A/N: I am alive, of course. I had been writing stuff periodically (like every 2 months but I really hate typing on a family computer bc I always feel eyes behind my back) but surprisingly enough I sit for 3 hours and I pop this thing in one sitting! Cool beans. Also since I made this under 3 hours or less in one sitting, this is Unbeta'ed. Take caution.

Arthur sighs.

He has his hands hovering, slightly shaking in fatigue for keeping them up for so long above a beautiful display of pastel pink and blue cupcakes. If Arthur fucks this up, he'll get one hell of a bitching from the guy who worked his shit all morning on these sweets.

This will be the fifth time in just a span of two days, if he messes up again.

He internally clicks his tongue, shouting "I know, already!" at himself before slowly breathing in, feeling his own magic flow, focusing on that tiny trickle of light slowly manifesting above every single confection. He feels his lips slowly tug up into a smile, the fact that he had his hands held up over the display for about an hour by this point was forgotten because he's actually managed to do it this time without his hands falling and messing with the icing.

Slowly, ever so slowly, as he tells himself internally, he gently blows at the tiny sparks that grew into sparkles over each cupcake.

"That's not the fire hazard kind, right?"

Arthur whips his head to the counter; his hands settling comfortably back to his sides before setting his gaze back to the display, eying his latest work of art.

"Nah," He says, shaking his head. He turns his head back to the man on the counter, "They'll come off once you peel the cup off of them." At the silence he received from the other, he adds, shrugging, "They're illusions, to simply put. Doesn't do anything if you touch them." He hovers puts his hand over one of the sparkles, slowly moving his fingers around for emphasis.

"Harmless."

He gets a nod. "Oh, good." Then a smile. "We wouldn't want a repeat of last time."

Arthur frowns, and then it deepens when those stupid eyes crinkle into what Arthur can only perceive as mocking. "Shut it, Frankie."

Now, it was Frankie's turn to frown, his eyebrows drawn as he raises a hand to cup his face, the other wrapped around his middle like a half-assed attempt at crossing arms with only one hand. "It's Francis. You know that. I told you that."

Arthur shrugs, finds himself smiling when Frankie bumps him on purpose as the other went to see how Arthur did with his cupcakes. Knowing the other man, he's only doing it to look for any signs of Arthur's fuck up. Which there isn't, of course. He did it perfectly today.

"You sound more like it."

Frankie turns a curious eye at Arthur, an eyebrow raised in a way that says something in the lines of "I'm suspicious".

He did not disappoint.

"You know," Frankie begins. "That's a sign of incompetence in clairvoyance. Doesn't that affect your main line of work?" By main, he meant Arthur's apothecary, of course. Like hell Arthur will let anyone but himself know he's doing illegal shit every now and then. It's illegal, after all.

It wasn't like he's actually been involved in much illegal shit lately, anyway. Kind of had to…quit since Alex came into the picture-er, his flat. Between the apothecary and his part-time job at the café, he could barely have time to himself when he had to take care of another person other than himself that he had to stop his illegal business altogether just so he can have some time to sleep.

Of course, he can always quit his work in the café. The illegal works pay more than this one ever does, really, but he couldn't let go of the security that is routine.

It's part of his life.

Needless to say, he kind of liked working here. Frankie as his new boss aside.

There's also that lingering tiny presence of the…G-word. You know what that is. Arthur full well knows what that is but if he doesn't think about it or acknowledge its tiny, non-existence, it wouldn't be real.

Not that it was real to begin with, ha.

No wonder Marilou gave up so easily.

But he's not Marilou nor Annalise. He's Arthur and he's better than them. He doesn't feel…the G-word.

"Clairaudience." Arthur says. Frankie doesn't seem like he was expecting a legit reply to his underhanded insult. He blinks at Arthur, "Excuse me?"

"Clairaudience," he repeats at the other man, blowing some stray bangs off his forehead as he pushes his hands into his jeans pockets. "I'm clairaudient. It means I hear things instead of seeing them."

"Huh," Frankie mutters, now seeming interested as he rests his elbows on the counter, eyes shifting between Arthur and the cupcake display. Mostly on Arthur as he leans forward, his nose almost touching Arthur's but doesn't because Arthur managed to lean away.

"How does that work?"

It was Arthur's turn to raise an eyebrow. "I hear things."

"Hear most of them, anyway." He adds, shrugging nonchalantly. Even Arthur himself couldn't find a proper word to describe his…thing. Labels are such terrifying, constricting things. It prevents people into being comfortable with who they are.

Frankie raises a brow at him in turn that says "Yes, I know that already, idiot." But what comes out of his mouth was a "Yes, but how does that work?"

There was a moment of silence between them save for the constant ticking of the wall clock mounted behind them before Arthur blinks owlishly at the other, who doesn't look like he's about to retract his question and apologise for its stupidity anytime soon.

Ugh, non-magicks, Arthur mentally groans.

He plops down on a stool before resting his head on his hand that's propped on the counter by the elbow before replying in the steadiest voice he can muster. "Clairvoyants see. Information comes to them via images and ideas whereas me, a clairaudient, can hear words, sentences, or even kinds of specific sounds to relay information. In other words, you scream 'Frankie' and therefore, you are Frankie."

To Arthur's relief, his half-ass attempt at explaining his ability was understood well as Frankie nods, humming in deep thought. "I take it back. The politically correct thing to say is 'you have very bad hearing.'"

Arthur balks. "What the-!"

"That still doesn't change the fact that you won't stop insisting that my name is Frankie when it's Francis. It's even written on my name tag!" He tugs at the metal tag pinned to his uniform, pointing at a beautiful script that can clearly be read as "Francis" embossed on it.

Arthur lets his eyes roam on the tag for a good second before returning to Frankie's expression. He gives him a shit-eating grin before muttering, "Your name tag's wrong, then." Then he gives it a tug, the kind of tug only teenagers in their punk-phases do to piss the shit out of old people they hated to become.

In the end, one cannot stop destiny.

Everyone is bound to grow old.

And eventually die.

There's disappointment flashing in Arthur's eyes when all Frankie did was sigh in exhaustion, a hand coming up to knead his forehead as he shakes his head at him. "I could fire you anytime, you know?"

"But you didn't."

Another sigh. "If Feliciano didn't make me promise not to, trust me: I really would. It would save me the name-butchering and the burnt cakes every morning."

"I don't burn your cakes every morning."

"Four out of five, you do."

"Better hire someone better to do your stupid sparkles then." He sighs tiredly. They never did the sparkle-thing in the café before Frankie took over; after all, it's only normal that it really wasn't Arthur's forte.

Anything relating edible food isn't really his, truth be told.

Arthur's reply pulls out a sigh on the other, equally as tired. He rests his head heavily on his hand and gazes at his cake displays wistfully.

"I would, if we weren't so…broke right now because of the extra ingredients that end up in the trash." Then a not-so-subtle glance in Arthur's way that says "Yes, I mean you."

Arthur pretends not to hear it so clearly in his head and instead throws, "In my opinion, it's more cost-effective to use the money for extra ingredients on the 'sparkler'. It also reduces the time you spend in the kitchen and the effort you put on those cakes." He lamely waves a hand to gesture towards Frankie's beautiful array of cakes. All individually designed, all were obviously spent meticulous time on the dressing and the decorating. It's like it came from those cliché baking films that says that the secret ingredient to the cakes is love.

Arthur internally snorts at the irony concerning his current life. If only it was so easy…

To Arthur's slight surprise, his advice was taken without much question. "Hm, yes. My thoughts exactly. You better remind me to post an ad about that later."

Arthur shrugs. "Sure." He pauses, thinking. Then shoots another question at Frankie. A new topic.

"Where's Felipe going to again?"

It incites a look from Frankie, who eyes him before slowly answering, "To Italy. Art school."

Huh, didn't know that. "And his boyfriend?" He wracks his head for the man's name. "…Ludwig?"

"LDR."

At Arthur's blank stare, Frankie elaborates. "Long-distance relationship."

"How long will he be staying in Italy?"

Frankie pulls at his hair, "Four…five years? Not really sure. I heard he's planning on staying too until his brother leaves the seminary."

"How long is that going to take?"

"Forgot. And why are you asking again? He told you that himself last month before he left the café to me. You ask the same thing every other day. It's tiring."

"I did?" Arthur asks, surprised. He doesn't really remember. Details fly over his head when he's not really paying attention to what he says half the time.

"Yes." Frankie glances at the wall clock behind Arthur. "Oh, look." He points a finger above Arthur's head, at which the warlock follows to see the time.

It's 6 AM, right on time.

"Time to open up." Frankie tells him, clapping his hands at him that says "Chop, chop!"

Arthur sighs, internally saying "Here we go again," as he begrudgingly stands up from his seat to open the door and pull up the "open" sign.

Time sure do fly fast, Arthur thinks as he slams his flat's door closed with a loud thud.

It was so loud he had to wince at the force himself, his grip on his groceries tightening as he presses them closer to his chest. What's with his stupid foot and it's itching need to kick as hard as they could whenever the occasion demands it?

He sighs, forgets the question entirely as he turns the lights on in the living room. He proceeds to walk swiftly towards his small dining table, barely used because he prefers to eat in his bed with his eyes on his laptop. That doesn't happen anymore, of course. Not when his bed isn't his to use anymore and he is now demoted to sleeping on his old worn out couch that loves to poke his back whenever he does something small like to breathe.

Arthur feels his stomach churn at the smell of his Chinese take-out, the container warm in his hands as he takes it out of the bag along his groceries that contain mostly his basic needs like a new tube of toothpaste and some instant noodles he can make in the middle of the night if he ever gets hungry in the unholy hours of the night. He looks at the container longingly and falls into the temptation to flip the box open, revealing brown-coloured rice, sautéed with spices, soy-sauce, and vegetables. Maybe some prawn too. The egg topping the rice has Arthur imagining himself poking at that yolk, letting its yellow essence mix into the rice's sweet heat, enriching the flavour some more.

But before that...

Arthur checks his phone and sees the time. It's time to take care of Alex first. Keep him fed and dehydrated. Then his clothes, his sheets. There's just so much to do before he gets some actual time for himself. Arthur sighs, giving his dinner one last look with a promise of later before sealing the container shut again. He decides against stocking it in his mini fridge since he hates eating food when cold, and it will save him a lot more if he refrains from using his microwave too much.

He first makes sure to have his groceries placed where they should be, then he's moving in to his room that wasn't quite his anymore. Nowadays, it just keeps his closet where he takes his clothes, then some of his personal things he doesn't want guests to see in his living room despite having guests over being a rare thing. He couldn't even use his own room to change his clothes in anymore. Despite Alex being unconscious and unaware of his surrounding, Arthur still thinks it's weird to undress in front of other people. Nobody wants to know that people undress in front of them while they sleep too, Arthur presumes.

He flicks on the switch to his room and was glad to see that Alex was just as he had left him that noon: still and breathing. He smiles, "Good to know you behaved today," He tells the man, who barely gives Arthur any signs of acknowledgement other than his steady breaths.

Arthur could no longer tell when, but at some point, he had started talking to Alex's body-because dark thoughts aside, he is as good as dead, only that he's still breathing and his brain is still living but his soul...is elsewhere-and despite the lack of response, there is some comfort knowing that there is someone out there who listens, who can hear (some) of Arthur complaints and actually not say anything bad about it. It's like talking to a tree except that there are no beings occupying the tree that may use that knowledge as weapon against you. Arthur knows because it had happened before in his childhood and it wasn't a good experience.

Arthur takes his time, looking around the room before stretching. He grunts as he feels his joints creak, the burn pleasant in his tired body. He moves across the room, passing by Alex, towards the slightly-closed window. "Now that I am here, we can now keep this fully-open, again." He pushes at the glass until it slides open. The gust of cool wind hits his face harshly and immediately feel the cold seep through his bones, making his shiver. "Okay," He grunts, feelings his teeth tremble, "Maybe not." He slides the window closed again.

"That was a disaster," He mumbles to himself, shaking his head. He turns towards Alex, who neither moved nor reacted to any what Arthur did for the past minute and tells him, "Time for dinner."

Arthur wakes up three hours late to his shift.

He wakes up on the floor, to an unfinished dinner and an illegible scrawl that would've been his notes for a new spell formula for a new product he's supposed to release this week. It seems like he has to push that back for a few more days again, looking at its current progress. There had also been thirty-three missed calls from his boss, probably fuming asking for his whereabouts. In his fatigue the other night, he must've failed to hear his alarms and the numerous calls.

That means he had failed to check on Alex this morning too.

He cusses loud, throws his phone on the couch and proceeds to stand on his shaky feet. He rushes to his bedroom and was glad to know that nothing was amiss. He checks Alex's temperature with the back of palm and sighs when it also comes up normal. His head still throbs painfully, and he raises a hand to knead it, blinking the white splotches of pain clouding his vision away.

"Breakfast," He tells Alex.

Today is not his day, apparently.

"Where the hell have you been?" Frankie asks him; four parts furious and one part worried. His brows were furrowed and his eyes were dark. He raises a hand to mess with his long hair, making him look much more haggard than Arthur is.

Arthur opts for the truth. "I overslept. I didn't hear my alarms," Frankie's brows further furrows in confusion, mouth opening to disrupt him but Arthur instead speaks louder, to stop the other until at least he finishes speaking. "I didn't hear your thirty-eight missed calls either."

"There were only thirty-three."

"Yeah, I'm just trying to piss you off but now I'm creeped out over how you knew you only had exactly thirty-three missed calls on my phone."

"Why would you even want to pi-" He stops, turning his head. He shoves some of his hair that fell over his face and looks at Arthur in the eye.

"Arthur, Feli told me that you are his best employee. I also think that," He looks over him, then shrugs, "foul mouth and all, but," his gaze returns to Arthur's eyes. Deadly serious. "Something is definitely bothering you and it's affecting your work performance. I just lost eight customers today because we don't have enough people to cover your shift."

Francis shakes his head and pulls out a notebook. Arthur doesn't know what's written in it but he can assume that it has something to do with what he'll tell him. "You have to fix it because if you don't I'll have to fire you. Regardless of what my cousin made me promise," He holds Arthur's gaze again, waving his notebook for emphasis, "because for one, this is my cafe now, and I don't want to lose it because of an incompetent employee."

"Do you understand?"

Arthur nods, "Crystal."

Francis nods, deeming Arthur's answer as acceptable. "Good, you can take the rest of the day off. Rest up. I'll send your schedule for the week tonight." He gives Arthur another stern look, pointing at his pocket where Frankie assumes Arthur's phone is in. "Be sure to check you e-mails before heading off to bed."

"What do you mean they're immune? That's bollocks!" Arthur screams into his phone. He throws away the keys to his shop into the cabinet by the register's table and proceeds to enter his little kitchen inside. He can hear in the nurse's voice how she winced at Arthur's language but it's not like he can help it. He's in a foul mood and is very offended right now when he received a call from one of his regular clients when they called to cancel their orders because the students gained a full immunity of all things against his potion.

"You can't just develop immunity to potion! Do you know how potions work? Do you have a med witch in there that I can talk to?" Potions aren't like a common medicine: they attack a person's physiology by studying the workings of the human body. Potions can and will change their structures according to their target's to be able to what they are made to do. In Arthur's Sunny Meadows' case, they transform into your regular medicine to ease a person's stomach ache.

Arthur opens one of his potion cabinets, looking for his new and improved version of said potion he's planning on taking with him as sample and maybe to use on these so-called "immune" children. He smiles darkly, we'll see that immunity now.

"Er, yes, that. Um," The nurse starts. She gives Arthur a nervous laugh, "We actually don't, erm. Have a medical witch in service, hah, because the school does not approve of them. Of the magicks, I mean. We had your potions delivered in secret."

"What?"

Arthur should really consider giving his clients a background check.

For all the years (three) that the nurse had never failed to renew her subscription of regular deliveries of the potion, Arthur had barely known anything about the school the potion benefits from.

It's a private school, which kind of makes sense, he thinks. What he couldn't wrap his mind around over is the fact that there are still people who does not approve the use of magick, especially when it comes to its healing properties. It wasn't like medical sorcery hadn't been around for as long as time existed. The druids who were said to be the first people who practiced magick in U.K. used it for healing purposes too, so non-magicks cannot exactly say that they do not trust magick to heal because the discipline is new.

But since the nurse begged him not to talk show up as a sorcerer who was responsible for the so-called stomach ache meds, thus revealing to the school's officials that the medicine they had been approving for purchase is actually potion brewed by a sorcerer, Arthur had agreed to arrive to the school under the guise of a med student. A human med student who does not practice magick at all, supposedly a nephew or something of the actual pharmacist who patented the drug.

"Isn't that... I don't know, illegal?" Arthur can feel his body tingle at the irony.

"Don't worry," his client assures him. "They don't know a thing about anything." Now he worries about the school.

"Allistor Kirkland, you say?" The security guard asks as he checks Arthur's ID again.

"Yes, that's me." He says, and hopes to God that the security guard did not hear the slight tremor in his voice. He's starting to regret using a glamour, but the nurse's assurances doesn't really make him feel better. His current concern right now is that if cops were to get involved, then who will take care of Alex?

"Mr Kirkland!" He hears someone call him. He and the guard both turn towards across the school gates and sees Arthur's client. She waves at him, and judging by the shortness of her breath, or the stagger in her steps as he neared them, Arthur can deduce that she had ran her fastest to get to Arthur as soon as she could. Arthur is thankful for that, at the very least.

"Please, there's no need. He's with me." She nods at the guard, placing her hand on Arthur's shoulder to lead him in. "He's here for the stomach ache med the kids use."

At the mention of the "medicine", the guard's eyes spark in recognition. "Oh, yeah, I know that one." He scoffs, shaking his head and tells Arthur, "I really doubt the kids were immune, it works just fine for me!"

Arthur nods, and before he can say anymore, he's being dragged away towards the clinic.

Once they were alone, Arthur raises his hand, cutting off the nurse before she could speak. "I have an idea, leave it to me." She frowns, "You haven't even heard me talk."

Arthur thins his lips, "trust me, I heard enough."

Arthur's plan consisted of staying in the clinic with the nurse. He'll take at least three students for consultation before he leaves and the deliveries will continue.

"How will that fix things?" the nurse asks him for nth time. "It would, just watch."

Arthur had only spent about half an hour in the clinic, helping out the nurse do an inventory check and other things when a student came in for a check-up.

Stomach ache, he had told them.

Arthur checks the student's record and notices how many times the student had admitted himself in for the same reason. It didn't come as a surprise to Arthur that the dates were always during the exam season. He clears his throat and locks gazes with the student who flinches under his dark eyes. Aside from the glamour, he also wore a face mask to keep the students from remembering his fake face.

"I'll give you the usual prescription of Sunny Meadows and excuse you from whatever class you're supposed to be in at this time then you're free to go to your next class."

"Wait, I'm not excused for the day?" He asks Arthur in surprise.

Arthur looks at him with blank, empty eyes. "Yes. The Sunny Meadows will be enough to keep the pain away. Permanently."

The kid had the gall to smile, "But I'm already immune."

Arthur makes a show of adding illegible scribbles to the kid's prescription. He's satisfied to know that the kid makes a subtle look to see what it is, but unfortunately, he will never know because there isn't any to begin with.

He clears his throat again, making the student wince, "Then come back here so I can recommend you to a hospital." He pulls out the student's medical record of the clinic, pointing at the kid's medicine prescription log with the tip of his pen. "This says here that you had thirteen consultations and got prescribed with Sunny Meadows but you said it didn't work so you were given the standard pain killers. Didn't work either so you had to rest at home. That's worrying.

He looks at the kid again, keeping his gaze. Arthur notices the cold sweat beading on his forehead. "So if you feel signs of your stomach ache again, do come back so we can call your parents and avoid this from getting any worse."

He rips off the prescription letter and hands it to the student to submit to his teacher later and sends him off with the nurse, who stood next to the kid all throughout their talk. She looked back at Arthur gratefully before sending the kid to her booth, where she will give him his prescribed med and leave.

"The problem is," Arthur says as he flicks his can of cola open, "you're too damn nice to these little shits. Now they've taken advantage."

The nurse winces at Arthur's use of language once again but nods. "I know, I guess we just don't know how to handle it?"

"Yep."

"Okay then," She nods to herself. "I'll tell my other mates so we can deal with this properly next time."

"And the deliveries?"

"Still on, of course. The new batch you brought today works much faster than the old ones, by the way, and we want that one."

"Well, that's good to hear." Arthur breathes out.

That's at least something good turning up today.

Tonight, Arthur has shawarma for dinner and he actually has the time to eat in front of his telly-a new addition to his lonely flat after he moved the one he owned in his shop to his flat because he just felt like it. Though the amount of time he had spent carrying it from the shop to his flat isn't something he's willing to go through again, he guesses he'll have to live the rest of his life brewing without the background noise of his telly in his shop anymore. That or he'll get himself another one, given that he'll become much more financially stable again.

He had been absent-mindedly watching the news as he nibble away on his dinner when the screen flashes Alex's face, only that he's awake and much more livelier in the picture than the one lying in his bed right now.

"...missing persons report, if anyone has seen or known of this man's whereabouts, please call any of the numbers on the screen. His name is Alfred Jones, 23 years old. He is currently in a comatose. His family had last seen him in his girlfriend's flat and went missing yesterday. So again, for anyone who had seen him or had known of his whereabouts, please..."

If Arthur hadn't stopped chewing the moment he had seen Alex's face on the screen, he would've choked. Now some things started making sense: the lack of e-mails from Marilou asking about her boyfriend's well-being, or Arthur's supposed allowance for Alex's expenses for the past two months. Arthur wonders if Marilou had been expecting Arthur to see this report, not when she hadn't known that Arthur owned a telly to begin with, after all.

Whether she knew or not, Arthur has settled to a conclusion: Marilou has fully, truly given up. The thought leaves a cold, heavy feeling in his chest and now, walking towards his room and looking at Alex's prone form, he recognises it for what it is.

"I pity you," He tells the unmoving body, ironically unfeeling of anything happening around him.