Every Night The Same

It didn't take Matthew long to realize he was losing him.

At first, of course, he denied it. He denied it and denied it and denied it, and denied it until there was nothing left to deny. Matthew refused to admit that Arthur was slowly slipping away from him and there wasn't anything he could do about it.

No one really knew why, or what for that matter, was happening to him. It was a strange thing, to be honest. Some nights he seemed okay, just a bit tired and forgetful. He often got up and wandered around the house at late hours of the night, speaking gibberish that sounded like perhaps Latin, or maybe a mixture of Latin and French. Either way, words Matthew couldn't understand. He would stay this way for hours, and hours, just wandering aimlessly to anywhere and nowhere, until finally Matthew awoke and brought him back to bed.

Some nights Arthur was completely silent. He wouldn't utter a word, wouldn't move, scarcely blinked, scarcely breathed. The only indication he was alive was the slight, very slight move of his chest to where he inhaled the tiniest amount of oxygen to sustain his life as possible. He'd sit very still, very quiet, somewhere in the dark crevices of their room. Often in the corner by the window, where his emerald, emerald eyes would stare out at seemingly nothing. It pained Matthew to watch his eyes go very far away, very, very, very far away. It bothered him how in that far away place, he couldn't reach him and bring him home. On those nights, Matthew often just let him be.

There were also those nights where Arthur would be angry for no reason. He would scream, break things, throw everything to the ground, tear up work and papers, shredding them into nothing. Sometimes he resorted to physical harm by punching walls and yanking at his hair, hollering about how much his head hurt and how much he wanted it to stop. Sometimes he hit Matthew, unintentionally, when Matthew got too close in his angry outbursts. Sometimes there was blood. Matthew never minded. At least Arthur was still in there somewhere.

He never quite tried to figure out exactly what was wrong. Sometimes Arthur acted totally fine, his normal self. Sometimes he would just come over and sit with Matthew, telling him how much he loved him and how he would never leave him. Things that were normal, but abnormal all the same. It's as if Arthur didn't even remember these fits of his, or chose to ignore the problem entirely. Matthew didn't care. Sometimes it was nice to hear Arthur without the yelling and the slurred words he didn't understand.

Then there were the times that Arthur left the house.

Often times when Arthur left the house, it would be right after a screaming fit. He would just stop, sometimes in mid sentence, and just grab his coat and leave. Sometimes he forgot the coat. Sometimes he would just scream and scream on the way out, but never, once he turned his back, did he turn around and think twice. It's as if the voices that made his head hurt condemned him not to. He would walk right out the front door and Matthew would do nothing to stop him.

Three days later, Arthur would show up again, collapse on the couch, looking so tired and hurt that Matthew wanted to cry.

He did try to console him the first few times, but it never helped. Words didn't seem to reach him, so Matthew just did what anyone could do in his position. He held him and hummed softly, hoping to ease the pain, if only slightly. Arthur never complained. Matthew kept trying.

But there may have been one point where Matthew did stop trying, and it was a part of his routine. He didn't really seem to even know what he was doing anymore, what was happening, he just knew that he would have to do something, and even if he didn't know what that something was, he did it anyway.

He started every morning with, 'I love you', and every evening with the same, but Matthew never knew if he meant it.

And he didn't know if Arthur ever heard him.