LANCASTER AND MAXWELL ( ✔ )

chapter nine.

Chapter Nine.

ARTHUR has always accepted the concept of fate. 

Granted, he's never considered himself to be religious by any means, but he does like to think that there's a higher being than himself out there, stringing lifelines together like needle to thread. He believes that everyone has a purpose, and that they're bound to it. Some are good, some are bad, and some just don't know what it is.  It doesn't really bother him all that much anymore because he's grown to accept it. People are born into certain roles, and there's one event in their lifetime that proves it. 

Meeting Sullivan Maxwell is the event in his life, and his higher power has made loving him forever his destiny — he's perfectly okay with it. At least he figured it out before he made a mockery of himself; could you imagine? He'd probably be a wreck of a young man.

So here's a secret that no one else in the entire world knows about him — Arthur is selfish. That alone is a thought that anyone who doesn't really know him couldn't possibly fathom, but it's the truth. However, the only thing in the world he can never share is Sully, and that started when they were kids. 

From the time he got sent to the principal's office for SJ to even now, he's never tried to deny that part of him. That day on the playground changed something in him, and he hasn't turned back ever since. They weren't that old, but Arthur could already begin to see the way everyone underestimated Sullivan. The teachers pitied him and the other kids saw him as a weakling, and he thought they were all idiots for it, and he still does. He also knows that he's enjoyed the advantage that he's had, seeing Sully for who he really was. Artie has always seen a lion were everyone saw a lamb. 

That's what he was, that's what he's always been. Sullivan-Jaymes is a lion, vicious and determined and he had him; hook, line, and sinker. It's been almost a decade, and no one has ever had his attention like Sully has it. 

Of course, the only unfortunate part of wanting Sully to himself is that ... well, it isn't normal. A little more than a week after he met the boy, he had forgotten all about the friends he had attempted to make since arriving at school. Most would think that it's hard, alienating friends for one person, but he's never even batted an eyelash about it. If he's being completely honest with himself, there's not much that he wouldn't do — there's not anything he wouldn't do — for that kid, good or bad, and that very thought alone both astonishes and terrifies him.

Because since having SJ in his life, Arthur views the tiny planet he lives on in a different perspective. For example, colors are a whole new world to him. Back in a world where he wasn't aware of his presence, Arthur saw the colors in the same blatant, disinterested way that one sees an old box in the back of a garage, but now? He refers to the grass as the same color as the green in Sully's eyes, and chestnuts happened to be in the same hue collection as the curly tresses that sat atop of his best friend's head. Life was dull before Sully, like everything was muted and faded and uninspiring — he has no problem saying that Sullivan has changed his life for the better, even if they were only young boys when it happened.

The boys travel back downstairs after staying out on the balcony for a while, and as soon as they come back downstairs the twins envelope Sullivan into their version of a bear hug. 

"You guys are already replacing me, what, for the new guy?" Arthur comments, clutching a hand over his heart.  "Why, I just feel betrayed." 

Sully replies, "Don't take it to heart, Art, but we both know that I'm better with the kids than you." He punctuates the end of his sentence with a wink, and it takes every bone in the blonde's body not to cup and plant a kiss on the brunette's face. Instead, he shakes his head with a little laugh and a passive whatever, moving to go sit next to his step mother.