"MattieMattieMattie, you'll never guess what we've found!"
Matthew closed his eyes and counted to three before replying. When his brother was in this sort of mood, it was useful to be as calm as possible. "An entirely new species of alien?"
"No, but that would be seriously cool-"
"A way of building that sun-blocking robot of yours, then."
"No, but... hey, you're starting to sound like Arthur there."
Matthew shrugged, thinking that given how late Alfred's music had been keeping him up of late made him perfectly entitled to be somewhat grumpy. "There are worse people to emulate."
Alfred gave him a funny look. "Okay, seriously, we need to get you out of here before he starts turning you into a colony again. Dude's got far too many old-fashioned ideas as it is."
"And yours are the pinnacle of sense and modernity, I take it?"
"Got that right! But seriously, enough Arthur impressions. You're beginning to scare me." Alfred nodded to himself, as though he'd proved a debate-winning point. "Anyway, you gotta come see what me and Peter found!"
"What did you and Peter find?" Matthew asked dully, pouring water into the kettle. Alfred wrinkled his nose at it.
"That better not be for you-"
"It isn't."
"Well, good! And you're not gonna believe this, Mattie, but- oh, you're just gonna have to see it! But it's so cool, and it's not raining there, and it's got Feliciano but he doesn't seem to remember us, and..." Alfred rambled on, seemingly oblivious to the way that, aside from making various 'hmm'-ing noises whenever his brother paused, Matthew was paying no attention whatsoever. A few minutes later, he seemed to run out of steam and simply stared at Matthew as if waiting for confirmation of something.
"Alright... I'll take a look, then." he told him, still entirely ignorant of what exactly he was agreeing to 'take a look' at. "It'll have to wait until Arthur's got his tea though- you know what he's like."
"Fine. You know that closet on the third floor? Meet us there in two minutes!" With that, Alfred dashed out of the kitchen again before Matthew had a chance to reply. He sighed- it was so typical of Alfred to do that- before turning back to the kettle as it began to whistle at him.
His brother really was insufferable at times.
"Alfred?"
Having delivered Arthur his tea, Matthew had gone straight up to the third floor. There he had found many rooms, at least half a dozen of them furnished with closets. One had been reminiscent of Hot Topic on Halloween night- all concentric circles and black paint with runes galore- and there had been another one that he really rather wished he hadn't looked in, but which seemed to confirm Alfred's suspicion that their ex-guardian was really a closet pervert.
No Alfred, though. No Peter either, and really, everything was far too quiet for a house containing the both of them. Not that Matthew minded that all that much, of course- just that it was starting to make him wonder if there wasn't something extremely bad about to happen.
"Mattie!" The sudden shout made him jump, and he turned to see his brother running down the hall towards him. "Sorry about that, it was the fourth floor really, I forgot. You're gonna love this though!"
"Love what?" Matthew was sceptical as Alfred began tugging on his arm to drag him away- with reason, of course. A great deal of Alfred's 'awesome stuff I found' had landed him in trouble in the past, and he'd been rather hoping for a quiet day.
"It's a surprise! Come on, Groucho. Arthur really is rubbing off on you, isn't he?"
"He's not-" But of course his protests went unheard. With a sigh (he made a mental note to keep a tally of them one day), he allowed himself to be dragged along to the stairs to the tune of Alfred enthusing about how he was certain Matthew would "absolutely love this place, honest!"
"It's a closet."
"It's not just a closet, Mattie!"
"Alright, it's a closet in an abandoned spare room. With a dead fly on the windowsill." He added, on spotting the deceased insect. Alfred spared its sorry cadaver a glance before he turned huffily back to Matthew.
"But it's more than that! Seriously, you've seen nothing yet." He threw the doors of the closet open with a flourish. "Go on, see for yourself!"
Matthew gave the closet a sceptical look. "I doubt I could fit in there, Al..."
"Sure you can! The place is frickin' huge, Mattie- anyone could fit!" Alfred told him, sounding proud with himself.
"Right..." Then Matthew remembered something. "You said 'us' earlier-" Alfred shrugged.
"Yeah, Peter got bored of waiting for you, so he went off somewhere. No idea where."
Matthew took a deep breath. "Okay. Fine. I'll take a look then."
"Awesome!" Alfred grinned, giving Matthew a shove in the direction of the closet. His muttered "I can get there on my own, you know" was ignored, and he clambered inside the admittedly comparatively big closet...
...only to bump his nose on the back a moment later. With yet another long-suffering sigh, he rubbed his nose and turned to Alfred. "So what is it I'm meant to be seeing exactly?"
"Isn't it there?"
"No."
"It should be. Let me have a look!" Matthew obligingly crawled back out of the closet to make way for his brother, who shuffled in rather faster than he had done and hit the back with a loud "ouch!"
"Now," Matthew asked, as Alfred came out nursing his nose and forehead, "what was meant to be there, exactly?"
"I dunno... it was there earlier, I swear!"
"Right." Matthew folded his arms, amused by his brother's slightly nasal tone of voice. "Now, if you don't mind, I'll be going back downstairs."
"Hey, Mattie- wait!"
But he didn't. Alfred's protests followed Matthew out the door and all the way down to the kitchen, where closing the fireproof door shut them out as he proceeded to start making dinner.
-
Coats brushed against Peter as he pushed through the wardrobe. The last few flakes of snow on his jeans melted in the increasing warmth, and by the time he jumped down from the wardrobe he merely looked slightly damp. "Yo, jerk Alfred! You're missing Feliciano's pasta, man- he's saving some for you!"
Alfred stared at him. "How did you get through there?"
"Well," Peter said slowly, giving him his best 'you're so dumb' look, "I walked past that tap and through the coats. Just like before."
"What? But-" Alfred stuck his head into the wardrobe, pushing the coats past to see the snowy landscape beyond, "but that didn't work just now! I tried showing Matt just now, and it was a normal closet!"
"Wardrobe," Peter corrected, "it's called a wardrobe."
"Oh shut up. My way of saying it's better than yours."
"Is not!"
"Is too!" Alfred told him, crawling into the wardrobe with his hand stretched out in front of him.
"Isn't." Peter repeated, ducking in behind him.
"It's there... but it wasn't before. How the hell does that work?"
Peter shrugged. "No clue, but Feliciano's waiting. Come on, jerk."
"Ve- ve, Alfred! The pasta's getting cold!" Alfred grinned on seeing the Italian, his earlier confusion forgotten.
"Yeah, sorry 'bout that. I tried to bring my brother along so he could have some too, but the closet-"
"Wardrobe."
"-closet wouldn't let us in."
Feliciano waved his hands dismissively. "Ve, it's no problem. Now hurry up or I'll have to throw it away and that would be sad!" He led the way into his house (Alfred having to duck to get through the door), and pointed Alfred and Peter in the direction of the dining table, where four plates of Spaghetti Bolognese were laid out as though they were in a posh restaurant. Alfred grinned.
"Nice one, Feli!"
The man beamed at him. "Ve- thanks!" Alfred still hadn't been able to convince him that they did indeed know each other, but for now he was content to assume that if this was all an elaborate setup, at least he was getting food out of it that wasn't hideously burnt or smothered in maple syrup. Admittedly, not everything his brother made had the stuff in it, but most of it did, and even Alfred- who had a mouth full of sweet teeth- had gotten a bit sick of the stuff over the days he'd spent staying with him.
The trio settled themselves down at the table, with Feliciano fussing over the proceedings like a mother hen. "And I don't have any parmesan- ve, this is horrible! But there's water and spaghetti and a little bit of wine, so we should be okay for now."
Alfred grinned lazily up at him. "It'll be fine, Feli- sit down."
"But-"
"Sit."
"Oh, alright then..."
Peter had already started eating by this point, shovelling spaghetti and sauce into his mouth as though he hadn't eaten in days. "'S really good!" He said, the words muffled by the food he was chewing at the same time. Feliciano smiled, looking slightly less skittish.
"Ve- thankyou! Eat up, Alfred, it's good for you!"
For once, Alfred was quite happy to do as he was told. The spaghetti really was good- not that that was a surprise- and he hadn't eaten anything since breakfast, so he was pretty hungry. Tired, too, he noticed as the meal went on. Feliciano wasn't chatting as much as usual, so as he was pretty much left to his own thoughts, he noticed it fairly quickly. A glance upwards showed that Peter was looking pretty sleepy too, though Feliciano appeared to be fine.
"Ve- Alfred, Peter, would you like me to play some music?"
Alfred nodded, then wished he hadn't as his head began to spin. "Alright then." Feliciano got up and, after a few minutes' searching, he returned to the table with a small guitar. He strummed it for a moment, then picked out a few chords as he began to sing.
"Addio, mia bella, addio, e l'armata se ne va..."
Alfred felt his eyelids begin to droop; he was having trouble holding his head up. "Feli? 'M kind of tired..." he mumbled.
Feliciano didn't seem to hear him. "E se non partisse anch'io, sarebbe una viltà ..."
The soft chords were soothing, and sleep seemed oh-so-inviting to Alfred. Figuring that five minutes couldn't really hurt, he let his head loll forward as he slipped away into darkness to the sound of Feliciano, who was still singing softly.
"E se non partisse anch'io, sarebbe una viltà ..."
"Alfred? Peter?" Matthew called up the stairs, yet again. Dinner was about ready; if those two didn't get downstairs, they'd miss it. "Arthur's perfectly calm, honest!"
Still no reply. With a sigh, he began to climb the stairs to the third floor. If his hunch was right, they'd still be there- although he was quietly preparing himself for whatever trap Alfred or Peter may have set for him in the spare room.
The door creaked as he pushed it open. The room was exactly as it had been earlier, if a little darker. "Alfred? Peter?"
There was no reply. He took a tentative step into the room and was more than a little relieved at the lack of buckets upending on his head as he did so. Emboldened, he took another step, followed by another.
"Matthew?"
"Up here Arthur- just looking for the others."
"Right. You be careful then."
A smile tugged at the corner of Matthew's mouth. "I will be, don't worry."
He was at the closet now, hesitantly reaching for the door. There were no buzzers attached- no tricks of any kind, in fact- and so he tugged it ajar. The closet was quite empty, apart from the old coats hanging inside. He was about to turn away and look elsewhere, giving up on his hunch, when the slightest of breezes tickled his neck. Curious, he reached into the closet and pushed apart some coats so that a faint light was just visible behind them.
"What on Earth...?" He muttered, crouching in order to get inside the closet and push a few more coats out of the way. The light grew stronger and he moved forward, too engrossed in its pursuit to even notice the soft 'click!' of the doors closing behind him.
- - -
The Italian is from a traditional song, Addio, mia Bella. The lyrics to the verse here, roughly translated, are as follows:
Goodbye, my beauty, goodbye
And if the army leaves
And I do not go
Then I have been a coward
And if I do not go
Then I have been a coward
On the other hand, given that my Italian really isn't brilliant, if anyone can offer a more accurate translation, or if I've made any really stupid mistakes, then don't hestitate to let me know.