January Hymn
TITLE: [SECRET SANTA FIC] January Hymn, Part 1
AUTHOR: captainladyace
RECIPIENT: dividebyzero
GENRE: Drama?
RATINGS/WARNINGS: PG... warning for Al overthinking things? Human names also used almost exculsively.
SUMMARY: After a fight and a snowstorm, Alfred dwells on his relationship with Arthur, tired of always being the one to apologize
NOTES: What started as a very, very liberal interpretation of the second prompt, but will end much closer to it.
Alfred drew breath sharply as the cold air hit his face like a sledgehammer. Damn, it was cold. January was always cold. The little voice that sounded like Matthew told him to get over it or not to winter in a place that got cold if he didn't like it. Alfred ignored it expertly, and stomped his way through the virgin snowfall over to the disconnected garage to retrieve his snow shovel, reveling in the exercise of brute strength needed to get it open. It clanged open with a harsh mechanical sound, part of the crystalline white dune spilling into the new space.
Alfred gave his red convertible a loving rub before grabbing the shovel and heading back out into the drift. He walked through his previous trail-blazed path, this time much easier. Alfred bumped his glasses back to where they were supposed to be with his bulky jacket, trying to wipe off some of the ice that had frozen there from his dragon breath. His nose was cherry red in the cold. He normally hated the cold, but now he enjoyed the way it took his concentration away from what he was really trying to avoid thinking about. When your toes were frozen, one didn't think too much of dumb boyfriends or stupid arguments.
What a spectacular way to spend a morning, Alfred groused as he took the first shovelful away from the walk. On a winter's Sunday, he went to clear away the snow, and green the ground below. His grass would most certainly be greenest in the entire block, because no one else was stupid enough to try to shovel away any of the blanket when the afternoon was sure to bring another layer. Normally, Alfred would be curled up on his couch with hot chocolate and Tony or Arthur, playing Skyrim with the former and snuggling with the latter, and - no damnit! Alfred took a swipe at a particularly large swath of snow. The reason he was out here was so that he wouldn't think about that!
Suddenly, Alfred shivered. A new gust, colder and definitely snowy in nature, blew in from the northwest. It looks like the promised snowstorm was coming sooner than they thought. Alfred picked up his pace a little. Looks like he, or anybody for that matter, wasn't going to church today. How he wished that spring would just hurry up already! All the fun parts of winter were already gone: Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, the after Christmas sales... April was three months away, bringing rain in its gentle storms, and everything got a certain soggy aspect to it in April, just like the norm in... Alfred sighed, giving up. Arthur, just like April, was all an ocean away, and here Alfred was, futilely trying to keep his walk clear in some sort of deranged thought that maybe if his front walk was free of snow, Arthur would know that his door was always open and somehow... come back. Alfred had faith that if he waited long enough, April would come, bringing showers, May flowers, and eventually, pilgrims, but Arthur was anything but a certainty. He felt like he was being buried under mountains of snow, layered away from Arthur and whatever green and joy he brought to his life. Alfred struck viciously at the end of his walk, compacting it along the sides of the path and breathing smoke through his long nose. Then he turned and surveyed his handiwork.
A single, solitary snowflake fell on the tip of his nose, melting as soon as it touched it, and a light dust soon blew in to shade over the newly exposed red brick. Alfred slumped, leaning heavily on his shovel, a smile twitching at the corner of his mouth. Is this honestly the better way to spend the day? Keeping the winter at bay, but only for so long? Every time he and Arthur thought they had resolved an argument, some new difficulty would come and add yet another layer to it... and... Was it inevitable that they would never be peaceful?
Alfred trudged back to his porch, and sat on the stoop, bundled up like a marshmallow, watching the snow fall lightly on his yard, adding yet another burden to the old oak tree in front. He was unwilling to go inside. Everything in there simply reflected Arthur, which was why he came out here in the first place. He stuffed his gloved fingers beneath the earflaps of his cap in an effort to warm them further. Alfred's breath puffed into a cloud before his face. The election cycle was stressful enough, what with everything and... Why was it that apologizing was so hard for them? He could never seem to say the right thing, and whenever he thought he had it, it came out all wrong. Arthur scoffed at his cheesy movie quotes, but... What were the words he meant to say before Arthur left? When Alfred could see his breath lead where he was going to be, in this cold. Not somewhere far away, not here. Alfred had a hard enough time figuring out where the hell Arthur was coming from. He knew he wasn't dumb, he could calculate the fuel he needed to power his personal jetpack from here to DC (which was more than would be economical on a daily basis, but he'd done it just to say he'd done it). He even got most of Arthur's strange British "homour". But it was never enough.
Alfred really needed a dog. Dogs were never miserable, and they always loved you, unconditionally, despite any mistake or lapse of judgment. A dog would always be ready for a cuddle, drag him out for a walk in any weather, and fetch the newspaper in the morning. Alfred's hypothetical dog would do everything to please him, follow his every command, especially "Come back"... Alfred realized his mistake now. He should have followed Arthur to the airport, drug him back, never have let him get on that plane. There was no way he was getting out of the city soon, what with the new storm. Extracting his right hand from under his cap, he dug into his layers and retrieved his cell phone, and tapped the screen so it lit up. No new messages, no new calls. Alfred's shoulders slumped by the tiniest amount. He felt like he should call, apologize, but he didn't have the courage to, and besides, it wasn't all his fault! He was still hurt by those things Arthur said... In a brief flash, Alfred imagined Arthur holding his own phone in his palm, waiting for Alfred to call him... Alfred unlocked his phone and tapped open the dialing menu, and then his thumb hovered uncertainly above Arthur's speed dial. He stared at the glowing screen until it dimmed into its power-saving mode, and then Alfred wrenched it away from his gaze, placing (slamming) it down on the deck next to him with more force than was probably necessary. Alfred blew unseeing on his fingers, managing to liquefy a little of the snow crystals on his gloves, only to have it refreeze once he stopped breathing on it. Every other time, he was able to make the call, deal with whatever problems it was... What made this time different? Potential apologies for everything, nothing, apologies he was unwilling to speak, all drifted through his brain like the snow that was layering in his yard.
He was cold, there was no getting around it. Biting his chapped lower lip, Alfred tried to conjured up some sweet California sunshine, but no... although it was a balmy forty-five degrees there, it was still cold here. As a last ditch effort he summoned up Hawaii, and felt relief for but a moment, and then it too succumbed to cold. They were such small parts of him, everything was lost to the covering snow. Oh, January... Alfred sighed, puffing out more clouds of steam. He wasn't really prepared for this sort of thing. He had only a fleece jacket, gloves, hat, scarf, his boots, and of course, the usual jeans and tee shirt, but not much to withstand the lingering chill of a storm. It was no use. He should be used to it anyway; Alfred had been raised in snow. As a child, he'd been bundled up by his nannies, stuffed in a strata of clothes. Arthur had always made sure he was at least provided for, if he wasn't there himself... Gah! He stripped off his gloves and quickly rubbed his eyes beneath his glasses, then shoved them back in their pockets of comparative warmth and rewrapped his scarf to cover more of his face. Alfred was struck by a sudden self-conscious loathing (well, that'd been happening a lot in the last decade...) All this suffering and angst wasn't something he was quite used to. Was he even doing it right? Alfred laughed a little hollowly, and his light tenor projected out only a little ways before it was swallowed up by the snow. Snow drifts were never exactly the most acoustically sound objects... Was he going to stay out here all day? What about when night fell?
Alfred dimly recalled a pale winter day after dark some years ago, when he and Arthur were wandering the gray memorial park. The trees hung heavy with their snowy covering, and the light from the lampposts reflected on the blanket on the ground. The world was sapped of its natural color, pale and sterile even sunk into the inky depth of night. The only thing with true color was Arthur, bundled up in a homemade scarf, a khaki trench coat, and smart black gloves, cheeks and nose with heightened color as they laughed together. Something had led to another and they were throwing snow at each other until both of them were covered in a sprinkling and were suitably cold. One particularly vivid moment stuck out to Alfred, the image of Arthur covered in the residual trails of comets and snowballs, laughing so hard he couldn't speak, but all Alfred could hear was the fleeting beating of hearts. He reveled in that moment when everything was right, when Arthur and Alfred were simply Arthur and Alfred, and...
The oak tree caught his eye, the trunk and bare branches like brownies dusted with powdered sugar. Oak trees were strong, the strongest of trees, wood to make good, solid things out of, but it never bent under any weight. Strong, aged, prideful, unchanging, it only broke once the load became too heavy, but break it did. Alfred was confronted with the memory of splintered branches after the storm, messy and brutal, wood completely unusable afterwards. The tree had never looked the same afterwards.
In that moment, Alfred realized he couldn't feel his toes. He got up, and tromped back inside, back to the warmth and security of his own home, leaving the snow to fall quickly and quietly on the front walk. There was no sound, nothing, and had anyone been listening, the silence would have been deafening. After a few minutes, which could have been an eternity, the abandoned cell phone on the porch lit up and buzzed and buzzed and buzzed, until it vibrated its way across the porch and fell into the snowdrift, silencing itself into oblivion.
A/N: I hope you like it! Comments would be appreciated! Is my Alfred OOC to you? Is my symbolism too heavy handed? Thank you in advance!