"You should eat something love." Arthur gestured to his husbands full plate.
"I'm not really hungry." Arthur sighed as the staff came into the dinning room and picked their finished meals.
"Alfred, you don't sleep, you swamp yourself with work and rarely interact with anyone unless it's for business. Please, eat something, anything. This isn't good for you. You usually finish your meal before I do." as Alfred got up to leave, Arthur rushed after him, cursing the dinning room's length.
"Alfred! Alfred don't ignore me." taking a hold of his husband's elbow, he turned him around to see him square in the face.
"I'm fine, really. I just haven't felt like anything with all these things I have to do." Arthur searched in his eyes, desperately trying to see if there was anything that could help him understand this shell of who once was his husband. All that stared back were blank inexpressive eyes. Arthur felt his eyes water.
"You're not," his voice was thick, close to the verge of sobs, "you're not okay. This isn't you. You cared." Alfred freed himself of his grip.
"Artie I'm fine okay?" he put his hands in his shoulders reassuringly. Arthur didn't believe him and vigorously shook his head.
"Stop lying to me! You're not okay. You're not okay, I'm not okay, nothing is! I've been with you for almost four years and you've never ever acted like this before until recently. You don't tell me what's going on with you, you won't accept my help and and," he couldn't keep going, he had started crying and anything he said was not understandable. Alfred dropped his arms to his side, awkwardly trying to figure out what to say.
"Why don't you let me help you?" Arthur wiped his tears away to steel himself.
"Artie, please believe me. I'm fine I'm just busy, you know that I love you and that I would never do anything to harm you. Please believe me." Arthur just pointed a shaky finger at him.
"You're hiding something from me Alfred. You better pray to god that whatever I find doesn't end us." and with that, Arthur stormed out of the dinning room.
Arthur had waited for a day in which Alfred would leave to go out of town. Luckily enough, Alfred had to go give an opening speech for the company's opening in some country in Latin America.
"First stop, his study, obviously." thought Arthur, opening the door and making sure to lock it behind him. Sitting at his desk, he went through the files in his desk, most of them about the company opening in Latin America. It was in Ecuador apparently. Looking through his desk's drawers, he found more files and office supplies. He leafed through the files carefully, most of them just information on the company branches. Having found nothing, he headed for the bookcase, going through books amongst books, leafing through them finding nothing. He checked behind the paintings and underneath the awards. Coming up to the award that Alfred had won in the gala in which they both had had their first time together, he smiled melancholically.
"What have you done to me?" he wasn't like this. He wasn't an insecure person who looked through other people's private possessions. He knew how to respect's his partner's privacy and the boundaries that were unspokenly set. But Alfred had driven him up to the walls just trying to figure out what to do to help the dying man. He slammed the award down, and realizing he wouldn't find anything there, he headed to his wardrobe. Sifting through his husband's clothes, he didn't find anything out of place. He looked through his shoes and boxes of jewelry. Nothing. Then, a thought dawned to him, and he rushed to the bathroom. He hurriedly looked through his pills and medicine, finding nothing out of place. He looked through the cabinets and found nothing but towels and toiletries. Then he eyed the bottom of the sink. He shook his head, thinking it silly to look down there. But, what if he..? He bend down and opened the small doors. Inside, he found only pipes. He breathed out and started to close the doors when he noticed something. He took his phone out and used the flashlight to better see. It was a can of cleaning product. He picked it up and felt it was halfway filled up. He shook it a bit and noticed the lid was loosely on. He took it off and he found a white powder inside of it. Thinking nothing of it, he placed it back. Frustrated to not having found anything, he left the issue for the day.
It was later on in the week, while he was looking for something to eat in the kitchen, that he had spotted the can of cleaning product. One of the staff members asked him if he could excuse her, she was going to clean the kitchen. Arthur stood as he watched her sprinkle the product in the counter and promptly wiped it clean. Something was off about that product though, it was blue, not white, like the one in Alfred's... Oh, oh no. He tossed his meal away and rushed to his husband's bathroom. He searched for the can and took it out. Upon closer inspection, he noticed that the white powder was very fine and soft to the touch. The can being used downstairs had blue powder, but it was slightly clumpier. And finally he understood, it dawned to him and he felt anger and sorrow. Hot toxic rage and a deep sadness that burned his head. He took the can with him and rushed to Alfred's study. He banged on the door.
"OPEN THE DOOR!" rushed footsteps came to the door as a very scared Alfred, phone in hand, opened it and quickly ushered him in
"Artie what's wrong? Is everything okay? Are you hurt?" Arthur turned to him, red rimmed eyes and shoved the can in Alfred's direction.
"What is this?" he demanded, carefully controlling his voice. Alfred froze and hanged up the phone. He tried to play it off and smiled at Arthur.
"Cleaning product, obviously." at this response, Arthur squeezed the can in anger.
"HOW ARE YOU GOING TO STAND THERE AND LIE TO ME!" Alfred inched away, scared at Arthur's response.
"What are you talking about?" at this, Arthur dumped the powder in the floor, Alfred holding himself back from reaching for it.
"This is cocaine Alfred." he said it in a monotonous tone, which stung Alfred more than seeing the powder in the floor.
"Artie, I swear, I didn't mean to," Arthur raised his hand and shook his head. He threw the can to the floor and he immediately burst into tears.
"How could you? How could you lie to me about this?" Alfred's heart hurt seeing his husband this way and he felt himself cry as well.
"I'm sorry Arthur." he took his husband in his arms and held him tightly when he tried to get away.
"I'm so so sorry, please forgive me. Please please please. I didn't want to hurt you, I'm sorry." Arthur shook his head and pushed himself away.
"I can see why you changed." said Arthur with a bitter smile, and with that, he left the room and slammed the door behind him. Alfred could only stare after him before crumbling down to the floor in a stream of tears.
