If you listen close enough, you can see them. It's the only way I can put it; you can't see unless you listen, can't hear unless you look. They tell secrets that the living don't know, that the living have no business knowing. But when the living want to know, they are relentless and they want what they want. And when they want to know, they come to me. Be glad you can't listen so close, can't hear so well. You don't want to, no matter how much you think you do. There are just some things we weren't meant to find, cliché as that may sound. This is why I am quitting; I am closing the site down. I would apologise, but really I'm not sorry at all.

— AK

Matthew slams the laptop shut, hard. One of the hinges threatens to snap; it's an old laptop, and really Matthew needs a new one anyway. At this point, though, he doesn't care. At this point he couldn't care less about much of anything, really, because he's just closed that laptop on the last chance he'd had to speak to Alfred. Alfred, as it turns out, is a difficult man to reach.

Alfred has been dead three months.

It doesn't feel that way. Well, it does. The other bed is empty every night and every morning and the sheets are straight and unwrinkled, Matthew eats three meals a day all alone in the kitchen, and there is never obnoxious music blasting from the living room late on Friday nights. What it feels like is wrong because the blankets should be strewn across the floor and the pillows should be in a circle because Alfred slept that way; there should be boxes of Froot Loops and Honey Nut Cheerios lined up on the counter with expired milk that had been neglected for a bit too long; the living room should be packed on Fridays with people that never noticed Matthew but who were very interested in his brother. This is all wrong.

To be clearer, it doesn't feel like it's been three months. Matthew can remember quite clearly — too clearly — the call from the hospital — like it had just happened. The drive over, when he nearly got pulled over for speeding. The room, too quiet too white too clean. The steady blip… blip… of that stupid monitor. And then — Matthew just couldn't take it; he left. Alfred was gone two hours later. Matthew was alone in his kitchen.

Fast-forward three months to now, to Matthew sitting in his kitchen again listening to crappy pop music on the radio. Where it was Al and Matt against the world, Alfred's left Matthew to face it all on his own. It's a little bit lonely without him, his twin brother. He's still in a bit of a haze; sometimes he catches himself with words to Alfred on his lips, a joke or a whispered observation. Alfred never answers.

—

Arthur Kirkland's day begins when Gilbert's alarm clock goes off at six AM so Gilbert can go birdwatching. It is quite possibly the most annoying noise one will ever hear — three sharp notes over and over again and the worst thing is that it's the man's bloody ringtone.

This morning, unfortunately, is no exception. Weekends don't stop Gilbert.

Arthur groans, rolls over and sweeps the phone off the nightstand. "Fucking hell, Gil." Really, he couldn't have picked a worse roommate.

Well, no, not true. He could have gotten stuck with one of Gilbert's friends. Probably Gilbert was the least of three evils.

It is with many complaints and quite a bit of difficulty that Arthur drifts back into sleep.

(and when he dreams he dreams of them, faces upon faces upon faces and eyes that watch follow blink flutter, and sometimes Arthur wakes in tears.)

It's eleven when he opens his eyes to blinding light streaming through curtains left open through habit, and Arthur is late for "work" (and for him that is waiting tables at some diner owned by a Chinese man older in years but younger in his eyes, because his old source of income is pretty much done for); Arthur could care less. There are five missed calls blinking on his mobile, all from work, and, sighing, Arthur calls back.

"You're late, Kirkland," and it's way, way too early — by Arthur's Weekend Standards — for anyone to sound this loud and Italian over the phone, and Arthur is half-tempted to hang up the phone on Lovino then and there.

Instead he snaps, "No shit," and pauses to try and find an excuse. "I, I'm feeling sick today. Think it was something I ate."

A snicker from the other end. "What, did you cook last night?" Ha ha, very funny.

"As a matter of fact, I did. Can't come in today."

"You aren't really sick, are you," Lovino grouses so it's hardly a question. Arthur hangs up.

He spends the rest of the day asleep, just like he did yesterday and the day before that. It should scare him, but he can tell himself he's still recovering. He'll be done recovering someday. The day ends when it's midnight and Arthur can't sit still anymore. His life is a paradox. He stops when the world says go but when he wants to go it's always a little too late. And so he walks the streets of London like he's a ghost, and he might as well be.

—

Monday morning finds Matthew on a plane to London, next to a rather well-endowed girl and behind a towering white-haired man who likes to try and start conversations with Matthew only to have them fizzle out minutes later. It's a ridiculous thing to do, going to London, but he'd gotten sick of people telling him he "really ought to move on, maybe a change of scenery will do you good." So far all it's done is make him airsick. When the plane finally touches down Matthew's taken seventeen trips to the bathroom altogether. The man in front of him kept count.

The funny thing is that it isn't raining in London today. Actually it's really nice outside, nothing at all like Alfred had used to tell him England was like. Matthew drags his luggage across dry pavement and it's surprisingly easy to hail a cab to the hotel.

Other than the weather Matthew really doesn't notice much else. London is a blur, its people just flickers and murmurs as he passes them by. His room is unremarkable other than the fact that his television remote doesn't work so he has to change all the channels by hand. Which is fine, because he doesn't really feel like watching television anyway. He spends the day in the room, and skips dinner in favour of tucking in early.

(that night he dreams of Alfred, not the sick, broken Alfred but the one with strong hands and long legs. he's running, far away, yelling "Catch me, come catch me!" and Matthew tries, he tries so hard, but he can't follow Alfred to where he's going. it doesn't hurt the way it does when he's awake, knowing this. instead his chest feels a little lighter and he stops to watch his brother fade out.)