Title: The Genius Next Door

Number of chapters: 15 + epilogue

Word count: 70k + total, 3256 for this part

Cover image by: Eric Rougier

Summary: Arthur makes an appearance and Francis writes a letter.

Warnings: Please click on my profile for a full list of warnings if you need them.

Other notes: I'm going to update this every Monday and Friday from here on out. In other words, the last chapter of this story + the epilogue will both be posted on the 29th of July 2013. Thank you everyone for your support!

Francis paused in front of the door, staring at it as though he'd never seen such a thing before. He raised his hand to knock, gingerly, and only got as far as the first rap before he gave up and slumped against it, pressing his forehead on the cold painted wood and sighing deeply.

That's when the door opened.

The Frenchman almost stumbled straight forwards into the arms of one not-so-content Arthur Kirkland, but he managed to catch himself from falling just on time with the door frame. He straightened, looked cautiously at the other's face, and was met with a glowering glare.

"Arthur," he stammered, fidgeting with the end of his shirt — a nasty habit he somehow managed to pick up during his absence.

The Briton held up a contraption in his hands, face completely blank, and Francis' heart froze at the sight. His old cellular, cracked in a thousand different places, was somehow still running — and it beeped and hummed joyously as though Francis' presence alone was worthwhile of all its attention. Treacherously, the screen displayed the very last conversation he had open —

Hey, u busy tonight? ;)

L'Éther? I can bring someone I think you'd enjoy…

Text me back, babee, imy

"Chel," Francis seethed.

"Who?" asked Arthur.

"Nobody."

"No, tell me." The Briton leaned against the door coolly, arms crossed, waiting patiently for the Frenchman to figure out what he needed to say.

Francis didn't know why he was there. He had finally been kicked out by Antonio, finally been betrayed by his last singular friend, and he had mindlessly walked to the only other place on earth that he knew — to home, to Arthur.

So this was what it came down to.

"Arthur, je t'aime," he said suddenly, slipping back into French as naturally as though he was speaking to anyone else before his mind could even process what was happening.

A livid expression passed Arthur's face like never seen before, and a hot colour rose from the bottom of his throat up until it hit his hairline. The Briton moved fast. Furiously he slammed the door against Francis' fingers, and the Frenchman leapt back, yelping. He swore heavily as he shook his throbbing hand, but he was back on the offensive in no time because it'd taken him too long to find the courage to come here and he was not going to sit down now.

"Je t'aime!" he said to the door, leaning his whole figure against it. "Arthur, please talk to me, I came back so that I could make it up to you, so that we could talk —"

"I hate you!" came the voice on the other end. "I hate you, and I don't know how you could dare show your froggy face here again. I thought you were gone for good, I thought I'd never have to see you again and I was glad, goddammit, I was happy. Get the fuck away!"

"I'm sorry," he begged, and he meant it with every fiber of his being. Dieu, he meant it. He could say it for the rest of his life and he would never be able to mean it more — even though he was Francis, Francis who never apologized, Francis who was always more prideful than he was worth. "I'm sorry, and I've missed you so much, please just let me explain —"

"Fuck you!" screamed Arthur. "Don't bloody shove your lies down my ears, I don't want to hear them! I don't want to hear you ever again, don't you get it? Can't you understand?"

"Damn it, I know! I can't leave, I'm not going to leave. Open up, eyebrows!"

"Shut up! Just shut up! I —" here Francis heard pounding from the other side of the wall — "I hate you —" with a pound on every syllable, " — and I don't know why I ever married you. I can't believe you did it. I can't believe you did that to me! I thought you loved me!"

"I do! I always have!"

"Just you wait," said Arthur, in a voice too vicious, too cruel to be truly him, and Francis could almost envision the loathing on his face as he said this with sneering conviction, "Just you wait, Francis fucking Kirkland-Bonnefoy. As soon as I can — a-as soon as I can, I'm going to divorce your ass."

A wave of nausea passed over the Frenchman but he hastily forced it back down his throat, swallowing heavily and feeling disgusted with himself. He felt like he was going to pass out right then and there; he felt fatigued, like an old horse that's been worked too many years. "You don't mean that," he whispered hoarsely. "You wouldn't do that to me. I need you."

A heavy silence pervaded their argument, and for a brief moment Francis thought that Arthur had simply left him to rot on his doorstep. It was not unlikely. Francis slid down the door, his back against it, and brought his knees up against his chest, counting through the seconds.

One-two-three —

"You came. I didn't think you would," Francis had said, back when being insecure was enough evidence of being infatuated.

"Are you kidding?" Arthur's youthful laugh became lost to the winds as he slid up next to Francis against the Mirabeau railing. "I wouldn't miss seeing you for the world."

Four-five-six —

"Have you brushed up on your flower language?"

"Of course. This one's too easy." Arthur looked down at it, realizing how much more effectual and loud the bouquet could communicate compared to the spoken word. "Ha-ha, took you long enough."

Seven-Eight-Nine —

"I think I love you," said Francis unexpectedly, turning around with a beautiful smile on his face as the revelation washed over him, bringing with it immediate thoughts of the urgent need to share the news with the only other person he ever could.

"I know," Arthur responded, matching his smile.

Ten-Eleven-Twelve —

"Why wasn't I good enough for you?" asked Arthur, quietly. "Why wasn't I ever good enough for you?"

"Oh, cher," Francis said into his arms, not really thinking, "You were. It was me. It was my fault."

"Fuck you," said Arthur again bitterly from the other side, and Francis wondered if they were always going to be like this until their dying days. Always with something between them, a wall that could never be broken down — with the two of them on different sides of it, like two doomed lovers never meant to be together in the very first place.

And they'd thought that they could work around their differences.

"I'll do anything to have you forgive me," said Francis softly, feeling his pride crumble and wither into the dust as though he had physically ground it there himself. "I-I'll get up early every morning and make whatever you want, I'll get a second job because I know how much you've been complaining about our bills -"

"You don't get it," Arthur interrupted, voice flat with lack of concern.

"I do," admitted Francis, choking up. "Please, I do."

The hallway in which he was sitting was completely silent. Perhaps in the other flats there were families, listening with their cheeks pressed against their walls, marveling, with hushed giggles, at the silliness that could go on between two people. Or perhaps they were shutting out the noise, for he knew that there were yet still some in the world who looked at what they had with revulsion.

He couldn't blame them.

"I have a question."

Arthur's voice had gotten so quiet now that Francis questioned if it was really Arthur at all, since it was Arthur who liked to act so confident usually — the only way the Brit knew to hide his insecurities and weaknesses.

(But then again, to be fair, both were horribly out of touch with their emotions).

Francis traced a circle on his left knee with a bruised finger and speculated if there was any way anything could go back to the way it used to be, in a time when neither he nor Arthur were adults with bills and responsibilities but rather young teenagers, tender and sensitive, who could fall in love too easily and fall out just as.

Was that what he wanted, then — the lack of a sense of commitment?

"Why did you do it?"

Francis replied, "To get your attention."

There was a pause — and then he heard a shifting noise as Arthur, too, slid down so that the two were almost back to back — and would be, if it wasn't for the block of wood between them.

"Are you happy now?" asked Arthur, sounding pitiful and weak.

"You know I'm not," responded Francis finally, feeling the words leave his chest as heavily as though he was telling a lie.

"I don't. Not anymore. I don't even know what we are anymore. I don't know where you went these past weeks or what you did and I kept trying to give you the benefit of the doubt but you wouldn't even talk to me. How can I trust you anymore, when the first thing you did was run?"

Francis stayed silent, fearful that he would say something out of place like he always did and ruin Arthur's train of thought. Arthur was a very private man, and there were few occasions when his true thoughts revealed themselves. Here was one of them.

"You disappeared for the longest time," whispered Arthur. "Were you really so afraid of what I'd say or do that you ran away and hid from me? Didn't you ever think of the fact that maybe I needed you, too?"

The Frenchman bit into his lips, feeling tears spring into his eyes. He blinked hard, forcing the wetness away, and wiped at his dry cheeks absentmindedly.

"I think we should go on a break," said Arthur, and Francis' heart broke in two.

Arthur gave him here a chance to speak, to say whatever he wanted, but all Francis could do was sit there in shock, playing Arthur's words over and over again in his head like a water-washed record.

Break.

Married couples didn't go on breaks. Married couples sat down and talked their problems over, figured out where the bump in the road was and the best way to approach it. Married couples made compromises and sacrifices. Married couples forgave and forget.

Married couples didn't break apart so easily. Married couples didn't go on breaks.

Arthur slowly opened the door, looking down at Francis' small, hunched figure.

"I love you," Francis managed to say one final time, as he turned around to face his husband — tears hanging precariously off the ends of his lashes — as Arthur helped him stand up and the two looked each other straight in the eye. "I will always love you, for the rest of this lifetime and for the rest of the next and all the other ones to come after that, if they exist."

"Francis," said Arthur in a shaking voice, "Francis, don't make this harder than it needs to be. This is something I need — something I think we both need."

"Don't push me away, Arthur," Francis begged, grabbing Arthur by the shoulders and digging his nails into the other's skin as if to say, see me I have something important to tell you please listen I'm right here I've always been here, "If you told me to jump off a bridge I'd ask which one. If you asked me to shoot myself in the chest, I'd ask how many times — because, because —" He gripped the Englishman tighter when words failed him, but the other could only look away, refusing to meet his searching gaze.

"Let go," said Arthur, sounding empty inside.

And Francis did.

"You're right," Francis stammered on, tears rolling freely down his cheeks now as his eyes searched desperately for any sign of regression from Arthur's face. "You're right that I was afraid to tell you. I wanted you to look at me, more than anything in the world, but I took it too far and I was scared you'd hurt me and leave me forever. This is my fault. This is all my fault."

The truths that he'd holed up for such a long time inside his black chest were spilling out now like they should have a long time ago.

"Forgive me, Arthur," Francis said softly, his breath catching as he choked back a sob. "Forgive me, for I have sinned. She didn't mean anything to me — not the way you do. Not the way you'll ever. I love you. I love you. I love you."

Arthur, too, started to cry after the first I love you — an alarming sight to Francis, who'd never seen the man cry before. Sure, he knew that Arthur did cry, but it'd always been at least a room away.

Wasn't the ability to cry in front of another a sign of trust?

And didn't that just say something about their relationship?

"I can't look at you," said Arthur breathlessly, turning around even as Francis leaned forwards to cup his face. And how that broke Francis' heart —

"Turn around, Arthur," urged Francis desperately, although Arthur kept jerking away. "Turn around!"

"Don't," mumbled Arthur as Francis pressed their faces together. He resisted feebly, pushing at Francis' chest.

"Don't do this to me, you can't do this to me, don't do this to us —"

"Francis, you have to leave," cried Arthur, kissing Francis on the forehead and bringing Francis' head to his heart as the Frenchman slid down on his knees to wrap his arms around Arthur's torso. "You have to leave," he repeated tonelessly.

And that's when Francis knew it was truly, doubtlessly hopeless.

"I'll go get your stuff," Arthur choked, breaking away from his husband and leaving him kneeling on the ground with his arms hanging by his side.

Arthur,

I am in love with you.

I still remember seeing you the first time. You probably do not, I am sure, because so many years have passed since then. You thought our together began only the month you transitioned into an adult, and there has never been anyone to tell you otherwise, but my memory plays itself out differently. I remember the Londoner in Marseille, the shadow of a young boy on a beach with the rolling tide coming in from the south; I remember watching you, breathless, from the ports with the taste of seawater on my lips and seeing the gulls soar overhead like Baudelaire's albatross, wondering when it would be that we would meet again.

That, I believe, is the whole extent of my memory. Though faint as it is, I have learned from then how to adore someone and for every day since that you have kept yourself from me I have died a little waiting for you to return home.

I know love is a trifling thing, to those who have experienced it firsthand and suffered early tragic deaths. It seems played on a day-by-day basis, easy to come across and easier to lose and worthless in the long run. Whatever fruits cultured from such labour would be reduced to the cinders beneath our feet, crushed by the petty meanderings of our background characters but a mote of dust in the grand stage of the Lord; there they will become remnants of a dream we will never commit to memory, ephemeral regards of a distant once-previous, attempts to stay a wake of a lost thought disturbed from its path — and such is the way of life.

I know this, you see.

We could search under the breath of a million dying galaxies for the certainty that will never be revealed to us, and we could keep on searching till the end of time. We could be confronted with the truth of our mortality today, in seconds, in hours, tomorrow, and still be as unprepared as we were when we took our first breath as nude babes. We could wane and lose ourselves in the sands of the universe, forgotten for all eternity, without even the faintest trace of a truth — and I think we will, because the revelation of an untruth is simply inevitable in nature.

Oft I wonder of God and why He has left us with so many old pains; that is what love feels, I think. Wonders of doubts of wonder.

Do you wish He'd not left so much unsaid so that I may be a better man for you — so that I may have the wisdom to say all the right things, to stay with you for all the right reasons?

The day I saw you I thought, maybe not love at first sight, but somewhere out there, poems are being written about us. Prose of writers centuries-old, timeless with their words, breathed to life through the lingering symmetries of two romantics — strong in the belief that they were born into the wrong century — waiting patiently for the day they promise each other infinity.

Until then, even if we never receive our answers, come through the nimbus with me. You could do it easily, I'm sure — for you were already made from the atoms of angels, who from beyond can observe the passing lives of this world. If I cannot make it through, you could watch me as they do, keep me, judge me. You sing a magic no man could ever capture, and I would feel less lonely under your honest wings than I ever have in my entire existence.

And as cliche as it may sound, I think we were meant to be together. You made me realize I could never be Francis without Arthur and you complete me, make me whole, have since before I understood why.

I am in love with you, my love, and I have been since that day. I think I have loved you forever.

I think we are worth it, despite my faults and insolences, because in spite of growing up in ignorance of what commitment and dedication is and even today not having yet learned, you have bettered me without knowing all the answers yourself and you have taught me to create my own. Here they are:

I need you more than you need me —

— but maybe I could make you learn to love me again like you did for me that first day, and awaken in you the joy I feel with you — the joy I had been waiting to feel every minute of my days before I knew you — that I wish we could revel in together as the couple we were before I ruined us.

One more chance.

Yours always,

Francis Bonnefoy

The letter was fluttering slightly in the breeze, struggling against the tight grasp of Francis' shaking fingers. He'd written it the day before his fateful meeting with Arthur in a fit of drunken stupor after Kiku's betrayal, and he was so close to slipping it into the mailbox to send to Arthur as a last, desperate act of repentance; so close.

But his heart was contained within the envelope and then some, because he had worn his soul on his lips as he whispered the words he meant to write when he wrote it. If Arthur read this, maybe, just maybe, he could grasp even the tiniest inkling of Francis' sorrow.

Making an impulsive decision, Francis tore the letter in half, and left the pieces to the wind.