This is one of the longest things I've ever written and actually posted. The more I wrote, the less I wanted to put it up. But it would be a shame to waste it. Especially since this is what I've been working on instead of a paper.

Pairing: Arthur/Matthew/Arthur, mentioned others

Warnings: AU, slash, too much thinking, a new style being tested, language

Disclaimer: I have no ownership of Hetalia.

The boy is an affront to God.

Arthur knows he should focus on the coffin in front of him and the two mounds of dirt next to it, but neither he nor his mother are buried six feet under and he could care less for the corpses that have taken their spots.

And he cannot. Rather, his attention is focused on the little boy in the bright red raincoat that glimmers in the weak rain, standing out against the grey skies as though mocking the day's attempts at solemnity. That raincoat is the brightest thing at the funeral. The preacher's voice blurs with the soft patter of rain, meshing and merging, until it is simply a rush of white nose in his ears and Arthur could care less about how his father lived.

If you ask him—and it is good no one dared—his father left behind a trail of destruction through the lives of three women, four children, and dragged another two people down to hell because he was too careless one rainy night as he rounded a bend.

Yes, he loved. But he loved many. Yes, he was great—in stocks and, if Arthur was feeling particularly generous, for the fact that he paid child support on time.

Arthur had hoped to bury all his bad feelings as soon the coffin was lowered into the ground and the final handful of dirt spilled from a mourner's hand, but it was not to be.

Because his mother was pushing a little boy in a bright red raincoat towards him, her face tired.

The second son who was at home sick with the babysitter while his parents picked up his twin brother from a birthday party.

"Take him to the car." His mother's eyes are red. Her hand rests on the child's hood-covered head.

He obeys, bites his tongue, ducks his head, and grabs the boy's hand with characteristic roughness and begins to tug him towards the car. His hand is so much smaller, so much colder, and Arthur tries to harden his heart.

Three feet away from the car, the silent child stops moving and no amount of pulling will budge him. Arthur cannot see his face but the small fingers tangled in his own tighten and he can barely make out quiet sniffling over the shudders of nearing thunder.

And Arthur wants to feel repulsion, wants to sneer. He wants to tell this boy that it is not the end of the world, that time will continue to tick forward and it is better this way because, if anything, he is saved from future sorrows.

A lonely life, despite what other people may say, is not so terrible.

"Stop crying." He means it much harsher than he delivers, but it retains, at least, a sense of command. "Never cry when someone can see you."

The other scrubs his eyes with his fists, his head bowed, and says nothing.

He is five years old.

Arthur is a bastard.

But, in a way, Matthew is as well.

"So you are going to adopt him?" Arthur tries to keep his voice cool, arms crossed, but he is still attempting to master this art of self-containment. He is barely a man. His voice has never sounded so petulant.

"He could be mine." His mother's murmur makes him scowl. Her copper hair is pulled up neatly, for once, ink stained fingertips sliding a loose strand behind her ear. "I will claim him."

His mother has been writing for so long, she herself became a tragic novel.

Is he your second chance?

Her typewriter, its keys smoothed by touch and time, gathers dust even as her feather duster sweeps across every other surface. She sings under her breath as she attempts to bake and in the week Arthur stays before vacation ends, she manages to perfect oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. She keeps a day planner, painstakingly penning in the times Matthew must leave for school, when he returns, when he takes a snack, when he must sleep.

Arthur looks at that planner so he knows when he must be out of the house.

He wants nothing to do with this farce.

She later pens in the times he attends piano. She will later also add the times Matthew has hockey practice and when his games are so that she may wrap herself in a beaded shawl and sit in the stands.

He wonders if she will let him color on the coffee table. If red and blue and green crayon will be streaked across the teak.

Arthur does not even hide his anger. He will not speak out against his mother, but he will not hide his silent derision. He realizes that, now, there is certain fearlessness to her movements. She no longer lacks sureness. She practices the movements of normality until she masters them, makes them real, not just black print on a page or messy scrawl in a day planner.

He does not see any of this happen. He learns of it at her funeral when Matthew tearfully recalls the woman who took him in, made him hers, and became his mother when no one else could.

She finally died in her sleep, peacefully, no longer living the life of tragedy.

Arthur refused to believe it.

He still remembers returning from school and finding her with her head in the oven.

"You have a letter, darling." Francis holds the envelope up teasingly, tugging it away as Arthur reaches for it.

"Fuck off." He snatches it, eyebrow twitching and earning a laugh. "And don't call me that."

Francis responds but Arthur does not care, flipping over the envelope to see the sender.

He promptly throws it out with the rubbish.

"You will not read it?"

"Not so long as I have eyes."

"You really should stop ignoring your baby brother."

Arthur freezes, pen poised to cross a "t". "…What?"

Francis seems genuinely disappointed, lips twisted downward and blue eyes sad. "He seems so sweet."

"You have been reading my mail?"

"You do not seem to be reading it." A careless shrug and then the letter dropped into his lap. Francis walked away, ignoring his berating and indignation. "He has the face of an angel. How anyone could overlook him is a crime."

Arthur glared, huffed, and then turned his anger to the letter. Childish letters stared back at him. Each letter was dark, as though the writer pressed down with his pencil, ensuring that each stroke was perfect. They were stilted, large, and Arthur's eyes were drawn to each word, each line.

He felt sick, throat closing, and he tossed the letter to the side. Covering his eyes, he turned away.

"He is not my brother." The statement went unheard. "And I want nothing to do with him." Again, unheard, but he clings to the promised sentiment and tries to forget that Matthew is turning eight.

The letters do not stop. Arthur refuses to carry them in with the post, so Francis quietly collects them, keeps them, unopened, in a Dior shoebox. He does not tell Arthur because the other student will probably storm his room and burn everything in an attempt to destroy the letters.

At least, Francis tells himself this. In reality, Arthur will probably bluster for a little bit, insult his French heritage, and then ignore him for a day.

The truth is not always as amusing or interesting. Francis justifies his misrepresentations of the truth as being better and far lovelier.

One day, however, Francis graduates and gets a job in Paris with a research facility.

"So you know your bloody periodic table."

Francis smirks. He also could perform minor surgeries if he were so inclined but Arthur would merely scoff and spill something accidently-on-purpose on his brand new turtleneck so he stops their fight before it goes too far and one of them ends up admitting that they will actually miss the other.

"I have a gift for you."

Arthur immediately becomes suspicious, the relaxed line of his body stiffening as he shuts the door. It seems that kicking his roommate out of the apartment will have to wait.

Francis comes back with a pair of tweezers wrapped in a bright pink bow and he laughs as Arthur swears at him and begins to manhandle him out the door.

"And never come back, frog!"

"Not even for Christmas?"

"If you are half the genius you claim to be, I doubt you will return until you discover a cure for your venereal!"

Arthur slams the door, abruptly cutting off the rich laughter of the departing Francis. The sudden quiet of the apartment gives him pause and he sighs, locking the door. He picks up the tweezers and turns them over in his hand, shaking his head with a snort, as he walks towards his bedroom.

A shoebox waits for him on his bed with a note.

Carpe diem! –Francis

"Bastard." He crumples the note in his hand, tearing off the lid of the shoebox and seeing the pile of envelopes. The repetitions of his name in varying degrees of neatness mocks him and he is overcome by a sudden burst of anger that leaves his fingers trembling as they curl around the topmost letter. "You meddling, bastard. I will wring your neck at Christmas."

A bottle of wine and half a burnt pizza later, Arthur finds himself reaching into the box, knocking aside some envelopes until he grabs one at the very bottom and pulls it out.

He takes a deep breath.

He tosses the envelope to the side and goes to find another bottle of wine.

Francis was kind enough to leave him three.

Another half a bottle later, Arthur is sprawled across the worn carpet, half of his body resting under the coffee table. The lights are off and he is unpleasantly warm even though he is only in his undershirt.

There is no moonlight tonight, only clouds that drift across the evening sky.

He uses his cell phone to light a trail across the page.

He wonders how much a child could possibly have to say. But when the first letter turns out to be five pages long and about everything and anything, he realizes he is in for a long night.

"Oh, he calls you 'mummy'." Arthur turns the word over in his mouth, tasting bitterness and is tempted to toss the letter but he manages to get through it.

Matthew and mummy painted his room "robin egg blue" and he has a Canucks poster above his bed because it is "his favoritest team".

"Most favorite." Arthur finds himself correcting the immature mistakes, foul mood catching on the obvious enthusiasm in the other's words.

He reaches for another letter, dated November 6th, and opens it, eyes heavy from the wine. Matthew immediately begins the letter by telling him about his piano recital.

December 13th. His goldfish died the day before. Matthew's handwriting is wobbly and tilting off the line.

December 23rd includes a homemade Christmas card. It looks as though Matthew used an entire green marker to recreate their tree that takes up the entire sheet of paper and towers over their figures.

You're gonna visit, right?

May 5th. We lost the game last night. Our goalie got sick and we had to forfeit.

By the time Arthur finishes, he has three paper cuts and his vision is almost swimming. He is also too sober. But he now knows Matthew is eleven, almost twelve, plays the piano, plays centre, and thinks his coach hates him because he saw him in the locker room one night he forgot his shoulder pads with the kid who plays left wing and the next day Matthew had to play left wing while the other kid took his spot.

Arthur paused and reread that part.

The implications of those words are enough to get him to stumble to his feet and rush to the toilet, bile already crawling up his throat.

Arthur graduates a year later. In that year he receives more letters. He reads them but does not respond. He keeps each letter in a binder and hides that binder in his desk underneath semi-completed plays.

He does not go back home. His mother does not ask him because she knows he will only refuse.

He wishes she would at least make the attempt.

Arthur moves another state away and joins a master's creative writing program.

Matthew goes to boarding school two hours away.

The International School is well known for its rigorous curriculum and student activities.

It had taken him as a foul-mouthed youth with a penchant for toeing the line until it attempted to trip him and failed. But, like in an after school special, there was one teacher who refused to overlook the leather-clad, chain-smoking delinquent with green in his hair to match his eyes. The teacher had caught him flipping through some Eliot in a dusty corner of the library and took that as invitation to strike up a conversation.

Eventually Arthur forgot to retouch the dye in his hair because he would be too busy reading Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. He took out his lip piercing because he realized that he continued to pull at it while reading A Scandal in Bohemia.

He kept the leather jacket because it was fairly warm. But imagine his classmates' surprise upon him removing it to reveal a sage green sweater.

Matthew found his mentor as well.

The boy has a knack for photography.

It was not a written art but Arthur bets his mother would be ecstatic regardless.

The photography teacher allowed him use of the darkroom in the evening and Matthew eagerly included his work in the letters.

She says I should put only the best in my portfolio, but sending you one won't hurt.

Arthur gingerly takes the black and white Polaroid in hand and stares at it for a moment. It is of a window that, he assumes, is Matthew's. The blinds are crooked and there is a visible chip in the wood near the bottom right corner, but Arthur can make out the quadrangle in the distance where a group of students are huddled under a tree. He feels like a voyeur, peering out of Matthew's room down to the below and he realizes that Matthew has dated the picture.

He places both the letter and photo in the binder and sits at his desk.

His window overlooks the street.

Matthew goes through a period where he only sends photographs. He captures each area of the eighty-year-old campus, from the gnarled oak tree with roots on which elbows may rest that serves as their symbol to the cracked cobblestones of the square outside the dining hall. He even catches the withered old librarian in a rare moment of tranquility as she places encyclopedias back on the shelf.

It is strange, but Arthur finds himself wondering why Matthew has yet to send him a photo of himself. Last he remembered, if his eyes were not lying all those years ago during that fleeting glimpse, Matthew was a wane little thing with eyes too big for his face.

His mother had cried when she saw him for the first time.

She demanded adoption papers the second time.

By the third time, Arthur was buckling the boy into a car seat and slamming the door.

I'm real, you know. I exist.

Arthur stares for a moment at the lettering, green eyes tracing each messy, harried scrawl that tilts down the center of the Polaroid. The strokes are jerky, the ink smeared.

He turns over the photo and knows instantly that Matthew did not take the picture. He is not sure if he even meant to send this one or did he simply grab one blindly from a stack.

The picture is of two boys, one far older with his arm slung around the back of the booth and behind his companion's neck. The older one is looking away, as though someone off camera is calling to him. He looks disgruntled, unlike his companion who is laughing and reaching forward for a drink.

Matthew has crinkles at the corners of his eyes and is still too young to be reaching for a bottle of microbrew.

Arthur wonders if he is flushed, if his laughter rises above the din of his friends' voices or rather does it serve as a soothing backdrop, or if he is a French fry stealer.

He is privy to something, now. Or maybe he was always privy to this something.

Write back. Please.

Arthur does not write back.

But something changes. Matthew starts sending letters again, sometimes with photos.

Arthur starts keeping an album of photos.

Matthew sends a postcard, once, from New Orleans. He is there on a community service trip.

Arthur checks his mail late in the evening, exhausted from arguing with the casting director. Meredith cannot be played by some ingénue. She must be played by former ingénue.

He had a dark-eyed, husky toned woman in mind for the part. Bruised eyes and bow-shaped lips a must. Her fingers needed to carry the stains of cigarettes and she had to saunter with the promise of impending destruction, the kind that cloaks itself so finely that a man does not realize he is dead until the final handful of dirt falls.

He finds Matthew's postcard under his electricity bill and Arthur reads it right at his mailbox.

Sometimes I wonder if you are even getting these letters. And, if you are, do you read them?

In a way, I think I'm glad that you don't respond. I tell you so many things, too many things. Does it bother you? I'm sorry.

Maybe you'll receive this postcard. New Orleans is beautiful. I didn't bring my camera on this trip because I knew I couldn't do justice to this city. Maybe you've visited before and you understand.

He had visited, once, with his mother and father. His mother had met with her editor—the one she had before she abruptly switched publishing houses. The woman had been a blue-eyed blond with thick lashes. She had spoken with a smoky, French-based Creole patois and Arthur's father had taken him away so his mother could work.

The editor moved to Chicago.

Arthur's father left them soon after.

Matthew turns 16 the night Arthur's play opens off-Broadway.

Arthur sits in the front row and hides his face with a scarf.

If he had not won that award, his play would never have left his hard drive.

He leaves before the curtain falls and leaves the hall with applause thundering at the back of his skull.

He feels ill because he recognized at least the two critics in the audience.

When he wakes up the next morning, head throbbing and mouth dry, with the room spinning around him and his face pushed into his pillow, he vaguely wonders how he made it home because the last thing he remembers is dry-heaving in an alley.

Arthur finally manages to crawl out of bed, sheets tangled around his waist, and stumbles to the kitchen in his tiny flat and downs two mugs of water before crawling onto his couch and lying still.

He spies an envelope on the floor in front of the mail slot on his door.

He decides to read it after sleeping for another few hours.

When he does read it, within his stomach bubbles an irrational growl of anger and he reaches for a pen and paper.

New York is dangerous at night.

Matthew's response is swift and arrives three days later.

If I promise to never do it again, will you write me?

Arthur thinks that Matthew is a manipulative brat and does not respond, lest he regret it more.

My photography teacher remembers you. She says you sprayed paint Eliot across the walls of the chemistry lab.

Arthur cannot stop the smile as he looks at the accompanying picture. This is the way the world ends remains in stark black across the crumbling expanse of brick. There is a crack in the sidewalk slicing the photograph into two. He remembers the twitch in his fingers and the quick left-to-right-to left-glance before reaching into his messenger bag and grabbing the spray canister. It had been a spur of the moment tagging and he had nearly gotten caught. The remaining with a whimp mocks him but, somehow, he feels no desire to finish it.

You're lucky the art department liked you. It helps that you fought with poetry and black paint as your weapons. They worked hard to preserve most of your vandalism. I write 'vandalism', not 'art' as they've labeled it, because it is what it is.

It is what it is. Arthur sneers.

But at least you left your mark. At least people see you. Sometimes even I forget that I exist. I see things happen, I catch moments in my lens, and I have proof of time because I trap it. If we ever meet, don't tell me if you've kept these letters. Secretly, I believe you burn them without opening them.

It would be useless to ask you to stop. To say that with each touch of fire, you destroy a piece of me. I know now that you have read some…

Arthur puts down the letter.

Matthew is reaching out.

Arthur does not want to think about it.

One day Arthur receives a package. Inside is black album with huge pages. Each page holds a photo, the colors inverted and ruined.

They are of his graffiti.

Ozymandias bleeds black down the back wall of the administration building, tendrils of paint faded.

Jug jug. Will no other vice content you? The awful daring of a moment's surrender. I bring you with reverent hands.

The words—perversely preserved and gifts he had not meant to give—tease him and taunt him. Splattered across the landscape of his school, some painted over in an attempt to dull the black spray, these words were not his but perhaps it is best that they last.

He thinks he was better off without the reminder.

That wasn't fair. It wasn't obscenity. It was art. If this was because I called your graffiti 'vandalism', I'm sorry! But I didn't break the law.

"No." Arthur files the letter into the binder. "But you sent me a photo of a girl's knickers."

He hides the black and white photo of a slinky, lace pair of panties hanging off a slender ankle behind a photo of the quadrangle at dusk.

The photos become more and more risqué. Matthew defends his action, as a class project, that photographing the shadows of signs and the beams of sunlight across the library, dust motes captured in the rays, is too easy, too boring.

He is acting out. Must be acting out.

Arthur hides the photos under his bed. He writes poetry about temptation. Loneliness. And the endless wasteland that lies beyond.

Whenever he blinks the shadows tease between the woman's shoulder blades. He sees the careless drape of sheets across the back of that boy, hair brushing his nape, along the backs of his eyelids. The V formed from the press of knees and down the split of a pair of legs mocks him as he taps away on his laptop.

And before he falls asleep, he sees the scrutinizing way Matthew stares at himself in the mirror, the camera tilted upward and half the lens blinded by the shadow of his jaw.

I'm sorry. I just wanted to share my work with you. I don't think much will ever come out of stint in photography, but I want someone to see what I see.

Arthur has never had someone place so much trust in him.

It could be flattering.

It could be terrifying.

It makes him a little queasy.

He can no longer trust his hate.

Maybe he could never trust his hate.

Arthur is going to be sick.

Arthur's mother used to listen to the Beatles while writing.

Arthur listed to the Sex Pistols, the Police, and Billy Idol.

But he comes back time and again to the Beatles because they, along with the purposeful click of the typewriter were the soundtrack of his childhood.

He wonders if his mother still listens to "Love Me Do" on Sunday afternoons and if Matthew also took his baths with "Yellow Submarine" in the background. He wonders if Matthew fell asleep with his mother crooning "All My Loving".

He wonders what that would be like.

Rabbits. Rabbits are safe.

But somehow the story turns too sensual…then too sexual.

Arthur is repulsed, skimming through verses. His lips form the sounds and he shudders because are those really his words? What part of him birthed these lines?

He drives two hours north and rounds a bend much harder than necessary. It is autumn and as he crunches across the field of orange and red leaves, Arthur wraps his coal-grey pea coat tighter around his body and bats away a yellowing leaf that flutters into his vision. He hurries, lest the flash of a rogue camera catches him.

His old mentor seems unsurprised to see him and welcomes him into his office. He is no longer as spry as he was a decade ago. He hobbles around the stacks of book in his office, spectacles hanging around his neck as he asks Arthur if he ever finished Tristram and Iseult with a twinkle in his brown eyes.

"Your brother enjoyed it." It is a careless addition but it makes Arthur stiffen and scowl.

"It is a silly story."

His mentor just shakes his head and puts on his glasses with a trembling hand. "So, poetry now? Just admit, my boy, you want to write. You don't want someone to act out your words, you want people to feel them and see them."

"My mother was the novelist."

"Is." His teacher corrects absentmindedly, flipping the page of the manuscript. "You did not read her recent one?"

"Obviously not."

"It is nice to now that your tongue has not lost its edge."

Arthur turns his head and hides a grin.

"It is good. But, what is the worth of an old man's opinion?"

Arthur does not say that he gives the opinion of this old man great worth.

"But did you like it?"

His mentor tilts his head, gaze thoughtful and finally admits, "If I was younger, my boy, I might feel a little hot under the collar." He hands back the manuscript. "There is an undercurrent of eroticism. You always were a little prudish—now, don't make that face and do not argue—and you must have picked up on it if you are asking if I, personally, like it. You usually do not care if people like your work."

Arthur feels his cheeks heat up and he quickly grabs the papers and stuffs them into his satchel.

Why didn't you tell me you were coming up for a visit?

"Is it not enough that you already haunt me?" Arthur thinks sourly, reading the letter as he waits for his kettle to heat.

"Right on the hour, dear."

"Happy birthday, mum."

He can feel the warmth of his mother's smile and he clears his throat, embarrassed.

"I got your package yesterday. It is a beautiful scarf. But, darling, you mustn't waste your advances on silly trinkets for me."

"It is hardly wasting." He sighs, leaning against the counter. He hears an exhale of breath on the line, words that falter. "Mum?"

"I have never wanted anything of you, Arthur. But, now I want you to at least hear me."

Arthur says nothing.

"He adores you. He would set a place for you every mealtime. He calls me everyday, but he tells me what he wants me to hear, what he knows I want to hear. He has never asked me for anything—"

"So now you ask for him?" Arthur is shaking, receiver clenched in his hand. "What? Do you want me to write back to him? Tell him all my fears and hopes and dreams? Shall I tell him what I had for dinner? How I take my tea? Every single minute detail of my life must be relayed to him?"

What she wants…could it be because she knows?

"He writes to you?"

"You never bothered to invite me to Christmas. You never came to my graduation. Sometimes you forgot to get me from school and now…" He pinches the bridge of his nose and laughs, harsh, self-deprecating.

"You're right." His mother sounds distant, her voice tinny over the line. "I apologize, darling."

His mother passes a week later.

Matthew gives the eulogy, sheds one perfect crystalline tear that stains his cheek and while two more linger on his thick lashes.

Arthur relegates himself to the back of the crowd, sullen and cold, rebuffing any attempt at condolences. He feels more like an outsider.

Matthew is eighteen and makes no attempt to seek out Arthur until after the wake.

"Where are you going?"

Arthur stops buttoning his coat and glances up at the raspy voice. Matthew's eyes are swollen and pink and Arthur is pleased to see that he is an ugly crier.

"To my hotel."

"You shouldn't stay in a hotel." Matthew frowns. "Come home with me."

And that is that.

It is a little pathetic that Arthur mostly goes with Matthew because the other refers to "home" as theirs, not just his.

It is more than he deserves.

Without warning and unbidden, Arthur glances at the blond. Matthew looks as though he could use a proper meal or two.

Arthur does not know how to cook but there is more than enough casserole and meatloaf for the two young men to fill up plates and sit silently at the kitchen table.

"I'm sorry." Matthew suddenly puts down his fork and Arthur's mouthful of casserole turns to ash as the younger man begins to take shaky breaths, tears falling to his plate and choked sobbing behind his hands.

Arthur watches the other break down, slowly, pieces falling one by one.

He never wanted this.

He leaves Matthew crying at the table, putting down his fork and knife and pushing his chair in, with a sense of detachment, as though he is floating slowly away.

Matthew finds him, minutes, maybe hours, later, and he stands in the doorway watching quietly as Arthur sits on his mother's bed and stares at the wall. It still smells like Shalimar.

"You must hate me." Matthew's voice is soft, lacking the strength from the funeral. He is hoarse, throat most likely raw and Arthur wonders if this boy spent the last few days wasting away in his room. "You never even look at me."

"You look just like her. And you inherited her sin."

"Tom. Act 4. With the Wind. Do you always throw lines at your work at people?"

"Only when I think I can get away with it."

Arthur does not understand why all his mourning stays buried.

His mother leaves them equal shares of the house and her royalties.

Arthur finds out that Matthew has also come into his father's money.

It does not upset him. When he was 18, he found out his father had never forgotten him and left him his entire library. He would have used the money to buy books anyways. Or thrown it out the window, depending on how hateful he felt that day.

The car ride is silent. Matthew is curled up in the passenger seat, long limbs tucked close to his body and head resting on the window.

"I didn't ask her for anything."

"My mother was a loving woman. She wanted to make sure you would never want for anything."

"She always seemed so unhappy."

For the longest time she seemed to simply exist, drifting through time, listless and mad. Arthur wants to fill in the subtext of Matthew's world, telling him just what exactly had conspired to make his life, their life, and this life.

"You were proof of her loss and her redemption, all at once. She was never happier."

Matthew's voice is ice. "I would appreciate it if you would not reduce her to another quote in your portfolio."

Matthew's room is robin egg blue and there is a Canucks poster above his bed.

He has a small bookshelf and Arthur draws his fingers across the familiar spines of Orwell (navy), Bronte (scarlet), and Kipling (faded green). He spies Atwood and Lam. He sees his mother's novels.

Matthew's digital camera is hooked up to his laptop on his desk. His Polaroid camera sits atop a pedestal of journals. A polar bear keychain sits next to a coffee mug of pencils. Above the desk there is a bulletin board with old schedules and a few ticket stubs and a Polaroid of Matthew with a pretty girl and a frowning boy who Arthur recognizes from that photo years ago.

It is a color photo. Matthew is smiling, the girl tucked under his arm with Matthew tucked under the arm of the taller boy.

"We broke up last spring."

"I thought he overdosed and she changed schools."

"Yeah. But 'breaking up' doesn't sound as awful." Matthew's smile is heartbreaking in the light of the room. "So you read my letters?"

"It became impossible to ignore them."

"It became impossible to ignore me."

"You think rather highly of yourself."

"Writing my every thought, feeling, and action for over a decade to a ghost would mean, yes, I think very highly of myself." Matthew grins then, self-conscious, bites his lip and casts his gaze downward. "You never really wrote back. After that one time."

"What time?" Arthur's head snaps back at Matthew who looks vaguely surprised and then thoughtful.

"It was after Wang Yao gave you that bad review. He called your play 'vulgar' and 'immature'."

Arthur scowled.

"In a way, it was justified. You never bothered to explain why Alan was in love with Meredith."

"Sometimes people just fall in love. Just because Wang Yao needs everything spelled out in neat, bloody letters—"

"I think your character lied to you." Matthew smiled sadly. "Or I think you don't really understand your character."

After Wang Yao gave him that scathing review, Arthur went ahead and opened the celebratory bottle of whisky he had bought for himself after opening night.

And he proceeded to get beautifully and disgustingly smashed.

And in his wrath, he grabbed a notebook and pencil and proceeded to pour out every single bitterness in his heart and all his hurt and forced each word between the lines and he addressed it to Matthew.

I hate blue—every single shade. How can you confide so much in a man who has so much hatred for a simple color? How can no one else see its evil?

That is the problem with me…you…us. We look in from the outside and when we try to show other people reality, they think we have created gold from shit. We are forever on the other side because we see beauty in the terrible and terror in beauty.

Our work says more about us than anything else.

He put five stamps on the envelope and passed out on the coffee table.

His superintendent, intending to fix the clogged shower drain, found him the next morning, shook his head and stepped around the slumbering man.

At least he was kind enough to mail the letter.

"Why did you continue to write to me?"

"Because I love you."

Arthur levels a venomous glare at the other, heart rate picking up. "Stop taunting me, Matthew."

"I'm not." Matthew shrugs, slouching and crossing his arms. "I told you before. I meant it. I still do."

Arthur thinks of the childish declaration at the bottom of the first letter written in red crayon.

He snorted, then. Derision forced to the surface.

"You know nothing about me."

There's a stubborn set to his jaw when Matthew looks back at him. "I know enough. And you know everything about me. You know I hate tomatoes—"

Their texture is weird.

"—I studied French—"

His birth mother had played Edith Piaf to help him sleep.

"—I lost my virginity in a threesome—"

Only because he was the buffer that made the entire arrangement less wrong.

"You know all the worst things about me." Matthew is wavering, just so, losing resolve, composure shaken. "And maybe it is wrong. But I didn't ask to share your blood. I didn't ask our father to leave. And you can blame me all you want, but I have never felt so close to someone. You wiped my tears and told me to never cry where anyone could see me but you've seen me and your hands have always been warmer than mine."

Arthur is rapidly losing grip on everything and he wants to find a foothold on something steady but the only steady thing in the room is something he never allowed himself.

And Matthew does not stop talking.

"And when I read your words, I feel less alone. I hear your voice. I know I'm seeing a part of you."

That is what he had always wanted.

"I'll leave right now, I promise. Forever. I'll do whatever you ask, but…but please. Don't ask me to stop writing. Because if I stop, I will shatter and I don't want to lose you. I can't…"

The steadfast image has collapsed. Matthew is shaking harder now, shaking his head and hands curling to fists. His pleading eyes are shielded by his bangs and Arthur only now realizes that he is less than a foot away.

"You don't know how hard it was for me." Containment, be damned. He echoes the other's words under his breath.

Matthew looks at him, finally, eyes luminous from tears, and his mouth parted with an unheard promise and Arthur is too tired. So when Matthew presses against him, cheeks wet, seeking some semblance of comfort, Arthur is tempted.

He drowns in what Matthew is offering.

He is weak.