Here's Chapter 7! I do hope that you enjoy, although I am rather confused about the numbers of reviews I've been getting. 2 reviews, than 7 reviews, than 10 review, and now back down to 3 reviews. I'm fine with reviews telling me why they didn't like a certain chapter too, you know!
On another note, thanks to those people that did review, and to the people that alerted and favourited. I'm glad that you liked it :)
Don't have much else to say, so I'll stop my rambling now.
Don't own APH.
Tear Me Apart
Chapter Seven: Whispered, Confident Promises
Broken grey clouds filled the sky while the bright sun peaked out along the edges. The rain had not started coming down yet and Matthew hoped that it would hold off for a little while longer at the very least.
The bored man was sitting on his luggage, a little ways away from the large house the Mr. Carriedo owned. He had promised to meet with Mr. Bonnefoy here, regardless of the hangover that the older man would almost definitely be sporting. That had been at least two hours ago. They were supposed to be leaving almost immediately because of some meeting that his brother had to attend when he returned to his house in a couple of days from now. And that was why it did not make any sense as to why the charismatic man had not yet shown up.
There were other things to worry about though. Things that were just as important as Matthew's older brother's typical disappearance.
That rather worrisome thing was a certain tanned, blonde American with the most beautiful eyes that the easily embarrassed man had ever seen. This man's image was pressed into the back of Matthew's eyelids and there was a very little chance that it would disappear any time in the near future. They had talked for the majority of the night up in the Canadian's room about anything and everything that came to mind. Eventually the need to sleep had won out over their preference to learn more about each other, much to their disappointment.
Still, Matthew was able to faintly feel the warmness radiating off of his back. That was the result of Alfred sleeping only a couple of inches away from him, just barely touching in some places.
However, when he had awoken in the morning, the blue eyed blonde had been gone. It had almost killed Matthew despite him knowing that it was for the best. Not to mention the kind, reassuring smile that Alfred had later given him when they passed in the hallway.
"Hey, what are you still doing here, wino bastard number two?" a shout broke through his thoughts.
A familiar Italian (who, as usual, appeared to be irritated) was standing just outside of the large house and he was not alone. An even more familiar American, sporting a rather large grin, and a perpetually scowling Briton were standing alongside him with their luggage beside them. Matthew was certain that his cheeks were turning a rather embarrassing shade of red as Alfred obviously looked straight at him.
"Do not just stand there and stare at me like some creepy bastard! Come over here and answer my question," Lovino demanded.
Matthew quickly stood up and headed toward the small group of three with his luggage in one hand. "I am waiting for Francis. He was supposed to meet me here a little while ago. You would not have happened to see him, would you? I do not want to stand out here much longer, if it is not necessary."
Alfred, Lovino, and Mr. Kirkland all had identical looks of shock on their faces as they stared at the now confused man. The Canadian was overcome by the feeling that he had missed something very important. All things considered, he most likely was missing something and that something most likely had something to do with Mr. Bonnefoy. For some reason, it was always the charismatic Parisian.
"What the hell are you talking about? That wino bastard ran for the hills before breakfast was even brought out this morning. The tomato bastard was absolutely devastated when he found out that his dear old friend would not even stay and eat the morning meal with him," Lovino hastily explained.
The grumpy Englishman sent the servant a nasty glare. "Your language is most definitely no suitable for someone in your position, Mr. Vargas."
"Artie, I think that there are more important things right not than Mr. Vargas's language. Such as Matthew being stranded here until his brother actually remembers that he even has a younger brother, which could take days," Alfred butted in.
Mr. Kirkland looked over at his cousin, vaguely impressed with Alfred for properly handling the situation when he was not. It usually took all of the blue eyed blonde's concentration to focus properly on the things going on around him and respond to them properly. The forgotten man standing beside him was even smiling gratefully at Alfred. The emerald eyed man had never thought that he would see a change of events quite like this one in all of the years of his life. For the most part, all of Alfred's relationships with other people were focussed on him, instead of the other way around.
"I really am glad that you are concerned about me, Alfred, but I am certain that I will be fine. Francis is not as bad as you make him out to be. I am positive that he will be here within the hour to pick me up," Matthew explained, quietly.
Francis had always returned for him before, even if it had taken a little while for him to remember.
Alfred did not quite agree through. "I do not believe that for even a second. I am well aware that you do not want to inconvenience any of us but what about the times that you told me about? When he forgot you for days at a time right after he forced you to move in with him just because he was too wrapped up in his own life to notice that you even existed? There is no way to prove that he will not do it again."
Mr. Kirkland sighed exasperatedly as he thought about the whole insane situation. "I hate to say this but Alfred may be right this time around. I am unable to leave you here by yourself in all good will, especially when it is my fault that your brother left early in the first place."
All pairs of eyes turned towards the ashamed sandy blonde man, or at least all of them except for one. Lovino was muttering to himself about 'stupid blondes' and some sort of bastard. If he had looked like he did not want to be there a few moments ago, then it was ten times worse now that the morning drama had been introduced. He did not enjoy this type of thing and that was why he worked for Mr. Carriedo of all people. The only thing that the Spaniard ever worried about was what type of tomatoes to grow.
"I have had enough of this. Mr. Williams, you are welcome to spend the day here, waiting for your brother if you so please but you must find your own accommodations for the night. Mr. Carriedo thanks all of your for responding to his invitation and for making the night an enjoyable one," Lovino said, strangely professional for once.
And then the Italian headed back inside, as if he had never been there in the first place.
"If you do not mind me asking, why is it your fault that Francis left early this morning?" the Canadian asked.
"Yes, Artie, what exactly did you do to Mr. Bonnefoy? It must have been something bad if you actually drove him away from the house early this morning," Alfred echoed, a smirk on his face.
The Brit flushed an odd shade of red at the repeated question. "It was nothing that important. The two of us got into a horrid argument this morning about who knows what, as we usually do, and he stormed off saying that he did not want to be near me for another second longer than necessary. I had assumed that you had gone with him."
Both Alfred and Matthew stared at the green eyed man until he started glaring at them, daring them to question his response. It was easy to tell that there was something more to the situation; that Mr. Kirkland had lied about something or had left something out. It was in his sudden defensiveness and the way that he was idly biting his lip, probably not even realizing that he was doing it.
A cocky smirk started to grow on the American's face. "Well, if you are the one that is responsible for Mr. Bonnefoy leaving Matthew here all alone, should you not be doing something about it? Something such as offering Matthew accommodation at your house until someone is able to collect him? And then, at that point in time, you can apologize to Mr. Bonnefoy for whatever it was that you said. In the event that he is not on his hands and knees thanking you for taking care of Matthew, that is."
"Well, yes, I suppose that does make sense, although I do think I mentioned how much I loathe agreeing with you and I do not think that man would be on his hands and knees for anything. Mr. Williams, would you like to some with us to my estate?"
Matthew glanced over at Alfred, easily meeting those baby blue eyes. Confidence ran through every part of the tanned man's body, and it was easy to see. It spoke to the Canadian in ways that nothing else ever had before. Both of them knew that there was no going back if he accepted this proposal, even if the person offering had no idea what the consequences of this question would be. The younger two were both well aware of the consequences. They knew what those darkened eyes could do to the other, and the consequences if someone else figured it out.
"Alright, I will go with you to your estate. That option sounds infinitively better than staying here and hoping that he shows up within the day."
Al ran through the halls of the university, his camera bouncing up and down against his chest. He was breathing a bit faster than he normally did – a by-product of his emotions and from eating too many burgers in the past few weeks. There was a large grin on his face as he thought about what he was just about to do.
He ran right past an open classroom with Mr. Wang confidently lecturing in front of his class – only to turn right back around as he remembered that the class Mr. Wang was lecturing was Mattie's. And so, like the hero that the blue eyed blonde most definitely was, he burst into the room with no regard for anyone other than himself. Baby blue eyes scanned the suddenly silent room quickly and not so efficiently. Al missed Mattie the first time through, only to spot him trying to hide in his seat as he looked over the class a second time.
"Mr. Jones, what are you doing in here? I don't have you in my class until this afternoon, aru! Get out; I don't wait to see you until I have to!" Mr. Wang yelled, one of his eyes twitching ever so slightly.
The American only smiled a toothy smile at the older Asian man. "Sorry but no can do, teach. You see, I have to say something really important to Mattie that most definitely can't wait because the sooner, the better with these sort of things. If I wait any longer than I already have, then he will get the totally wrong idea and I actually can't let that happen."
Out of the corner of his eyes, he could see Mattie slouching down in his seat as he tried to hide from the sudden attention. Which was absolutely adorable if you asked Al – despite any protests from the "absolutely adorable" Canadian.
"You have one minute to talk to him before I call security to kick you out of here."
"What do you want, Al? I thought that you understood that I didn't want to talk to you right now," Mattie half-whispered as Al confidently walked up to him.
The whole class was paying attention to them – curious as to the reason why their normally boring class had been interrupted. And by someone who was usually known for running away from class. At the very least, there was none of Mattie's friends in this class – such as Miguel or Ivan – who would have attacked Al on sight.
Al didn't have much time to waste though. "I was talking to Kiku about what happened yesterday, and I asked him why you were avoiding me. He asked me how I felt about you, and then if I had told you that after I had answered him. So, Mattie, here it goes," those indigo eyes widened, giving Al even more confidence to go through with this, "I don't know how I feel about you, not really. I can't put it into words. This is completely different from those times that I thought that I was in love back in high school. Nobody has ever made me feel like this. When I'm around you, I'm always happy even if I don't seem like it, unless you're completely miserable. Seeing you is the highlight of my day and I hate those days when we don't get the chance to see each other. You make me smile, you make me laugh, and my heart does this really weird thing whenever you even look at me. I don't know what this is because it feels like I would die without you. And I'm so sorry that I didn't realize it until now."
No one in the room could miss the look on the tanned man's face as he finished his small speech to the Canadian. Those words had come straight from the heart, they were completely honest, and they were begging for some sort of response.
"Mr. Williams, do you have anything to say to that enthusiastic confession before I call security to cart him out of here, aru?" Mr. Wang asked, raising one of his dark brown eyebrows.
All of a sudden, the normally slouched man seemed to stand up a little taller and a little straighter.
"I don't believe you, Al."
The moon and the stars were reflected off of the perfectly flat water, nothing else surrounding them for kilometres in any direction. There was no land in sight, just the open water that reminded Matthew so much of his voyage to France only a couple of years ago. This breathtaking beauty could not be seen in any other place in the world and the only other place that he had ever been able to see as far as the eye could see was in the Canadian prairies. Even that he only see a few times in his lifetime.
There were odd lights in water, along the edge of the ship as it slowly moved through the water. Every once in a while Matthew thought that he was able to see more of those odd lights moving underneath the water but it was quickly dismissed as his mind playing tricks on him.
It was already their third day of travel and Mr. Kirkland had assured the pale Canadian that they would reach his estate in just less than two days from now. The journey was rather long when he compared it to the journey from Mr. Bonnefoy's house to Mr. Carriedo's house but it was nothing when he did the opposite and compared it to the journey from the Northern colonies to France.
Even now, the homesick man could feel the urge to jump aboard a ship that would take him directly to his home country.
"Just what are you doing out here, Matthew? We are supposed to be below deck with the rest of the passengers."
Indigo eyes glanced over at the tall blonde man standing to his right, both of them leaning against the railing of the ship. To be honest, he was not all that surprised that Alfred had thought to look for him up here. And he was not surprised that this was the first time that the two of them had been even relatively alone since the night before they had set out on the trip to Mr. Kirkland's estate.
"And I could ask the same of you," Alfred pouted immediately, much to Matthew's amusement, "I… was feeling a bit homesick, to be honest. The last time that I was on a ship such as this one, I was travelling to France from Canada for the first time. My whole life had just been uprooted by a request that I was not allowed to ignore and by a brother that I had met maybe twice before then. Even now, I do not really know why he called for me of all people."
A tanned hand moved to overtop of its pale companion, just out of sight of the crew of the ship. It was safe, although a bit on the risky side.
"When we get back to shore, we will share a cigar. They have always reminded me of home for some reason. We will have to hide it from Artie though. He does not like the small of it for some reason. Says that it reminds him of whorehouses or something like that," Alfred proposed with a small smile on his face.
"I – I would like that, actually. It has been far too long since the last time that I had a cigar."
They relaxed back into a comfortable silence as Matthew turned his hand around and intertwined their fingers together with ease. It was impossible to do anything more than that lest they get caught. However, they revelled in the small bit of physical contact and intimacy that they allowed themselves to share with each other. Slowly, they became familiar with the way that their hands seemed to perfectly fit together; Matthew's long, thin fingers fitting perfectly between Alfred's strong, callused ones.
It was easy to convince themselves that what they had was right while they stood there like that.
Staring out at the calm, flat water only made it even easier that it would all work out the way that it was supposed to. One day they would be able to be together without any fear and without anything else holding them apart. Maybe they would live alone in their own house back either one of their hometowns. Or maybe they could take in a child or two from the orphanage that they could treat as their own. The details did not matter though, as long as they were happy.
If only that fantasy could be true.
"You did not truly know your brother before you moved into his house?" Alfred's words were almost hesitant and were lacking their usual confidence.
The indigo eyed man smiled over at his friend, his partner, whatever it was that they were to each other. "No, I did not. He came to see me and our mother on two separate occasions but for the most part he stayed in France with our father. Although, even Father visited more regularly than he did. So, I am sure that you can imagine my surprise when I receive his demands that I move into his estate. The last time that I had seen him was five years before, while Mother was still alive."
"He does love you though, right? He would not have turned towards you for comfort if he did not."
Matthew smiled coldly as he responded to the question, "You did not see the disappointment on his face when he came to meet me at the port that day. It was not me that he was looking for but someone else completely – someone who undoubtedly exists nowhere but in his deranged mind."
The two blonde North Americans fell back into silence once more although this time it was not content, but rather awkward. There was a cold, dark smirk on Matthew's face as he remembered the superficial way that he was forced to this continent, and it was reason enough for the tense atmosphere. Alfred's anger was probably only making it worse though, as he thought about the injustice that had been done to the man beside him.
"I did not want to move here either. My father thought that it was necessary that I come to learn proper manners or something like that. It was either this or I get disowned from them, despite Artie giving up on me after two weeks at the most. I am not allowed to go back there until I learn how to be a 'proper gentleman'," Alfred admitted.
"One day we will go back, eh? We will jump onto a ship and go back there. Maybe not to any town or area that we have gone to before but to a where we can forget about this awful place."
"As long as you were with me, Matthew, I would go to the end of the world and back."
"Sirs, I have to ask you to return to your cots for the night. You are not allowed to be up here," a crewman informed them from a little ways away.
At that, their hands immediately parted from each other's and the moment disappeared along with the physical contact. The crewman waited until they started walking back towards the stairs that led below deck before he went back to what he had been doing before.
The stairs were steep and narrow, causing them to stumble every once in a while as they made their below deck. By the time that they reached the area where their cots were, it was dark and rather chilly. But they could faintly see where their cots were – on opposite ends of the small area, much to their poor luck.
Matthew looked around the room as they silently stood there, not wanting to part from each other so soon. Once he was certain that no one else was awake, he leaned up slightly and lightly placed his lips onto the stunned American's cheek. A sense of euphoria filled him as he pulled away, only to have Alfred's fingertips move up to the place where his lips had just been.
"Thank you for the company, Alfred," the indigo eyed man whispered, before heading back over to his cot.
"I don't believe you, Al," Mattie repeated, "And why should I believe you? For years now you've 'fallen in love' with people – anyone; everyone – only to fall back out of 'love' a few short weeks later. So why would this be any different than that?"
The tall, tanned American stared at the pale young man sitting in front of him. Mattie's posture was straight and tall with his shoulders pushed back, just like he would while he was playing hockey. However, he was also biting his bottom lip nervously, and one of his hands were grabbing onto something in his pocket. Mattie looked hurt, betrayed, and god damn it all, was that hope in those indigo eyes? The hurt was obviously winning out by the look of the tears starting to leak out of the corners of his eyes.
"I… I…," Al stuttered.
"Because it isn't any different. You think that you love me or whatever you think this is because of that stupid journal that I found. Nothing more, nothing less. And then once you get over this, you'll just pretend that it was all just a silly little mistake and get on with your life. I'm sorry but I'm not putting myself through all of that just on a whim of yours."
"I'm not going to do that! You mean the world to me, Mattie! All those times that I was dumped instead of the other way around were because I spent more attention to you than I ever did to them. I just never figured it out until now!"
"What? Maybe the one time that someone actually dumped you. I am well aware that the majority of the time, you're the one doing the dumping instead of the other way around."
"Seventeen times. I have been dumped seventeen times because I cared more about you than I did them. And seventeen times I naively told them that 'of course I pay more attention to Mattie, he's my best friend and nothing is ever going to come between us'."
Mattie stared at him.
Mr. Wang stared at him.
All of the class stared at him.
However, Al was too busy staring at Mattie to even notice anyone else in the room. He needed the stubborn blonde to understand what he was trying to tell him, and to give him some sort of chance to prove what he was saying. Mattie was more important to him that the people that he had dated before; he was more important to him than anyone else in this world. He wasn't just about to let go of him with the drop of a hat.
"And I'll prove it to you too. Maybe not at this very moment or even today for that matter but I will prove it to you. Even if it takes me fifty years, I'll still do my best to prove to you that I don't want you to be some sort of fling or experiment. So for now, you'll see me tomorrow. Sorry about interrupting your class, Mr. Wang," Al promised confidently.
And then Al was gone, just as suddenly as he had appeared. Leaving Mattie to collapse in his seat, breathing heavily as the tears finally escaped from the corners of his eyes with no resistance.
