Was There Nothing?
Arthur's home was silent when he returned to it late that afternoon, Peter must have been at the schoolhouse (still run by two solitary and dedicated tutors despite hard times) and Mel was mysteriously absent (most likely she had told him she would be busy and the exact reason had slipped his mind).
The place felt oddly desolate, though the remains of a fire were still smoking in the fireplace and unwashed plates had been left at the table. Peter's soldiers were scattered on the floor by his bed, Arthur sighed as he gathered them up. He didn't want to leave his home and family...and yet, he wanted to take the trip. Regardless of the danger, he wanted to take a break from the struggling battle of every normal day and turn something around for himself - even if just to inspire himself to turn things around a little more often when he returned. Maybe he would go and find work in Rainyoak. Maybe he would be a farmer with a big country house where Mel and Peter could spend time in the garden. If he could do this now, why not that later?
Anyway, it was all for the best.
As he set down his jacket on the hook by the front door Arthur was aware of a creak from somewhere in the house and his guard rose immediately. The house had very few rooms and he concluded that the noise must have come from his own. Was it Natalia, sneaking round in there a day early? He wouldn't put it past her.
Just as he mustered the courage to investigate there was another creak and slow footsteps on the boards and a figure appeared silhouetted in the door frame.
After squinting against the light which framed him, Arthur recognised Antonio and sighed in relief.
Arthur had been to Antonio's home the previous day and been told he was out - he had expected to see him the morning after and had no luck again; he hadn't been at work. He had almost begun to hope he wouldn't see him before he left; he would ask the most questions and be one of the hardest to lie to. But here he was.
"Toni," Arthur let out a shaky laugh, approaching him in the doorway, "why do you always have to sneak up on me?"
"Sorry, it's a bad habit..." he gave a half smile, "I hope you don't mind - the door wasn't locked so I just...let myself in."
"I was actually hoping to see you..." Arthur began moving past Antonio into his small room. He felt inexplainably nervous.
"Ma told me you stopped by," he replied, eyes downcast, his tone light but with a lack of life, a pessimistic edge.
"I...well, basically I..." Arthur tried to remember how the story about the Rainyoak farm went but found himself floundering, embarrassed to tell such a false story to Antonio. Embarrassed to lie so openly.
Antonio watched him with his eyebrows knitted together in concern. As the younger boy began to roughly form his story he saw his friend's eyes wander worriedly to something beside him.
"What's this, Arthur?" Antonio asked gently but without a hint of a smile - without any emotion at all, really - gesturing to an open sack on Arthur's bed, half packed with clothes and the odds and ends of food.
"Oh, well, that's part of what I was explaining-" Arthur was disconcerted by the sombre tone of his friend, the look in his eye.
"-Are you leaving?" Antonio interrupted sharply, his face a mask of dark surprise and concern, "Arthur, is that what that is? Are you leaving Kattleroot?"
"Well..." Arthur struggled for the words which had come so much more easily with the others - even Alfred.
"I need a straight answer from you, Art!" Antonio rose his voice and it cracked slightly as he did so, "I need a straight answer or I think I'll go mad."
"...Yes," Arthur replied in a quiet, somewhat hoarse voice, taken aback by Antonio's emotion, "I'm going tomorrow."
Antonio stared at him for a second and gradually that painful concern was seeping back into his face and he shook his head slowly from side to side and reached a hand to his hair to push it back and hold it there as if that would change what he was seeing.
"Please," he responded numbly, "please tell me you're kidding."
"Toni? Come on, don't be like this," Arthur stepped toward him, surprised that he was taking it so badly, "it's not forever! I have an apprenticeship, that's all..."
"You can't be sure of that, Arthur!" Antonio's voice rose and he wore a desperate expression that Arthur was not accustomed to seeing on him, "how do I know I'm not losing you forever?"
"You're being ridiculous!" Arthur couldn't hold back his disbelief, "it won't be forever - and besides, you don't need me so badly as you're acting, I just slow you down and all that," Arthur gave a wry smile but spoke with seriousness, "I can't always be that annoying puppy jumping up at your heels anymore."
"Well-...well maybe I don't find that puppy so annoying as I make out," his friend retorted, his voice not quite managing to stay even, "listen, I know maybe I haven't been there lately like I should have - maybe you think that means I don't care - but if you do then you're wrong."
Arthur struggled to keep up with his friend's desperate gabble.
"Toni-!" he began but was beaten down by his friend's growing panic.
"-And I came here because I wanted to tell you that this past week it's been almost like old times and everything's been so much more..." he grimaced, searching for words, " ...meaningful, than in the longest time - even though it's been the worst week of my life I also knew that there was more to life than I'd been seeing before - why do you think I had the strength to come back to work that day? I didn't care about losing my job, Arthur, that's nothing to me now that pa's not running the forge!"
"Then...why?" Arthur's voice was subdued and he couldn't quite look his friend in the eye, afraid of his anger and dizzied by the weight of his words.
"Why?" Antonio responded in exasperation, releasing a hard laugh, "because of you!"
He said it as if it was an accusation but such a feeling couldn't have explained what he did next.
Without warning, his best friend had taken a decisive step towards him, paused to search his face in an imploring bid for common understanding between them and, seizing his shoulders, he had pressed his mouth against his. Arthur's old boyish fantasies resurfaced for an instant and his stomach made a nervous, sickening shift as he remembered the way he had guiltily imagined this moment year after year of being completely smitten with the older boy. Despite the way this feeling had finally faded over the past year he could not help the way it rushed back now that it was really happening - that unachievable goal - Antonio kissing him. He was so caught up in the surreal moment that it was not him but Antonio who pulled away first and it was only then that he had time to let his mind catch up with his body.
"Have you gone mad?" Arthur felt his face searing with heat and refused to meet his friend's eye, more than alittle breathless, " What are you-...what are you doing?"
"Something that I should have done ages ago," Arthur felt another shift of butterflies as his friend admitted this, still standing much too close to him, still holding his arm.
"...What about Belle?" Arthur didn't have a clue why he said this, his voice acting dopily on its own. Perhaps he was remembering that awful evening when Antonio had confessed his love for her and Arthur had spent night upon agonising night going over everything they had said with the hope of shifting the outcome to one where his heart wasn't broken but where Antonio kissed him the way he had just now.
"What do you mean, Belle?" Antonio asked incredulously, "me and her haven't been together in forever - you know that."
"But Toni she's..." Arthur felt flustered and embarrassed to bring it up now of all times, "she's pregnant."
"And you think it's mine?" Antonio forked his hand at his own chest with an indignant expression.
"Well..." Arthur felt his face heat up," yeah."
Antonio seemed angry for a moment and then worried, his brow furrowed deeply and he shook his head at the ground for a moment.
"Look, me and Belle barely - " Antonio halted mid-way through his sentence and look conflicted and embarrassed for a moment before shaking his head decisively, "anyway, that's not important now - she isn't important now, not like that."
Arthur cocked his head at Antonio, intrigued by both of his statements almost equally. Antonio and Belle hadn't had the perfect uncomplicated relationship Arthur had imagined apparently. Despite not having feelings for Antonio the way he used to, part of him felt a deep relief at the knowledge.
"Do you know who the father is?" Arthur asked, again, stupidly bringing the subject to Belle. Let it go, idiot.
"Who do you think she's always getting letters from?" Toni asked sharply and clenched his fist at his side, " either way, me and her were never built to last. You knew that didn't you? I was such an idiot, Arthur, because it was always...it was always meant to be you wasn't it?" he paused as if this were actually a question he wanted an answer to, though he was only greeted with stunned silence, "You knew that too."
"...W-what do you mean?" Arthur feigned innocence though his face was still burning hot, his heart now hammering in his ears. He couldn't really be hearing this now of all times; he must be having another nightmare.
Antonio moved closer to him again and their height difference was suddenly scarily apparent, Antonio gazing down at Arthur who attempted to take a nervous step back and bumped up against the wall.
"I was an ass to you - I can see that now," he caught Arthur's eye and held it, putting his hands on Arthur's crossed arms which acted as a weak barrier between them, "you didn't think Belle was good for me back then - not like that - and I couldn't see that but I also didn't see something else," he paused, "I didn't see the way you felt about me."
"Antonio..." Arthur felt as though his head had become a soup of confusion, swirled together which each twist of the conversation.
"But, I can't just realise that and then let you leave!" it was as if his friend were pleading with him, "I can't, even if it's good for you, I want to be selfish, you've always been mine, Arthur! And I never knew how much I took that for granted!"
He leaned in and kissed him again and Arthur felt that initial sickening tingle, hating to pull away from the hands which pressed against his back and the warmth of his body in the small space. His words struck something in Arthur though, and despite the command Toni undoubtedly had over him, despite the fact that he was flattered in many ways, despite the irrestistable intensity of his kiss, there was another feeling bubbling within him - a feeling like anger.
The sick irony of the situation began to slowly dawn and build into a quiet rage: He was right - Arthur had always been Toni's - always.
His best friend had managed to unbutton half of his shirt but Arthur ended up shoving him so forcefully that one button was ripped off completely and clattered against the window. It might have been funny had the two not been so emotionally invested in such different ways.
"Toni, don't," Arthur could look him in the eye now, and did so with a hard, merciless expression, "do you really think you know how I felt then? Do you actually?"
"Well- ..." Antonio was still breathless from the kiss and taken aback at Arthur's sudden outburst, "I can't imagine how it felt for you, Art, but I wasn't so oblivious not to consider the fact that you had...feelings for me."
Arthur gave a hard laugh, mostly this was at himself, because he was perhaps the biggest idiot to have ever walked the earth.
"Oh, well I definitely had a lot of those, Toni! And you're right about another thing," Arthur continued in a state of near hysterical amusement, "I was yours! I was in love with you for four years, Toni! And it was agony most of the time! I spent four years dealing with the painful burden of being head over heels for someone that I thought didn't even know, let alone return that sentiment! And you choose now of all times to want me back? Please, somebody tell me it's a joke."
"I'm not joking - not at all," Antonio seemed stunned but determined, "and I'm sorry I was such a fool all that time...I want to make that up to you...if I hurt you, I want to make it up."
"Can you make up four years, Toni?" Arthur's anger did not fade but only seemed to grow, "I waited all that time for you to say this - for you to come in here like you did today and tell me that you loved me - I'm finally over you, I finally have another agenda and you actually show? I don't even blame you - this one's on me - because I must have been one hell of an imbecile in my former life for fate to have it out for me this badly."
Antonio couldn't find the words to reply with and retained an expression of shock and slight pain.
"I'm sorry..." he was uncharacteristically quiet when he eventually did murmur his reply.
"So what is it exactly you're telling me?" Arthur continued with mock enthusiasm, as if he had not heard the other's apology, "that you've decided you're in love with me now?"
Arthur laughed after he asked, ridiculing the prospect, but Antonio only opened his mouth and said nothing, looking from Arthur to the ground as if now confused himself. The sun's setting rays came through into the room and slashed bright bars across his face. His eyes caught the glow, green as the riverbed. The look he gave Arthur at last made him hesitate despite his anger. All he could see in his friend's eye was sadness and defeat.
"Toni?...you're not actually saying...?" Arthur replied in disbelief.
"Just don't go, Arthur," his friend replied softly at last and Arthur saw in the beam of light that Toni was exhausted - dark circles beneath his eyes and a slump in his shoulders, "I can't let someone else go," he finally let his voice falter and brought his shaking hands to his face where the pain had already been allowed to consume his features. He sank onto Arthur's bed, head hanging, hands still hiding his face."...Felix died this morning," Antonio spoke through his clasped hands but to Arthur it felt as if the words had been uttered underwater in a space where they were both running out of air.
"Oh...Oh god, Toni, I..." Arthur felt his resolve crumble, genuinely shocked by the news and feeling for the devastation of his friend, "I had no idea, I'm...I'm so sorry."
"No, I know you didn't - don't apologize," Antonio's voice was still muffled by his hands or perhaps he had finally allowed himself to weep for his brother, "that shouldn't change anything between us - I know how you really feel now - I've never liked you going easy on me."
Arthur lowered himself onto the bed beside the grieving boy and put an arm around his shoulders. He understood how he felt in some ways - after all, Arthur's love for his own family was driving him to leave his home town for an unknown destination. Toni's love for his deceased brother drove him to cling to those around him who he was afraid to lose. There was a comfort in turning to someone when experiencing loss, in throwing yourself into one love due to the loss of another. A year ago Arthur would have given Antonio any comfort he needed and taken the same comfort from it himself. He wasn't the same besotted boy now but he did still love the boy beside him in one way or another and for that he felt he owed him something, even if small.
"Listen, Toni..." he began after a few minutes had passed, the sun had left them and the room lay in shadow, "...I don't really have an apprenticeship."
