Welcome.
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters used in this fanfiction, or the song that inspired it.
REVIEWS
Sora Resi: I'm so happy I updated too. Felt like it was never going to get done. But now we're back on track! Aw. X3 Well, he's not so much of a fluffy beast, more of a fluffy sweetheart.
LesMiserabbits: You... you... eeee! You really think so? Oh, you just made my night, friend!
alguien22792: Hehe, I like the way you think. Aaaaah... don't cry! I'm sorry my writing freaks you out! Oooh. I'm going to have to give you the cliché, "It gets better." It really does, after a few shitstorms. Well, thank you for the compliment! I'm sorry for forcefully pushing onto the emotional rollercoaster! Ah yes, his family. I originally hadn't even planned to make them so terrible. But hey, good/awful ideas strike me at 4 AM. I shall keep writing, at least, until my eyes fall out from staring at a screen all day!
people1040: Oh, don't dislike him either! He's still a good guy, I swear. He's got his own stuff going on is all, even if he was/is being a giant dicksack to Al. As do I, because I write at the speed of molasses!
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"Oh, we hope it will be within the next few days."
Arthur felt a pressure on his hand. It was slight, fuzzy, and he couldn't discern what it was exactly. Just a simple pressure that wasn't unpleasant, but there. It was very different from the aching pressure on his wrist. Voices murmured above him, as they usually did, and he waited to wake up from his recurring dream.
Lately, he had been reduced to a state of lucid dreaming. After experiencing the same events, again and again, it had finally struck him in his mind, like a recollection of where he was, that he was dreaming. It was only lucid in his thoughts, it seemed. He found himself always unable to move, but he could think clearly. Everything was numb on the outside, however, so the only things he could scarcely feel were his own breathing, and slight bits of pressure in varied places. It was odd, and he could honestly say that he missed the feeling of dreaming before everything happened. Dreams were supposed to be fantastic, surreal, yet he was struck with only a numb, blank feeling. He wanted to sigh, but he couldn't.
"But... he's been off and on." Another voice said quietly. Arthur found it vaguely familiar, but he couldn't place a name, couldn't fully recognize it. "Sometimes his eyes even open, but I don't think he's awake when they do."
There was a brief tapping sound, and to his right, a low clink. Then, the sound of shoes on a hard floor, followed by the creaking of a door.
"That's to be expected. He's concussed, not in a coma." the first voice tutted. More creaking of a door, and the pressure on his hand increased. "Speaking of which, both he and you are very, very fortunate. You should count your blessings, not your curses. Have a nice day, I'll be back in a few hours. Call if you need anything."
The creaking door finalized and shut. Silence reigned, save for the constant, dull clicking of a clock, the beeping of a machine, and the loud echoes through thick walls. Sounds of rolling wheels erupted, and he felt the pressure on his hand disappear, followed by strange, whirling gusts of cold air from his left. Then, the sound stopped, and the pressure returned. The person to his left sighed. Arthur then realized that, whoever they were, they were holding his hand.
"I miss you." the person murmured. Arthur was flattered but confused, and he wondered if they could see his pupils moving behind his eyelids. "But it's more than that." the voice continued, and Arthur was alarmed with a cold feeling on his arm, coming in little dapples like rain. It puzzled him, but he kept listening. "I've missed you since before the accident. I miss your smile." Arthur wasn't naïve to the way the voice trembled, nor was he completely clueless to its owner, but to him, at that time, it was something to be denied, something to be ignored.
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"Shouldn't we report him to the police or something?" Arthur suggested one day, as he idly stared at Biscuit, asleep under the coffee table. Alfred, confused, looked up from his DS once again. He quirked an eyebrow and followed Arthur's line of sight to the cat, and found himself laughing.
"What?" he said through a stream of giggles.
Arthur blinked and looked at him with confusion riddling his face. Frowning, he turned his head to the side.
"Why are you laughing?"
"What are you talking about?" Alfred fired back.
"Francis."
"Oh." Alfred immediately calmed. Now he wished Arthur had been talking about the cat. He wasn't necessarily fond of talking about Francis, even if it was easier than it had been before. Shutting his DS for the umpteenth time that summer, he kicked his feet under the table and huffed.
"Do you really think they'd do anything?" he muttered. Arthur bristled.
"Of course they would!"
Alfred's face steadily began to turn red and he stared at the table, sighing. Arthur noticed this and became concerned.
Alfred stared at his own face through the shiny surface of his DS and frowned even more. Its black color prevented him from seeing his red complexion, but he could feel it anyway, heating his face.
"Arthur..."
"Yes?"
"He, uh..."
Arthur nodded, listening. He watched as Alfred's jaw set and he curled in on himself. When he got nervous or serious, Arthur observed, Alfred looked a lot older. Or maybe he was simply thinking of the voice in his dreams.
"Never mind." Alfred sighed at last. Arthur also noticed that he had a habit of dismissing things when they got serious. It was like the boy had a phobia of being sad or afraid, which, in retrospect, would actually make sense, but be tedious all the same. That quality was not the same as the melancholic voice in his dreams, and that made him feel a bit better. Last night's dream had been plaguing him, so much so that he related everything to it. It was refreshing for it to be dismissed.
Still, he frowned.
"No, I don't think we should." Alfred muttered. He fidgeted in his seat, and Arthur simply could not fathom why Alfred wouldn't want that man behind bars. Of course, he did have a point. Perhaps Alfred was going to point out the fact that they didn't have any proof whatsoever. His fidgeting disproved that thought, however.
"Fine." Arthur said. "I... I guess you have your reasons. But if it were me, no matter what the circumstances, I would."
Alfred smiled, then. It was small, but it was there, and it looked nice beneath his red cheeks and his blue eyes. Arthur dismissed that thought, too, and he mentally kicked himself.
"Thanks." Alfred said quietly.
It was quiet without the shrill music of Alfred's game.
"It's no problem." Arthur said in an attempt to fill that quiet, but as soon as it was said, it was silent once again. He wished Alfred could continue playing so that he could continue reading without it being awkward, but the younger boy didn't move. Alfred just stared at Arthur, who was beginning to grow rather uncomfortable.
Little did Arthur know, Alfred's thoughts were a mixture of anxiety and calamity. Feeling quite awkward himself, he said something to fill the void. It was the first thing that came to mind, and he would later scold himself for being random and weird.
"Are you still having that dream?" he asked. Immediately, his face turned red again. Sometimes, he was painfully awkward. He was, however, surprised when Arthur's eyes widened to a comical size, and his face and ears turned red as a beet. The Brit looked away, and, without something important to look at, he found his eyes moving back to Biscuit, who blinked sleepily up at him. Then, the cat realized who was gracing his presence, and with a petite meow, he stood and trotted away with a flick of his tail.
"Yes." Arthur replied, looking back at Alfred but looking away once their eyes met. Alfred frowned at the short answer.
"And...?"
"And... and it just gets more vivid every day."
Now, Alfred was interested. The reaction was more enthusiastic, more... colorful than he had expected. What he had been expecting was the perplexed raising of an eyebrow and an estranged answer, not a flustered, caught off guard expression.
"How so?"
Arthur had been hoping to just end it at that, but evidently, the universe didn't like him on that particular day.
"It's... I can understand the voices now." he supplied. He wanted to fold in on himself, but found he couldn't with Alfred's eyes staring holes through him.
"What are they saying?"
"They're saying... well. I don't know what they're talking about, but I can hear their words."
Alfred nodded, expecting him to continue. Shakily, he did.
"A-and there's always this one voice that's right by me. They sound so sad." he finished.
Alfred gave him a long look, then, indifferently, he shrugged.
"Huh. Weird."
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"We suspect he'll have amnesia." the feminine voice said.
Arthur could almost feel the tense nerves of the person beside him. It was like they were the very essence of the room, the atmosphere, making everything on edge, making the other voices crack and stutter. It may have just been because of his heightened senses, thanks to his eyes being glued shut by some omniscient force, but he swore he could feel it. Then, he felt the pressure return on his hand.
"Will he remember me?" the familiar voice choked. Arthur wished he could open his eyes.
Silence fell onto the room, save for, as usual, the beeping of his heart monitor, and the ticking of the clock. Lately when Arthur was dreaming, everything felt too real. There was a light, painful pulsing on the right side of his head, and his legs were in agony. It was true that he couldn't feel anything but pressure on the outside, but on the inside, everything was magnified, and the pain was intense, throbbing. He was sure that if he could move he would be wincing. The odd, biting sensation on his wrist pulsed, too, but it was more irritating than anything.
"There's no way to tell what he will remember and what he won't. We do think that he will know how to do everyday things, though."
Once again, the door creaked, but paused.
"Don't you think you should go home and freshen up? You've been discharged yourself for a few weeks now, and he is stable."
There was a sharp sniff.
"What if he wakes up?"
"I'll call you personally, I promise."
Arthur's hand felt lonely when the feeling was gone, and the door shut. He missed the voice, and for the rest of that night, he just listened to the clock and his own heart beating.
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"Alfred, may I use your laptop?" Arthur asked one day. The American looked up from his task of connecting a game system to the TV. His head peeked out from behind the screen, and he nodded, returning to messing with wires. It was an old system, and apparently that meant it was more complicated to hook up.
"It's on the table." he called.
Arthur retrieved the laptop and brought it back to the couch where he sat, opening it and hearing it hum to life. He sighed through his nose when the password screen appeared.
"What's your password?" he asked.
The sounds of jumbling wires continued for a moment, then stopped.
"Heroburger. No capitals."
Arthur laughed.
"Seriously?"
"Seriously."
He grinned as he typed in the password, and sure enough, it went through. Clicking the browser, he waited for it to load. When the page was fully loaded, he swallowed thickly before gingerly clicking the search bar. Anxiety mounted itself in his system, and he tried to shake it off before hovering over the "A" key.
"Whatcha doin'?" Alfred asked, and it made Arthur jump because somehow within those few seconds the American had acquired ninja-like agility, sneaking up behind his back without making a single sound. Or perhaps he had just been sitting there staring at the keyboard for longer than he thought.
Arthur just shook his head and began to type.
"Arthur Kirkland hospitalization."
Alfred raised his eyebrows and sat behind Arthur, looking over his shoulder at the laptop.
Arthur noticed Alfred's confusion and sighed as he clicked on the first result, looking over his shoulder. He simply looked at him for a moment, nervously, before looking back at the monitor. Alfred clicked his tongue and rested his chin on Arthur's shoulder. It was meant as a friendly gesture, he feigned to himself, but really, he just had a strange urge to comfort the nervous Arthur. Arthur bristled but otherwise didn't react.
The article stated familiar things about a boy who had killed himself, and whose family had strangely disappeared afterward, but that was mostly ignored, with a bit of unnerving on Arthur's part. He had the urge to just close the tab, but with Alfred's eyes also boring into the screen, he felt he couldn't.
After the opening paragraph, it talked about other unmentionable filler things that were skimmed over, and finally, the last words of the article appeared.
"There was no hospitalization."
Arthur just shook his head and shut the laptop. Alfred didn't move from his spot, but he frowned.
"What brought that on?" Alfred murmured.
"The dream. It's a hospital. I thought that maybe I might be recalling something, but..."
"But no?"
"But no."
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"Yeah, we're fine." Alfred said from the other room. Arthur looked up from his book and in the direction of the voice, finding himself looking at a wall. Alfred laughed, and Arthur stood, following the sound and finding him standing in the kitchen clutching the new home phone.
"I guess so." he said. When he glanced up, he noticed Arthur's presence, and held up a finger.
Steadily, though, his humorous vitality diminished. His smile faded, and his eyes grew pensive as he drew down his eyebrows and fixed his glasses.
"Yeah, he's fine."
There was an indiscernible murmur from the phone, and soon Alfred was frowning.
"I don't think he wants to."
Another murmur. Alfred glanced at Arthur, then looked at nothing as he listened to the person on the other line.
"Matt, what would they even do? He can't remember anything."
Arthur was frowning now, and he strode closer. Alfred's face was growing red. Suddenly, he slammed the phone back onto the machine, successfully hanging up the call. Seconds later, the phone rang, and Alfred picked up the phone and slammed it once again, silencing it.
"What was-"
"That was Matt."
Arthur nervously clasped his hands. It unnerved him, Alfred's ability to make any moment tense. It was like when he wasn't happy, the world wasn't happy. Luckily, he was usually happy. Although at that moment, his shoulders were rigid, and the tips of his ears were flushed scarlet as Arthur stared at his back.
"What did he say?"
"He asked how we were."
"Then... what's wrong?"
Alfred took a deep breath. Arthur saw it in the way his shoulders gently, but rigidly moved up and down. His hand moved and presumably fixed his glasses.
"He said some stuff about you."
Arthur scowled. Lately, he had been disliking the older brother of the two more and more, and had been becoming fonder of the younger. Alfred rapidly turned and fixed Arthur with a meaningful stare.
"Do you... do you want us to report you found... or something?" he mumbled sourly.
"Pardon?"
"Like, do you want us to call the police?"
Arthur huffed.
"If I wanted that, I would have said so already."
"Exactly. But Matt doesn't think so."
Alfred walked into the other room with his arms folded, a closed gesture, but on him it just looked frustrated, not necessarily reserved.
"What did he say?"
The American gave him a long look over his shoulder, before huffing himself. The color still had not left his face.
"He said he thinks I don't want you to leave. Like I... like I like you or something. Haha-ha, crazy, right?" Alfred's voice trailed off at the end, and quickly, before even seeing Arthur's reaction, he ran upstairs and slammed his door.
Slowly, Arthur followed, but the last thing he heard before giving up was a little mumble from the closed door. There was a sliding sound, and Arthur figured Alfred had backed against the door, and was now sitting on the floor.
"I just hate being alone."
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The pressure on his hand never seemed to end. Sometimes it would vary, and sometimes it would, oddly enough, focus on his ring finger. It almost never truly left; however, sometimes it weakened. It was barely there that night, and, as usual, he only saw black. Still, he thought he felt himself tense when the sound of a door opening echoed throughout the nearly silent area. Strangely, there were no voices. Only the tapping of shoes against tile filled the silence, that and a sudden gust of warm air to his left.
Then, he noticed soft snores, and the feminine voice tutted. She stayed close, though. Arthur could feel her standing there. He desperately wished he could move, or just do something. He sent signals all throughout his body, electrifying urges to just do something, anything, but nothing happened. For the longest time, nothing happened. The woman stood there, and the feeling on his left hand was gentle, constant.
That was when, suddenly, miraculously, his hand twitched. His left hand. There was a gasp, and the pressure on his hand tightened.
"Wh-what's-"
"He moved!"
For a while it was quiet, like they were waiting for something to happen. Then, a sigh.
"Mr. Jones, you've seen him open his eyes before and still not be awake. How is this any better?"
As if commanded by an ethereal, enigmatic force, he clenched a fist, and found that the pressure had been another hand all along.
"No, no, he's squeezing my hand."
More silence.
"Mr. Jones-"
"He is!"
Arthur kept his grip. Then, as if staring a miracle in the face, as if blessed with the same magic that made running from monsters in dreams possible, he opened his eyes. He stared at the ceiling, and at first, it was blurry. Then, it came into focus, along with the hum of its lights, along with all other sounds that were covered by the thick film of slumber before.
"Arthur, hey, can you hear me?" the familiar voice cried excitedly, and Arthur was soon faced with clear, known blue eyes that were the same. They were the same.
Both of Alfred's hands were clutching his now, and he found himself nodding. Tears were falling from Alfred's tired, ragged eyes, and a few dropped onto his arm. He followed them with his eyes, and on his hand that was clutched tightly, so tightly by Alfred's, he saw a sparkling golden band adorning his ring finger. Alfred lifted his hand, and shakily kissed the ring.
Arthur, confused, and thoroughly overwhelmed, only managed a raspy gasp.
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To make up for my hiatus, I made the update early! Yay! But not yay because I'm a sadist and just gave you a big ass cliffhanger. But uh, I hope this makes a bit more sense now. And to the people who guessed correctly/damn close, you get a really, really big cookie. The kind with pink frosting.
Also, in case you're wondering what the first gusts of air were in Arthur's first dream this chapter, it was Alfred spinning in a spinny chair. I just found that mental image really cute.
Don't worry, there are still plenty of chapters left. We will have 20 in all at least, possibly 30. Now time to get to the good stuff, because in case you haven't noticed, there are so many unanswered questions. Hmhmhm.
Oh, one more thing. You may be wondering why I picked Little Talks. Well. When I first listened to the song, I thought it was about amnesia, or forgetting why you loved someone. I'm still not clear on its true meaning, but I'm sticking to it, considering OMaM has some pretty out-there songs. (Which are still awesome by the way.)
Until next time.