Forgiveness

Everything was going wrong. The past days his father's words had run in his head nonstop. Various variations on how he would never live up to their family name, how no one would ever care about him and he only brought pain wherever he went. He'd tried to fight believing them, but that was difficult when they were starting to come true.

First, he’d fought with Mingze and now Archie was angry with him. The flowers he’d carefully picked out for the other had fallen on the ground, their stems broken, when his boyfriend had left his place. The situation had almost been absurd. He’d stopped by Archie’s place to show him he loved him and instead he’d gone home and found the other fighting with Ren and then with him. Instead of the happy moment he’d imagined, everything had fallen apart.

Victor had taken some time to let things calm down. He didn’t want to get angry like he had with Mingze. But he also didn’t want to wait too long. He had to set this right and fix things with Archie. He couldn’t lose him.

His heart was in his throat as he approached the familiar door and rang the bell. Nervously he waited, hoping that Archie would open.

Ren had told him what happened between her and Archie. Once he’d heard the entire story, Victor understood why his boyfriend—was he still allowed to call him that?—had reacted the way he had to seeing a stranger at his place. It was all a misunderstanding and he needed to fix that. As soon as Archie knew the truth, everything would be alright again.

Doing that, however, had proven difficult. He’d tried to call Archie once he’d heard Ren’s explanation, but the other had been unreachable.

Maybe that had been for the best because it had given them some time to calm down. But after a few days had passed, Victor knew he needed to talk to Archie now or they might never be able to fix their relationship. He didn’t want to do this on the phone and so he went to Archie’s apartment. He could only hope the other would be home now.

He was greeted by security and for a moment Victor feared Archie would have them send him away and he would never get the opportunity to explain. Instead, they let him inside where he found Archie already waiting for him in the door.

The other’s sharp gaze pierced through him, almost burning him.

“Ren isn’t my girlfriend,” Victor started to explain. He needed those words out first. “I found her not that long ago. She was covered in ash, she’d been in some kind of fire, and had nowhere to go. I don’t know what she’s been through but she doesn’t understand most things. She didn’t know what the word meant.” He looked at Archie, hoping the other would believe him.

Afraid that Archie would throw him out if he said the wrong thing, Victor immediately started to explain what had happened. He hadn’t understood what was happening last time as Archie had walked away without telling him what was wrong, but now he could make this right.

But Archie didn’t believe him.

Victor tried to sputter an answer when Archie asked him if he thought he was a fool, but he couldn’t form words. It was when the flowers were mentioned that Victor could speak again. “Those were for you,” he answered, feeling his voice rise in response to Archie’s anger.

He took a deep breath. He couldn’t get angry now. “I went to tranquil hollow to pick them for you.” His eyes glittered wet as he spoke, but there were no tears yet for now. “I came here first, to surprise you, but you weren’t home. So I went back to my place and wanted to call you to see if we could meet up later, but then I heard screaming and I saw you two and I had no idea what was going on.”

Victor was at a loss of words. What was he supposed to have done? Throw her out? She didn’t have anywhere to go and would have to live on the streets if he did that. He also hadn’t thought her living with him was the problem, but that this was just a misunderstanding that they had to clear up. How should he have known what was wrong precisely when Archie refused to talk to him?

“No, you will,” he spoke the truth. “She doesn’t have anywhere to go so she’s still there. But I can help her find another place if you don’t want her living with me.” Victor hadn’t thought anything of it when he’d first taken her in as lots of people had roommates, but if Archie didn’t want it, he would help her find another place.

“For you to believe me,” Victor answered when Archie asked him what he was expecting from him. He’d seen the doubt in his eyes and it hurt. “I want to talk about this and work this out.” He’d wanted to do that as soon as he found Archie fighting with Ren, but once the man had walked away, he’d been unreachable. “I want us to be able to tell each other if something’s wrong and talk about it.” Being accused of something while he didn’t even know what that something was and then being unable to explain the truth had been hell.

“She told me she didn’t know what it meant.” Victor felt really stupid and naïve believing that now that he said it out loud like this, but he knew it was the truth. While he didn’t know Ren for long yet, he’d quickly learned that wherever she’d grown up it had been isolated from the rest of the world as she didn’t understand a lot of normal things. “I’m not saying what she did wasn’t wrong, but you scared her when you forced your way in. She was trying to protect herself and thought it would prove she wasn’t breaking in.” Archie had scared him as well when he’d found them.

“I’m not gonna let her leave if I know she’ll have to live on the streets.” He would stand firm on that. If Archie didn’t like her living with him he’d help her find another place, but he wouldn’t just throw her out.

Archie asked what he was expecting of him. All Victor wanted was to talk about this and work it out. He loved Archie and hated that they were fighting.

“I didn’t try and hide it,” Victor answered, surprised that Archie thought that. “I was going to introduce you to each other. Ren hadn’t been living with me for long and I hadn’t had the opportunity yet to tell you—” he stopped for a second as he realised why Archie thought that he was hiding Ren from him. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you immediately. I should have. I didn’t think it was a big deal, but I was wrong. She needed help and lots of people have roommates and I didn’t think it through.” He’d just wanted to help her when he found her wandering around the campus with nowhere to go and hadn’t realised what it would look like to others.

His eyes grew wider with every word Archie spoke. “You did what?” His voice was soft and confused as he tried to process what he’d just been told, but the last word came out sharp, conveying the hurt he felt at learning this. After Archie’d turned off his phone, Victor had been miserable as well. He’d locked himself in his room and trained too hard with Edgar once he’d finally come out, getting hit by an air slash in the process. Archie meanwhile had gone straight to other people…

Silence stretched between them for a few seconds as anger at what the other did and fear of losing him fought for dominance in Victor’s mind. “I do,” he answered eventually. “I love you. I don’t want to lose you.” He’d come here to fix things between them. They could still fix this, right?

Another pause and the anger came out. “Why? The hell Archie. Why? I do everything I can to be understanding when you hide who you are from me. And when I make a mistake you can’t even talk to me. You disappear and go to others instead.” His eyes bore into Archie’s, searching for anything that indicated this was just a messed up joke or a nightmare he would wake up from soon.

Even now, Victor could see that Archie still didn’t believe him about Ren. He was supposed to explain and then everything would be alright, but instead everything seemed to be getting worse. Archie hadn’t just disappeared after he’d found Ren in his apartment, he’d drank and gambled and spent the night with others and as he spoke, Victor felt his hope to fix things slowly shatter. But he couldn’t give up. Of course he still wanted to talk, he loved Archie.

Despite that he was angry. Archie had left him confused and broken and once Ren had told him what had happened, he’d had no way to contact Archie and explain that it wasn’t true.

“So you hurt me right back?” He looked at Archie with tears in his eyes. The man had always made him feel safe and loved, but now all he felt was hurt and despair. He didn’t want to lose the other yet it was starting to seem like he already had.

Meeting Archie, the way the other had seen no issue in his then newly acquired affinity, it had given Victor hope that maybe he did deserve to be loved. Now it had become abundantly clear that all he would ever bring into the world was hurt. For himself and for others.

Still he couldn’t give up. Despite everything, he didn’t want Archie to leave. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t hurting. He was desperately clinging onto the hope that they could fix this, but Archie’s next words started the realisation once again that maybe the image he had of him was different from reality. “What’s wrong with you?” His eyes stood sad and hurt but there was also anger at Archie bringing this up again. “I do love you,” he pleaded. “I told you I’ll make sure she’ll find another place. How could you live with yourself knowing you made someone live on the streets?” If Archie didn’t want Ren to live with him, Victor would find her someplace else, but he couldn’t just throw her out because there would be nowhere else for her to go.

If Archie had asked this of him when Victor had walked in on the encounter between Archie and Ren, he would’ve more than likely obliged. But Archie had walked out, closed the door behind him and wouldn’t even be talking to him right now if Victor hadn’t come to him. It had left this gaping hole between them and now there were too many question marks to blindly follow Archie’s request without thinking of the consequences, only so he could be sure the other would love him.

The question had him searching for words. “I don’t know.” He couldn’t do what Archie was asking of him and Archie couldn’t forgive him unless he did. They were at a stalemate and the only answer was one Victor didn’t want to voice: that they couldn’t work this out.