Knull Meg Hardt, Pappa

Begravelsespolka

These chapter titles are all Kaizers Orchestra songs go me!

That first night...sleeping alone...it was the hardest part. Their room was so empty...so quiet. He couldn't keep his mind off the empty space at his side for more than ten minutes. He tossed and turned, from one end of the bed to the other.
It smelled like him and he couldn't get over that.
He wanted to pretend that nothing was wrong, that Francis was just working late. But he had suffered a long forty two hours of trying to settle everything and he just couldn't get rid of that painful truth settling into his gut.
Francis, his husband, the father to his children, was dead.
He got the call at seven; one hour after it happened. One of the patrons at the bar he worked at had gotten a little bit too tipsy and had noticed that Francis was watering his drinks down gradually, something he always did as a precaution. Nobody had expected him to pull a knife and the club's bouncer couldn't get there in time. Francis's heart stopped in the ambulance the first time, and second time during surgery. The third time...it had stopped for good.
Arthur didn't even get the chance to be with him.
He hadn't told the boys yet. He could tell that they were starting to clue in that their papa was missing, but neither of the twins had said anything and Peter was much too young to say anything anyway. But the needed to know eventually. How was he going to explain this, exactly? The pair hadn't really shown much interest in religion so they didn't have much of a concept of heaven and hell...maybe he could say Francis ran away like Alfred's dog who Arthur had accidentally hit with his car.
No...Francis deserved a lot more than that. He had loved those kids with every fibre of his being. Running away to the butterfly farm just wasn't the right excuse.
Obviously, he would tell them exactly what happened eventually, but not now. They were only six. Peter would be fine. Two year olds really didn't know much of anything. Thank god.
Arthur rolled over again, trying to find a comfortable spot, but nothing was comfortable with that soft scent of Francis's rose cologne everywhere. He couldn't take this anymore.
He crawled out of bed, dragging the biggest blanket with him as he made his way down the stairs and into the kitchen. He switched on his electric kettle and threw one scoop of tea into a cup and then his favoured amount of milk (just enough to cool the tea down. Not enough to change the colour too much. He wasn't a heathen).
Once the water finished boiling, he completed the making of his tea and sat down at the table to wait for it to steep.
The silence while he waited was deafening. He was more aware of it than he would like to be. He had gone through nights like this before, where he was restless and couldn't do anything but sit down and have a cuppa. But this time Francis didn't wander downstairs with him. This time there were no kisses on his forehead or promises to make breakfast in bed the next morning.
There was only the deadly quiet.
This was not how he expected his week to go.

Ayeeeeee chapter one which took me, like, three days. Good golly I am glad I write ahead.

Also...the song...is about celebrating a death (the death of the person's daughter) before it happens yeah there is no celebrating in this fic Muahahahahah