Too Far Away

Anyone who knew Alfred F. Jones would have told you - amongst other more flattering aspects that made up this particular breed of man - that he was easily bored. And though Alfred prided himself on being generally unpredictable, there was a predictability, a certain root cause for the mass of hectic zigzags that he drew on the canvas of his very eventful life.

That predictability was simply this: Alfred F. Jones disliked boredom.

He had been quite the fidgetter when he was young. The type of kid that all adults just knew that they had to keep tabs on, just in case he ran off and broke something in his happy-go-lucky pursuit of the wonders of the world. The type of student that got extra, loving care from all his teachers because he just wouldn't keep still in class, the general inability to sit still later evolving into a much more advanced form of Classroom Prankery and Class Clownery - joining the school basketball team and participating in extracurricular activities only providing an overly small outlet for that endless burst of energy within him. His friends knew him as a person who was constantly on the move, constantly exploring, constantly searching for new, inspiring, exciting things to do with his life; something that would hopefully bring some form of new stimulation to his ever-hungry mind and body and spirit.

It wasn't as if he was fickle, though many whom he rubbed in the wrong direction would proclaim this with a conviction, it was just that he was just so generally interested in everything. Nothing seemed to have the capability of holding on to his attention span for long enough. There was always something new out there to discover, to jump in and lay his hands on and take apart to see how it worked just for the sheer novelty of that experience.

It was the neverending pursuit of a sense of personal freedom, he would argue - patriotic down to the very bones of himself, loyal and true to his own nation and the values it stood for (as he would say, like a true blue American) - and not general inability to focus or commit or anything like that. There were so many things in the world to see and touch and feel; that sheer ecstacy of jumping off the cliff into the unknown, that second when your heart stops before the rollercoaster plummets downwards... It was the happenings that brought him newfound life and energy, the exploration of everything and anything thrilling and young.

Which was probably why Anyone Who Knew Alfred F. Jones would be very confused when they found out about his relationship with one Arthur Kirkland.

Alfred himself would ponder over this every time he got a little bored with his PSP and still had some spare time on his bed before his eyelids would grow heavy. Being with Arthur was different. And that on its own was most definitely an understatement.

Arthur was the type of person who didn't appreciate rollercoasters. He most certainly wouldn't be branded as a very fun person either, with his ideal weekend being spent huddled on the couch with a good book and a nice cup of tea. Arthur knew nothing much about the new and the exciting, refused to make a facebook page for himself, and to Alfred's dismay looked at most technological developments and widespread popular culture with contempt. Arthur asked for order, for tangible, rooted stability and logically processed decisions; for things to make sense, for humans to make sense, for feelings to make sense (and how many of their random arguments ended up with Arthur asking him to justify his claims objectively? Alfred had lost count).

Arthur was exactly what Alfred would have never been able to stand.

And yet, and yet here they were, eleven months (so close to a year!) into what was already becoming one of the steadiest of Alfred's relationships.

Alfred didn't really know what exactly it was that attracted him to Arthur. Sometimes he even forgot, only to be reminded of it the next time they met, and then, after a while, he would forget again. They met so sparingly that Alfred actually had the chance to forget.

That wasn't even the beginning of their problem.

It went without saying that Arthur was a busy person. Alfred himself was a busy person, but the extent of which Arthur's job played in his life was so vastly expansive, it was something Alfred couldn't comprehend. Work was work, associated mainly with the things that you Had To Do but Didn't Want To Do. Escape from work was much welcome, and it had to be avoided at all costs during holidays and weekends to preserve one's sanity.

Work for Arthur, Alfred noticed, was Life.

Eight months ago, probably around the time when Arthur decided to kiss him one Saturday night after a rather amusing session with his aunts, Alfred had been content. He just didn't realise that eight months ago, they were in their honeymoon phase. (He had thought honeymoon phases lasted only the first month, instead of five entire months of a relationship.)

A month later, and they had stabilized. Arthur started focusing more on work, reserving only weekly Saturdays for Alfred, which sometimes had to become a Sunday, or even be cancelled completely due to sudden business trips out of London. Alfred too, admittedly, contributed to a few cancelled Saturdays, because he had a life, and (lots of) friends, who would want to meet for a party every now and then. Parties that Alfred knew would traumatize Arthur, and friends that Alfred decided Arthur might not entirely appreciate.

Arthur seemed to be alright with that, and Alfred was sensible enough to note that he had his own life, and Arthur had his own life, and surely a bit of personal space and breathing room was crucial to the success of a long-term relationship? That Alfred could understand. He could appreciate it too; Arthur's open acceptance to him cancelling a Saturday date was a refreshing change to his previous partners who would require an hour or so of pleading and grovelling to pacify. He felt, at most, adult and trusted and free.

Yet at times it bothered him slightly. He would, despite everything else - awesome friends, cool life, exciting parties and events to go to - miss Arthur every now and then. Want to hear his voice for no particular reason, want to hold him and bask in his warmth and do nothing but listen to him breathe. He would think of him, endlessly, and the pain of not being able to see him for weeks when he was on some of his longer trips was rather unbearable. He had, on occasions, even made the long-distance call to Arthur, who sounded a little awkward and uncomfortable when presented with the confession that he missed him (though he would, after a rather lengthy pause, mumble a "I miss you, too" through the phone, and that would make Alfred's heart flutter a bit, just a bit, and make it all slightly better).

But from Arthur it never happened. Text messages from him were scarce, phonecalls rarely happened. Arthur's relentless easy acceptance of his absence was, to Alfred, extremely unnerving. Did he not miss him? Did he not want him around? Was he not important enough to stay lodged in Arthur's mind? Was he even ever in Arthur's mind in the first place?

Alfred was an optimist. He believed that Hollywood-esque happy endings did exist, and could very well happen, so long as you kept your heart open and mind willing. He didn't think too much about the nasty side effects of life, and focused on counting as many blessings as he could. He thought he was awesome, and though affirmation of this fact made him a very happy man, it wasn't as if he lacked in the department of self-confidence either.

But with Arthur, such things almost seemed to thin out a little too much; like pizza dough stretched out so much just a gentle probe would poke a hole into it and ruin the entire base.

It wasn't just Arthur's general capacity for living without him. That, Alfred thought to himself, was something he could live with. If anything, only getting to meet Arthur every once in a while made every date they had something special to look forward to. If anything, and this was definitely due to the sheer optimism he had within him innately, it actually prevented him from getting bored easily, since Time With Arthur was now such a rare commodity, it was much like how a kid who only got to go to the zoo every half-a-year would always find it entertaining no matter what. The far ends of his mind dismissed the term "novelty" because that meant that... He'd get sick of Arthur one day, wouldn't he? Yet, that didn't match up with the present problem.

The problem was less of the fact that they didn't have time for each other, it was the general lack of everything else on top of that. If they met every once in a while like a pair of star-crossed lovers where the time together was so quality with all the much needed exchanges of affection and touches and affirmation and then some, Alfred negotiated with himself on many occasions, he really wouldn't mind.

He had known from the start that Arthur was terribly bad at this. He had walked into this knowing exactly what was waiting for him, and yet now, at eleven months into the relationship, Alfred realised that - despite accepting the fact that Arthur already sucked at this so much - he had overestimated him (as sad as that sounded). He knew that they had settled down, and Arthur had most definitely grown a little more comfortable with him (enough to not flinch at every bit of contact initiated by him). It showed in how Arthur was a little less inhibited when it came to touches, how he would occasionally lean against him when he was reading a book on the couch, how he was willing to talk to him about almost everything.

Almost everything - Alfred thought bitterly - but his feelings. He didn't want to seem like a pathetic girl who would go around whining about how her boyfriend didn't love her just because he didn't say "I love you" (or any cheesy substitute) every hour, but for eleven fucking months he had yet to hear anything like that come from Arthur. At all.

Eleven. Fucking. Months.

He would occasionally bring this up - in the most subtle way possible - asking Arthur what he felt about their relationship, what he wanted and what he was looking for. Arthur would almost definitely freeze each time, and then retreat into some awkward, uncomfortable dimension where he would stutter and look away and do his best to change the topic. Alfred stopped asking after that, but the growing, nagging sensation in his stomach wouldn't go away.

Eleven fucking months and they were like two best buddies who would share the occasional touch or hug or kiss, and only when they were both alone, at either one of their apartments.

Arthur was probably dealing with his sexuality issue, Alfred decided, and that was understandable. It was another part of the relationship that Alfred was ready to take on as a potential obstacle. But he had thought and assumed that they had left that behind the day Arthur chose to kiss him. Yet still they couldn't touch or hold hands out in public, and Arthur treated him - at best - as a friend he was on good terms with when they were not in the comfort and privacy of each other's homes. And that was okay. That was perfectly okay. But one couldn't blame a guy for fantasizing about taking his lover out to the movies every once in a while and snuggling up with them across the armrest, or having a silly date at an amusement park, or being able to throw an arm around them and introduce them to his friends as his right?

Alfred groaned, frustrated with the rather long-winded thought process his mind tended to go through lately everytime he thought about Arthur (random tangents included), and flopped back down onto his bed, face first into his pillow. His phone was still in his hand, tomorrow was a Saturday, and he had a dreaded feeling that perhaps today too, Arthur would send him a text to tell him that, sorry, he just couldn't make it tomorrow, how about next Saturday?

Arthur was getting increasingly busy the past few weeks. They had already canceled two Saturdays in the past month, and Arthur's replies to his text messages had been reduced to an hourly reply, often only spanning one or two words, as if he had hastily typed out something before going back to work. He didn't have time for dinner on the weekdays ("Have some extra paper work to clear out these few weeks, I'll be eating in the office.") because he was working overtime, and just recently had also taken to the habit of bringing his work home. Alfred had seen the rather large stack of brown envelopes on Arthur's work desk at home a while ago. He had a feeling it probably was a mountain now.

To add on to that, Alfred's brain churned on, as if the torture was just not enough for him, Arthur was also increasingly distant the past few weeks. It was as if there was always something else on his mind. He would zone out when Alfred was talking to him, staring blankly at his face but not entirely listening, thinking about something else (possibly work, or the mountain of brown envelopes on his desk), and that bothered Alfred to no end. They already had so little time together, the least Arthur could do was to focus on them when it happened.

In his hand his phone buzzed to life. Alfred blearily raised his head off his pillow, expecting to see the dreaded text message about a busy Saturday too, but instead stared into the caller ID screen of his iPhone instead. Alfred blinked, squinted at the words that said Artie (he had changed Arthur Kirkland into that - he had the right to, didn't he?), and jumped up, sitting up straight. Arthur called. It was going to be sunny tomorrow.

"Artie!"

"Alfred." Arthur sounded a little overwhelmed by his overly enthusiastic answer.

Trying not to blurt out a "You called? Who are you and what did you do to Arthur Kirkland?", Alfred calmed his racing heart, wondering why he was acting like this just over a phone call. "Yes?"

"Well," Arthur started, a little hesitantly, a little uncertain, "About tomorrow..."

Alfred held back a wince. Surely he didn't call to tell him that tomorrow was cancelled? Of course, it made it slightly better that Arthur was calling to tell him, rather than leave him a simple and curt text message, but the sinking feeling in his chest was still persistent.

"... I was wondering what movie you'd like to watch." A pause, which Alfred used to pinch himself just in case he was dreaming, "I'll go rent the disc before you come over, that is, uh," he coughed, and Alfred could hear the slight rustle of paper, the image of Arthur nervously thumbing the corners of a proposal coming to mind almost immediately, "-if you're up for one."

"You're letting me pick?" Alfred didn't realise when his face broke into a rather silly grin, and tried to force it back down. How long was it since they had movie night? The previous few dates pretty much ended with Arthur on the couch with a book, and Alfred left to his own devices, churning out as many topics as he could only to have them swatted away by a "mm", "I see", or "git" from Arthur. Sometimes Arthur would laugh at his jokes, hide that small amused smile with his book. Sometimes he would end up throwing himself in Arthur's lap, and rolling about until Arthur turned away from the book to reprimand him. Most of the times he left. Alfred snapped out of his thoughts, scolding himself for being so easily satisfied. Hell no, he wasn't going to let Arthur get off the hook just because he was suggesting a movie night.

"... If it isn't too appalling I will accept your choice, if that's what you mean."

"You find everything appalling, Arthur."

"I most absolutely do not. The movies you pick are simply plotless stories with the main protagonist being a multitude of explosions. What else are they, except appalling?"

"Transformers 3 was awesome, okay?"

Silence on the other side of the line, just some more rustling of papers and the slight tell-tale creak of Arthur leaning back in his chair. That, Alfred thought proudly of his ability to see Arthur's reactions even over the phone, was probably an eyebrow-raise.

"Alriiight. So uhm, I guess we could watch The Dark Knight!"

Arthur seemed to pause in consideration. "... So be it then."

"Artie?"

"What."

"Can we have popcorn?"

"You'll get fat." Arthur answered, then added, "... Caramel?"

"Caramel."

The phone clicked off, and Alfred flopped back down on his pillow, feeling considerably light-hearted compared to the state he was in three minutes ago.

Arthur called. To ask him to pick a movie. And they were going to have popcorn.

That was pretty nice.

It did turn out to be pretty nice indeed, to the point where Alfred seriously contemplated on letting everything else drop, and just forgive Arthur for all his shortcomings completely. Arthur had ordered pizza, with all of Alfred's favourite toppings (without asking him what he wanted! That counted for something, didn't it?), and there was a new tub of ice cream in Arthur's fridge (Cookies and Cream!). When Arthur brought out the bowl of popcorn, the drinks laid down on the table were a cup of tea and a glass of iced coke (not two cups of tea!). And when the movie started, Alfred realised that he didn't really need to shift any closer, because Arthur's thigh was already touching his, and though he was helping himself to the popcorn - with a slight complaint about how sweet the bloody thing was - with a rather nonchalant attitude, he replied to most of Alfred's comments about the movie (no drifting away thinking about something else!) and leaned into the touch when Alfred threw his arm around him.

Then Alfred remembered why he forgave Arthur each time they met. It was true that Arthur barely said anything, nor did he initiate cuddle sessions. Rather, it was all the little things that he did, the little steps outside the Kirkland algorithm of plausible actions that made Alfred feel like he was the most special thing in the planet. Arthur Kirkland didn't stock up on ice cream, he didn't drink coke (or even offer it instead of tea), he didn't chortle at silly little jokes and insult anyone else with that hint of fondness in his voice.

This was pretty damned good, Alfred decided, between alternating mouthfuls of ice cream and popcorn and coke, and the feeling in his stomach dispersed. Instead, he latched on to Arthur as the credits rolled, nuzzling the side of his jaw. Arthur stopped moving entirely.

"... Alfred?"

"Mm?"

"... What are you doing?"

"Cuddling with you?"

Arthur made a small exasperated noise at the back of his throat, but didn't move away either. "... I need to get the DVD out of the player."

"Ah, you mean that myth that if you leave a disc in the player it'll spoil? Not sure if it's true, but," Alfred grinned, "You'd need to leave it there for at least a few hours for the damage to be done."

Arthur shot Alfred a look, which he responded to with a wide eyed, innocent smile,

"Don't worry. I'll let you go in a few hours."

Alfred could feel the slight chuckle Arthur made, against his chest, and for a moment, he'd thought he'd won. He could feel the other man relax into the embrace for a moment, not before tensing up again.

"The dishes," he murmured, as a form of explanation as he moved to sit up.

Alfred pulled him back down, frowning. "They'll still be there in an hour, Artie," he pointed out, nuzzling his face into the other man's sandy hair, before pausing. "If you don't want to cuddle with me, you can just say so though," Alfred laughed, albeit weakly. He said that with the confidence of a man who knew the answer, yet a part of him, somewhere in a darker corner of his mind, he worried that one day, Arthur would tire and just say yes, yes he didn't want to cuddle.

Luckily for him, today was not the day. "N-No," spluttered Arthur, and although Alfred couldn't see his face, he was predicting that Arthur was pinking slightly in the cheeks right about then. "It's just that... The dishes would..."

Alfred sighed, pressing one last kiss to Arthur's hair before letting him go.

"Alright, alright. I know you'd fidget all the while if you didn't, you OCD old man," he grinned, as Arthur looked up at him, cheeks indeed, slightly pink around the corners.

He watched, laughing, as Arthur clicked his tongue in derision, muttering something about how unkempt Americans like you would never understand, and grime disturbs the faeries, sensitive creatures, them.

Alfred's grin lingered, as he looked around the room, momentarily bored by the absence of Arthur. He'd been in Arthur apartment often enough to know his way around the place. It was well-kept, tidy, if the tiniest bit sparse. Alfred often asked Arthur about why he didn't make the place any more home-y, but they were often waved off with off-hand remarks of the trouble of decorating, and how he never spent much time at home anyway. There was hardly much in the living room, apart from the TV and what few periodicals or books Arthur left lying on the coffee table, and the knitting basket Alfred had found, stowed beneath the couch.

Alfred idly considered the amount of time he'd been spending at Arthur's house which was... A lot. Considerably more than they'd spent at his own apartment, although that could probably be attributed to the increasing presence of Francis at his and Matt's place, Alfred mused. Absently, he pulled out his iPhone to toy with it, hearing the sound of rushing water coming from the open kitchen to his right. Over the past few months, he'd learned that Arthur took him time with everything. It was just another way in which he was like an old man, and the amount of fondness injected into that thought was not at all normal, Alfred thought, grinning lightly to himself as he opened the Facebook app on the iphone before-

Damn.

Frowning, he shook his iPhone a bit, as he was always inclined to do with malfunctioning electronics (he always thought that it was in line with the logic of blowing into USB sockets when they refused to connect- And hey, if that worked, shaking would too right? Might just be a loose chip or something, you never knew...).

"Hey Arthur, I'm gonna go charge my iPhone okay?"

"Yes, go on-" The sound of running water stopped, as Arthur turned around, eyebrows knitted confusedly. "Wait, I don't have an iPhone charger."

Alfred was already off the couch and walking towards Arthur's study by then, turning to walk backwards to look at Arthur half-way. "Yeah, but you have an iTouch charger right? I mean, you didn't throw that thing away already, did you?" He laughed.

"No, but aren't they-"

"I'll explain later!" Alfred called from the bedroom, as he heard some confused mumbling and the start of the tap again. He plopped himself down onto Arthur's old swivel chair, and began to fiddle with and untangle the wires on Arthur's desk. Not that there were many to toy with, in the first place. Unlike Alfred's own desk (at work, he didn't see the point in having one at home when he could work at the dinner table with his Macbook), Arthur's didn't have the messy tangle of wires and cables disjoint from their actual appliances. It was just his old (ancient, Alfred thought, mentally clicking his tongue) Dell desktop, his Blackberry charger, a lamp and now, Alfred's old iTouch and it's connected charger. Shaking his head, Alfred pulled the charger out of the (already fully charged) iTouch. He'd told Arthur that over-charging damaged the battery in the long term, but he supposed that he should have known better than to trust Arthur to remember small little gadgetry-related details like that.

Just a few months ago, Alfred had uncovered Arthur's ancient CD (CD? CD? People still bought CDs?) collection, and discovered that Arthur did not own an music player of any kind (apart from an equally ancient walkman and who on Earth uses walkmans in this day and age?). Blasphemy, he'd thought, and immediately offered to get him the new iTouch, or at least an iPod Nano or something, which Arthur had, predictably enough, refused, citing the perfectly adequate functions of his walkman.

Alfred chucked his first generation iTouch at Arthur the next day.

He'd insisted on it, no matter how strenuously Arthur had objected, convincing him that it was doing no good, lying around at home collecting dust anyway, with Alfred's iPhone now serving as his music player. Alfred would like to think of the resistance Arthur had put up after that as "token" at best, eventually accepting the iTouch, asking Alfred about how he'd get all of his music in there anyway.

Small victories, Alfred grinned to himself, as he plugged his iPhone in and impatiently waited for it to regain it's first 5% of battery before he could use it again. Waiting was hard, he realized (not for the first time), drumming his fingers against the paper-littered surface of Arthur's desk. Idly, he flicked through a few dangling paper-corners which had been dripping off the side of the desk.

Man this is taking forever- Ah shit.

He slipped down to aimlessly grab at the loose paper which had fluttered off to land under the desk, wondering if Arthur would notice if maybe one of his papers were a teensy bit crumpled. Probably, he mused, as he felt the ends of the paper crinkle under his rough grab.

Maybe he won't, Alfred thought, semi-hopefully, as he sat back in the chair, pulling at the wrinkled ends of what seemed to be a letter, hoping for the best, that perhaps Arthur would-

New York?

He felt the magnetic pull of the words, the way they always had seemed to attract him, even back when he was growing up in DC. The awesomest place in the world, Alfred had named it, and the idea kinda stuck. He'd gone there a few times, once or twice with his father on vacation, and once with his High School friends after graduation. The sugar-coated shine of the place hadn't worn down with time, as his dad had thought it would; Alfred was still as enamoured by the multi-coloured glow and rush of Times Square as he was of the thousand and one trains going everywhere all at once in Grand Central Station.

Maybe Arthur's going on a business trip or something. Damn that's lucky, I-

His breath caught.

-In consideration of your contributions to Albion Publishing, we would like to formally offer you the post of Branch Manager in our new New York branch which will be opening in January 2012. This would-

The bolded words seemed to shout to him off the page, and the first thing he thought was that I shouldn't be reading this-

But why not?

I'm his boyfriend.

... I should put this down. I still shouldn't have- Shouldn't have read it, I mean, Artie would have told me right? January 2012. That's... Soon. Really soon. But this- He couldn't have just recieved this, he must've- Oh god.

Oh god.

That's why he's been so busy. He's been preparing for this, for leaving London and- And- And that's why he's been distancing himself I-

I have to talk to him about... All this stuff.

Fuck, I shouldn't have read this, maybe I can just put it back and-

"Alfred? Did you find the charger? It should be somewhere-"

Too late.

Alfred felt the paper crinkle again under his fingers. "A-Arthur! I-"

"You... What-?"

He could watch the line of Arthur's sight focus on the paper still in his hand, which he dropped on (belated) reflex, raising his hands up in surrender.

"T-This isn't what it looks like," he blurted out, disregarding the fact that it really was, as he took a step back from the desk, bumping into the chair behind him. "I-I swear, I really didn't mean to- I was just-"

"You can't just go around reading all my things!"

Alfred gave a helpless, guilty shrug as he watched Arthur hurriedly rushed forward to make hasty grabs at the piles of paper he had around. Stacks were pushed into open-top envelopes, stowed away into binder folders, but he kept his eye on the document he'd seen, still innocently sitting on a pile by the corner. "Alfred! Did you hear me? These- This is my work, and it shouldn't be any of your business to go poking around in it!"

Shouldn't be any of your business. He felt the words echo in his head, for a hollowed-out second, as the confusion which had set in his stomach minutes ago came pulsing back up, hotter this time, scorching him from the inside.

"Oh yeah Arthur?" Alfred could hear his volume increase, feel everything rising in him, starting to spiral out of his grasp. He snatched up the same letter he'd read, right off the stack Arthur had been trying to fit into a large binder. "Really? Because you going to New York to work really does seem like my business!"

"I-" Alfred watched as the colour rose in Arthur's cheeks, as his hands began to fumble with the clasp of the binder. "I wasn't hiding it! I was intending to tell you once I sorted things out!" He cried, letting the binder drop back to the table with a loud smack, which Alfred refused to recoil from.

"Sorted things out? What- You didn't get this yesterday, Arthur!" He looked back down at the wretched sheet of paper which had started it all, his eyes catching at every bolded detail, until it reached the date of address. "28th November! That's- That's been almost three weeks, Arthur! What were you waiting for? When were you going to tell me, a week before you left? Fuck, Arthur, what work was more important than-"

"I wasn't even clear myself on- Why in the world should I..." Alfred watched Arthur, a desk's width away, clench his fists uncomfortably, pausing, his eyes seemingly fixed on a spot on the floor. "What would telling you any earlier do? I wasn't even sure what I'd be doing myself, and you're just going to- To what? Tell me not to leave? This is my decision-"

"BUT I'M YOUR BOYFRIEND!"

Alfred's volume startled them both, as Arthur's head shot up at the sudden shout, eyes wide. Alfred was pretty sure he didn't look much different; he hadn't planned on being half as loud as he had been. But I am his boyfriend and he should have told me about this whole thing. I mean, how on earth can we be together when-

And then it hit him.

"This is why you were getting more distant, wasn't it."

"W-What?" Arthur seemed to physically flinch at the statement, as his arms crossed over his chest protectively. "I wasn't getting distant," he protested, eyebrows furrowing. "What are you talking about? We've-"

"We haven't seen each other in two weeks, Arthur, and that's because you cancelled on me. Twice. You've been working at the office way past the hours you used to, and even when we do meet, you work half the time! You don't text, or call or- Or anything at all!" He gave a derisive laugh, which sounded oddly in the quiet room of Arthur's silence. What had been slowly swirling out of control was a full-blown twister of bottled up and stored away misgivings and emotions now, right out of his hands and out of any control he previously had. "Sometimes, I even wonder if we're in a real relationship."

The shocked silence almost made Alfred want to take his words back. (Almost.)

"What are you- What the fuck do you mean by that?" If Alfred had been marginally irritated by how Arthur's gaze kept straying, now, he had his full attention, as Arthur looked back at him straight in the face.

"We hardly see each other! When we do, we don't, I dunno," Alfred ran a hand through his hair irately, "Go out on regular dates like movies or whatever. We just stay in, which is actually pretty okay with me but-" His voice dropped an octave. "But you don't even really seem to want to even be near me much. You don't try to hold my hand, or to hug me or... Or anything at all." Alfred swallowed, his throat constricting around dryness. He found the words which would inevitably follow tentative, fragile, like they could be broken by a strong breeze. "Do you..." The words seized half-way, his eyes caught at Arthur's blank, vaguely horrified stare.

"Is this why you didn't want to tell anyone about us? Because you knew, kinda, either way it'd be... Temporary?"

Another pause. Another pause long enough to make Alfred worry at his current thoughts, enough to make him wonder if he could back out of this, or maybe apologize and salvage what they had, or-

"No," Arthur finally managed to choke out, and Alfred watched him. Watched his face contain that same combination of shock and horror. And yet, Alfred thought to himself, the problem was that he had no idea what Arthur was shocked at. At him suggesting that about the nature of their relationship? Or at him finding out, before time, before his plans?

"NO," Arthur bit out, stronger this time, his hand coming to clutch the desk as if for stability. "No, Alfred- It's not- That's..." He broke their gaze, looking back down on the half-cleared table. "That's not it."

Alfred waited for something more.

"What is it then?"

It never came.

He looked down as well, at the desk between them, still half-strewn with a couple of binders, his iTouch, assorted papers, and the one document that started this all. He let his gaze linger on it for a few empty moments, let his eyes trace the justified alignment, the stark darkness of the bolded words against the crisp, thrice-folded white paper, crinkled at the bottom left by his own hand. He stared for a while longer at the now-crooked black line at the end of the paper, waiting for Arthur's signature.

Still nothing.

"You're going, aren't you." It was a comment, an observation, not a question. He could see Arthur look up slightly, out of the corner of his eye. "This is the only thing left," Alfred's fingers nudged the edge of the letter, shifting it minutely over to Arthur. "It's... It's the reason why you've been working so much lately, you're... Clearing up loose ends or whatever it is and..." The sudden reality of it all, the thick, heavy notion which set in the base of his gut hit him, and Alfred reeled mentally. "... And you just need to sign this."

He felt faintly dizzy, disoriented by what he was saying. By everything.

"And then you're gone."

He heard Arthur's soft, steady exhale from across him, and was suddenly struck by a quick, fleeting irrational hate for how Arthur could be so calm, so composed because he's not the one getting hurt, a soft voice said in Alfred's head.

"I don't know." Alfred closed his eyes, momentarily, at the admission. It was a smart thing to say, he thought, detachedly, without the promise of no, and yet not tinged with the same stinging truth of yes. Arthur, he morbidly decided, irregardless of what he'd said of his lack of social skills, was getting better at it.

"It's just... Really not that simple." Alfred expected a more forthcoming explaination, but when none came, he realized that was what Arthur thought to be a sufficient answer. To everything.

"Nothing's ever simple with you, Arthur," Alfred looked up, right back at Arthur, straight in the face. "Because you don't let things be simple. You never let things be simple, because you need things to be perfect. For things to be in perfect balance, or of perfect timing or to be perfectly normal, but Arthur," Alfred strangely, felt calmer than he had in the last half-hour. The bursting vortex of emotions had died down to a low simmer, leaving him with a strange, calm sort of control.

"But Arthur, I'm not like that. And since I'm half of this," his hand gestured between them, grasping at something words seemed to miss, "It means that our relationship will never be that kind of perfect either. There's always going to be too much work or too little time or too many other people or things and that's fine but-"

Alfred bit his lip, gaze wavering.

"-But you won't let it settle, you don't seem to ever want to settle. To put our relationship first, or even a close second, just because it's not your ideal of perfect, like that kind of perfection you get to control, with your work, and I want to make it perfect, Arthur, I want to make what we have the best for you because-"

Alfred caught himself at the last second, the words right at the tip of his tongue, and he realized, belatedly, as he felt the words slip off the ends of his control, that this was a fucking horrible time to say this.

"-Because I love you."

He watched Arthur's eyes widen, his ears colouring at the tips, his lips part, slightly- But he said nothing.

Alfred let his head drop down, half-smiling and his eyes squeezed shut.

"But I'm tired, Arthur," He tried not to notice how his voice cracked, and how obvious it was in the quiet of the room, with nothing but the low hum of the heater in the corner to disguise it. "I'm..." He let the word waver, as he tried to articulate it better, better than just a single word.

"... I'm just really tired," Alfred looked up again, meeting Arthur's gaze.

Arthur didn't say anything.

Alfred felt everything, everything in all of its entirety, drain out of him with a gush, and then the slow, dripping of a leaking faucet, spilling everything everywhere where no one ever wanted it, leaving him completely empty.

He waited, for a few long moments, watching Arthur, looking at his lips, still slightly parted as if in anticipation of speech, his eyes still slightly widened, with those same, familiar, light wrinkes at their corner, before he decided that nothing else was going to happen here.

Numbly, he smoothed the corner of the letter, still at his fingertips, before straightening up. Fingers trembling, he tugged his iPhone free of the cord, and pocketed it, swallowing, as he looked back at Arthur. His face had paled, all of a sudden, and Alfred knew that Arthur knew.

Say something, Arthur. Anything. Please Arthur, you don't even have to say it back, you just have to- Have to say something.

Arthur didn't.

Alfred closed the door behind him, and walked a few steps down the hallway, legs trembling. He leaned against the pale cream wall of the hall, tired.

So tired.

He let himself stay there, bent over on the floor, the heels of his hands pressed against his eyes. He let himself stay there for fourteen minutes, just sitting there, breathing, waiting, because something inside of him desperately hoped that this would be like one of those penultimate scenes of those cheesy Hollywood movies, where the girl would cry in the corridor for a calculated moment, and the guy would come running after her, apologizing, begging her for forgiveness and I love you too, I love you, so much, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to do this, please, please I'm so sorry, I lov-

Fourteen minutes, and then Alfred left.

A/N:
YOU GUYS. YOU GUYS! ONE HUNDRED REVIEWS! We are overwhelmed, in the best way possible, seriously :'DDDD Thank you all so much, again, for all of your overwhelming support and love for our fic! We love you too. Every one of you.

In case you guys missed it in the past A/Ns, we're at our final arc of Heartstrings. Two more chapters, and we'll be done with the main plot, and there'll be an "extra" chapter thirteen epilogue. Also, like we've mentioned in the last chapter, Hika and I will be publishing a doujin/comic of the "part two" of the epilogue (the two parts are completely independent though! Different stories being told and all)! Yay! We're very very very excited, but we need your feedback too! We'd really appreciate it if you could take a little time to go to our profile, and click on the link to a really really quick survey on the doujin, so we can get a better feel of what you guys would like in it! Sounds good?

That's about it for now! Hope you guys enjoyed(?) this chapter too!

P.S, Livejournal's been giving us a bit of trouble lately, so we've switched to Tumblr! You can follow us there for more updates on the fic, doujin, random sketch dumps, drabbles, etcetc. Link's in our profile as usual, or you can just type in our name, we're still Symbiotific there!