Disclaimer: As mentioned in the previous chapter, Hetalia belongs to Hidekaz Himaruya, and Alice Isn't Dead belongs to Joseph Fink. I still do not own either of the works.
While you don't need to know the story of "Alice isn't Dead," know that this is a Hetalia x Alice isn't Dead fanfic, and that the plot of this is heavily based on the plot of Alice isn't Dead.
Alfred noticed that once they went north of Salt Lake, the landscape started winding down real quick. It's all majestic mountains before that. As they moved down to the flats, it's like they forgot the grandeur ever existed.
He didn't think the landscape was that bad, really. It was just that… Anything's a letdown from the mountains.
Feliciano was slumped against the window, fast asleep. Alfred glanced at him momentarily and smiled grimly, before switching his gaze back to the empty road, losing himself in his thoughts.
He really thought Arthur was dead. Not all of the evidence was there, but it was true. Arthur really was dead. Alfred couldn't think of another reason he would vanish like that. Just gone. Just not Arthur next to Alfred in the mornings or coughing before bed. The adorably hostile front he put up, which was so easy to get behind.
He mourned Arthur. He didn't think he had ever loved someone so hard up to that point. From his god damn gut.
So screw you for that, Alfred thought to himself bitterly.
He went to groups. Alfred sat in circles and talked about Arthur, how much he loved him. That's what we do now, right? As a civilization, we sit in a circle and we describe the shape of the monster that is devouring us. We hope, like a talisman, that our description will provide some shelter against it.
It won't though, Alfred thought. We are helpless.
The circle was fine. It was good, actually. Alfred talked about Arthur, how he was always a little strange, almost always dressed in the completely buttoned navy blue collared shirt with a white trim and a white brooch of a penrose triangle.
And then, it was the news. A murder. Brutal, somewhere in the midwest. Not a city Alfred recognized. A city no one recognized except those that lived there. Somewhere in the heart of somewhere else.
And bystanders gawking, standing in a circle and trying to describe with just their faces the shape of the monster they had seen, trying to get a handle on it, trying to get by.
And there he was. Not Arthur, no. Alfred knew better than to hope he was still alive. Someone dressed the same as Arthur. Completely buttoned navy blue collared shirt with a white trim and a white brooch of a penrose triangle. Right among them looking like they knew exactly what was going on, like nothing was a surprise to them.
Nothing ever was a surprise to Arthur either, was it? Alfred pondered. He always did seem to know everything.
Alfred was never one to watch the news much, but when he saw it again- a different person, a woman, also dressed in a completely buttoned navy blue collared shirt with a white trim and a white brooch of a penrose triangle, looking like she knew exactly what was going on, like nothing in this brutal murder case was a surprise to them either.
After that, Alfred tried not to miss a minute of it. Multiple channels of 24-hour news, it devoured him, and he started to see. A fire outside of Tacoma, a landslide in Thousand Oaks, a hostage situation in St. Joseph. Earnest folks speaking earnestly, describing only the bad parts of the world.
And in the background, someone dressed the same as Arthur. Just for a moment sometimes, or sometimes long and staring. Over and over, Alfred made a list of every place he saw an Arthur dress-alike on the news, and that became a map of America.
So, his boyfriend was probably part of a secret society before he died. That was good to know. That was new information.
Alfred stopped going to groups. He stopped sitting in a circle, started going, started moving, trying to understand, trying to get a grasp on the situation.
That's what he told himself anyways. Even now, Alfred knew he was still sitting in a circle. Just telling the story over and over again to himself, hoping that someone would hear it and someone would understand.
Hoping to ward off the monster by describing the shape of it.
Alfred quit his job. Walked right into his boss's office and told him that he didn't see a future between himself and prepaid debit cards. His boss didn't say much in return.
He started looking through Arthur's things. He had left them alone; didn't want to get tangled in the memories just yet. But now they weren't memories. They were evidence. Clues to a story Arthur had failed to tell him.
Again and again. On his laptop, on scraps of paper, on letters that he had hidden under piles of clothes, phrases Alfred couldn't understand, left behind by Arthur. "The California Project." "Vector H." "03/24" And, more than any other, "Bay & Creek Shipping." Over and over again Arthur had written about Bay & Creek Shipping.
Alfred didn't understand. Why? Why did this particular truck company interest Arthur so much? What was there left for him to find?
So he took a job. Bay & Creek Shipping. The went anywhere good businesses needed transportation services. Alfred had to go to school to learn how to drive trucks. It wasn't that bad once he got the hang of it. He supposed there were lots of people who do it, so it couldn't be that hard, right?
The job took him all over, even now, as he drove with Feliciano in the seat next to him.
A loyal employee of Bay & Creek Shipping, moving what is in one place to another, every mile a few cents. In his short time working for this company, he had seen things. Terrible things, every single one of them to do with the word "Tribulus".
Alfred didn't recognize the man at the diner that night. He hadn't noticed the "Tribulus" on his shirt, even when he gave him an uneasy nod after sitting down.
Davie was an example. "Tribulus" was a predator. Feliciano was an innocent.
Alfred didn't know what he was. He supposed that he was free.
Alfred sighed. He knew many different types of freedom.
People he knew talked about freedom the same way they talked about art, like it was a statement of quality rather than description. "Art" doesn't mean good or bad. Art just means art. It can be terrible and still be art.
Freedom can be good or bad too. There can be terrible freedom.
Alfred raked a hand through his hair in frustration. "You freed me," he whispered wistfully. "You freed me, Arthur, and I didn't ask you to. I didn't want you to. I am more free now than I have ever been, and I am spiralling, I am spiralling across the country. Maybe your ghost is too."
As he drove towards a stoplight in a town, Feliciano yawned loudly and opened his eyes.
"Alfred?" He asked. "Were you talking to yourself? Where are we?"
Alfred blinked. "Uh…" He pointed at the sign by the stoplight. "Charlatan, I guess?"
"Oh." Feliciano wrinkled his nose. "Isn't that a weird name for a town?"
Laughing, Alfred answered, "Yeah. Sure is."
However, despite its name, Feliciano thought it was a nice enough town, and Alfred agreed. A breakfast and lunch restaurant called the Fairenfield, gas station (no name on the gas station), white Ford pickup truck at the pump, teenage girl pumping gas into it. Little neighborhood beyond that. Tract homes, well-kept yards. The Trade Winds Tiki Motel. A woman with what looks like probably her son, leaving room 204. She looked like she was scolding him, but in a loving way. An elderly man in a flannel shirt was crossing the crosswalk. He gave Alfred a long eye, but not in an unfriendly way.
Feliciano didn't think the world passed through there. He didn't think the world had been to this town in a long time.
As they left the town, Alfred spoke. "So, Feliciano. Tell me about yourself."
Feliciano stretched his arms above his head a bit and loosened the muscles in his shoulders. "Ah… Me? What do you want to know about me?"
"I dunno," Alfred hummed in thought. "How did you end up in America?"
Feliciano laughed lightly. "Ah, si! I used to live in Italy, obviously. I lived with my fratello in the same house. We were happy and we did almost everything together. But then he decided he wanted to move to Spain with his boyfriend, and I decided that it would be too lonely to live in that house by myself." At this, Feliciano smiled softly, albeit a little bitterly. "It holds too many happy memories. So, I packed my things, took a suitcase full of clothes and necessities along with all the money I could, some paints, and ended up here."
Alfred perked up in interest. "Paints? You paint?"
"Yes!" Feliciano's lips turned upwards in excitement. "I love painting! I came to America mostly because I speak English well enough to survive here, but also because I wanted to paint some of the people and places around here!"
"Really?" Alfred grinned. "That's great!"
Feliciano smiled softly. "It's a shame that I no longer have my paints, or any of my supplies anymore. But I'll be fine."
Alfred was silent for a few moments before speaking up again, eyes still on the empty road ahead of them. "Tell you what. Feliciano, how about I buy you some pencils and a sketchbook from a Target or something?"
"Really?" Feliciano grinned widely. "I- That would be wonderful! Grazie, Alfred!"
Alfred laughed, and so the two continued to chat. They talked about Feliciano's life in Italy, about his brother, the things he's done in his short time in America, and even just switched on the radio and tried to sing as loud as possible without swerving off the road.
Hours passed, and the good morale persisted. When they were a bit longer down the highway, to Boise almost, Alfred leaned forwards and squinted out at the sign at the side of the road.
"Okay, I know this sounds crazy," he began, "but aren't we at the same stoplight as the one in Charlatan?"
Feliciano frowned. "No, that's…" He trailed off, and his eyes widened in shock. "Impossible…?"
Charlatan. Fairenfield, Trade Winds Tiki Motel, everything was still there. But something had changed. It's darker now, obviously, later in the day edging into evening, but that's not it. There was still a white Ford pickup truck at the pump. It's covered in mud and dirt. Everything is covered in mud. Black silt on the windows of the restaurant, wet murk in the front yard of the homes, a swamp like a bog.
"What the hell happened?" Alfred whispered.
Feliciano had no answer. There was the teenaged girl, but she was turned away from them, her face pressed into the side of the truck. There's the elderly man on the corner, but he's not crossing. He's turned away from them too, face pressed into the pole of the streetlight. Room 204 of the motel, the woman and her son, faces pressed into the outside of the door.
Nobody was moving.
"I want this light to change," Alfred whispered.
Feliciano couldn't agree more. "The light is green. Let's get out of here."
Alfred put his foot on the gas hard.
There was a deep black mud splashing against the tires. It's running into the street.
Seconds filled with silence passed, and those seconds turned into minutes then an hour before either Alfred or Feliciano dared to speak again. Even when they finally are able to converse, the shock still sat with them.
"What…" Feliciano put his head in his hands.
Alfred exhaled deeply and shook his head in shock. "I have no idea."
North from Boise, the landscape started turning again, along with the mood. Trees popped up again, and with them, the conversation picked up again as well.
"Trees, thank God!" Alfred cheered, and Feliciano laughed and whooped along with him.
There are different types of desert, Feliciano knew. There is desert that is something - it's mesas or it's sand, and it had contours and its own spatial language - and then there's desert that just… isn't. Flatlands were the absence of everything else. Feliciano supposed that this, too, has its own spatial language, but… boy, he could understand how glad Alfred was to see trees again.
They laughed and joked together, the radio went back up, and they almost crashed the truck a few times. But, of course, it had to end.
Charlatan. Again.
"What the fuck." Alfred stared out at the scenery before him with a blank expression. He thought what he'd already seen in his time working for Bay & Creek Shipping was bad enough, but this was worse.
Charlatan again. It's hours and miles away, and again down the road. Alfred knew he wasn't going in circles. All the other town were passing the way they say on the map.
"Alfred," Feliciano called weakly. "Alfred, I… Look." He held up the map in his hands. "Charlatan isn't on the map."
Alfred felt numb.
It was on fire. The whole city was on fire. The gas station, the Trade Winds Tiki Motel. It was an inferno, but he couldn't feel any heat, and he knew Feliciano didn't either.
"Feliciano, don't look." He sounded just as hollow as he felt.
Feliciano curled into a ball. "I wasn't going to. Please just tell me when we get out."
As he drove through the town for the third time, Alfred saw something burning at the gas station. He thought it might've been a person. He didn't want to think about which person it was.
Alfred choked. "Oh, God!"
He heard Feliciano choke back a sob, but he couldn't help but feel helpless as well.
The elderly man was crossing the street. He was on fire. He turned, looked at Alfred, and his face was hollow and burning. What was underneath was exposed as his skin melted away. He opened his mouth and there was fire pouring out from within. His insides were burning.
"Oh my fucking God, I'm going, I'm driving, fuck this," Alfred slammed his foot on the gas pedal and struggled not to cry as he and Feliciano left Charlatan behind for the third time.
This time, there was no recovering from the silence. Feliciano sobbed into his hands and Alfred struggled with the vision of the elderly man burning, now singed into his memory, as he gently rubbed Feliciano's back.
Neither of them spoke a word in the hours that elapsed, in which they knew would end with Charlatan, again.
Everything was back to the way it was before. Everything was clean and new. Customers in the Fairenfield eating pancakes, the teenage girl filling her truck up at the gas station. She was crying. She looked at Alfred and Feliciano furtively, and she was crying.
Everyone was crying. The woman and her son are leaving room 204 at the Trade Winds Tiki Motel; they were both crying. Alfred knew that behind every window on every one of the little tract homes with their neat yards, there was someone watching him and Feliciano and crying.
Alfred narrowed his eyes. "Where's the elderly ma-"
He caught his breath, and Feliciano froze completely.
The elderly man was situated in the space between Alfred and Feliciano's seats.
Neither Alfred nor Feliciano dared to breathe.
He was also crying. His face was eroded by tears, by what looks like decades of weeping. He did not say anything.
"What do you want?" Alfred whispered.
The elderly man was raising his hand. He gestured toward the road out of town. He nodded.
Alfred let his foot off the break, and Feliciano let his breath out.
"We're leaving Charlatan," Feliciano whispered.
The man was gone. In the mirror, Alfred saw him crossing the crosswalk.
"Yeah." Alfred repeated. "We're leaving Charlatan behind."
Alfred had no idea what that meant. All he knew was that its meaning did not include him, and that he was not necessary to it.