Chapter Text
Today wasn’t as planned.
Francis woke up on the bathroom floor with a sniffle, the tiles sub-zero temperatures seeping into his bones.
Maybe he was dramatic, running away from his own child because he couldn’t comprehend such a situation was silly. Francis could only hope Alfred wasn’t freaking out, though it was likely he was.
He lifted himself with the help of the sink. The porcelain creaked softly but lent a helping hand anyways. Each day was getting increasingly harder with the weight of his belly, the baby was sure to be huge.
Yesterday’s shirt had damp sleeves and the shorts he nicked from Arthur years ago had a mysterious stain that wouldn’t wash out. There was a groggy haze clouding his thoughts and despite the darkness cloaking the sky, Francis reached for his toothbrush and began his daily routine.
The face that stared back at him looked pale and dead: his eyes were hollow and his bangs stuck together in unflattering lengths of greasy hair. He couldn’t tell whether it was the pregnancy sucking the life out of him or if it was the divorce.
A minty freshness invaded his mouth and he grimaced at the strong taste. It seemed to only get stronger with each month nearing his due date.
Thankfully, today he didn’t wake up with many responsibilities nor did he wake up to incessant knocking or doorbell ringing. He leaned lazily against the sink, tap still running. Miserable shadows crept across a darkness that bloomed at the top of the bathroom walls, neglect was sketched into every mould inhabited space. Francis could barely bring himself to look in the mirror, knowing his reflection was not only just as neglected, but beaten too.
Francis leaned down and sipped on the tap water, a faint metallic taste prickled at his tongue. He rinsed his mouth and set the toothbrush back, leaning over the sink with a pitiful whine: the pain in his back was overwhelming. Carefully, he straightened his back with a soft click and breathed out.
The only thing he could hope for now was for this pregnancy to end quicker.
Pregnancy was a phenomenon that Francis couldn’t see as beautiful. Everyone romanticised it in such a specific way that made him look towards it. It was portrayed as the blooming of a flower, but it only felt like he was withering. Pale skin was torn with ragged stretch marks, his ankles seemed to have inflated to twice their original size and he couldn’t wear cute clothes anymore!
Routine was routine— he couldn’t stand in front of the sink forever dwelling on his regrets! Francis moved towards the door in a clumsy, uncoordinated step and slumped against it, his hip pressed into the door handle and he hissed, placing a hand where a bruise was sure to form. He pulled at the silver handle repeatedly, his foggy brain only just catching up and realising it was definitely locked.
The corridor was dark. Unnaturally so. It looked haunted and it made the hairs on Francis’ arm stand erect. There was a cold draft moving throughout the house, an unwanted chill that plagued him and creeped past thin fabric. It was nothing like what a summer morning should have brought.
”Alfred?” He called out into the abyss, moving carefully down the corridor with baby steps.
His hand found the light switch and a bright light blinded him. Francis squinted and quickly adjusted to the light. Nothing was illuminated: no creepy doll; no bloody footsteps; nothing special that raised questions.
”Oh, hm,” Francis exhaled, confidently moving towards Alfred’s room now. He peered through the door and found his son passed out in his bed, school clothes wrinkled and tablet laid on his chest.
They said sleeping next to who you love most reduces stress, perhaps Francis should do the same with his Chanel perfume.
Guilt gnawed at him suddenly with its ugly teeth at the sight of Alfred sleeping so peacefully.
Dinner was a thought he didn’t feed enough. Alfred must have gone hungry to bed and Francis could only pray he had a filling lunch before he came home from school. The faulty promise of ordering pizza clearly didn’t hold up and only Francis knew how devastated Alfred would be when he woke up. Francis could only imagine the teary-eyed gaze that would track his every movement tomorrow.
He let out a sheepish chuckle and retreated downstairs, flicking the light off with an absent push of his finger. Each step down the stairs was a gamble, with his toe reaching forward cautiously in search of the next step, Francis was stressing himself out with such stupid activities. He should have left the light on.
Cold floorboards met the soles of his feet in a quiet collision. Damp paper kissed his skin next. Francis took a startled step backwards and looked towards the shadow-cloaked floor, squinting against the darkness to make out a rectangular shape.
A letter of some sort?
Francis assumed it was the water bill, or the electricity bill— or even the opticians telling him he’s overdue on an eye appointment! But something so mundane didn’t usually make his heart skip a beat.
He bent down and took the envelope in one hand, feeling the edges flex beneath his fingertips. Francis felt suspicious handling the letter, but there wasn’t much he could do about it now: it was in his home.
There was a sneaking suspicion of what the envelope contained and, considering the events that took course over the past few days, it was likely just that. The knowledge didn’t ease the tight knot in his stomach. The night wind whispered through the empty streets outside, life outside waited in anticipation and the silence made his fingers tremble.
A strange hum emitted from the kitchen’s bulb, he had been meaning to replace it sooner. Its dim light illuminated the envelope’s dulled paper, its pristine edges folding inwards and ink travelling down in sullen rivers from his name. The cursive was unmistakeable: the swoops; the flicks; the handwriting he would admire on love letters instead of something like this. Francis lowered himself in a seat by the kitchen table and exhaled, steadying the strange tremor in his hands before carefully opening the envelope.
Arthur was quick to initiate an end. It was like he wanted nothing more to do so. Arthur was also sneakily lazy, which is why with the divorce papers came a handwritten note with a scribbled out heart beside Francis’ name. He didn’t want to come back and go through the trouble himself, he wanted Francis to do just about everything so he could show up to court looking put together and sophisticated.
”Marriage certificate?” Francis murmured, reading through meandering swoops. There was an audible tinge of confusion in his words, the process seemed much more complicated than expected.
He read through that letter a million times.
Francis felt his heart ache strangely at the sight of something so familiar. The handwriting and the heart, the scribbled out heart. It did something weird to him and he wasn’t sure he could ever move past a man as amazing as Arthur. Even with the knowledge that he progressed from yelling to violence, even with the knowledge that he was going to drink himself to death: he wanted him back so bad.
The letter rested on the table and Francis sat lifelessly before it. His arms were crossed loosely over his chest and the dramatic glimmer in his eyes had faded long ago, the dull blue jarring to look at. Even with the morning light reflecting off them, Francis looked sort of lost. He felt lost.
There was never a moment where Francis was alone. Everyone supported him and guided him to making the right choices, the right decisions: the smart decisions. Now, he was all by himself with a baby on the way and a seven year old who wanted his daddy back. He felt lost. He felt lost and stupid. There wasn’t a second where he didn’t believe he wasn’t stupid. Obviously he could have prevented this in some way!
Perhaps if he signed the paper and sent the marriage certificate to court Arthur would reconsider this departure and his cruel treatment of Francis. Maybe he would even come crawling back!
Perhaps if he also kept a track of time and didn’t let it slip past his fingers so easily too…
His head snapped up from the table and he stared at the window, dawn breaking past the clouds and the sun surfacing with outstretched arms.
A pen is all he needed to finalise this deal.
Francis exhaled and stood up, crossing the kitchen in small, lazy steps that barely lifted off the ground. A drawer slid open with a soft squeak, cutlery arranged neatly in designated sections that told him it wasn’t the junk drawer. He nibbled at his lower lip: was he really forgetting the most basic things ever? An embarrassed blush flourished across his cheeks and he reached for another drawer. This one was nearly empty with a stray plastic baggy laid flush against the bottom of the drawer. Francis closed it quietly and opened the final drawer, praying he wouldn’t have to scale the mountain of stairs upstairs for a pen.
A hollow clatter made him jump.
Upon opening the drawer, a slim black pen rolled onto the floor and lay by his foot with an expectant sheen to its plastic casing. Francis reached down, his belly awkwardly obstructing him. He bent to the side but had no success, his fingertips brushing the pen just barely. Finally, he sat with a frustrated noise, plopping down beside the pen and gripping it tightly. He succeeded, but at what cost? Now he had to find a way to stand up without lunging forward and giving himself a concussion.
He succeeded in that too, of course. Francis was always successful! Even in signing his name on a paper he didn’t want to.
Francis leaned back in the chair and stared at the paper. Arthur’s signature was already on it which made him question everything a little more. He likely already had these documents prepared, maybe even a while back before Francis told Arthur in a fury to get out.
”Stupid…” Francis breathed out, placing his head on the table.
Everything was so perfect before!
Arthur had a brilliant job that could uphold their family perfectly, their house had a white picket fence and the families in their neighbourhood were nothing but warm and friendly, even their first meeting felt like it was meant to be!
A warm spring afternoon, rain showered down onto the city and Francis stood at the school’s entrance after a difficult exam. He lacked an umbrella and didn’t want his hair getting soaked. The gentleman that stepped out with him was nothing like the man he forced out of his house, he looked away with a blush and held an umbrella above Francis’ head, sacrificing his own raggedy hair to protect Francis from the downpour.
Then Arthur started slipping love letters into Francis’ locker after that encounter! Francis couldn’t help but giggle at the envelopes piled up at the bottom of his locker, it was so cute!
Now that same cursive handwriting told to sign the document and to make it easier for the both of them.
How stupid.
Francis was blinded by the past and he wanted nothing to do with the present nor the future. Sometimes he wished he didn’t get so stupid and get pregnant; then he wouldn’t have to marry Arthur.