During the weeks after that, Alfred met up with Arthur at least six times a week.
For the sake of trying to befriend someone, Matthew had gone with them a few times, much to his twin's dismay. It wasn't as though it made the slightest difference, though. Matthew was pretty much ignored every single time. It didn't surprise him in the slightest.
On top of usually being ignored, it wasn't exactly rocket science to Matthew to figure out that Alfred had a crush the size of the United States on Arthur. Because of that simple fact and all the others combined, Matthew hardly got the chance to even talk to the younger punker.

It was a waste of time to meet up with Arthur, so Matthew let himself being left behind as the other two left. He'd just go for a walk on his own as he usually did. At least, that was his plan. Someone seemed to have other plans for him.

"Hey." That someone said right behind him.

Matthew nearly jumped into the air and bit away a yelp. He slowly turned around, looking straight into a pair of glaring green eyes. Matthew only stared with wide open eyes and an open mouth in amazement. He was one metre seventy-seven, exactly the same as Matthew.

"Aren't you one of the folks living on the corner there?"

Matthew discovered a mild accent in the teenager's English, but he couldn't quite figure out what language it was influenced by. He didn't dare to guess, but he thought it sounded funny. "Y-yes." The shy vampire stammered. "I'm Matthew. Nice to meet you."

The initially stern looking teenager smiled friendly. Or he tried to, at least. Because despite the corners of his lips curling up slightly, his eyes hardly changed. Matthew guessed they were just frozen in a frown. "Nice to meet you too. I'm Abel. I live right over there." He pointed past Matthew at a few houses up ahead.

"Oh. Why are you still outside at this time?"

"What about you?"

"Well…eh. I just wanted to have some time on my own."

"I just came back from gymnastics."

"Gymnastics?"

"Yeah. I've never seen you outside before. Have you ever even walked around the place since you got here?"

"No." Matthew had to admit. "I have hardly even been out of the street."

"Shame. Come on. I'll show you around." Abel said.

Matthew followed him, trying to pay attention to the neighbourhood. There wasn't really much, though. Outside the few streets were mainly farmland and hills as far as the eye could see. It was beautiful to see, but Matthew paid little attention to it. He much rather talked to Abel. He finally had someone to talk to!

"Before I forget to ask." Matthew changed the subject. "Where are you from exactly?"

Abel smiled. "It's the accent, uh? The Netherlands. I've lived in Belgium for a while too." He smiled.

"I lived in Yorkshire for a while, and basically everywhere around the UK."

"Moved a lot?"

"Yeah. Nice neighbourhoods are quite hard to find."

"Ah. In my case it was my mother finding herself a new husband who happened to live in Scotland." Abel shrugged, and Matthew thought he heard him whisper 'jerk', but he chose not to ask about it.

"How old were you when you got here?" Matthew asked.

"Twelve. Only three years ago."

"Wait, you're fifteen?!"

"Yeah. How old did you think I was?" Abel sniggered.

"Eighteen, or something. I thought we were the same age at least."

"And you're…?"

"Seventeen, almost eighteen."

Abel frowned. "Really? Geez, you really have a baby-face, you know."

"Wha-baby-face?!" Matthew was quite offended by that. He was almost 120 years old, for Pete's sake! And this underage boy said he had a baby-face?

"Yeah."

"Brat."

"Old man."

And then they laughed out loud.

They talked about all kinds of things. Along the way, Matthew got to know a lot about his new friend. That his parents got divorced over his father's occasional weed smoking, that he disliked his stepfather but never told anyone because he didn't want to spoil it for his mother, that he had a sister called Judithe and a younger brother called León, that he liked playing football and that he did gymnastics.

He found out that Judithe was in fact his elder twin sister. That was at least one thing they had in common. They had an older twin, and Matthew had to admit he'd trade Alfred for Judithe if he had the chance right away, going by the stories.

Half the time, Matthew got distracted by one extraordinary thing or another about Abel. By his dirty blonde hair that he had stuck straight up with undoubtedly huge amounts of hair gel. Matthew wondered how his hair had stayed that way even though the guy had just gotten out of the gym.
Just seconds later, Matthew noticed the vertical scar on his forehead right above his right eyebrow. It looked like it was rather deep, but Matthew decided not to ask about it. For now.

"Are you always this open to strangers?" Matthew asked.

"Not really. Not at all, actually. You're the only one I talk so much to aside from my sister." All too soon they walked into their street again.
"I guess I'd better go home before my mum starts spitting fire at me." Abel said in his very casual way.

Matthew sniggered. "I guess I'd better have a look if Eric hasn't killed Al yet."

"Let's meet again tomorrow, shall we? I'll drag Judithe along with me, if you don't mind."

"Oh, sure!" Matthew said quickly, which instantly made him wonder if that had sounded too eager.

"'kay. See ya." He ruffled Matthew's hair and went back home.

The vampire shook his head and combed his wavy hair back to normal with his fingers. Abel was actually quite nice. Really nice, even. Finally having friends was new to Matthew. That, and the fact he was actually nice. Had he mentioned nice to himself yet?

When he came back home, Vanessa instantly noticed he had been off for quite a long time. Even Alfred was back already. "Matthew? Where have you been for so long?" She asked concerned.

"I just found myself a friend." He responded, smiling.

"Oh, that's wonderful. You should invite them over." Vanessa was instantly cheered up. Matthew had a friend. That was for the first time in at least 100 years, her eldest son had a friend.

"Sure."

The next evening, Matthew met up with Abel again. This time, he had taken his twin sister along with him. She wasn't as scarily tall as her brother, and she looked sparkly and friendly. She wore a light blue dress with frilly purple sleeves. Her wavy blonde hair was a generous shoulder length and was held back with a purple diadem.

She didn't look like her brother at all, except for one thing: they had the same green eyes.

"Hey, Matty." Abel greeted. "Nice to see you again."

"Hi." Matty? Since when did he call him Matty?

The girl quickly interfered. "Hi, Matthew. I'm Judithe. Nice to meet you."

Matthew was slightly taken aback by her direct and energetic way of acting, but he calmed himself down with the thought that she was only being nice. "Nice to meet you too."

Matthew soon discovered that Judithe was indeed very kind, happy-go-lucky, and that she seemed to hit her brother over the head quite often for very little things. Abel appeared to like teasing his sister with all kinds of things, to which she responded by calling him her 'little baby brother'.
"Who are you calling baby?! Look at yourself, tiny squirt!"

"I'm older!"

"Yeah, by ten minutes, you pushy little twit!"

And things went on in that quite amusing way. This could turn out very nicely for Matthew. Very nicely.

He finally had a reason to look forward to the next day again.

After having met up every day many weeks in a row, Abel, Judithe and Matthew had decided to go to the old playgrounds for once. There was no one there at this time and that it was a nice place to look at around sunset, according to Judithe. It didn't really matter where they went because Matthew always looked forward to seeing the twins again. They were fun. They made him feel almost human.

Matthew greeted the twins with a smile and the trio went to the playground. It indeed was old but it also had a somewhat cosy setting surrounded by bushes and trees like that. The for ages unused swings were a bit dirty, and the slide probably couldn't be used anymore. There was a pencil-shaped bench on the side, where they sat down.

As usual, the siblings talked a lot and as usual, the subjects really were all over the place. Some didn't make sense whatsoever.

Abel had good sense of humour, which was mostly aimed at himself. He was also good at imitating other people. He could do a perfect voice imitation of Arthur, which had Matthew laugh for minutes straight. But also Ronald Reagan, Noel Fielding, Alan Rickman, Jeremy Clarkson and even Prince Charles were common victims of the imitations with a twist. The combination of this with his Judithe's imitations of random strict sort of characters resulted in Matthew laughing more in an hour than he had done in the past hundred years.

When Matthew was sitting in between the two siblings, he felt a tiny bit ignored. "Why are you speaking Dutch?" He asked.

"Because that bit was a bro-sis thing." The two responded simultaneously.

"About what?"

"About how huggable he is." Judithe said teasingly and stuck out her tongue.

"I'm not your personal teddy bear, thank you very much." Abel retorted, but chuckled immediately after that. "She has some sort of huggable-factor-radar in her head, but I think it's broken." Abel mouthed to Matthew, purposely loud enough for Judithe to hear.

"Why is that?" Matthew asked, though he probably didn't want to know the answer.

"Because I think he's huggable." Judithe said, briefly smiling at Abel. "Don't worry, Matt. You're huggable too."

That was the cue one which the twins hugged each other, capturing Matthew right in between them. He yelped in surprise of being squashed between them like a teddy bear. At the same time, he could laugh about it when he was released again. Just to tease a little more, Abel also ruffled with hair. "Heh. Sorry, Matty." He said sniggering.

"So which one of us is more huggable?" The twins asked simultaneously.

Matthew sniggered and shook his head. These two were so weird, but so great to be around. He couldn't remember ever being this happy. For once he wasn't in the background, overlooked by everyone. "I don't know. I think you." He looked at Judithe.

"Whaaat?" Abel whined and pouted like a little child. "Why her and not meee?" He joked.

"Because you're bony and I don't want to risk a paper cut." Matthew answered, hardly able to hold back a laugh.

"Yeah, whatevs, Pudgy." Abel said, now more serious again and poked Matthew in the waist.

He yelped in a pitch so high he could slap himself for it.

"Wait." Abel smirked evilly. "You're ticklish?"

Matthew backed away a little. "No?"

Abel smirked wider and quickly pinched Matthew in the waist repeatedly. Poor Matthew was far too ticklish to his own liking and squirmed, yelped and tried to mutter a 'please stop!'. He failed ultimately.

The twins found this reaction very amusing, and they made a silent agreement to use this foul weapon more often.

For a change, Arthur had invited Alfred over to his house to meet up with his sister as well. He just hoped Rose wouldn't raise an eyebrow and kick the hyper weirdo out. Luckily, that didn't happen. She even seemed to think Alfred was a welcome break from Arthur's stiff and strict nature.

Although that bit of him seemed to cease a little when he was at home. Suddenly, Arthur laughed whenever he wanted, which was actually quite often for someone with the reputation of being cranky, and he suddenly didn't mind an arm around his shoulder anymore. He even started initiating it himself, though he probably didn't even realise it himself.

It started off with a smack against the shoulder after a teasing comment, and after that Arthur didn't seem like his normal self when in public anymore. He even jokingly threatened to sit on Alfred's lap at some point, which took a lot of Alfred's self control not to take as a challenge.
He probably would have dared him to do it if it weren't for Rose standing in the doorway. When she was in the kitchen, Alfred suddenly noticed something about Arthur's ears. They had more piercings than he remembered! And it frightened him a little.

"Uhm, Arthur?"

"Yes?"

"When did you get…" He gestured towards the extra studs in Arthur's ears. "Those done?"

Arthur smiled. "Oh, you noticed. I had them done yesterday right after school." He played with the four new studs. On either side, there were now three rings in the earlobe and a helix piercing.

Alfred shuddered. Piercings and needles in general always gave him the shivers. Needles and ghosts. Those were the only thing he was scared of. And wooden stakes when held by a madman.
But those piercings! Yikes! There was more metal than actual ear!

Alfred carefully poked against one of the studs and shivered again while Arthur thought his kicked puppy-expression was very amusing.

"Doesn't that hurt?" Alfred asked.

"These did." He pointed at the ones high in his ear. "A little. I didn't feel a bit of the other six."

Alfred squirmed, which was quite a motivation for Arthur to go on with his teasing. He would have if Rose hadn't come back. "Arthur, that's about enough. You don't want to scare him to death."

Like that was possible. Newsflash: He wasn't alive to begin with. "I'm not scared of anything." Alfred defended his reputation, but Arthur was very keen on proving him wrong.
"And then the piercer holds that cold needle to your skin and then pushes it all the way through-"

"Cut it out! Cut it out! Cut it ooouuut!" Alfred yelped, covering his ears.

Arthur laughed loudly and Rose just shook her head before going back to the kitchen.

"Calm down, Alfred. I was just teasing." Arthur apologised before patting his head.

"Not funny, dude." Alfred was still shivering and Arthur hung on his shoulder.

"You know, Al." He poked against the right corner of the vampire's bottom lip. "I think a piercing right there would look great on you."

Alfred immediately shot to the far end of the couch. "Dude, stop it!" He pleaded, and Arthur couldn't remember ever getting such a great reaction.

"You know." Rose had put away the dishes and came back into the living room. "I dread the day he turns sixteen. God knows what he'll have pierced when he is allowed to." She frowned at her little brother, who just scoffed. "That's my busyness, isn't it?"

"I'm still your guardian until you're eighteen. Twenty-one if you keep misbehaving like this. You're still only fifteen."

"For a few more weeks." Arthur responded in a sly tone, as though to provoke his sister, and Alfred slowly backed away further to the far end of the couch. So much tension.

He had to go back home not much later, though. Arthur had to go to bed and Alfred, Ludwig, Eric and Matthew had something to discuss while Vanessa was out for a walk on the cemetery.

"You all know what day it is in exactly four weeks." Ludwig started.

"Yeah. Mum's deathday." Eric said.

"200th Deathday." Alfred corrected.

"Correct." Ludwich continued. "Next week is exactly 200 years after your mother died, and I wanted to give her memorable deathday. I'll need your help for that. I want to invite everyone in the street to the party. Your mother likes crowds and parties, so this seems like the perfect chance."

"Cool!" Eric said. "Let me do the music!" He got excited already.

"Ugh. With your horrible music? No!" Alfred protested.

"What was that?"

"Guys!" Ludwig boomed. "Cool it! Focus. Eric will do the music, Al, you'll take care of the invitations. Matt and I will do the decorations and food. Got it?"

"Yup!"

"Yes."

"Yeah."

"One more thing:" Ludwig had to add. "No fighting. If you get into a fight I will hang you in full sunlight for one full day. By your ears."

Matthew and Alfred yelped in fear but Eric only laughed. "Aww. Is your skin so sensitive you'll get sunburned? Ahahaha!"

"Eric." Ludwig boomed. "If you pick a fight you're not allowed to go out and flirt with girls for three months."

"What? No chick-hunting for three months?! That's cruel, dad!"

At that same time, when most sane people slept, Arthur was wide awake. He wasn't supposed to be, but he couldn't bring himself to sleep. There was too much going on in his head.

He kicked his blankets away once again. His head was such a mess he couldn't take it anymore. He leapt out of bed and went to the room next to his: Rose's room. She would know what to do. He carefully shut the door behind him, without waking his sister up.

He could still go back now.
Maybe he should.
But he needed her.
But he could also wait.
But he needed her right now.

When he was close enough, he tried to get her attention. "Rose. Wake up." He gently pushed her shoulder, causing her to wake up. She groaned softly and opened one eye. "Arthur? What's wrong?" She was nearly instantly awake and switched on the light on her nightstand. She sat up and looked at her younger brother. "Come on. Sit down and tell me what's wrong."

Hesitantly and slightly depressed, Arthur sat down right next to her. He didn't know where to start. Or how to start. He even wondered for a brief moment why he was there anyway. "Rose, I think I-" It felt so strange to say it. "I think I'm in love." He said, sounding like he couldn't believe it.

"Oh, but that's nice, Arthur!" Rose exclaimed. "What is bothering you so much then?"

"With a bloke." Arthur added. Damn. Why was his voice shaking so much all of a sudden? He had told himself so many times to say it with confidence. He let his head hang, looking at the ground and trying his best not to look up at Rose. What would she say? He waited for a reaction.

She didn't say anything. Not a word. No change in her expression. Not even a gasp.

Nothing.

Arthur bit hard on his teeth, trying his to suppress the rage caused by pure powerlessness. He had hoped for some kind of reaction. Even if she would have started shouting, it still would have been better than no reaction at all!

"Calm down, I won't kill you." She defended herself, hugging him and leaning her head against his. "Now. What's the biggest thing that's bothering you at the moment?"

"It's so…confusing. I don't know. This is something they don't teach at school. What would he think if he got to know it?"

"I don't know. It's hard to tell when I don't even know who your crush is. I mean, if it's that Dutch guy from a few houses ahead-" She hinted.

"Oh, hell no!" Arthur shouted, shivering at the mere thought of Abel. "It's Alfred." Arthur mumbled, looking away and waiting for his sister to show a load of pity the size of Mount Everest.

Against all his expectations, though, Rose laughed. Hard. "Alfred? Are you serious?" She put her hand loosely in front of her mouth.

"What? What's so funny?" Arthur sneered.

"Nothing. Oh, my. Opposites really do attract."

"What do you mean by that?" Arthur asked, now getting annoyed instead of nervous.

"Nothing." Rose giggled.

"Sometimes I really feel the urge to bloody hit you with a brolly." Arthur deadpanned.

"See? You're so different from that happy sweetheart."

"You're horrible!" Arthur shouted. He spontaneously attacked her with pinches and tickles to the waist which she was very sensitive to. She squealed, laughed and at one point even fell over.

"But really, Arthy." Rose started, crawling back up after her defeat. "How long have you known this about yourself?"

"Longer than you think."

"How long. A month?"

"I was thirteen, hello! Longer than a month."

"And you still got together with Frances despite knowing you're gay?" She questioned.

"Uhm. Rose? That's Francis. With an 'i'."

"Oh. Then what's so confusing now?"

Oh, shit. There was the point he had to start on details. "Well, I got together with him so…naturally. It went so automatically, and I can't see than happening now. Francis and I started dating after that party when we were fourteen."

"The time you said you got a little bit tipsy, and I hoped you wouldn't die of alcohol poisoning?"

"Yeah, that time."

"When you called me crying, saying you were drunk and apologising over and over for…being drunk?"

"Stop it! It's not funny!"

"Wait, you got together how exactly?"

Arthur sighed. "Him kissing me while dancing." He deadpanned. Painful memory. Very painful memory, and Rose, once again, laughed until she almost choked.

~o~o~o~

Deathday, birthday, get it? *shot*

I'm an idiot. Okay.

Please review?