A/N- I'm surprised. I didn't expect it to be so well-received. Thank you all so much! :D
... So I read the reviews and suches and then I was all like, 'imma make another chapter' and so I spent a few days on it then I deleted it then I tried again and I'm still not sure. But you know. Life.
Still UK → US. I think. -begins planning new romance fic so she can stop staying 'I think'-.
"Did someone… say something?"
Arthur stared. There was no way.
No way.
Nobody could hear him.
Nobody could see him.
Nobody knew he was there.
"Alfred?" he said, tentative. "Hello?"
"… Must be my imagination." Alfred's laugh was forced, nervous, "I mean, everyone always telling me the place is creepy and everything, finally getting to me." His voice dropped to a mutter as he attempted to forget the subject. "What was it Matt needed help with?" He left his room all too quickly.
Of course.
Alfred's rationalization became Arthur's.
It was just his imagination. He happened to imagine a voice while Arthur was talking. Just a fluke. An accident. Nothing.
Arthur Kirkland cannot delude himself.
When Alfred returned from wherever he had been with his brother, Arthur was waiting as usual, like Alfred may or may not have noticed he was there. "Welcome back. How was it?" He spoke the words like he had many times before.
Nothing.
"You left your tellie on, you git. Don't you know what power bills are likes these days? Really, one day your mother's just going to take the thing away from you." He didn't mention that, despite the less-than-satisfying program that had been on said television, he had been entertained by it.
Got his mind off earlier that day.
No answer.
"And you've left your room a mess again. I know you think you're the only one who lives here, but could you show some courtesy for the dead and clean up every once in a while?" He sighed in exasperation.
"Whatever." The word was quiet, offhand, like Alfred didn't even realize he was talking.
Their one-sided conversations continued as always. Arthur didn't admit it, but he watched Alfred's expressions much closer—looking for subtle changes, for understanding, for acknowledgement he wasn't alone.
Whenever there was, Arthur rationalized it away.
He stopped doing that, one night. He heard Alfred talking with someone—likely his brother, who might as well be a ghost himself with how often Arthur forgot he was just one room over.
"Matt, can I stay in your room tonight?"
"Why?" Matthew sounded more confused than anything.
"'Cause I… I'm the hero, and something's gonna attack you tonight!" Arthur thought the declaration nonsense, but the discussion… well, he was pretty sure it involved him.
"What's going to attack me?" Matthew clearly didn't believe him.
Alfred paused thoughtfully. "It's a big monster! With lots of tattoos and black fingernails and a lot of arms!"
"… So, a person with a lot of arms is going to attack me tonight." Arthur smirked at his tone.
"Exactly, so I'm staying with you!"
"Do I have a choice?"
"Mattie, do you wanna die?"
Arthur frowned. But he was definitely not hurt.
Not at all.
Just like he wasn't lonely, or tired or being invisible, or even just sick of people coming into this house and not-hurting him with their stupid ignorance.
Nothing like that.
When Alfred sleepily emerged from his brother's room the next morning, Arthur was waiting at the door to the bedroom. He felt the dull ache that always came with leaving the room, even if he wasn't technically "out." A kind of warning, he supposed. "Don't leave your territory," the ache always seemed to say.
"Hey, git, can you hear me right now?" If he could, he made no response. "I know you can sometimes. And you're avoiding me now." No response. Alfred didn't even glance his way. "Clap once for yes, twice for no." His hands twitched, but Arthur didn't try to interpret it. "Your brother isn't stupid, and neither am I—I know you're avoiding me. I'm not haunting you, if that's what you're scared of."
"… Imagination." The word wasn't half as convincing as it should have been.
It was the only proof he need Alfred was listening. "It's not!" he snapped. "It's not your fucking imagination! Damn, why is this the only fucking thing you don't believe? Alfred, I..." He saw Alfred's tense, scared, angry expression. Stopped. Gave up. "Whatever. Pretend I'm a figment of your imagination. Pretend your stupid friend's spiritual wards work." Arthur himself pretended, acted like there was no pain in his words. Pretended he didn't find himself liking Alfred's presence in the room that was once his deathbed. "Move out before you've lived here three years, just like everyone else. It'll make no difference to me."
It would.
But he was sure it wouldn't.
Alfred entered the room later that day. He had to—it was his room, there was no avoiding that fact. Arthur stayed silent. He couldn't leave because he didn't like the dull ache that went with leaving. And so he stayed.
If Alfred wanted to avoid him, then he wouldn't speak.
At first, Alfred didn't talk, either. That was fine. He hadn't expected any different. He played a video game for an hour, one Arthur was pretty sure Kiku had given him for his birthday, but if Arthur had watched and criticized and paid any attention like he always did, then he would of noticed Alfred was neither noisy nor particularly focused on the game.
After an hour, he finally said something. "Have you been here the entire time?"
At first, Arthur didn't respond. He thought Alfred was talking to himself, or repeating a line from some game or comic. Like he always did. Then he snapped up, stared, realized what Alfred was talking about.
Unfortunately, the first thing that came to mind was sarcasm. "No, I died in here one day when you were at the movies. Then I hid my own body. It's under your dresser, if you wanted to know."
Alfred winced. The sound of "Game Over" rang throughout the room, filling the new silence. "… So, the entire time."
"It's good to know logic occurs to you every now and then," His voice was acid. He was convincing himself to believe what he said earlier. It wouldn't mean anything if he left. So many have before him.
"I've never talked with a… with a ghost before." A ghost. The word sounded frightened.
Figures he would be afraid of ghosts. Was his imagined heroism the only thing keeping him from running out?
"Most people don't. Congratulations." It was only after he said it that he realized Alfred was probably looking for a reassurance Arthur wasn't anything of the spiritual persuasion.
"So how long have you been here?" There was new curiosity to his voice. Arthur wondered if it was fake—if it was, he was very good at acting like it wasn't.
"Thirty years or so, but lately I've been thinking it was thirty-five." He tried to sound nonchalant about it, bored. Bored was easy. He was often very bored.
"What's your name?"
He blinked. "Arthur Kirkland."
Alfred seemed to alternate between "imagination" and awkward conversations. Arthur figured it was whenever his surprisingly quickly-developing ability to hear him was a little unreceptive, it was a lot easier to deny something like this.
He didn't tell Matthew, from what Arthur understood. He said everything was normal, like there wasn't a thirty-or-maybe-thirty-five-year-old ghost just hanging out in his room. Or his mother, or their father, who didn't live with them anyway.
"What was life like back then?" Question of the day. Curiosity still prevailed in his tone. Curiosity, interest, fear.
Fear. Two weeks since their first two-way conversation, and Alfred still didn't like sleeping in his own room.
"As you'd expect. Less technology, for one thing." Neither of them spoke in monologue—maybe a couple of fragmented sentences at most. It was amazing, really, given how with anyone else Alfred could talk a mile a minute and how Arthur had always considered himself a person of the social variety, and yet regarding one another, it was like a couple strangers shoved together in one room with neither completely sure of why.
Oh. Wait.
"What did you do for fun?"
"Reading." Arthur stayed in one corner of the room, Alfred laid on his bed.
"What about after the fact?" Alfred didn't like saying "die" or any variations of "die". Finally some respect. If only it wasn't for one the things Arthur didn't care about.
"Watched." He made no move to clarify what he meant by that. "Alfred, are you going to move out, now that you know I'm here?"
"I don't really have much of a say," he replied, defensive.
"… Would you be happy to move?"
Alfred didn't reply.
Another week passed.
Arthur tried to ignore Alfred's lack of answer regarding his question.
"I'm going to school now," he said, as if the ghost hadn't already guessed from the backpack, the textbook, and him being fully dressed before eight o' clock.
"I would say 'have fun', but from what I understand, algebra and chemistry aren't the kind of things you enjoy. What ever happened to 'learning for learning's sake'?"
"You sound like an old man." Despite that, Alfred had grown more comfortable around him, and started teasing him like that. It was annoying, but Arthur suspected it was because of the question Alfred didn't answer. Like it had made Arthur seem more human.
Heh.
Also likely because of that, his other questions had gotten much more… eccentric ("When was the first time you heard about YouTube?" "Did you ever go to those Fifties restaurants with the waitresses on roller skates? Is it fun?" "So my friend says it's weird to call the Spanish-American war the SPAM war. Is it?"). It made Arthur laugh. On the inside.
For the record, Alfred could still move away and he wouldn't feel a thing.
"I'm three times your age, if you count my dead years," he retorted. He, unlike Alfred, had no problems reminding him and anyone else that could hear (so... Alfred and himself) that not only was he dead, but at the moment, to the dense blonde, he was also a disembodied voice.
"Yeah, yeah." Alfred laughed. "See you when I get back."
Arthur blinked. "Bye."
It was the first time Alfred had said something like that.
A/N- Does this require another chapter? I'm not sure. If it does, Imma plan this out a little more.
Is this chapter even any good? That's more important! Oui~!
And I do call the Spanish-American war the SPAM war. I said this out loud and my friend was all 'wut'. It was funny. Keep that in mind.
… I don't know why, but keep it in mind. :]
Reviews~?