Title: The Genius Next Door
Number of chapters: 15 + epilogue
Word count: 70k + total, 4319 for this part
Cover image by: Eric Rougier
Summary: Six years of tranquility, before everything comes falling down again.
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!
Six years later
March the sixth, Francis and Arthur were finally returning back to Paris after their extended vacation from Miami, Florida. They'd figured just the previous year that it'd be better for Francis to remain in warmer areas as often as possible throughout the year, especially during the harshest brunt of winter that revealed itself in January and February.
Francis was busy trying to keep himself warm by wrapping a scarf around his neck immediately after he stepped outside; Arthur, on the other hand, was still in the car and was fumbling for change to give the cab driver. The driver kept muttering in French, and Arthur was turning red trying to keep up with the language.
"Look, sir, slow down. I can't understand a word of your bloody language with the way you're going on."
"Tourists! Holy freaking tourists! Here, here's your change — take it and go. Have a good day, sirs! Holy English tourists," the driver continued to mutter in rapid French.
When the two exited and the vehicle drove away, Arthur took their suitcases from Francis' hands and the two gave Paris a quick glance-over. She hadn't changed in the two months they were gone; snow still covered the roads and every building within sight and people were still bustling about. It was but morning, and Francis was secretly hoping they'd stop by at a pastry store and grab breakfast; he'd grown tired of the typical American cereal-and-milk breakfast that Arthur's Scottish brother had kept serving them when they stayed over there.
Francis adjusted his scarf and followed Arthur as they began to trudge down the street. "I do think it's about time you learned more French," said Francis, more to himself than Arthur. Arthur ignored him.
Francis, having not been watching where he was going, then slipped on a patch of ice on the ground and landed heavily on his rear. Arthur cursed, fumbling so that he could let go of one suitcase (which toppled over) and reach out a hand to help Francis up; Francis grabbed the fallen suitcase on his way up. As he dusted the snow off his coat, he couldn't help but feel like something was amiss.
"Wait," he said to Arthur before going to lean on the nearest building wall. "I just need to catch my breath."
"Old man," Arthur said dully, leaning beside Francis. "Come on, we're just a few more blocks away from the apartment."
"There's something off about this place," admitted Francis. "I don't know what it is. Can you feel it?"
Arthur stood still for a moment before he seemed to decide that Francis was being idiotic and grabbed Francis' coat sleeve. "Don't be stupid," he said.
"No, really." Francis peered around him, seeing that there was an alleyway between two buildings just a few meters away. "Nobody ever comes here," he said. "This place could be crawling with bodies and nobody would ever know. Arthur, why couldn't we have stopped further down?" He started to walk towards it, beckoning Arthur to follow.
"Francis, what are you —" said Arthur before they hit the entrance of the alley. "Ugh! What is that smell?"
"The garbage?" Francis suggested, nodding at the two dumpsters leaning against one of the buildings.
"Smells like nobody's taken care of it for weeks. Ugh, we should not be smelling that smell in the middle of winter. Who the bollocks even lives here?"
Arthur disappeared for a moment around a corner to get a glance at the front of the buildings; Francis crept closer to the dumpsters. "Hey, Arthur?" he called out nervously, beginning to feel an ice-cool prickling at the back of his neck.
And then he looked behind the dumpster, and froze.
"Old laundry building," came Arthur's voice as the Brit approached. "Hasn't been used in years. The other's a soup kitchen, we're probably just smelling the rotting leftovers, come on —" but then he, too, stopped as his eyes fell upon what Francis was seeing.
The dead body of a woman was lying limp on the ground, her head at an odd angle and her neck almost blue at sight. She was unrecognizable — her eyes were swollen, her mouth agape in a silent 'O', her face thin and gaunt and the sickening colour of decomposing fruit peels. She was sitting against the building, her hands by her sides and her palms upturned, her legs unshaven and bare.
"She must have been here for weeks," croaked Francis hoarsely, putting his hands over his mouth.
"Oh, God," muttered Arthur, grabbing Francis' coat again. "The poor girl. Francis, come on, don't look at her —"
But Francis just shrugged him off. "Her smell must have been covered up by all the cold and the dumpsters," he said. "She m-must have been raped or something before she died, look, Arthur —"
"I'm calling the police," Arthur said, flipping open his cellular and standing off a little to the side.
Francis dropped his hands, his face blank and expressionless as he took in her details — the blue on her neck that was rather not from the cold, but from finger-shaped bruises, the thin jacket she had on, the blood on her inner thighs, the dark black hole between her legs open for the world to see.
"Hello? Hi, my partner and I were just walking —" Arthur said, his free hand over his other ear. "What? No. We were just walking and we found a body. Well, find someone who speaks English!"
Francis crouched as he looked closer at the body, reaching out to close her blistering eyelids over her bulging eyeballs, wondering why he wasn't more disgusted. The eyelids immediately crumpled with his touch; Francis shrunk back, frightened, and heard as Arthur yelled, "What the hell, Francis? Don't touch her!"
"I just wanted to close her eyes!" shouted Francis back.
"She's been dead for weeks. You shouldn't be — hello? Yes, hi. Wow, your accent is actually atrocious. No —"
Francis stood up and removed his coat, placing it gingerly over her legs. He wondered how she'd died — was it a result of asphyxiation, homelessness, depression? After all, obviously no one had come looking for her since she'd been here for so long. And who would recognize her, either, with her looking the way she did?
There was a piece of paper sticking out from her front jacket pocket, and Francis removed it and unfolded it and looked at it. A heavy calm settled in his stomach; his ears cleared and his head spun. The photo was of a beautiful young woman, a baby, a fair haired man.
Francis quickly stuffed the paper in his pocket as Arthur finished his phone call and strode over. His eyes softened when he saw the corpse once again, and then at Francis' jacket on her legs. "We should wait here for the police to arrive," said Arthur. "Shouldn't be more than a few minutes."
Francis nodded.
Arthur looked at his pale face and clutched his arm. "Are you alright? Maybe you should sit down. I told you not to touch her — who goes around touching dead bodies in the middle of nowhere, Francis? I probably have some sanitizer, hold on."
"I want to go home," Francis whispered.
"I know. Me too. Just hold on a few minutes. You don't even have to talk to the police if you don't want — just go sit off to the side."
Francis did. He leaned against the other wall for a little, panting heavily against it, thinking that he was going to throw up but he didn't. He went to sit outside the alleyway and curled up into a fetal position like a little child, rocking back and forth on his feet. He'd never considered this ending — hadn't even thought about it. He'd thought of possibilities where Chel waltzed back into his life and told Arthur things he didn't need to know, possibilities where Chel was pregnant and didn't tell him until some ten years later, possibilities where Chel ended up finding the man in the photo (unless he was dead or something) and lived happily ever after. Not this. Never this.
Francis was very quiet when the police arrived with all their sirens and wailing noises, making himself tiny and inconspicuous pressed against the brick wall, drowning out the sounds of Arthur speaking in ragged French to the officers. For some reason, Chel's death made him feel inconceivably sad, even though she was the woman who essentially ripped apart his life. He had, in that own strange way of his, loved her — not the way he loved Arthur, never, but loved her in those final moments before orgasm, the scarce few seconds before climax when her face was all he saw and she was his entire world. He loved her because she'd made him feel young and free again, wild and unrestrained; he loved her because she'd sent chills down his back and bliss coursing through his body and she'd just been there, in the moment, with all her beauty and energy and vigor. He loved her when she'd whispered hotly against his skin and when she'd crossed her ankles behind his back and when she'd screamed another's name to the lights until she passed out into oblivion.
He loved her in the way that let him know that, had things been different, then perhaps his apple-pie-life would've been with her; they shared so many commonalities, spoke the same beautiful language, adored so many of the same foods and hobbies and clothing, carried the same burdens. And he'd only seen a part of her, such a small part, the part she revealed in the dusky corners of a French hotel room. And he wondered if this was what it was like to lose a soul mate.
Francis questioned to himself, as he and Arthur walked the last block to their flat, when the last time it'd been since they went to see the Mirabeau bridge.
"I think a visit is in due order," he explained softly, still shaken up from the event earlier.
"I never understood why you're so attached to that old bridge," said Arthur.
Francis looked at him, shocked. "You aren't?" he asked. He'd always thought that Arthur had felt the same way about the bridge as he did — that it was a place special to them both.
Arthur shrugged. "It was where we started to date, alright. But I always thought it was rather crummy looking. Don't you tell me you're actually attached to the thing?"
Francis was a little hurt, so he said nothing for a while, and waited patiently for it to sink through Arthur's thick skull that perhaps he'd said something dumb. "Well, that's not what I meant," said Arthur, licking his lips. "Of course we can go back to it. First place we'll go, in fact, tomorrow."
That's better, thought Francis with some amusement.
"Why are you even bringing this up?" asked the Brit. "It's been such a long time since you last did. I mean, it was where you tried killing —" he stopped.
Francis shook his head. He looked behind their shoulders, wondering if he should tell Arthur. "I think I knew that woman," he said quietly into Arthur's ear.
"Oh," said Arthur. "Oh."
Arthur stopped and embraced Francis, letting their suitcases clunk to the ground again. Francis let himself be hugged, soaking up Arthur's warmth, breathing in the smell of Arthur's hair. It was how Arthur always smelled like — oranges and tea and leather. And Arthur just held him, knowing Francis needed this, knowing Francis needed the bridge and the affirmation of their relationship. It didn't matter to Francis that the bridge was where he'd once tried committing suicide some six years ago — he could hardly remember the event. To him, the bridge was still where old love could be renewed.
"Was she someone —?" Arthur hesitated.
"Oh, yes," Francis nodded into Arthur's shoulder. "She was someone."
The next day, rather than going to the Mirabeau bridge, they received a call that Yao was dead.
Perhaps this is an omen, Francis thought as he twirled the phone cord in his hands an hour later, Arthur beside him flipping through the phone book and looking for another counselor.
"Don't worry about it," Francis then told Arthur, smiling. "I'm okay."
"You're okay?" asked Arthur.
"Yes. Haven't felt sick or depressed in years, besides the minor side effects from the medication. I mean that, Arthur."
Arthur hesitated, before snapping the book shut. "Good," he said, standing to put it away, before catching himself. "Francis, what about Yao? He was your therapist for years. You might not need another one, but he was your friend, wasn't he? Are you going to be okay from that?"
Francis just smiled thinly. "When I said I was okay, I meant it. In every way possible."
Francis was too fucking tired to mourn anymore.
Francis lied about being okay. He wouldn't know this until he returned to work the next day.
He was a model now for an entirely different clothing line, one that appreciated his skinny frame (he never did end up gaining back all the weight he'd lost) and more effeminate features. At first, his photographer had been a little hesitant with him because of Francis' age — he was nearing thirty-two and they were looking to attract a younger audience — but to everyone's surprise, Francis had looked absolutely fantastic in the photos they printed. He didn't look a day over twenty-five and his pictures ended up appearing on four different fashion magazines across Paris that month. After that, everyone had wanted him — and money was no longer a primary concern for him and Arthur.
Today he had to wear some sort of obscure looking plaid outfit and make it look good — his specialty. In the changing room, however, Francis was suddenly overcome with the burning need to throw up — a feeling that hadn't overwhelmed him in years other than his experience with Chel. He ran to the nearest toilet and coughed and coughed, feeling thick mucus coating his windpipe yet being unable to get it out; he gagged and continued to heave until he managed to throw up the lunch he had earlier that day with Arthur. And then he fell back so that he was sitting on the bathroom floor, holding his head.
That was strange.
"Francis?" asked one of the younger male models, after having apparently heard him from outside. "Are you alright in there?"
"Yes," said Francis, grimacing. "I think I just ate something funny."
"Well, we're going to be late if we don't hurry up."
"I know. Bollocks —"
When Francis exited the stall, there were three other men standing there looking worried and Francis was more embarrassed than he'd ever been, ever. Had they all heard him throwing up his left lung?
It got worse before he even managed to exit the room because then he tripped on the stairs on the way out. It was like his legs suddenly gave out on him. The others rushed to help him up but Francis waved them all away and grabbed onto the railing and pulled, but for some reason he no longer had motor control of the lower half of his body for another good, solid eight seconds.
Francis called Arthur to take him home after that.
"My coworkers think I'm being dramatic," Francis moaned sullenly, holding on to the edge of his seat as the public bus passed over another dip in the road.
"You have a tendency to do that," muttered Arthur, flipping the page of his newspaper.
"I feel sick, Arthur," said Francis. "Really, really sick. This hasn't happened to me since —"
Arthur looked up sharply from his paper. "Since?" he asked, eyes narrowing dangerously.
"Since when I first found out," Francis whispered, and Arthur looked lost.
Life for the Kirkland-Bonnefoys had been decent for the past six years. Lovina and Matthew now had a two year old daughter who looked too remarkably like her mother. They ended up moving somewhere close to Arthur and Francis' apartment, and Matthew visited often, having abandoned their dreams to move back to Canada.
He never did find out about the HIV. He and Antonio and Gilbert were simply told that Francis was more sickly nowadays — something that they found easy to believe, given Francis' track record with catching strange illnesses back when he'd been a child. This gave Francis the excuse to miss whatever social gatherings he wanted, although truthfully his illness had not bothered him in what seemed like forever.
Francis was on a lot of medication nowadays. The treatment for his HIV disease meant that he had to eat at certain times a day and eat only a certain amount. The treatment also gave him constant muscle pains and migraines and a certain fragility about him which meant that Arthur was no longer allowed to hit Francis anymore for fun, because Francis bruised extremely easily and there was the real chance that if he fell over and hit himself in the right place he could fracture a bone. That was all very well and good with the two, because at least they knew that the side effects Francis was experiencing was coming from prescribed medicine, not the illness itself.
The life expectancy for someone living with HIV was, nowadays, relatively long. When he'd been first diagnosed, Francis had not expected to last another decade — now, as he knew, he still had a long way to go before the disease ended up knocking him over, so long as he took his medication piously and took care of his body religiously. His medication was meant to suppress the HIV's ability to replicate and slow it down immensely, and Francis had the utmost trust in Kiku Honda, their new health care provider, to provide him with the best combination of pills he needed.
Which was why, when Francis threw up at his workplace, the question of his HIV being the culprit had not even come to mind.
The thing about Arthur and Francis' relationship was that they both saw it on different grounds. Ever since their talk on the night of Matthew's wedding, Arthur regretted telling Francis what he did and still punished himself constantly for doing it. More often than not he felt like the shittiest husband in the world, and he was always drinking now, although he never let it show, as if hoping to make up for the four months of emptiness he'd felt back then by suffering himself six years.
It was alright, though, because they dealt. They'd been married with Francis and his HIV far longer than they'd been married without, so Francis' dietary restrictions and his need for exercise was the norm for them. Both still carried the burdens of their pasts — Arthur for not being there for Francis when Francis needed him, and Francis for having cheated on Arthur and for now slowing Arthur down — and sometimes when those memories resurfaced they twinged a little, but it'd been six years and they'd grown up and many things had all been forgotten.
They still weren't perfect, though. They had fights — sometimes more fights in a month than they'd had before all this misfortune came crashing down on then. Sometimes it got so bad that Arthur had to leave to get some fresh air and wouldn't be back for a day or two; sometimes Francis hoped he wouldn't be back at all.
Then sometimes when Arthur turned to look at Francis after these fights all Francis could see was bitterness and hatred in his eyes — how dare you, how dare you.
Sometimes Antonio came over and all he could see in Arthur's eyes when he turned to look at Francis was love and worry and forgiveness.
Once Matthew came over at the wrong time.
"We brought the bread you wanted," he sang as he closed the door behind him, the bread in one hand and little Kuma in the other and big Kuma by his side, all tongue and wagging tail, Gilbird on his head.
"Is Lovina with you?" called Arthur from the kitchen before heading to greet Matthew.
"Nah, Lovi couldn't make it today. I'm just dropping by to give you guys this. But I gotta go — Kuma's got day care in half an hour. Not the dog. The kid. Here, Arthur, take this. Where's Francis?"
Francis appeared from the master bedroom, all puffy eyes and mussed hair and coughing a little. "Who are you?" he asked, squinting at Matthew's shape.
Matthew laughed. "Wow, looks like someone got up on the wrong side of the bed today."
Arthur bit his lip.
"Oh! Martin. So nice of you to drop by."
Matthew paled, before chuckling nervously. "Well, alright then, Francis," he said, before turning around to leave. "Take care of yourselves, guys."
Only Arthur caught the hurt look on Matthew's face right before he left.
"He was just kidding," said Arthur over the phone later that night.
"I know," came Matthew's voice from the other end. "I didn't really think Francis would try to pull that kind of joke on me, though. He knows how often I've had my name forgotten back in grade school."
"He had a long night…last night," Arthur said sheepishly.
"I know, Arthur," Matthew laughed. "You don't have to explain his actions to me. I get it. I'm not bothered, I swear. But thank you for calling. That's really sweet."
"You sure you're going to be alright?"
"Yeah, I'm a grown boy," teased Matthew. "It's not a big deal, seriously. Ah, shoot — Kuma — okay, hold on. Wait. Okay, I'm back. I'm actually a little worried about Francis. What's up with him?"
Arthur chewed on his lip until it bled. "I'm not sure," he admitted.
Arthur took Francis to see Kiku Honda the next day.
"I can't believe I called Matthew 'Martin'," groaned Francis on the way there. "What a shame. How embarrassing. My poor, precious darling. I hope he's not hurt."
"He's not. He's just a little confused."
"I am, too!" cried Francis loudly, grabbing Arthur by the shoulders and shaking him. "What's wrong with me, Arthur? It was like I really, honestly thought his name was Martin last night. I was just feeling so light-headed at the moment. How is that possible? You don't think it's the —"
"We'll see," Arthur said grimly as the bus stopped.
When the tests came back several weeks later, Kiku remorsefully called them over to his office. "The HIV has created a mutation," he said to the couple before him. "It's not — it's not responding to the drugs as well as I'd like for it to. The drugs — they aren't, they aren't — they haven't been, that is —"
"Why weren't you able to figure this out earlier?" Arthur asked, deadly quiet.
"I never suspected," Kiku responded, just as quiet.
Arthur closed his eyes and took in a deep breath. "How long, do you think — how long have the drugs not been doing anything?"
Kiku flipped through his paperwork, fingers trembling at the tips but managing to remain professional. "It couldn't have been that long," he muttered, more to himself than Arthur or Francis. "The symptoms would've showed up earlier. I don't know what to tell you, Arthur-san. A year, at most. Maybe two. It couldn't have helped that for the first half-year that Francis had HIV he hadn't taken anything to slow it down. All these things are building up to something greater — something sinister."
Arthur shot Francis a worried look, and Francis already knew what Arthur was thinking.
"What do we do?"
"Change his medication. Find another drug combination that'll work for him. From now on, Francis, we'll have your CD4 and viral load checked every few months to ensure that this doesn't happen again. When there's more resistance on the part of the disease, we'll know immediately."
"It'll be hard on him, having to change his medication and having to deal with all the new side effects," Arthur snapped. "Are you seriously suggesting that all this time, Francis hasn't even been treated properly? Are you fucking kidding me? All our money — all our wasted time —"
"Arthur," said Kiku Honda, voice quavering a little as he stood up from his seat. "Arthur-san, please understand —"
"I fucking can't!" snapped Arthur, standing to meet his challenge. "We trusted you —"
"It's not his fault," said Francis. "Sit down! This would have happened by the hands of any other doctor too. It's not him."
"Shut your fucking face!"
"No, you shut your fucking face!" yelled Francis before grabbing Arthur's arm and yanking him back down and then coughing into his fists violently at having raised his voice so suddenly. "I can speak for myself. Dr. Honda, it's fine. Thank you."
Before they left, Dr. Honda made Francis run a number of tests, promising results soon.
Neither Arthur nor Francis spoke to each other for the rest of the ride home.
The demon-child returned that night.
She was sitting on his torso, grinning wickedly. Francis hadn't seen her in years, so he was terrified — he threw her off immediately, screaming and blubbering and clutching at his eyes as though he was hoping to claw them out. "Leave me be!" he screamed. "You don't want me! You don't want me!"
"Francis!" cried Arthur, trying to snap him out of it. "Francis, stop it. You're okay. You're alright. You're safe. I'm here."
And Francis, as he calmed down, shaking from the ramifications of the demon-child's visit and wondering what that meant for him, could only sob tearlessly. The HIV had left them alone for the better part of six years, but now it was coming back and it was coming back worse, more powerful and unrestrained and advanced and evil.
And they were unprepared and weak and scared.