CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE.
"Well, you have put twelve pounds back on, so I suppose that's a good thing."
A look of relief crossed his patient's face, but it was a fleeting emotion for McKnight hardened his gaze as he stared at the young man whilst he stepped down from the weigh scale.
"But it's still not enough," he stressed, gesturing for Matthew to follow as they left one of his offices - the smaller one adjacent to his main one. The tiny, dimly lit room where he kept files upon files pertaining to former patients, as well as instruments to keep track of their physical health. It smelt like an old library might with a hint of lemon-scented polish. "You're back to where you were during the New Year, and I don't like that; you're still a good twenty-five pounds underweight."
Matthew visibly swallowed and nodded, looking away and chewing on the corner of his lower lip. His eyes were downcast, and the two men sighed in unison.
"For now, it's all we can do," said the psychiatrist lowly. "I trust you'll eat properly and gain the weight in a healthy way. Put more grains - bread, pasta, whatever you can - into your diet, as well as well as whole dairy products and such. Get more protein as well." There was a pause. "Maybe I should set you up with a dietician."
An offended look crossed the Canadian's face and McKnight couldn't help but chuckle a little as they wandered back into his office. The hall was silent and there wasn't another person in sight. That was typical for eleven in the morning on any day of the week. "Oh yes, heaven forbid if I tell you to see someone else," he snorted. "I'll see what I can put together for you." He flicked the lights on in his office; it was just as dim in there.
"It's not that," Matthew said with a light sigh as he crashed down into a chair - all 142lbs of him - and tucked his legs beneath him, running a hand through his hair, "I just don't want to have to see anyone else; I mean, it took me long enough to trust you and even just get used to you. Like, I'm not as much of a nutcase about it now as what I was the but the thought of being put with someone else makes me stomach sick and then I find it hard to breathe. Then everything just spirals from there and then the next thing you know it's panic attack central."
Shutting the door behind him and hanging up his suit jacket on the rack, McKnight sighed. It was nice to come into a cool office; the majority of the sunlight was being kept out of the space by thick curtains and subsequently along with the warmth it would have generated. The psychiatrist went over to his desk and propped a hip on the corner. He grimaced as the wood creaked despite its thickness. "Your anxiety will never leave you," he said. "It's something we can treat, but not something we can get rid of.
"It's the same with your depression," he continued, moving to sit at his desk instead of on it. "They're both linked as a mild form of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and it can resurface at any time; I've seen it happen before, both with former patients and you, too. Given everything that happened, this is what it has left you with. I'm going to be blunt about it - mentally, you got off fairly easy compared to some long-term cases I've seen; a part of your depression was also situational, as well as what stemmed from your earlier life and things related to that because you have a penchant for dwelling on things and over-analyzing. But for the most part, it had to do with your living conditions, the lack of time to yourself, lack of communication with the so-called 'outside world', being unable to properly take care of your physical health, and not being able to eat or sleep. Life situations and living conditions that deteriorate at a steady pace can pry open old wounds and create depression and cause it to fester, subsequently warping in into a fully-blown depressive state of mind. Am I correct?"
Matthew slowly nodded his agreement; Ian knew the man well enough to know that he did indeed comprehend what he was talking about and was not simply nodding for the sake of nodding. He knew him well enough to say that, if he didn't agree or did not understand him he would voice his opinion. And he had every right to be heard.
"But," McKnight continued, "You're also a trigger depressive, which you already know as well. A situation that creates the slightest sense of déjà-vu will do it for you; take what happened a month or so ago as a prime example. When you came to see me at my place towards the end of May, you told me you felt as though you had fallen back into 'the same old, same old'. Being alone, something you're not as used to anymore, placed on top of that feeling of repetitiveness you used to deal with, was a trigger for you. You were at the lowest point I've seen you at since the end of November, beginning of December. You weren't sleeping, you definitely weren't eating, and your train of thought was so incoherent that you actually went as far as taking leave from work.
"Thankfully enough, that didn't present too much of a setback, and you appear to be somewhat stable again. You've gotten better at dragging yourself out of the hole you manage to dig down into, which I'm very proud of."
A smile formed on the other's face and he nodded, looking down to his lap. At this the man sat back and turned to a fresh page in the book he had produced, clicking the top of his pen to bring the nub down and scribble something new. The date, and the new medication he was going to be put on.
Despite knowing his distaste for pills, McKnight knew he couldn't function properly without them - he might float somewhere around fifty percent functionality, but otherwise he would not be the greatest person to deal with. He would be jittery; agitated. These were things he had already seen in him when he wasn't on medication. It was something they had tried a year ago. Taken off of his medications for a month and within two weeks he was after slipping again. It wasn't something he wanted to risk, not when after a month ago or so he had shown that his depression was still prevalent when provoked.
"In any case, I'm taking you off the Valium altogether because I'm going to put you on a medication that'll take care of both your anxiety and any potential depression."
The Canadian hesitated before accepting. "I didn't think Valium was that strong though," he said quietly, shifting in his chair and leaning forward. He licked his lips nervously. "And I also thought that it helped combat depression symptoms as well?"
"You're correct to an extent," McKnight admitted, "but I consider Valium a pill for high-anxiety cases. It doesn't actually do that much in terms of depression. And because Zoloft is a bit easier on the system and it's safe to pair with Valium, I prescribed those two together in hopes they would be far more effective against the symptoms you were displaying. You could say I was experimenting with it."
Watching as the Canadian thought it over - he could see a sharp, calculating look in his eyes, one that did not escape him as being that same look he had seen in his eyes when they had first met - McKnight stood and migrated over to a small table in the corner of the room. A coffee maker was situated there, as well as a few porcelain mugs that had plants growing in them. It was one of those warm beverages he kept on hand in his office at all times. There was a container of hot chocolate and a box of tea bags as well, but he found he went through his stash of Joe a little faster. Opening up the doors beneath the maker, he grabbed two mugs and set them down on the polished surface beside the brewer as he checked the water levels - still good, which meant they could have something to drink.
"I don't know," he said finally, voice whispery. McKnight glanced over with a light hum, arching an eyebrow. The young man was looking elsewhere; perhaps at the bookshelf, as he usually did. Subtly following his line of vision as he made to turn back to his coffee maker, he saw that he was correct.
"Well, I can't force new pills on you," Ian said with a sigh. "But as I said, the Valium in your case is exclusively for your anxiety. That alone isn't good enough; you need something that will help stave off both anxiety and possible bouts with depression. I really think you should try them and see how they work out for you."
At this, he seemed to deflate a little, a pained look on his face as he continued to evade his psychiatrist's gaze. Though when he spoke, nothing in his voice gave off any possible emotion. He was vapid sounding; animatronic. "What is it you want to put me on? It better not be Effexor; you promised you would never put me back on that again, no matter how bad I got."
"No, no. Christ no. No Effexor for you. Just a 40mg dosage of Cymbalta; it's one of the recommended starting doses for Generalized Anxiety Disorder, but it's also a dose indicated for someone with depression," he explained, making his way back over to his desk and easing himself down into his plush chair. It was a wonder his bones hadn't started to creak yet with age setting in. "So, I figured, it's like this: I want to see if it'll work on both your depression and anxiety. If it does, then that's wonderful and I'll keep you on it, providing there aren't any major side effects that last too long. If it doesn't, then well, I'll work on finding something else for you."
"Cymbalta … that's the one they have commercials for on the television every now and again, right?" A look that was unreadable flickered across his face.
McKnight nodded. "You're right there. It's a fairly mainstream anti-depressant and anxiety medication."
"That shit can fuck with your liver, man. Have you read up on the slew of potentially fatal side effects that come with it? Do not want. Do. Not. Want."
Laughing, McKnight shook his head. "I rue the day you got the internet, boy."
Although he had hoped that would rouse even a small chuckle from the Canadian, it did not and the smile on his face faltered. The young man seemed distracted as he stared at the book case. It was something McKnight didn't quite understand; why did he, when he tried to be evasive, always choose the bookcase to look at? Was it the positioning he was looking at? Was he analyzing the size and shape of it, the distance of the shelves? Or was it the book he was looking at, scanning the titles and reading them, committing them to his nearly flawless memory? He was certain that if he were to ask him to name off each book on the shelf without looking to it for a hint, he would be able to do so with no problem.
"What is it?" McKnight asked with a slight frown, leaning forward on his elbows. "What's bothering you?"
"I just don't want to deal with side effects again," Matt said with a sigh, head flopping back as he stared up at the ceiling with a vacant expression. He was after forcing his emotions beneath the surface again, something his doctor didn't quite like. It worried him over just how easily he seemed to be able to do that. "I've been like it since I was a kid; even cold medicine gave me side effects. Pills though, they're the worst. Side effects for two weeks before I can properly function."
Deflating a little, he stood and grabbed the coffee maker, pouring themselves a cup each. He stirred some cream and two packets of sugar into Matthew's, and just sugar into his own. "I know, Matthew, trust me. I know," he said as he sat down again, handing the cup to him. It was taken with a nod of gratitude. "But, it'll take care of symptoms of both your depression and anxiety, it's proven to work, and honestly, it's not as expensive as the Valium you've been taking."
He seemed to perk up a little at this and then he shrugged. "Money's not as much of an issue anymore," he said quietly, blowing on the creamy liquid before taking a tentative sip. He smiled a little, but McKnight was unsure if it was over the taste or what he had said. "I mean, it's still tight sometimes with buying groceries and paying rent on what I make at the grocery store given I don't work at the bakery anymore, but it's not nearly as bad as what it was."
"At least you have the money to buy decent food," McKnight commented, sipping on his own sweet black water.
A chuckle left the young man. "It's always a bonus." He paused for a moment, staring at the coffee before he sighed and slumped back. "If you want to put me on Cymbalta, then go ahead. Maybe it won't be too bad on me."
"One thing I have to warn you about is the fact that one of the side effects is weight loss and a change in eating habits." It slipped out before he even had a chance to register speaking and he felt guilty when Matthew flinched. "The moment you find you're beginning to lose weight or not wanting to eat, come to me about it, alright? I don't want you dropping below the point you're already at now."
Sighing, Matthew nodded. "No problem," he hummed. "Small question: why is it so hard for me to keep weight on? I've never had this problem before."
McKnight adjusted his glasses. "There are many factors: you have a high metabolism and you're still somewhat active. Weight loss can also be idiopathic, which is what I think it might be in your case. This is why you need to eat whenever you have the time. Hell, it might just be a phase your body is going through because those happen, too."
"Now you sound like my mother," Matt grumbled, rolling his eyes before taking another mouthful of his coffee. "I'm pretty sure she thought my dating men was just a phase, too."
"Oh, Matthew, there's nothing wrong with dating men," he chuckled, sipping his coffee after blowing on it. A crooked grin was sent his way. "Sure, I could never fathom it for myself for the simple fact that, well, ouch and, in my opinion, an erect penis does not belong in that general vicinity. The rectum is an easily wounded area, highly sensitive and honestly, at my age, having discomfort while sitting down wouldn't be good for my body. That and I've already had my mid-life crisis. I bought a red Jag, kept it for a few months and then sold it again. I don't think Peggy would approve of me bending over and taking it, as you would eloquently put it."
"Hey man, it's not that bad," laughed the artist. His eyes were alight with amusement and even McKnight was grinning and wondering about just how their discussion of his medications, weight and the side-effects had taken a turn for the homoerotic. "Sure it hurts and all if you're not, like, ready for it but it's not that bad. Everyone makes it out to be this ass-busting business, even though that's not what it's like at all. It's nothing to cry over, either. Frankly, I think it feels pretty good at firs-"
"So, about getting you your medication we should do that at the end of this session, right? Right. Of course I'm right; I'm always right."
Laughter followed this and Matthew's cheeks were flushed bright pink with mirth. Sure, this was a therapy session and all, therefore they were supposed to discuss things relevant to his mental state - not his sex life. The kid was too much of a free spirit to keep to one serious topic when he was feeling good.
That was one thing he had remembered from when he and Matthew had first started their therapy sessions - they were mainly casual discussions, the young man finding it as a way to get caught up on the world around him, a world he had lost and then gotten shoved back into, head-first. There had been nothing about who he was, where he was from, what was wrong and how he could try and be fixed, or so to speak. They just … talked. About anything and everything, except for something that could have turned to a dialogue about him. So they talked about things that were happening in the world; they talked about pop culture. Art, politics and math were his favourite topics of discussion, he had learned. On occasion they ventured from his office and headed to the library, and he would observe the Canadian as he hesitantly made his way through the rows upon rows of books, fingers trailing along the metal and wooden shelves. It was like he was reacquainting himself with a world he had thought he had lost.
(In a way, he was.)
One thing was prominent in his reacquaintance with the material world, and that was that he was constantly looking for something new to read. Books fascinated him - literature of all sorts. It didn't matter what it was, he would sit down and gladly read it. Texts on math, science, religion. He would read political inquiries, books about different time periods. On occasion, he would read teen literature - but only the good stuff, the stuff that created a lasting impact. He would read classical literature like Dickens and Austen, but he loved horror and the macabre - he essentially worshiped the words King, Koontz and Thrasher. Not to mention he had a soft spot for John Grisham and Margaret Atwood. And as much as he loved Sylvia Plath, he could no longer read her works for the risk of spiralling downwards against his better judgement. It was just some instantaneous reaction he had to reading what she wrote.
It had been an amazing process, watching life return to him when he had spent the first two or three months living like the walking dead. He had no hope or care for the future, and honestly the psychiatrist knew that the youth thought the world would be better off if he were not there to experience it (a few attempted suicides scattered here and there seemed to prove this perverse desire). There was a sort of momentum taking place that he needed to continue as to ascertain that he wouldn't slip while he was dragging himself out of the hole he had come from. So, on his days off when he didn't have any patients to see, he would take the then nineteen-year-old Matthew Williams to book stores and coffee shops, university libraries and even art galleries. They would walk through Manhattan; they would go to museums. He took him to see a Broadway show or two each season, and they went to see a movie at the cinema every Friday night. That had been when he lived with Ian and his quixotic little wife, without a penny to his name.
And then slowly but surely, Matthew had started to open up to him. He learned that he was no more than nineteen, that he had graduated with top academic honours from a private catholic school in Brooklyn, had been accepted to both Harvard and the School of Visual Arts. He learnt that when he was no more than sixteen going on seventeen that he had watched his mother slowly die from a leukemia that had gone unnoticed for too long, watched as the medicines she took to make her better made her worse. Those first few sessions where he learned those things about the Canadian had left him mentally exhausted more than a sitting with any other patient he had worked with. He had dealt with attempted-suicide victims before; he had worked with the homeless and some people that were morally depraved.
Something that had come with listening to the brutally honest opinions and thoughts of his nineteen-year-old client had left him dropping by the end of the day, feeling as though he, were slipping downwards, too. Maybe it was because he could not grasp the concept of someone as young and promising as he having gone through his teenage years the way he had. With the life experiences of someone in their late forties under his belt, he knew Matthew wouldn't function the same way as a young adult. He wouldn't view partying the same way; wouldn't view education or relationships the same way because he would always be on his guard, and looking to the what-ifs of it. And it just made him feel so physically tired and sick.
(There were times McKnight wondered if he should consider getting a therapist for himself as the problems of everyone else just started to weigh on him. He was human too, after all.)
Pulling open a drawer, McKnight removed a pad that would allot a prescription for the Canadian. Once he had that scribbled down, he tossed the papers into the drawer and then removed a different one. On this one he wrote the same message over and over again, twelve times. He handed these over to him and grinned.
"Twelve get out of work free cards," said the man. "So, considering you'll probably work around ten or eleven shifts within the next two weeks, I figured that'll give you adequate time to get adjusted and should you need any notes for being off sick, there's your personal caché!"
"Holy crap," Matthew muttered, studying the notes. They all said the same thing, that generic 'so-and-so has been excused for work for the following time period due to a bodily adjustment to required medications' blah de blah blah. "I'd like to see Sadiq say shit about one of these."
This caught his psychiatrist's attention. "Sadiq?" he inquired. "That's not a name I'm overly familiar with. Enlighten me?"
Williams shook his head slowly. "He's the new grocery manager. We've had him for about, what, five months now? Four? Anyway, long story short: he's an asshole. You know how Leonardo DiCaprio is king of the world? Yeah well, this fucker is the king of the assholes."
"How so?" McKnight asked, setting down his empty mug and contemplating going and getting another - which would be his third coffee for the day and it was only noon.
Mentally grappling with the right words to use - he could see it in the way his eyes dulled and crinkled at the corners - the shrink sat back and patiently waited. It unsettled him, just how adjusted he was to the young man's thought process.
"He … he's just not very nice," he mumbled finally, crossing his arms over his torso and huffing slightly. "And I'm getting fed up with him harassing me. Where I was out sick a little while ago because of how I was just so unhappy, he's been breathing down my neck since. I mean, he doesn't know the exact reason why I was out, but he's constantly telling me that I have no backbone, that I'm pathetic and a wimp. He's been giving me all the shit work that we don't even saddle on the new guys just to see if they're worth keeping around, he has me doing work I'm not cut out to be doing. Lifting boxes that weigh almost as much as I do, dragging pallets from one side of the warehouse to the other only to be told that 'no, that's fine, you didn't have to move that one after all'. He keeps dumping maintenance work on me that we're supposed to leave for the actual maintenance people. He doesn't let me take a break when I need to and I swear to God if he makes one more crack about my sexuality and tells me I look like a girl, I'm going to murder him."
And from the look he wore, Ian McKnight realized Matthew was telling the truth and he didn't know if he could afford to bail the Canadian out for murder. A minor felony such as holding up a corner store wasn't as bad. He had bailed him out for that with little to no complications, just a pile of paperwork and a dent to his savings account.
But murder? Peggy mightn't approve of bailing him out for something like that, and the last thing he wanted him to do was go on trial and more than likely get convicted for murder because that asshole of a district attorney knew what he was doing a little too well.
"Do you think you could start looking around for a new job?" the doctor pressed. "I'd say ride it out, just to see how it goes, but if he's harassing you over the fact that you're more interested in men than women then I can honestly say that I don't know if it's worth you staying there any longer."
"Maybe I'll kill him just to feel a little bit better about myself," he said with a distracted jerk of the head. "And I don't know where he's getting his information regarding my sexuality, considering Al and I get groceries somewhere else."
Words on the end of his tongue died and McKnight stared at Matthew for a long moment. "What? Who? Details, please and thank you."
Pale cheeks flushed and Matthew squirmed. "Uh, well, I …" he laughed weakly and scratched at his throat. "Al is my boyfriend."
Brown eyes went wide. "Really now?" he spluttered. "When did that happen?"
"A-A little over a month ago," stammered the artist, cheeks getting progressively darker. "I asked him to go out with me on, like, the last day of May?"
"I'm glad to hear that," said Ian with a light smile. He thought it was amusing, just how bashful his pseudo-son was all of a sudden. "What's his last name?"
"Jones," Matthew chirped. "You know, Alfred. I've told you about him a few times."
"Alfred Jones."
"Yeah."
"Manhattan's DA."
"… Yup."
"The lawyer Alfred. That Alfred Jones."
"Y-Yeah?"
All McKnight could do was stare long and hard at his patient, just wondering where his intelligence had gone. "I understand that you are … friends with the man," he said, choosing his words carefully. "But what the hell has possessed you to put yourself in a relationship with a man that has such a volatile personality?"
Looking away, the Canadian sighed. "You've never met him, so you're being a little too quick to judge," he said softly. His gaze had once more returned to the bookshelf. "You can't base an opinion on rumours surrounding a person or little snippets of their existence that you've happened upon; I thought the same way when I first met him. Oh, he's an asshole. Oh, he's rich and pretentious and he doesn't do any good with his money. Oh, he's just the DA for all the photo ops.
"But that's not the case. For one, he's the loneliest guy I've ever met and was in desperate need of a friend he could trust. And he loves his job - all he wants to do, and he told me this, is help people. He volunteers practically every day of the week with the hospital, the homeless shelter, OXFAM and he's taken up reading to kids at the library on Friday afternoons. He works a good ten hours a day or more, coming up with programs to help prevent crime and keep drugs out of the hands of kids and adults. He cries over Disney movies even though he's adamant in telling me he doesn't and he has this way of making you look at yourself and wonder 'why haven't I even tried to do something for someone other than myself?'. I don't know anyone who has been so goddamn persistent in trying to form even just a friendship with me, and he put himself through hell and back. For me. Something no one has ever done," Matthew murmured, still looking at the bookshelf, eyes glazed over and he very clearly was somewhere else. "Even though he could have said 'fuck your noise, Matthew Williams' and he could have had nothing to do with me for the rest of his life, he didn't. Instead he put himself through complete and utter hell just so he could be with me. No one has ever done that, and I don't know what kind of person I would be now if I hadn't given him the benefit of doubt back in December."
And then there was silence, McKnight startled by the stream of dialogue that had suddenly spilled forth from the artist. Matthew just seemed exhausted and he cradled his head in his hands, breathing slowly.
Pure, fragile silence and Ian McKnight found himself at a loss for words.
Several times he tried to speak, but found that the words he needed to use eluded him. So he went for simplicity; for getting the point across in one sentence. "You actually love him, don't you?" asked his doctor in a hushed voice. He had never heard something so emotionally driven come from the artist before; at least not in a way that pertained to something other than his art.
At first he didn't receive a response, but then Matthew nodded, sitting back. His eyes were clear but lost, and then he looked directly to Ian. He smiled. "Yeah, I do."
"Does he know?" McKnight asked.
Pausing, Matthew nodded. "I'm pretty sure he does," he hummed, "even though I've never actually said it to him. And I know he loves me, even though he's never said it to me. It's just a mutual understanding. That, and I still feel like it's too early to actually say something as … as meaningful and important as 'I love you', you know what I mean?"
Nodding somewhat distractedly, McKnight contemplated what he had been told. Sure, that was all Matthew's perspective of the man he was dating. It was meant to be biased in a way, but he knew damn well that he was the kind of person that, if he had formed an opinion on someone and had them held up as high as that when considering the fact he had come from the polar opposite end of the spectrum of feelings for the guy, that it had to mean something. He couldn't help but wonder if he was right. And although he found it hard to fathom that a man with as much political and judicial sway as Alfred could feel loneliness, who was he to judge? He had seen men of his type - men who sat at the top but sat at the bottom at the same time. Some of those men had been his patients.
"The main thing is whether or not you're happy," Doctor McKnight noted, standing as he gave in to the urge to get another cup of coffee. He grabbed Matthew's mug so he could get him another one, as well. "And tell me: are you happy? Truly, genuinely, honest-to-God happy with where you are in your relationship with him? Happy because of the fact that you're in a relationship at all?"
"I feel the best I have since before my mother died, if that accounts for anything," he replied quietly. "And he makes me feel like I'm actually good for something, other than being Karma's punching bag."
Smiling at the phrasing, McKnight poured two more coffees, emptying the brewer of its contents. Stirring them, he hummed quietly to himself.
The happiness felt by the Canadian was obvious; he had seen it when he had first arrived. He walked with his shoulders back and his head up; there was a little more confidence in his step than usual. And he had been smiling in that crooked way of his as he sent a text message before pocketing his phone.
Maybe he was telling the truth and maybe he really was happy.
"Karma likes having a punching bag," he commented idly as he went to sit down beside Matthew instead of across from him. "But I'm glad you're not the sucker this time around."
Laughing, the artist accepted the second mug of coffee and took a sip, sighing with content. "Being karma's favourite punching bag blows," he said, propping the tips of his sneakers on the edge of the large oak desk. Instead of the beaten red converse he usually wore, ones he had bought from either a Good Will or a Salvation Army, he wore a pair of black high-tops. They were clean and in fairly good condition. "Someone has to be, though, so I guess I'll just wait my t-"
He stopped mid-sentence when his phone rang, nearly jumping a foot out of his seat. "I keep forgetting about this goddamn piece of shit," he spat bitterly, fishing it out of his sweater's pocket and, with an apologetic look to McKnight (not that it mattered, considering their session had, by rights, finished up almost five minutes ago), he answered the call with a huffed 'what is it, Al?'
There was a pause, the Canadian laughed and Ian McKnight kind of wanted to know what the joke was.
"Don't be so impatient," he said. "I'll be out in a little bit; whatever it is can wait a few more minutes, right? Yeah, yeah. Whatever, Princess. I'll see you in a few."
Dropping the phone into his lap he groaned, draining back the half cup of coffee in several swift gulps before setting it down, going red at the laughter that followed from his doctor.
"Someone has his panties in a bunch because he's incapable of telling the time and showed up almost fifteen minutes early for me," Matt quipped, shaking his head ruefully.
Ian chuckled, finishing his coffee and setting it down on his desk alongside the green porcelain one. "We might as well get you down to the pharmacy to get your new pills so you can go on your merry little way for the day," he hummed, grabbing the prescription from the desk as he followed the younger man out the door.
Silence formed between them as they headed down the hall, Matthew walking a step or two behind his psychiatrist and McKnight, mildly distracted by his electronic planner, jotted down some notes and glanced to the calendar. Their next session was a month away, but he needed to see him within the next few weeks to make sure he was adjusting to his medications.
"How about," he said suddenly, glancing over his shoulder, "we schedule your next appointment for two weeks from Tuesday; that'll give you a while on the medication and we'll be able to decide then if it's worth keeping. Does that sound alright to you?"
"Yeah, it sounds good." Williams was looking out the windows as he walked, squinting a little at the sunlight that filtered in through slightly tinted windows.
It was still early, maybe a little past noon, and already the sun was almost at its peak for the day; New York was already buzzing with activity and he was thankful for the soundproofing of the building because, otherwise, the sound of honking horns would have sullied the hefty silence that usually filled this particular floor. It was the downfall of being in a hospital in such a busy area - they were centered right in the middle of the business district (one of the psychiatrists on his floor, a cynic by nature, liked to joke that the hospital was there for the simple fact that the office people that tried to commit suicide on a Monday would be able to get there a little bit faster for that very reason and they might have a little less success). Despite the soundproofing of the building, the particular floor they were on was fairly quiet by circumstance and the only people currently there with them was two other doctors, sitting down on a bench and chatting. The two men looked up and greeted the older psychiatrist with grins and a nod of the head, and McKnight nodded to them in return before turning his gaze forward again.
Yes, this floor was perhaps the quietest one in the hospital; it was mainly filled with offices. There were no patients going from room to room, no crying babies because there was no maternity ward. No distraught family members, no rushing here and there.
None of that, just offices for doctors and a few storage rooms.
He remembered when they had offered him an office on the main floor for some reason or another. An office near the Intensive Care Unit, and right next to the Emergency entrance.
He had considered it for a moment. Then he had nearly busted an internal organ or two laughing before promptly turning and saying that they could find him in his office on the fifth floor if they really needed him.
As they got into the elevator, went down the five floors, the doctor was still busying himself with adding dates to his planner and rearranging his notes and, of course, checking his email because apparently he could pick up Wi-Fi in a hospital now? He didn't even realize the elevator had stopped until there was a gentle tug on the edge of his shirt. Glancing up, startled, he saw the wry look on his patient's face (honestly, even though he was twenty-two now, there were times when McKnight considered saying the hell with it all and just adopting him for the sake of being able to say 'this is my son, Matthew' instead of 'this is my patient, Matthew').
"You can get internet access here?" the artist asked, visibly surprised by this.
McKnight nodded. "Believe it or not," he murmured distractedly as they stepped out of the elevator and into the main lobby of the hospital. "And it's not like there are just certain pockets of activity, it doesn't matter what floor you're on. You can connect and it's all high-speed connections."
The world was starting to advance a little too quickly for his tastes, and for his age.
"Wouldn't that interfere with the machinery working?"
"You think it would," Ian commented. "Luck is on our side, I suppose."
Matthew just hummed his agreement, an apprehensive look crossing his face as they neared the pharmacy. Patting his shoulder in an attempt at comforting him, the doctor sighed heavily.
"Want me to get the medication for you and you wait out here?" McKnight inquired, pausing mid-step to look down at the other.
He seemed to consider this, pursing his lips and rocking back and forth on his heels for a moment. Then: "Yeah, you might as well."
Chuckling, he left the young man sitting on a bench as he went to go and get his new set of pills. He chatted with the pharmacist, a pretty young woman from the Bronx, about the weather and how nice it was they had air condition on the day that was in the high nineties. She agreed, smiled and asked how his wife was making out with her arthritis medication and that was how their conversation went every day that he happened to see her. It was just one of those constant things in his life that presented a sense of normalcy when he experienced so little of it in the run of a day.
Sometimes he wondered if that was the same way his patients felt when they were on their medications; he wondered if they longed for that moment where something clicked in a way it hadn't in years. He couldn't help but wonder if it came with that sort of moment that was almost like an epiphany.
Bidding her a good day and hopefully an easy shift, he slipped the medications into the small plastic bag he had been provided by the pharmacist as he left the in-hospital drug store. McKnight paused before approaching the Canadian. He wasn't alone anymore; there was a man seated next to him. The guy was taller than him, heavier set with broad shoulders and lightly muscled arms. He was wearing a pair of gray cargo shorts and a black Batman t-shirt, and there was a pair of aviator sunglasses perched on the top of his head. Lounging casually next to his patient, his long legs were stretched out in front of him and he had his arms splayed out along the back of the seats. One arm was wrapped around him casually and he had a hand placed on his shoulder, his thumb moving in steady circular motions. There was a light smile on his face, as well as on Mattie's.
And then he realized that this was Alfred F. Jones, Manhattan's DA and Matthew's boyfriend.
His eyes narrowed, but when the man looked up and gave him a small, crooked grin, he immediately replaced the expression with something a bit politer with just a hint of mild indifference. There was no need to come off as overly aggressive just yet.
(Enter the overprotective parent, something he hadn't had to be, or felt the urge to be, in a long while.)
Approaching them slowly, he tried to keep the frown from his face but found it was a lot harder to do than he thought. "Here you go," he said, passing the bag over.
It was accepted with a low groan of displeasure, but he was thanked all the same for it. "Just what I need," he muttered in a contrite-sounding voice that made both men laugh. "More medication."
Alfred gave his shoulder a gentle squeeze. "Well, it's not the end of the world, right?" On the other hand, Williams just stared at him with a blank expression and the lawyer cringed. "Okay, so maybe it feels like it is."
The artist just laughed and shook his head, a tiny smile tweaking his lips upward at the corners. "Well, it could be worse," McKnight interjected. "I could have put you back on Effexor, or I could have made you go back on the Zoloft and kept you on the Valium, right?"
Screwing up his nose, Matthew gave him a look of disgust and all the doctor could do was laugh, one hand resting on his side. "You know how I feel about that crap," he scolded, coming to stand. "But Cymbalta shouldn't be too awful. I'm telling you this now though, if my liver ends up being pickled and my skins starts turning yellow, that's the end of it. I'll eat toddlers alive before I take another goddamn pill."
"It'll take a lot longer than two weeks for your liver to deteriorate, m'boy," he chided with a smile, shaking his head. "You're just being paranoid and overly delusional. Then again, this is you we're talking about. Don't deny that you have a penchant for overdramatics."
Alfred laughed outright at this while Matthew flushed, scowling deeply and crossing his arms across his chest. Leaning over, the lawyer murmured something and his boyfriend snickered, shaking his head and lightly pushing his shoulder. Jones smiled lightly with a faraway look in his eyes. That was when McKnight realized he wasn't wearing any glasses as he usually did, and that there were cuts all along the top of his cheeks. Odd.
"Gimme a call later on in the week to remind me, alright?" Matthew asked with a light smile directed in the direction of the older man. "Or I'll completely forget about it."
"Not a problem." Even if Matthew hadn't asked, he would have called him up all the same; while he had an incredible memory when it came to books, film, education-related topics and music, the littlest thing like that he would forget. Honestly, if his head wasn't screwed on the way it was, he would probably lose that, too.
Before either of the men could leave - they had yet to even get up off of the bench and he had already jumped on the opportunity - McKnight promptly turned to the American and narrowed his eyes. The gaze went unnoticed at first but then he caught it. At the expression, he did a double take and pulled back a little. "Y-Yeah?" Jones asked, voice quivering.
"You. My office. Now," he snapped. Alfred seemed to pale a shade or three beneath his dark summer tan. "You and I, Mr. Jones, have a few things to discuss, got it?"
"S-Sure?" he squeaked, clenching and unclenching his hands. He wiped his palms off on his shorts before glancing nervously to his boyfriend. In return he was given a shrug of what was equal confusion.
Ian smirked. Where had the brave, arrogant and cocky lawyer he had seen countless times on the television and read in newspaper interviews gone so fast? All that stood before him now was a frightened little man in a superhero t-shirt with his tail between his legs. A man who used the justice system to hide behind. There was nothing special about a shell of a human. Internally cringing at his cynical thoughts, McKnight gestured wordlessly for the District Attorney to follow behind him. From the corner of his eyes, he watched as the keys to his vehicle were handed to the younger man, and for a brief moment he felt his heart soften a fraction when he saw the lawyer kiss his patient on the temple, a fond smile on his face. Matthew murmured something softly, grinning and Alfred made a choked whine of dread.
More than likely he had told his partner that he was fucked.
Not waiting any longer, he pivoted on his heel and made his way out of the lobby, hands behind his back and staring straight ahead. Squeaking on clean tiling alerted him to the American jogging a little to catch up to him.
"What do you want to talk to me about?" Alfred demanded. Winter laced the edges of the words.
"You'll find out when we get to my office," snapped McKnight in an authoritative voice. "But given your intelligence I'm quite certain you can figure it out all on your own."
A splutter of protest and indignation was made, but after that nothing more was said between the two men as they walked down the hall. Given he was the only one that knew where they were going, McKnight lead the DA to the elevator. Jones was anxious - the emotion was practically rolling off of him. A glance back over his shoulder showed to him that his face was still pale, and his arms were folded tightly across his chest; a subconsciously defensive body position.
The ride in the elevator was taken in silence as well, McKnight choosing to stand close to the doors, staring at his reflection in the steel casing. His white dress shirt puffed out a little towards his gut where it was beginning to expand; he walked enough as it was and arthritis in his right knee ruled out running at the gym. And there was no way he was getting into yoga with his wife. That was just crazy talk. A glance to the side of his aging reflection and he saw Alfred glaring at him icily; there was a dark look on his face that was purely unreadable. But he could see the defiance in his stance - his shoulders were taut and his chin was lifted as he eyed the psychiatrist coldly. They stared at one another for a long moment and McKnight surprised himself by being the first to look away. Instead, he went back to studying his reflection, noting with disdain that he needed to get his hair trimmed again. Placing his fingers against his chin, he contemplated a beard. Maybe one of these days.
A ping sounded, the doors pulled apart and they exited the shaft without looking at the other. Ian could feel the hairs at the nape of his neck standing on end and it was not because of the increase in the force of the air conditioning on this floor. The cold look he had been given had unnerved him and had cost him a few courage points.
Maybe he had taken a few pointers from Matthew in how to attempt murder-by-staring?
Escorting the lawyer into his office, he shut the door behind them and watched with a feeling of detachment as the American studied his surroundings. He was stationary in the center of the room as he peered about with a rapt attentiveness. Blue eyes slid along the different fixtures and books and various objects in the room before they settled upon a painting. It had a solid gray background and an image that was simplistic. There was a man, or just a shadow man, standing beside a solid black circle. He was stood there calmly, the man in the painting, peering at the black circle and the two prongs that emerged from it - a ladder. The man was overlooking a hole.
"Matthew painted this, didn't he?" Alfred asked, disturbing the quiet. His voice was soft and caused a sort of ripple effect in the room.
"Yes," said McKnight. "How do you know?"
Jones shot him a look. "He has a sort of style," he murmured, looking away and back to the painting. "Solid coloured background. Silhouetted figures. Something a little metaphorical; a commentary of sorts. This pretty much has his name written all over it, and down in the corner, of course." A tiny smirk played at the corner of his mouth and even McKnight chuckled - if only a little.
"Come now," the psychiatrist said with a gesture towards one of the chairs. "Have a seat; there are a few things we need to discuss."
Uncertainty filled his face for a moment and Alfred hesitated before nodding and moving to collapse into the chair. All things considered the man appeared to be at a relative ease finally, and his body seemed to have relaxed. "Alright," he said. "What is it you want to talk about, Sir?"
'Nice; he's handling it like an adult.' Turning his back to the lawyer, he walked around his desk to sit across from him. "Just a little bit about you, actually," he said with a light smile. sitting with a slight groan. "And your relationship with Matthew."
A sigh. "I figured as much."
McKnight shook his head. "While he might be my patient, I feel a particular closeness to the boy, as does my wife," he said. "He lived with us for almost a year, I've had him in my life for three years now, and honestly, he feels more like a son to me. If it weren't for the fact that he's a self-sufficient adult, we probably would have offered him adoption papers by now. Understand?"
He nodded slowly. "So this is basically the equivalent to meeting your partner's parents for the first time?"
The psychiatrist gave a thin-lipped smile that did not reach his eyes. "You could say that."
His Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed and his skin lost a few shades. "Shit."
Chuckling, he leant back in his chair, folding his hands on the top of his stomach. "You could say that, too. Now, tell me a little bit about yourself, would you?"
"I'm Alfred Jones and I turned twenty-seven on the Fourth of July. I grew up in Lowell, Massachusetts. My father is a multi-billionaire that works for Google, Microsoft and Apple; although he says he donates to charity, he donates maybe a thousand dollars a year when he could help a lot more people. My mother, on the other hand, is a Swedish model that has never remarried when her and my father divorced when I was sixteen and she has a heart of gold and would do anything to help anyone." He paused, breathing slowly. "We were living in New York at the time because my father's business required him to be there. I have a half-brother by the name of Arthur Kirkland, and he's thirty-eight with a son named Peter and a wife named Morgan. I went to Harvard Law, graduated at the top of my class and after working only six months as a defence lawyer I was offered a spot as Manhattan's DA. New York sucks, but I can deal with it."
Alfred Jones sat back in his seat, arms folded defiantly across his chest. "Is that enough for you?"
McKnight faltered, his mouth opening and closing before he said anything else. There were a few things he wanted to say to the lawyer, but he didn't know what they were anymore. His own anxious habit had gone into overdrive: clicking pen tops. Everything had been perfectly planned out in his head, every little question mapped out as they had been going up the elevator and walking down the hall. But now that they were in his workspace, door closed and the man waiting for him to say something - anything at all - he was at a loss for words.
"Just tell me one thing," he said finally, setting down the pen he had been nervously fiddling with. "Why were you even interested in him in the first place? You're a very straight man who, according to gossip, has a notoriety for one night stands and a running tab at the Plaza and Hilton Hotels? Working with young men that rather being seen with people worth being seen with, you hear things like this."
Alfred stared at him, blinked and then looked to the side with a shrug. "Okay, yeah, I'll admit it. I've slept with more women than I've prosecuted criminals. But as for why I fell for Matthew? I don't know," he said. "I really don't know. At first, honestly, it was just a bit of a shallow attraction because I mean look at him. He's fucking gorgeous. Man, I thought he was a girl when I first saw him at the supermarket, and all I could think was 'holy shit she's stunning' and then I caught his nametag. Then, I noticed the lack of-" he made a circular, cupping-gesture towards his chest, "- and I realized that she was actually a he. You'd think that would have changed my opinion, right? I thought about it. I really did. But did it change? Not even close. He just made me curious; he'd have this vacant sort of stare while doing his work, but the moment someone talked to him he'd light right up and chatter away with them. And his soft-spokenness kind of drew me in, too; all the guys I hang out with are brash, loud-mouthed assholes. He's just a quiet asshole. And I found it really interesting, and he has this sharp sort of wit which I really like in a person. By then it was full-blown infatuation. Funny to think that was almost a year and a half ago."
McKnight's eyes widened. "You liked him for almost a full year before doing anything about it?"
Nodding, he grinned. "Yup," he said. "I was too chicken-shit to say anything to him."
"Well, how did you even get over that in the first place?" he edged forward, clearly interested in this particular story - he hadn't even heard this one from Matthew. Out of anything he was still tight-lipped about, it was with his relationships.
"He just sort of passed out cold one day at work. Back in November, I think. And he happened to collapse on me," Al said. "So, his boss asked me to take him to his apartment. I did that and I didn't want to leave him there. Not with him being so sick; I needed to stay and make sure he was alright. I hung around for a few hours, waited until he woke up and then I cooked him dinner. We talked, and even though he didn't seem to completely like my presence, he didn't say anything against it. I felt a little emboldened by that and then I just turned into the persistent guy everyone loves to hate."
"I take it he wasn't too pleased about that?" McKnight inquired with a chuckle.
"Well, no, not really," said the lawyer meekly. "He barely returned my calls; he was detached whenever we hung out - which was, maybe, once every two weeks. I was basically the only one that tried to bridge the gap between us. But, back in January, or maybe it a little bit before that, we went for a drive and just … things were different after that. Something changed; something clicked. We seemed to have better conversations; he started to return my calls. Returning my calls turned into him calling me and being the one to ask if I wanted to hang out. We'd sometimes stay at my place and watch movies or play video games. Sometimes we'd have a few drinks and he'd crash there for the night, or vice-versa. Then we somehow got to the point of just being able to sit in the same room for several hours without saying a word, just doing whatever. And then … this happened."
'This' obviously meant their relationship.
Nodding in a way he knew more than likely came across as condescending, although it was unintentional, Doctor McKnight hummed. "It's surprising," he commented.
"Surprising that he fell for you as fast as he did. He has emotional barriers that would rival that of the Berlin Wall when it was at its highest notoriety in history."
Alfred gave a black chuckle, gaze dark for a moment as he stared impassively at a wall. "Oh, trust me," he murmured. "I know. I know very well that he has defences. He still does at times, but it's okay; I accept that because it's something I can't change."
"What about yourself?" demanded the man suddenly. "How open are you with him?"
He faltered, mouth opening and a pained look crossing his face. "I try to be as open as I can," said the lawyer. "I'm bad at it. Honesty, no problem. But letting someone know how I feel? I suck at it. My own barriers are almost as bad as his. And I have a hard time talking about stuff from when I was younger, but he understands and he told me that he's perfectly fine with it."
"And why is that?"
The question was reflexive and Alfred narrowed his eyes at it. Immediately he realized that he had crossed a line he had not known even existed in the first place. From the look upon his face he wished he could retract the question even though that was just wishful thinking at its finest.
"That's not your place to ask," he snapped, straightening in his seat. McKnight winced.
Scrambling to recover, he just shrugged. "Psychiatrist," he said as a means of an excuse. Lame, and he knew it. And he knew Alfred did as well; he just rolled his eyes and snorted. "I've been in this profession going on twenty-five years. It's ingrained in me to ask and then analyze; my apologies."
Blue eyes were mentally dissecting him and then the legal representative just nodded before looking away. They said nothing after that, Alfred staring sullenly at the wall once more as the doctor sat there at his desk, hands folded on the cool oak surface and a feeling of discomfit in his gut. His mouth had a sour taste to it and it felt cottony, like something had crawled in there and died.
Well that tactic crashed and burned.
Awkward silence persisted and even Alfred shifted with a slight discomposure.
"Hey," Al said all of a sudden. "How did you, well, become Mattie's doctor?"
So it would seem that he was not the only one with a few unanswered questions. "He was brought in from the streets by a group of people he knew after trying to kill himself," he said quietly. "I saw him a few days later; they had him in a medically-induced coma so that his stitches would have a chance to set. He was slightly hostile, but it was in that passive-aggressive way of his. He just glared and kept his nose stuck in the stack of books the nurse had given him - she was the only one he would talk to, but that was only when the woman was being really persistent. A week later I was in the process of setting up appointments when I found out that he had taken off in the middle of the night and I spent almost two months hunting him down before he wound up in the lock-up in Queens, I think it was."
"Didn't he hold up a convenience store or something?"
At first he didn't want to answer the man, but finally McKnight confirmed his query with a lone nod. "And after that, it took almost five months for him to really open up with me about anything," said the man with a sigh. "He has the casing of a titanium bullet."
"Tell me about it," he chuckled. "Even now he still does at times."
Another lag, but this time it didn't feel as awkward as before.
There was something else Ian wanted to know. Something his patient had said to him during their session continued to stick with him, and curiosity filled him. 'He put himself through hell and back for me.' That could have meant anything at all, and maybe he had just taken the statement out of the context of a situation and just put it like that, but he needed to know. It could have been anything at all and that was what was bothering him the most about it. Maybe it was prying too far into their privacy.
Privacy or not, he was curious and that was the end of it.
"Today Matthew told me that you basically 'put yourself through hell and back for him'," he said slowly, trying to choose and apply his words as carefully as possible, "before the two of you actually started dating. I understand if you think that's too much that I'm asking and you don't wish to answer. I won't impose on your privacy. But I would like to know, Mr. Jones."
Jones watched him with a passive expression, eyes falling shut, lips pressed into a tight grim line. He said nothing; it was easy to tell he was uncomfortable and Ian was perfectly alright with that because it really was an invasion of his privacy. Standing and preparing to tell him that it was okay and that they didn't need to talk about this, he stopped when Jones started to talk in a voice that gave off little to no indication of how he was feeling.
"I'm a recovering cocaine addict," he said in a flat voice. McKnight's eyes widened and he felt his jaw loosen a little.
Oh.
Oh.
That was not what he had expected.
"You don't need to know the details of it, but when Matthew found out about my addiction he lost it," explained Alfred. "I know he didn't mean to freak out the way he did - he told me this later - but it was just an instinct to react that way; I know I probably would have if we had been placed in opposite roles. But, he basically dropped the 'it's me or the drugs' bomb and I listened to him. I wouldn't listen to my brother or my friend when they told me I needed help, but when I heard it coming from him, I listened." He gave a shuddering laugh that was high-pitched and Ian McKnight wondered just how okay he really was. "My brother took me to England with him because I refused to do one of those cookie-cutter rehab programs."
"So you mean you're detoxing yourself without any sort of professional help?" the man demanded, incredulous. There was a small blossom of respect beginning to bloom for the district attorney and McKnight found himself quite willing to offer his services should he need them.
"Not entirely," he admitted. "I see a therapist once a week now, and Mattie has taken it upon himself to take care of me when it gets bad. I don't know why he does it. And I'm still busying myself with volunteer work and playing guitar and hanging out with my own friends as well. So I have professional help to an extent, as well as support from other people I know."
"Incredible," he said. There was a look of awe on the practitioner's face. "And you did this just for him?"
Alfred bobbed his head a little, arms folded across his chest. He was lounging easily in the chair now, body having lost any visible tenseness; he was comfortable with the discussion, something the psychiatrist took as a good sign. "I had a scare with a near-overdose back in December," he said, "so I started to lose my taste for the drug then, believe it or not. And after that I started to cut back on how much I did. It was a really gradual process. I went from doing almost six lines a day to three lines every two days or so by early April. Maybe it was because I was hoping to avoid Matthew ever finding out, but that wasn't the case. Him finding out just pushed me even further to getting off the drug."
"Was it bad, your detox from the cocaine?"
"Do you like asking stupid questions?"
Spluttering, McKnight made a choked noise and then he understood why his sort-of-son was attracted to this guy: he was just as much of a dick as his lover. It all made sense now. What a cheap epiphany. He could have gone to the dollar store to get one just like it.
There was no reason for them to talk now; in all honesty, all he really wanted to know was just how much the man knew about his patient. Had he turned around and said that he knew little to nothing about Matthew, the man would have told him to just forget any and all notions of having a relationship with him until he knew what it was he had been through. That wasn't the case though, and he couldn't help but feel a slightly relaxed feeling overtake him knowing now that he was obviously in good hands.
"Honestly, it's one of my favourite things to do," he commented in a dry voice as he got back up with a groan. His knees really couldn't handle this extending sitting business anymore. Alfred laughed lightly, making to stand as well. "But, promise me one thing, would you?"
The lawyer shrugged. "Sure thing, Sir. What is it?"
"You better take good care of that boy," he said in a low voice. "Keep him close but at the same time give him his space. And so help me God if you ever hurt him, I'll find the means of ruining your career; I have connections with the judicial system and big corporate moguls like you would not believe."
When the man paled and babbled incoherently, saying 'he would never hurt Matthew because Christ he loved him too much why would he ever consider doing something like that to someone he loved more than himself?', Ian McKnight knew he had done his job.
Time to call it a day, he decided with a smug smile. And what a good day it had been.
Matthew had killed the Escalade.
It was the end-all be-all to any improbability he had ever dealt with because it had just happened when there were so many other things that could have gone wrong. He had no idea how he had managed it, but he had committed vehicleicide. The SUV wouldn't start. The radio wouldn't come on. The goddamn key wouldn't even turn in the ignition, nor would the wheel itself; it was like the whole steering column had locked up on him and said, "ha-ha, fuck you, you stupid bitch." There were no hazard lights to come on and even the GPS that came in the vehicle wouldn't work. So he tried to hook up the iPod, but again it was to no avail. When this had happened, he went around to the front of the car and popped the hood, deciding to take a look and see what was there.
All it did was confuse him because he did not understand how a car was meant to function, nor could he tell the difference between a battery, alternator or a radiator or all the other -ators down there. So instead of touching anything and potentially causing the damned Satan's creation to explode, he went back into the Escalade, calmly sat down and then slammed his head down so hard on the steering column that the horn blared and pigeons scattered.
He, Matthew Williams, had murdered his boyfriend's beloved Escalade.
Doomed - that was the only word he could apply to himself in this situation.
He was so fucking doomed.
Alfred was going to kill him, dump his corpse in an oil barrel, fill it with concrete and throw him out into the harbour and he would never be heard from again (no shit Sherlock) and then he would have to come back as a spiteful, angry ghost trapped in limbo because he had so many things left to do because, "Christ, I just turned twenty-two. I'm too young to die!"
THE END.
Famous last words of every wrong-doer in the world, by the way. Too young to die, family that loves me. The sort of thing that would go in one ear and then immediately out the other because your executioners really don't give a shit; half the time they're being paid to kill you, and for the ones that don't get paid they're obviously doing it because slaughtering quasi-terrorists and Nay-Sayers and just bad people (or maybe even good people because really, who knew?) in general gives them a perverse little boner.
Maybe he would grovel.
Yeah, grovelling could work.
(As long as he was willing to beg for complete forgiveness for a few years and completely demean himself into the next dimension.)
He was still seated with his head pressed onto the steering column of the now-defunct Escalade with tears of frustration pricking at his eyes and a sense of dread turning his gut when Alfred got into the passenger seat.
"Dude, it's like a sauna in here," he groaned. Matthew had abandoned his beloved sweater in favour of sitting there in just a plain white t-shirt because of said warmth. "Why don't you have the air conditioning on? I'm not gonna kill you for wasting gas to keep yourself from combusting."
His lower lip trembled, Alfred's eyes widened and then the Hoover dam exploded into a flurry of tears, pathetic apologies and desperate pleas of "don't kill me Al I didn't mean to kill your car I really didn't I'm sorry I'm sorry forgive me".
The American stared at him, speechless.
Matthew slumped in his seat and gave a wretched-sounding sniff.
Alfred continued to stare, trying to figure out what the hell just happened and how he could possibly react.
Then: "Well now. Shit."
Lower lip trembling, the artist whispered another feeble-sounding 'I really am sorry' before sliding further down in the seat. Miserable didn't even describe how he felt; if he could afford to pay for whatever repairs were necessary, he would. But he couldn't and that was the problem. Maybe he shouldn't have hit the thing in that initial moment of mounting frustration.
"Hey now, don't cry," Al muttered, shifting awkwardly in his seat to wrap an arm around his shoulders and use his thumb to wipe away the tears pooling at his lower lash line. "Why are you freaking out? I'm not angry or anything."
"B-But I f-fucking killed you car!" he interjected, voice shrill.
"Alright, come on, tell me what happened," he coaxed with a strained sigh, shaking his head and obviously trying his best not to laugh at his distraught boyfriend.
"Well, it's like this," Matthew explained, sniffling briefly before shifting and leaning in closer to the arm wrapped around his shoulders, "I got in and I was like, 'well I'll just start the car and turn on the air conditioning and I'll wait until Al comes out'. Which was, at the time, a totally amazing plan. At the time being the key phrase. When I put the key in the ignition, it hesitated and then it made this weird sort of noise that wasn't actually a noise but it was a noise, you know what I mean?"
Alfred looked utterly lost, but nodded slowly as though he understood and was thus permitting him to continue.
"It was the kind of sound a computer makes when powering down, actually." He didn't really notice how Alfred's face had paled a little beneath his tan, but instead surged forward in his recollection. "So I tried to start it another nine or ten times, but it wouldn't even make any of the same noises that a car will make when it won't turn over - it didn't make a single goddamn noise. Out of frustration I kind of hit the spot where the key goes in and then, after that, the key wouldn't even turn in it. And you can't move the steering wheel, either. The radio doesn't work, the lights don't work, the GPS doesn't work and the iPod won't even turn on when I plug it in. It's like there's absolutely no power in the damn thing anymore."
There was silence in the vehicle, and Alfred patted his lap and slowly nodded his head in unison. Mid-dialogue had seen him removing his arm from the thin shoulders they were draped over. "I knew the thing was on the way out," he muttered with a gesture in the direction of the hood of the Escalade, "but I never realized how bad it might have been."
And with those few words everything changed and no longer did he feel awful for what he had done.
Now, he was just pissed off. Royally.
Turning his head a little to stare at his boyfriend, there was a singular twitch at the corner of Matthew's right eye. "You … you knew there was something wrong?" he asked in a cheerfully murderous voice that caused Alfred to visibly balk and cringe away. "Oh well isn't that fucking splendid I love how you warn me about these things."
Enter phase one and a half of passive-aggressive rage.
Status:
Apologize profusely for about twenty minutes; you might get away,
it's recommended that you avert your gaze lest it lingers too long
and provokes immediate, negative action of the verbal kind.
"Oops?" he murmured weakly. Instead of replying to him, the artist pointedly ignored the fact that he even so much as existed. A grumbled apology and Matthew smirked darkly. "I'll be back; I'm going to place a call to find out just what it is." He pressed a quick kiss to his temple - which was snubbed as well, just because he was feeling spiteful now. Pulling out his phone, Alfred dialled a number seemingly at random as he slipped out of his seat and back out into the sultry heat of the day, leaving his boyfriend to fume and bitch and sweat in the air conditoningless Escalade.
And fume and bitch and sweat he did, for nearly half an hour at that.
Matthew was rejoined sometime later and Alfred heaved a sigh when he dropped his weight heavily down on the seat, leaving his door open as though trying to expel some of the heat from the SUV. It was in vain because it only brought more heat into the interior. The Canadian felt like his body was melting and he suddenly wished he was living underground.
"So?"
The lawyer glanced over to his lover and then crashed back against him, the back of his head narrowly missing the steering wheel as it made contact with Mattie's lap. He shifted awkwardly for a moment as his spine was resting on top of the center console of the vehicle. "So," he murmured in return, exhaling through his nose. "This baby is a lost cause. It's the computer in it that's been fried; some sort of inherent malfunction that tends to happen in these things, but it's a rarity for it to occur. The guy I was talking to told me that the cost to replace the parts that have failed would amount to almost as much as what it would cost to buy another Hybrid. So this can stay here and rot on its axels as a testament to why computers should not comprise as a part of the engine of a vehicle."
Someone sounded slightly vindictive, and just a tad bit heartbroken. The poor wretch.
"Amen to that."
Watching as his chest deflated, Matthew swept a hand along Al's forehead - warm, dry - before resting it on his stomach, staring out over the bonnet of the clinically dead Hybrid and watching as heat rose from the pavement. Alfred placed a large hand over his own dainty one. It hurt his eyes, watching the waves and distortion of the air just a few centimetres above it, and he felt stomach-sick already from the warmth.
He hated the summer. Too much warmth. Too much sun. Days that were too long, nights that were too short. Too many days spent lying on the floor trying to soak up the coldness of the wood or tiles, wearing nothing other than a pair of loose-fitting boxers and occasionally letting an ice cube melt on his chest as he strategically stationed fans to point at various parts of his body. Too many nights spent sleepless on top of the sheets, sweaty and sticky and uncomfortable and then spending the next day grouchy as all hell because it's too hot to drink coffee and it'd take too much effort to drag himself to the nearest coffee shop to get a frappachino.
Matthew Williams hated the summer season so much it hurt for those reasons and the fact that, after walking for an hour or two, you started smelling like a fucking wet dog from sweating so much.
Heaving a sigh as Alfred sat back up, his back to him and slightly hunched, Matthew turned in his seat and ran his hand down along the back his shirt, then repeated the motion but with a finger down along his spine, feeling the bumps and slight curvature of the vertebrae. His lover shivered, wrenched himself around and grabbed the younger man's finger with a scowl. Laughter rang out.
"Ticklish?" he teased, inching forward to press a short kiss to his nose.
"No," Al huffed. His cheeks were rosy from both the heat of the day and the tiny little peck he had been given. It made him chuckle and inch closer to the older man. His knee brushed against his thigh. "But it gives me cold shivers every damn time someone does that."
Jerking his finger free, Matthew ran his hands down along his sides and then made an interested noise in the back of his throat. He repeated the process, letting his hands sit at his hips and ignoring the look he was being given by his boyfriend. Despite the lawyer going to the gym on a regular basis again, there hadn't been that much of a change to his body weight - perhaps it had something to do with he still ate more than what he probably managed to burn off every Wednesday and Saturday night. There was something he had been meaning to point out to him though, and now seemed to be the perfect opportunity to do so.
"You have love handles, Princess."
"… I hate you so much."
Aaaaaaaaaa HEY GUYS WHAT'S UP. Lmao I never realized I forgot to post author comments at the end of the last chapter until, like, yesterday? Hdfbghjfg OOPSIE. But ANYWAY. I'm not sure if you all noticed, but I have a link to a lj account I've made specifically for this story (coughsmutcough) so I just thought I would let you all know that! :3
And hufffhufffff thank you all for the reviews you guys left. I always die a little with excitement when I see there's been a new review left. :'D