophone had long been switched off. No opera. Almost silence with the clicking and clattering sound of metal and porcelain. Mathew gripped his silvery, glistening small knife tighter, whirling with thought of stabbing the woman. Still not making eye contact with his mother, he gazed over Alfred, watching the maid feeding him, sauce and crumble of food fallen out his mouth, staining his clothes. The corner of Mathew's mouth twitched up oh so slightly at the ruin garb.

Matt heard his mother asked the same question again and gripped his hand harder. His silence of disrespectfulness seemed to anger the woman and make his father raise his voice for the first time.

"Answer your mother's question, son."

Every word from that man's mouth was always stern and pressed, as if to show off his power over other. Mathew could hear the calm opera replaying faintly in his head. His darker blue hues looked at his brother's.

Alfred's orbs were paler, so soulless, so lifeless, and so dark. Dark. [And somehow, in the back of his mind, he saw a spark of green.]

"I SAID ANSWER THE QUESTION, SON!"

Never flinching despite the fear deep inside his body, he turned to his father, never the woman to his left, contemplating each and every strain of gray hair. "Nothing is wrong with me, sir."

He dropped his knife and fork, stood up and glanced at Alfred once more before fleeing the dining room. Ignoring his father's demand "Mathew William Jones, get back here right now!" he walked fast through the hall, his heart beating quicker and quicker.

Finally reaching the front door, he ran.


His mind told him one thing, only one and everything else was just a blur, not important. He didn't remember taking a bus, sitting in there until the driver announced him it was the last station and getting off. He wandered, just like the day weeks ago, with his soul and heart broken.

But he was not an angry lost dog anymore, too exhausted to be angry, too acknowledgeable about where to go to be lost. Instead, right now, this very moment, he was greedy.

Exasperatedly and desperately so.

His surrounding was dark, artificial lights and clouded stars were not enough. He was in this part of town again, yet scared of it no longer. It was his turn to look around it hungrily, eyes darkened and wide. His footsteps bounced silently, mixing with other whispering kinds of sound. His inside was flustered like a squirrel in a cage with that strong and needy feeling. He wanted to feel it again – the bravery, the untouchable. He wanted himself to be like that again. To be with Arthur and fears would matter no more.

He felt sweet rolling down his forehead, sticking at his eyelashes, tracing down his nose and checks like tears. Tears he couldn't shed, tears he found none to share and soak in, even when he needed it. But he knew better than crying. It was too weak, too tiring, and he was dried of them long ago.

The familiar street lamp appeared in his eyesight, yet no tell tale of the man he wanted to see most. His hands shook and damp, his leg weakened, his mouth parted to breathe difficultly. He felt his head whirling, spinning. So…. so…. He couldn't even shout.

"No kidding, kid. You again…"

He didn't think if his head could turn round any faster or sharper. There he was, Arthur, standing before him in his usual outfits, green eyes looking at him, giving him life.

"Art…" – He breathed out, never so grateful in his living time. The prostitute stared at him in astonishment, then slight anger, and finally defeat. The older man shook his head, his way of saying "You're bloody stubborn, lad." Mathew found himself smile, at the movement or the relief rising in his chest, he didn't know for sure.

"You're here, Arthur. I thought you're gone. You're here," Matt said, stepping closer to the man, his voice low as though a whisper, as though he just reassured his own self.

Arthur didn't take his eyes off of him, having to slightly look up to meet his face. Some mere centimeters taller made Mathew proud. "What happened to you? You look…terrible, lad." Arthur asked, hesitantly, and Matt reminded himself to remember the worried hint of the pros' tone.

The soon-to-be-man boy refused to answer with his own head-shake. He came nearer to the green eyed man, holding both of his arms to prevent him from taking any retreating steps. He looked down at the furrowed eyebrows and confused emerald eyes; his dark blue orbs softened. There, right there, he had felt it again. How he needed it.

Oh, oh, how much that he had needed this.

Mathew's head found its way to one of Arthur's shoulder, resting and allowing him to breathe in his scent, just as much as he could. He heard Arthur sighed out, tired but patient and not unkind. "You keep doing this, I can't work, lad. Doomed me. Blasted you…"

Matt chuckled, hoarsely and genuinely, and Arthur somehow joined him shortly with a snort. "Now let go."


Never did he dream of coming to Arthur's house. Because from the beginning Mathew was just a stubborn and haunting stranger to the man. When Arthur said "let go", the younger of the two didn't think not only did it mean him letting the older man go, but also following him to his place.

Which he was surprised at, but not unhappy. Secretly excited even.

Arthur's house was just a cheap apartment in a running-down building. It could be described by three words: cramped, bare and wooden. A combination of one sink, one stove and one small wooden cabinet in the left corner made a kitchen. There was a wooden wardrobe near a wooden bed in the opposite side, which also had a door leading to a tiny bathroom.

Mathew looked around, not knowing where to sit down so he settled for the floor, beside the bed, leaning to the cracked wall behind. Arthur came sitting next to him, his back resting against the bed itself. He handed Matt a cup of tea, so warm in his two hands. Mathew could see Arthur, having his jacket taken out, hugged loosely by his shirt, making the man seem so lithe and thin. And just right then, the boy realized the real condition Arthur was in.

Guilt once more ate him up, causing him to look side-way, staring at the bed to distract himself. But it was a wrong move, because it was really distractive. Seeing untidy blanket, pillows and unruly bed-sheet, his brain jumped in the thought of what might possibly happened there. Arthur must have noticed his glance, for he stole Mathew attention again with an exhale, "I'm a prostitute, what do you think?"

The coldness and bitterness in the sentence made Matt cringed, his heart tightened. His brows knitted together, the brown liquid in his cup was never more interesting. What you do don't matter, I never belittle you, Arthur. He couldn't say that aloud, just helplessly thinking and keeping silent. And he found it frustrating.

The older man sighed again, his hues darted upwards, to the boring stained ceiling. "You know, lad," he started; Mathew raised his head and listened every word offered to him, "Life, sometimes, is not what we expect… Never to me, has it seemed. But, but just look out there…"

Arthur eyes remained where they were; up and faraway. "There is light out there, like stars always up in the sky, just waiting for us to find them…" Mathew felt he could see the night heaven reflecting in those green orbs, full of stars, of lights. The longing in the man's voice made Matt longed to hold him close. And in brief seconds, green was so bright, sandy was so golden, pale so pearly.

Matt knew he would see no lights, no stars, even when they shone so brightly. Because right in front of his eyes he had found one. The brightest of them all.

"I have found one," Mathew said, never looking at anything but Arthur. [If the man noticed the seriousness and firmness in his tone, he said nothing. Instead Arthur blinked, and then hummed in his throat, eyes not leaving his ceiling.]


The moist, stench and dirty smell wrapped up his nose, surprisingly not making him uncomfortable, but instead helping him relax. All of the degraded hallway was deserted, quiet and haunting as ghosts - totally opposite to the night sessions, Matt thought, when the stagger, tired people came home from their overtime working shift; the emaciated, drug addicted ones woke up from their disorder sleep, returning back to the dark present to be immersed in smoke, alcohol and sex again, to be suffocated in a dull, obscure haze rather than in a truculent, severe reality, where they had already died long ago.

He leant against the old wooden door behind, avoiding causing any noises; he didn't want to let Arthur know he was still here, in front of his apartment, listening to his moans. [He'd come back this afternoon, just to be pushed out by Arthur. While not completely hearing the man tell him to go home, he caught a glimpse of a man, slowly taking out his coat. And Mathew understood right away.]

He took a deep breath, the unpleasant odors no longer made him feel like vomiting, but letting him acknowledge that he was in somewhere far, far away from that house and closer to Arthur.

[Arthur, he was special, not knowing that he made ugly things become bearable and sometimes, unbelievably, beautiful.]

His cheek of the left side was still stinging, the red imprint remaining difficult to fade. Mathew didn't bother touching or checking it, which was created by his father with a slap in the face, which that disgusting scent of his lingered on.

[Oh yes, he hated those scents radiating from his father just as much as he did to everything that belonged to his dear mother. Mathew still remembered this morning clearly, remembering stepping into the main working room of his "venerable" father, Harriet William Jones, after his returning from Arthur's place.

Harriet's home-office, just like how he saw it many times prior, was filled with brown, black, too dark green and red shade. All of them were too powerful and brutal, oppressive and chill, even when they were hot colors. It felt like being burnt in hell fire, not dying of the heat of the flame, but of the icy-cold fear choking us before the fire could do anything.

Mathew recalled Harriet had been sitting on his polished leather chair, two hands stitched together, hovering about chin-level. Harriet was silent with a cold gaze – the usual gaze that he used to contemplate the running-mad world around him. And for the first time, Mathew realized how pitiful his mother had been and would always was.

The false smiles, the cerulean eyes that were full of possessiveness, having no warmth, the twisted heart, the obsessive soul were all because of not only her personalities, but also this man. Never had there been, not even once, a look of love or empathy between his father and mother.

For from the very first beginning, there was no love.

A marriage had no props, without love, creating two children born from coldness and apathy. But those kids were too different; they weren't like what their parents had thought, they were not the bitter, dried-up and vicious souls on this Earth. No, they were warm, innocent, eyes full of liveliness.

He remembered when he was five, first meeting his mother since the woman had been away from home for almost two years; the first time that he could memorize his mother's face clearly was the same time he was able to see her glances of hatred, jealousy, anger and disgust in those blue eyes he and Alfred were inherited. It was the first time he felt afraid of his own mother.

And in that moment, facing his father, Mathew'd found out how much all of it made sense.

A horrible sense. A disgusting sense.

Might have he broken down when he discovered the truth. But no, it only added to his long-lasted pain, making him hardened in his own languishing. He and Alfred, by some ways, had been living until now, literally. And he wouldn't let himself die easily till the day he finally knew what "living" was in its true meaning.

He'd met Arthur, and all that was enough for him to start again, if he could someday. With his brother, Alfred.

"Last night, you'd really disappointed me, son," – Harriet began, light and low. He glanced at Matt, like he was not worthy for his both eyes to turn and look wholly. Mathew didn't know what Harriet saw in his world. Did it have colors? Did it have any emotional shape? Did it include any one else but himself?

He watched his father rising from his black leather chair in a smooth movement, taking a few step towards him. And Mathew knew what would come after that. It was just different from before. It wasn't like in his childhood, on which he and Alfred together faced the snapping hands and icing gazes. It wasn't like when Alfred was in the hospital, unconscious and forever not aware of his plant life awaiting after the accident; he was too shocked, too helpless, too tired, too pained and too dead to care.

But it was different at that moment. Because he was facing his father alone, with a full mind and determined heart. What was to come he would deal with it, straight-faced. No running-away. No going back.

The impact of his father's slap hadn't lost its strength or its satisfaction of hurting someone, always enough to leave marks and sometimes, blood. Mathew slowly turned his head ahead from his sideways position because of it. His left cheek ached, burning red. Just like his eyes, but he kept that to himself.

"I don't feed you or teach you to disrespect this family. Any spoiled actions in my house are not allowed. You hear me, son?" – Mathew met Harriet's eyes, as even and as hard. Harriet narrowed his orbs, grey seeming to turn into black. "Be better, son."

Mathew's hands tightened around each other behind his back too tightly.

"Be better,"

"Be better, my dear son."]

Those teeth hidden in his mouth were gritted together; his eyes staring at the streak of light that stretched across the dark, lacked of power corridor, from the small window at the end of the range. The afternoon sunlight was weak, but excited, fiercely crimson and boldly yellow as a blazing flame shrieking, refusing to die. Mathew wondered if the blue of his hues was blazing like that.

He changed the position of his head, purposefully making his right ear pressed against the hard surface of the door. And Mathew listened to the sounds that reached him, muffled-y. He heard Arthur's bed creaking, hard thrusts and fake-pleased [pained] moans. He heard Arthur's tiny voice begging, whimpering. He heard some rough tones snapped back, satisfied and sadistically wanting more than what the prostitute could give, but had to. He closed his eyes, the slapping sounds of flesh making him sick to the very end of his being, causing his rip heart to be rip again, scratching and tearing and swallowing him up.

His Arthur…His Arthur… His beautiful, defiled Arthur…

'I'm a prostitute, what do you think?'

What did he think? [What did he think right now?]

I love you Arthur, I love you. He loved Arthur, he loved him, and he couldn't do anything. How he disgusted himself now.

It was like hours had passed by until there were footsteps coming closer to the door; automatically Matt moved away, sitting slightly next to it. It eventually opened and his ears caught heavy stepping sounds of leather shoes, which thundered in his brain, making him long to kill the man it belonged to.

Never had he wanted to murder a person more.

And oh, how wonderful it would be.

Pushing the thought aside when the pacing noise was out of his earshot, he immediately stood up and went straight into Arthur's apartment. Dark blue eyes fell onto the naked figure lying on bed, strangling with sheet.

The skin was pale, sweating, worn out and bitten. Arthur was curling into a ball, like making himself become smaller till he was too tiny to see, enough for people to think he had disappeared. But Matt wouldn't allow it, despite the fact how painful it was.

Matt went to the bed, gently laid down and wrapped his arms around Arthur, feeling the numbness and infinite pains. Mathew hugged him closer, listening to his interrupted and soundless inhaling and exhaling.

"In the night, dark are both you and I," under his breath Matt sang the melody-less melody, trying to fill, to fix and comfort another wailing soul and wan heart. The nake body pressed close to his just felt like home.

In the night dark are both you and I.

It was Mathew's turn now, to protect him [- His need blessing God.]


Only one more chapter left.

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