Thanks to Dionnysia and Captain Cynical for reviewing!
Alfred has started smiling when Arthur enters the room for each session.
Arthur is starting to lose track of time, but it's been over a month. Alfred is a beautiful man, and has learned to say some very beautiful things.
"Hello," he says.
"Good afternoon," Arthur responds, taking his seat. "And how have you been?"
"Sleepy," Alfred says. "The stars would not come out last night. So I stayed awake."
"You shouldn't do that to yourself. If the stars aren't going to come out there's no point in waiting for them, you know," Arthur says, crossing his legs and pulling out his notebook to rest it on his knee, pencil in hand and poised to write.
"I know," Alfred frowns. He's emoting. He's smiling and frowning and sighing like all other human beings on the planet. He's remembering English and taking care of his own cleanliness each morning. He doesn't complain about knocking back his anti-depressants anymore.
But he still believes in his abduction.
Arthur's lost track, but it's been over a month, and no one claiming to be Alfred's family has come forward. No matter how many images are put up online or how many missing persons' files they go through, they don't find him. The find the name 'Alfred,' certainly, but none blond, blue eyed and white have gone missing within the last ten years.
"Is there anything in particular you wanted to talk about today?"
Alfred shakes his head. "Not really."
The conversation will turn to stars eventually, Arthur knows. Even if Alfred says he doesn't particularly care for anything at the moment, Arthur knows. Stars will appear eventually.
"Has your room been warm enough? It's starting to get cold out, isn't it?"
Alfred nods, "My room is nice but the halls are very cold to me."
"We can get you a jacket," Arthur says, showing Alfred the one he wears at the moment. It's thin but warm and as fond of Alfred as he may be, he isn't sacrificing his own warmth inside the jacket for Alfred's warmth, so instead, for a temporary fix, Arthur stands and finds a blanket hidden in one of the back corners of the room and helps Alfred wrap himself in it.
Alfred sighs and snuggles into it, appearing much more content than he had just a few moments before. He smiles up at Arthur a second time. Arthur smiles back and settles again in his chair.
"Thank you."
"It's no trouble," he preps his notebook once more, "So you've been comfortable? Good. And no one's bothered you too much? Alright, lovely. So what's happened since last time?"
Alfred weaves a halting tail of learning the basics of chess in the afternoon (he sleeps through half of the morning) to learning how to open and close his window the few limited inches it permits, and the night shift leading him to the roof now each evening so he can squint up at the night.
He apparently doesn't notice the minutes he spends on the roof before being led down are getting shorter and shorter. If he does, he doesn't mention it, and Arthur writes that down, and continues to listen.
Alfred has a nice voice, now that it isn't shuddering to a halt halfway before where the end of every word should be and curving all his sentences into questions of "is this how it's said?"
He's started taking a notice in music that some of the nurses play through little speakers in their handhelds or through radios at certain desks, like the one out in the hall chanting "The spaceman says everybody look down— it's all in your mind," that Arthur has recently learnt to tolerate.
Someone has been teaching him to read. Arthur hasn't met him, but Alfred speaks of Dr. Braginski very fondly, and explains he is also the one teaching Alfred about chess in between the alphabet and Magic School Bus books, which he studies with vigor, enchanted by the strange blue planet he's found himself stranded back on.
Those are not the words he uses, but the meaning is exact.
"Since I can not leave now, I think I should learn more about here," he smiles a sad little smile. "But your language is silly. But dog seem nice."
"Dogs," Arthur corrects.
Alfred nods quickly. "Dogss seem nice. I haven't met any, but I think they would be nice."
"They're quite nice things," Arthur says. He doesn't like dogs. He doesn't like their slobber, barking or how their eyes always make them look so pitiful. He doesn't like talking about them, either. "You think you're stranded?"
Alfred can't raise his eyebrows, but he has learned to make a rather lovely befuddled expression. "No."
"Why?"
"He is too far away by now," Alfred said. "By the time he came back I would be older. It is not worth it for him."
Arthur leans forward, pen poised and ready. "I got the impression Tony cared deeply for you?"
Alfred nods, eyebrows furrowed, "He does! He is very nice. But I die so fast that it really would not be worth it to him to come back for me now that he is leaving and I am stuck."
"Alfred," Arthur says, "You're young. You've still got quite a long life ahead of you."
Alfred shakes his head. "Not very. Tony will live for a very long time, but here I will die much faster than before."
Arthur's pen is on the paper and writing. "Do you feel unsafe?"
Alfred shakes his head, "No."
"But why do you think you would die soon?" he asks.
Alfred opens his mouth to speak and promptly shuts it again. "I… don't know your word for it."
Arthur finishes his most recent note and says, "Could you draw it?"
Alfred looks down at his notebook, "Um. It is not a thing."
"Could you explain it?"
Alfred looks down at his notebook again. "I can try?"
He sets his notebook down and picks up his pencil and eraser. "Here," he says, setting down the eraser, "is one place. Um. Earth, I guess. And it is moving always, and it does not go very fast," he looks up to Arthur, and Arthur nods.
"Yes."
Alfred goes on, setting down his pencil. "This is a ship. It goes very, very fast. So on the ship, I do not get… old. I do not get old as fast as I do if I am on Earth, because the ship is moving very fast compared to Earth. And with Tony, he is on ship and so he will not be old as fast as I will, here," Alfred looks up at him again. His eyes are wider this time. "and I will die before he can come back."
Arthur doesn't pick up his notebook yet. He leans forward in his chair and folds his hands in front of him.
"Alfred," he says. "If that happened, you would have to be… quite old by now."
Alfred nods. "You don't see, because to me I am my oldness. But here things went faster but on their own time and I was not here for it so I am not old. Because I was in Tony's ship."
"Alfred," Arthur says softly. He wrings his hands once and then forces himself to stop. His eyebrows are drawn in a tight line and even for Alfred's incredible details up until this point, this is just too much science for a fantasy and it frightens him. "Do you remember a year, perhaps, that you were born? Or the year you were abducted? Not your age, the year?"
Alfred pauses and thinks, scrunching up his nose and closing his lips tightly. He taps his foot and clenches the blanket, turns to Arthur, and answers.
"1864."
000
It's raining. The spray remains firmly outside as Arthur holes himself in behind his desk. His sweater is woolen, a present from one of the brothers the Christmas before, and despite the poor color choice, it's keeping him wonderfully warm, even in the dreary weather. Well, warm for the most part. His feet and hands are positively freezing and he wants nothing more than a foot warmer and some matching wool gloves, or perhaps a foot warmer and a hot cup of chamomile.
His fingers are as ice cubes while he looks over his notes for that day, and the rain patter-pats on the window, half hiding the dreary and shadowed cityscape beyond the walls.
It's been raining a lot, lately it seems. Alfred is saddened because this means he can't stargaze. Arthur wonders if he should buy a star map as a poor substitute, though they're trying to bring him off his cosmic addiction.
Just as he thinks about making himself a cup of tea or hot cocoa, the door to the room opens. It's the fifth time Francis has entered the building rain-spattered and gray, but the first time with such a look of anger over his face. His eyebrows are furrowed and creases are on his forehead. His hair is imperfect.
"Alfred's being transferred."
"What?"
Arthur gets out of his chair so quickly he nearly sends himself and the chair clattering to the floor in a heap, but recovers at the last moment to lean on his desk and stare. "What?" he repeats.
"Our Alfred. Alfred, from wing F., the one you've been complaining about for at least a month?" Francis says, breath coming out in huffs. "I've gotten a response. The government wants him transferred to a more secure facility where he won't be a danger."
"That's bullshit," Arthur struts around his desk and plucks the paper from Francis' fingers.
Agent Bonnefois is begins, and Arthur can't even be bothered to read the rest entirely and simply skims it until he reaches the words, reports have made it clear that Patient Alfred is no longer safe for the public are and will be transferred to an undisclosed safe location on the
Arthur looks up, "He not dangerous. You told them he was dangerous."
"I said no such thing," Francis replied, "They reached that conclusion on their own. They never asked me."
"He's not dangerous. He's maybe a danger to himself, what with how stupid he gets sometimes— Shut up, pretend I didn't say that, but he's not dangerous," Arthur says.
"I know that and you know that and everyone in the damn hospital knows that, but they don't know that and for some reason they've gotten that impression," Francis says, eyes hardening. Arthur stares accusingly, but Francis does not yield. "I am merely the messenger."
Arthur snarls, "Right," and storms back behind his desk. "Fine. Fuck. So how long do we have?"
Francis' face crinkles, and he hesitates.
"Bon-foy," Arthur mangles the French, perhaps to prove a point, "How long?"
"Two days from now. The letter was delayed, but the other transfer papers are already being filed. Or might already be done. I'm not sure, I can't find them."
Arthur sits back in his chair and covers his face with his hands. "Fuck."
Francis pulls out his own chair from nearby and slides onto it wearily. "Indeed."
It must have been Francis who turned off the radio, because Arthur's hands are still hiding his face. Ground control to Major Tom.
"What…" Arthur sighs and slowly removes his hands. His face is most certainly not red and troubled. His hands are not trembling. "What, precisely, do you suggest we do now?"
Francis inhales. Exhales. Twirls his fingers like he's hoping for something to appear between them. "Well," he says after a moment. "we can't do much. Alfred will be transferred. Right now, all we can really do is take care of you."
"Me?" Arthur snorts. "I'll be fine. I'm just a bit irritated that they presume to take my patient without even consulting me. To a place I'm not even told of. Two days before it happens."
Francis sighs, "You're the one who kept insisting he should see someone more specialized for this."
Arthur stands. "I didn't mean it like this!"
Francis stands as well, calmly, with his face carefully controlled. "Arthur," he says, his voice gentle, "Relax. Let's go get drinks this evening, alright?"
Arthur sits back down in his chair as Francis turns to leave, still wet and starting to shiver.
Arthur puts his forehead down on the desk, and makes sure he is very, very quiet.
000
They go to the bar.
Arthur hardly drinks. It might be because it's Saturday night and everyone's come to the local bar, making it a physical din of football players screeching and ass-pinchers getting slapped. It might be that Arthur's first glass was from a bad bottle and he simply can't enjoy it. It might be Francis sitting beside him, solemnly sipping something dark red and heavily scented across from him.
"It's too noisy here," Arthur says. He has to repeat it five times before he's heard, as his voice has dropped to barely above a whisper as of late.
So Francis finishes his wine, uproots them from their booth and takes Arthur home.
Francis' home.
000
The apartment is specious and well kept. The furniture is soft and tasteful, the lights gentle but sufficient to their purpose. Arthur suspects Francis changed each and every light bulb when he arrived two months prior, shipped along into his office along with the man who blabbered about stars.
Things had been going so well.
Francis helps Arthur onto the plush couch that looks, not new, but hardly worn down. It's plush and easy to lie down on. Difficult not to lie down on, in fact. Arthur hardly drank in the bar, yet still has to fight the urge to not flop over on the couch just to feel more of the plush, feathery support against him.
He's left there for just a few minutes, leaning against the pillows and relaxing happily as Francis enters his kitchen— which Arthur can see from where he sits, it's blue tile and green walls. It reminds him of the inside of an aquarium, in copper pots and pans that hang from the ceiling could be fish— Francis enters his kitchen to fetch them more alcohol.
Arthur feels this is one of the few night he truly has a right to over-indulge.
He realizes it's self pity and that from another angle, others might have just as much right. The Dr. Braginski Alfred mentions, or nurse Lauranaitis who brings him his meals and who Alfred has borrowed many facial expressions from. Maybe Francis has become fond of writing about Alfred. Maybe he will miss it more than Arthur will miss sitting in a stuffy little room with a badly colored couch.
Francis arrives with the alcohol. Arthur tries to push unpleasant things out of his mind, and fails.
"Whiskey," Francis says, "Cognac, and hot milk."
"Hot milk?"
"It's supposed to be comforting," and Francis shrugs as though he really doesn't know, and sits down beside Arthur. The couch barely shifts with the extra weight as Francis uncorks and beings to pour.
"Thank you," Arthur says as he takes his glass and raises it to his lips.
It's not very long before he's drunk. Not long after that to be drunk out of his common sense.
Francis takes little sips. Arthur is done with his bottle before Francis is done with his glass. Perhaps it's the couch or the quiet hum of traffic outside that makes drinking easier here. Perhaps it's Francis sitting beside him or that they're alone beside each other. Perhaps he has a subconscious fear of blabbering when he becomes drunk and realizes that this time, he won't blabber things as innocuous as his little family he's grown away from or sometimes his sexuality. Once, three weeks ago, in that little bar, he spilled it all out in his guts and hopes only Francis heard, because it was noisy then too, but the quiet isolation is still so much more comforting than noise. In noise, someone would hear.
He's drunk by the time Francis is done with his first glass.
"God," Arthur says, "Fuck my life."
"It's not the end of the world," Francis says, and pours another glass. Arthur sulks and drinks the very last drops out of his bottle, and waits for Francis to get up and fetch another.
"Perhaps," he wishes Francis would get it soon, because his throat is very dry and he'd like something to moisten it. "I suppose you'll be leaving?"
"Yes, probably by the end of next week I'll have a new assignment," he sets his glass down and the conversation pauses as he gets up to fetch two more bottles. "These are all you're getting, by the way. I only have so much," he says. Arthur snorts and opens one. "And what are you planning to do?"
"Go back to analyzing regular people," Arthur answers honestly and polishes off his first glass. Francis raises and eyebrow. Alfred can't raise his eyebrows. "What?"
"Regular people?" Francis says.
"Yes," he refills and drinks more. His taste buds are becoming numbed, the flavor is no longer as strong, and perversely he wishes he could consume even more though he knows he's pushing it rather already, even though he's yet to start slurring. "Suicide, depression, shock, divorce, abuse, trauma, broken hearts, eating disorders, self esteem, coping with death or loss or worry. The things people come to me for."
"Ah."
"I liked talking with Alfred."
Francis' glass pauses halfway to his lips. Arthur knows now that he's going to speak, and will not be able to stop. At least they're in private. At least it's just Francis.
If only it were someone else.
"Really?" Francis says, and slowly takes his intended sip.
"I get somewhat bored with my usual things," Arthur admits, "He's not like that."
Francis' eyes are wide. "Bored?" His voice holds accusation.
Arthur has drunk enough not to care. He still wants to drink more. Maybe he really will drown in his sorrow, and the thought scares him, but hell if he's going to stop.
He's heard of this problem before among colleagues. It's commonplace. It's usual.
He just hasn't gotten around to getting a therapist of his own.
"We don't love our patients," he whispers into the rim of his cup. "We care and we listen, and when we walk out of the room, we cut ourselves off and stop caring until we go back in again, because you know what? If we don't, we become nervous fucking wrecks because of all the shit we hear every day. It's not cruelty, it's necessity. And… and Alfred's so different I can't help thinking about him when I'm not supposed to. And— and the shit he says it's fucking… poetry. If Shakespeare knew what stars looked like, he'd write about stars; he'd write about the fucking stars. Alfred makes me feel like I've never seen a goddamn star in my life. And he pities me because I haven't, did you know that? It was in the transcript. He said he pitied me, last Thursday, I—" Arthur sits up straight. "Nothing bad's happened to me in my entire fucking life!"
Francis makes a move like trying to wrap an arm around— to comfort him, but Arthur hunches away and throws up his hands, nearly dropping his glass before thinking better of it and setting it on the table before he speaks again.
"You don't get it, I'm adopted! I was adopted at birth, I don't give a shit about my biological parents. Some kids do, but I don't. I've never been too curious about them, they were friends with my adopted mother, so I've already known everything about them my whole life. I've never gone hungry, no one in my family's died except a few great grandparents or uncles that I never knew or was too little to remember. Once or twice my brothers would stick a dead newt in my bed and I never learned how to swim and they think it's hilarious; coming out was embarrassing and then my older brother told me he was bi so it wasn't even a big deal— I talk to people every day who've tried to kill themselves, and then I go home and the news is all about starving children in Africa and people orphaned or raped and kids dying of heroin or gang violence, or some fucking war going on with people being killed. Every day! I—I'm not depressed because of all the shit they've gone through, I'm fucking miserable because I know how lucky I am! What kind of bastard gets upset about not having his life fucked over?"
He flops on the couch, sighs deeply and buries his face in a plush pillow. His breath rattles but his eyes remain dry.
Francis sits quietly beside him, and touches nothing. He's not a therapist like Arthur is, but he seems to know the difference in saying the right thing, and when there is nothing to say.
For a while, both are silent with only the buzz of traffic and the TV to break it.
Finally, Arthur unburies his face.
"He loves the stars. He thinks they're some kind of— Sistine Chapel on a roof of the heavens. It's like listening to Desdemona gushing over Othello in there. It's horrid but lovely and— and nothing I try to tell him will make him think they're not the most lovely things out there. It's bullshit, it's madness, all the lot of it."
Francis sits quietly beside him.
"…You're a poet when you're angry."
"Fuck you, that doesn't make me feel better."
"I'm sorry. And I'm sorry Alfred can't see you as a star. Or, maybe at least, as lovely as one? Though you've lost a bit of the gas and dust, but at least all the hot air's still there?" Francis attempts a smile.
Arthur doesn't seem to notice. "I don't care about being a star. Being six million years old must be horrid. You know what I want? I want to stop fucking analyzing people. Just… stop. That's what happens to us, you know. We analyze our marriages, our relationships, and we start saying shit like 'yes, well you're only mad at me because your first girlfriend did a brutal text message breakup and you wanted to fuck your mother.' I can't help it. It's true. It's true."
Francis sighs, but Arthur is not looking at him.
"When Alfred leaves," Francis says, since Arthur will not spare him a glance, "I may very well leave too. I'm not one for permanent relationships. I move around a lot, and furthermore, while we're not six million years old, humans just live far too long to be stuck with only one other human for their entire lives. I find it stifling and cruel. That doesn't mean I don't love the people I'm with while I'm with them, nor does it mean that I don't want to… maybe, heal people, if you will. Or at least help them a little, when I can. And when they want me to."
Arthur is silent for a long moment, staring hard at the wall across from him. "So you want to fuck?"
Francis sighs again, and lets Arthur answer his own questions.
"…you know. That sounds nice. No attachments. No baggage. I could call in sick tomorrow and you'd know I'm not avoiding you." Arthur says once it's clear won't tell him plainly. His voice drops to a whisper and his green eyes flicker in hesitation. "…carry me?"
Like Prince Charming, Francis wraps his arms around Arthur and in a velvet baritone voice whispers, "Anything, mon petit lapin," against the cleft of Arthur's ear.
He's lifted from his seat and carefully carried upstairs, up to the top floor. Just a few meters higher, but still a few small meters closer to the endless, murky skies above them.
000 I'm sorry that this update is a week late, people have been getting ill (myself included) and I didn't want to rush this since it's kind of an important chapter… Is it "learned" or "learnt"? 0o Those things Arthur says about his past? There's a word for that. Survivor's guilt. It's something people involved in or who become very close to a tragedy feel when they wish it happened to them as though it might've spared the other's involved, instead. I imagine a lot of therapists feel it, if they don't become apathetic first. ….Francis isn't a rapist, gais. Ferserious. Also. Stars are not actually hot air. There is no air. Silly Francis, you know philosophy, not science! I've never actually heard "Spaceman" (The Killers) on the radio. This saddens me greatly. I guess it is kind of an acid trip song, but at least it makes more sense than "Human." Sigh. :( ….I don't like bullets, but with A/Ns like this, I always feel like I should be using them because it's just so choppy. But I want to keep it short-ish. Asdfghjkl. On that very last line, I give you a fun fact: technically, no direction is 'up'. We're on a little bubble floating through an endless void of almost-nothingness. Every direction is up. But "murky skies around them" sounds strange after a lifetime of seeing the sky and thinking "up!" You guys may've noticed that Alfred's English has come a very long way. This is the "sink or swim" effect (not actual name) where a person who is thrown into a completely different culture will pick up the language and customs within a few months and be fluent in the language by six months. Alfred's going a little bit faster because people are actively teaching him and he knew a few basic things from those 70's TV shows and PETA messages. Okay. So, time dilution is what made Theoretically, because of time dilution (assuming that a spaceship is It kind of puts our lives in perspective.
End CH 3A/N
000
This chapter's dedicated to my brother, happy birthday.
Now I want everyone to go out and hug their family members and remind them you love them. If you have a bad relationship with a family member, maybe now's the chance to mend it.
Hetalia (c) H. Himaruya