Title: Until Death Do You Part
Genre: Romance/horror
Word Count: 1784
Rating/Warnings: PG-15. There is character death. Written for the USUK Sweethearts week, prompt: "Close To You - featuring physical contact of any sort between our two boys."
Summary: Alfred Jones wasn't close to Arthur Kirkland, at least not until he was dead.
They had never been close, when they had both been alive.
They had been schoolmates, but not friends. Alfred F. Jones was - had been - the golden boy of the school, athletic and amiable and even fairly good at classes. He was always surrounded by friends and admirers, always in the middle of any event. He was friendly, enough to make girls and boys cherish unwonted hopes, not enough to actually give anyone reason to think Alfred Jones actually liked a person back in that way, flitting from person to person like a blue-eyed butterfly.
Arthur Kirkland was the school pariah, scowling and anti-social and arrogantly brilliant in class - so much so that even the other serious students – nerds and geeks and overachievers - shunned him for his cutting, condescending wit. He had no friends. He had no mentors among the teachers. His brothers were older and graduated, and good riddance to them was his only thought, but even when they had all been in the same school there had been no bonds between them.
So, no, Alfred and Arthur had never been close when they had both been alive.
All that changed when Alfred died.
Alfred remembered the day he died vividly, but not completely.
He'd been on the way home from baseball practice, still in his uniform - baseball cap backwards as always, jersey open so he could feel the breeze - a duffel bag on his shoulder with his baseball gear. His twin brother Matt had taken his backpack, stuffed with textbooks, notebooks and his portable electronic game systems, home for him, so he didn't have to worry about that.
The day had been sunny and bright, perfect for baseball. They'd ended around sunset, but the sunset was late, and the world still filled with deep red-gold light as he headed home. He'd whistled along to the tune on his iPod as he bounced home, happy because he'd done exceptionally well in practice and he hoped to do the same in their upcoming game against their rival school. Which would send them to State finals!
He had been whistling the chorus of the song, and pleased with himself for getting the little dip in tone just right, Alfred remembered, when he'd been killed. There had been a squelch (he distinctly remembered the sound coming before the sensation) and then the odd feeling of something poking through his chest, like a finger poking him but in reverse. He'd looked down and seen the tip of a big-ass knife poking through his chest.
Then his limbs began to feel cold, and then he couldn't feel his limbs at all, and then he began to fall down. He turned, a little, as he fell, and he saw a shadowy figure behind him with the handle of the knife in his hand. By this time he couldn't see very well, darkness creeping into the corners of his vision and spreading like spilled ink, and he never did remember what his killer looked like.
He didn't remember the pain, or his killer, but he remembered how golden the sky had been, and the music that had been playing in his ears even as he died.
He 'woke up' as a ghost when he was already dead and buried, though he seemed to recall slips and bits of things – his mother crying, his brother screaming, a quiet well-lit room filled with flowers and mourners – as if from a dream. But he didn't 'wake' to full consciousness until he was buried, which he knew because he woke up at his own gravestone, reading his epitaph carved on the marble cross, and that's how he knew he was a ghost.
Then he promptly went insane.
Ghosts had always been his fear. He shivered and shuddered during horror movies, suffering a fear too intense for him to not face, and he'd kept forcing himself to watch ghosts – movies and TV shows and books – because he needed to get over his fear of them, because living with it was impossible. His brother had laughed, his friends had never known or thought he was jokingly over-exaggerating, but it had been real fear the whole time.
But that wasn't even the primary factor. He had to come to grips with his own death, and that wasn't something the human mind was built for. He remembered frenzied speeds, whipping around the town like a wind, and howling and howling like a deranged wolf at an uncaring, starry sky. But there was no running, and no throat to shred with the howling, only being part of the wind, and that broke his mind a little more.
He gradually came back to himself, and was a little ashamed, and a little relieved that – being a ghost – his rampage hadn't done anything except cause a few people to feel cold – and a little upset with that same fact.
When he was Alfred F. Jones again, and not just an insane gibbering spirit, the first thing he did was go visit his brother. He floated around the high school, shadowing Matt, and feeling bad at the dark circles under his twin brother's blue-violet eyes, and the way he slumped his shoulders. It was a bit funny too, in a sad way – he'd always said Matt was practically a ghost, the way he could turn invisible, and now it was he being ignored and unseen by his twin.
He'd been following Matt around for a couple of days, because what else did he have to do, when he noticed Arthur Kirkland gaping at him. Not at something around him, or at Matt, but looking straight at him.
It turned out Arthur had what he called a Third Eye, and had been able to see and hear magical beings and ghosts since he was small. (Alfred asked if, since he could hear them, Arthur also had a Third Ear. He was being serious, but Arthur got angry anyway).
Being a ghost, Alfred could now see the little faeries and green bunny that were apparently Arthur's only friends. He'd freaked out at first, causing Arthur to snicker, but eventually began cooing over them. It was a secret, but he loved cute things – it was why he and Kiku Honda had become good friends, rather than video games as everyone thought – and especially loved bunnies. Minty liked him too.
It was much more bearable to float around Arthur, who could see him and who could talk to him, than around Matt. He began to spend more time with the British boy and his magical friends, occasionally checking in on Matt and his parents but doing so less and less as time went by. He was glad Matt was moving on from the murder but it hurt a little too. And Arthur wasn't such a bad guy to hang out with – he was smart, and witty, and sweet to his fairies and pet flying bunny. He made Shakespeare seem epic, and Alfred enjoyed paying him back by tutoring him in math and physics, because he liked the feeling of being useful.
He followed Arthur home too, feeling indignant on Arthur's behalf when he saw how thoroughly his parents ignored him and how badly his older brothers treated Arthur whenever they came home. Arthur, long used to it, didn't seem to care, but he could see that Arthur liked it when Alfred got mad on his behalf.
They would hang out in Arthur's room whenever school ended, Arthur working on homework while he left the TV on for Alfred to watch. They'd compromised, and Alfred couldn't watch the explodey action hits he loved, but he could watch Discovery Channel like Mythbusters and Dirtiest Jobs, and both him and Arthur loved Top Gear, Doctor Who, and Sherlock Holmes. (Arthur had the BBC, of course.)
Honestly, it wasn't a bad life. Afterlife. Whatever. It wasn't so bad, but that was because he had Arthur around.
Graduation day came, and then Arthur was off to university in England, unlike his older brothers who had chosen to study in their adopted homeland. Alfred went with him of course. He'd swirled once around Matt when his twin marched up to accept both his diploma and the honorary one for Alfred that his class had lobbied the school to give, touched his brother's face with a ghostly hand and smiled sadly before flying back to Arthur's side. Matt didn't know it, of course, but that was the last time he was ever haunted by the ghost of his twin brother.
Alfred realized he was in love with Arthur. And that he could never tell the still-living boy. That, unless he went off into the hell of being alone again, he'd have to watch Arthur find a boyfriend (Arthur had confided in him about being gay), fall in love, and build a life with this unknown guy – instead of the weird stunted half-life of always staying in his dorm-room with a ghost.
He began avoiding Arthur until Arthur, tears in his eyes, confronted him. Then Alfred assured him he'd never leave, and it somehow slipped out he was in love with Arthur, and Arthur said he was in love with him too, but it still hurt as much as ever because Alfred was still dead.
"Alfred, you know when we went to Cornwall? To that old castle?"
"The one you said used to be your family's? Yeah."
"I found something there…a spell book…"
The spell worked, and for eight hours every three days, Alfred could touch Arthur. Only Arthur, and only in the ritual circle Arthur traced out, but what else did he need? They kissed the first time they tried the spell. They made love the second time.
The years rolled by, and Alfred's afterlife was full of Arthur, and Arthur's life was full of Alfred, and neither minded the lack of anything else.
Arthur had lied, though. He hadn't found the grimoire of his ancestors during that trip to Cornwall. He'd found it as a child in a chest of his grandfather's belongings. And the spell to make a spirit corporeal wasn't the only thing in the ancient, skin-bound tome. There was in it, for example, a spell to bind a newly-killed soul to forever roam the world as a ghost.
And somewhere in Arthur's old bedroom in the United States, there was a secret space, where a duffel bag, an old bloodstained baseball uniform, and a silver dagger lay hidden for many years afterwards.