everythingismagic (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
everythingismagic) wrote2010-08-14 01:44 am
everythingismagic) wrote2010-08-14 01:44 am
[CHAPTERFIC] Finding Freedom Chapter 3/5 (Axis Powers Hetalia)
Title: Finding Freedom [FF.NET Chapter 3] [ Writing Journal Previous Chapters ]
Pairing: AmericaxEngland (Also: GreecexJapan)
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Romance/Humor/Drama/Alternate Universe/Action
Word Count: 3,512
Summary: Arthur is a guardian angel who feels as if he's at the bottom of the heavenly ladder. Alfred is Freedom Star, a young superhero at the top of his game. When their paths cross, Alfred's life (and Arthur's afterlife), will never be the same.
Chapter Summary: I’d seen superheroes with the power of flight before, or with flight rings or whatever. But there was a difference between that and… wings. This wasn’t a superpower, but instead something a lot more… magical.
Author's Note: This is the second half. The first half is posted here. As always, feedback and comments are very much appreciated. For those wanting to see some good stuff between America and England, this is where it really starts. :)
To Arthur, there was nothing so organic, so pure, as pen on paper. Nothing like having the ability to whip one’s hand across it and weave stories, like a magic wand conjuring dreams into life. He had hardly been without his stories after dying, but he had been without a manner in which to record them.
Well, that wasn’t entirely true. He’d told them to thousands of children, and it was his wish that many of them had passed those stories down to their own children. It was improbable that they’d remember him specifically, for humans had a habit of forgetting all magic they’d encountered in their childhood. But perhaps, he hoped, they’d still recall the stories.
He liked these pens much better than the ones he’d used when he was alive. They were easy to use, and when he ran out of ink, he’d just snatch another one from the small writing utensil cup on the counter. He’d gone through four already.
Arthur stared at the stack of paper. He had only stopped writing to eat, a sandwich because he didn’t trust himself with the modern heating appliances, as well as now, to watch the interview that Alfred had left a message about.
He could manage something as simple as turning the TV on, at least.
Alfred was ridiculously charismatic, he discovered upon watching the interview. As Freedom Star, he had a permanent smile on his face that never came across as forced. Either it was natural or he’d had loads of practice. Arthur took several moments to survey his skintight superhero outfit in the better light of the studio. It was mostly blue, the high neck cut down into a V in front, revealing a bit of bare skin, that ended a bit above the collar bone. His sleeves were long and his hands were bare. A great white star decorated the center of his chest, and teeing down from that; it was red all the way to right below his white utility belt. The bottom half was blue, and he wore knee high white boots. Alfred was sitting in the interviewee’s chair, one leg resting atop the other as he babbled in response to the reporter’s queries.
Somehow he managed to look both ridiculous and fantastic in what he was wearing.
None of the questions he was asked gave much insight into his character, Arthur felt. They were… for lack of a better description, rather shallow. The news anchor, an older man, asked him the same kind of questions that Arthur thought he might ask a film star or a singer (from Arthur’s limited experience, at least). But Alfred was a superhero, wasn’t he? He was… not in the same league as celebrities like that. He was famous because he helped people, but they discussed his defeat of ‘Ice Phantom’ or whatever as if it were a role he’d just completed in a film. Arthur half thought it a bit degrading that they treated him like a common gossip subject, although Alfred either didn’t notice or was taking it in stride.
“Well as usual, we look forward to seeing more heroics from you, Freedom Star!”
“Thanks a lot.” That smile again.
“Anything you’d like to say before we sign off?”
Alfred looked straight at the camera. To Arthur, it felt like he was staring straight at him. “Um, I have a friend that I met recently. I told him to watch tonight, so uh… Arthur, I hope you’re watching like I told you to.” He waved at the camera, and Arthur felt his cheeks flare up in a hot blush.
“I-idiot…”
The interview ended and Arthur turned off the television, cursing over the fact that his face still felt warm. He grabbed a glass of water to cool himself down (it hardly worked), and went back to weaving his story. The pen graced the paper and he wrote…
“Can you fly?” she asked, pushing a strand of long golden hair behind her ear. Her eyes were bright; brimming with the joy and wonderment that she imagined came with adventures untold, ones that she wished to experience.
“As sure as a fish can swim and a horse can run, I can fly,” he answered.
She took his hand.
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Heracles closed his eyes, wanting more than anything to just tune Sadiq out and fall asleep.
“I ain’t got time to wait for yer messin’ around, Heracles,” Sadiq said from his place at the head of the glass table. Gupta was sitting on his left side, quiet and observant, whereas Heracles was on his right, wishing he was anywhere but at the headquarters of the Davara Syndicate.
“Geh, Sadiq,” Heracles snapped, “I’m working on it. I just…” He turned away, his expression rueful. “I just really don’t think that he’s Omoikane, all right?”
It was a lie. Kiku’s behavior was suspicious. He left quickly after every date, he never allowed Heracles to know where he lived, and he caught him sneaking text messages under the table almost every single time they ate together.
Sadiq rested his chin in his hands and snorted, his eyes rolling behind the white mask he wore. “Yer fucking sweet on him, ain’t you?”
Heracles struggled to remain cool, beating down any embarrassment and shaking his head. “Don’t be stupid, although I know you can’t help that. Kiku’s… not my type.”
Also a lie, Heracles told himself. He definitely felt something for the other man, cherished his time with him and his quirks and just… all that made him Kiku. When he kissed him, it was real. By now, everything he did with Kiku was real.
The room was empty, save the three of them. A small standing clock ticked in the middle of the table, and there were dozens of computers spread throughout the large room. All were on, all were searching and combing for information on two things; Freedom Star and the Cooper family.
“Dammit! I’m tired of waitin’ around for you to catch a hint though!” Sadiq smacked a hand on the table. “We should just bring ‘em in. Capture Kiku and get information out of ‘em that way.”
“You know that won’t work,” Gupta finally spoke up. He had his arms crossed over his chest and a neutral expression on his face. “If he is Omoikane, he’ll never tell us anything about Freedom Star, no matter what we do. That’s just fact. We can’t use force to get this information.”
Heracles sighed, pressing a hand to his forehead. “Sadiq, you’re basing this all off one tiny hint…”
Two months previously, the Davara Syndicate finally came across something in its quest to unmask Freedom Star and Omoikane. Their reasons were simple. It had nothing to do with the duo’s penchant for heroics. The Syndicate and its leader, Sadiq, could care less about those. Instead, it was about the technology the two had access to, had created. For years, people had been buzzing about technology beyond what the duo had released to the public, items they hadn’t patented and had kept to themselves for various reasons. And sometimes, Freedom Star would slip and even admit as much. “We have a lot of stuff we’re working on, a lot of stuff we haven’t released to the market yet;” an innocent comment, but enough to assure Sadiq that what he was aspiring to capture was real. He would acquire those machines, computers, whatever from the two, and patent them himself. The money he would make would be… extraordinary.
All he had to do was find out who they were, threaten them with fully disclosing their identities to the world, then make a promise to keep it secret in exchange for the tech. That would be enough. They didn’t have to come to harm at all if they cooperated.
As for the Coopers, they were another matter entirely.
The lead they were following was a phonecall. Just one phonecall, from a small business firm in mid-town; a short “Freedom Star, you’re needed downtown, at the corner of Perry and Devine!” from the extension of one Kiku Honda. And sure enough, Freedom Star had shown up at that location less than fifteen minutes later. A careless slip, but it was enough.
“It’s a damn good hint, and it’s the best one we got, Heracles!” Sadiq snapped. “I’m endin’ the meeting tonight. Ain’t got time for any more of this, especially if you got no shit to tell me even after nine dates.”
Heracles huffed and stood up, more eager than ever to get home to his apartment and to his horde of inevitably hungry cats.
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It was obvious that Arthur had written a lot when I was gone. Yeah, there was the giant stack of used paper, as well as the several discard pens. But what I first noticed was actually the fact that his fingers were stained with ink.
Well, I was glad that he’d seemingly enjoyed himself. That was awesome, at least.
We were sitting down eating dinner (carryout, because Kiku had gone out and picked up pizza for us), when I finally decided to bring up the interview. Okay, the thing was that I really had kind of hoped he’d watched it. It wasn’t like there’d been anything special about the interview. I think I have a staple collection of like, sixty questions that reporters cycle through, if that. It gets… well eventually you kind of feel like you’re giving canned answers, but what can you do when you’ve already been asked that question twenty times in the last week? No I don’t have a girlfriend, no I’m not planning on holding auditions for a sidekick, and no I don’t mind if Project Runway dedicates an episode to designing a new costume for Freedom Star. As long as they don’t expect me to actually wear it, because my current one is awesome enough as is.
But I just wanted to know that Arthur had paid attention to me, I guess? I don’t know. It had seemed like a great idea at the time…
“I watched your interview,” Arthur said, picking at his pizza. He’d asked for a fork and knife, and was now eating it as if it were a steak or something. Okay, I guess he’d never had pizza before he died. Now that was tragic.
Kiku had gone down into the base to work on something. He’d asked me if I had been confronted by the CIA to stay silent about the Cooper explosion (I had been, right before the interview), and then headed off.
“Oh yeah, I was just about to ask you about that!” I exclaimed, shoving a piece of really, really cheesy pizza in my mouth.
“Don’t talk with your mouth full, you git,” Arthur grumbled. Geez, what was up his… oh right, dead.
“Wasn’t it awesome?”
Arthur rolled his eyes. I stared at him, far more than I really… thought I should be staring, but for some reason, wings and halo aside, Arthur just always caught my eye when he was in the room. I just… liked looking at him. I don’t know.
Well I do now but… not at the time.
“It was preposterous,” Arthur replied. “An entire hour of you being asked asinine question after asinine question, nothing of value at all. Doesn’t that bother you?”
I blinked. That… hadn’t been the reaction I was expecting. “It’s almost always like that,” I began. “It’s celebrity. To a lot of people, that’s what they see, like I’m a movie star or whatever.”
I wiped my hands off on my pajama pants and rested them behind my head. Arthur raised one of his (kind of big) eyebrows.
“And you’re okay with that?” he asked. “You go out there and risk your life to be a hero, to save people’s lives and stop more from being lost and… you don’t mind the fact that to a whole load of people you’re just a pretty face on a glossy poster?”
I grinned. “You think I’m pretty?”
Arthur’s face went really, really red. It kind of worked for him, in a strange way. “Sh-shut it I didn’t mean…”
I waved my hand. “Nah, I think that people do get it though. Yeah, I’m all over magazines and stuff, but… well I kind of like that for one.” Arthur scoffed. “But when you save someone, when you… do something really awesome and heroic, the reaction you get, the fact that you know that… someone’s alive because of you? It’s just… it’s like…” I paused, because it was damn hard to put into words, “like everything you’ve worked for, everything you’ve done to reach this point… all the pain and frustration? You’d do it all again a thousand times.”
Arthur blinked, processing what I’d said, I guess, before a small smile crossed his lips. “Bloody hero,” he snorted.
I felt my cheeks warming at this, which I thought was kind of odd, because it’s not like I didn’t get called hero all the time.
“Th-thanks.” I scratched the back of my head. “That’s what I do!”
Arthur finished off his pizza and pushed himself out of the chair, walking over to me and cocking his head in a gesture that looked like it meant ‘follow me.’
“Uh, huh?”
“You’ve got a backyard. I saw it,” Arthur said.
“Yeah, we do… it’s kind of small though.” I stood up alongside him.
Arthur waved his hand. “No matter. I’m invisible to anyone but you and Kiku.”
“Oh right but…”
“I thought I’d show you that flying thing now,” he interrupted.
I nodded, in a way that was probably really dumb and enthusiastic and not that heroic. But no taking it back, because I’d already done it. “Yes!”
We walked out to my back porch, and it was a cool summer night, my favorite kind. There was a light breeze, but it felt mellow and awesome. Back before I went to university and met Kiku, I used to spend nights like this outside under the stars, thinking and dreaming of what I could do, what I could use my power for.
It’s kind of a cheesy thing to say, but there’s no place better for dreaming than under a starry sky.
I grew up in a pretty small town, so there were always a lot of stars to see. Here in the big city, there weren’t half as many, which was sort of sad.
But… when Arthur took flight, I discovered that it was cooler than any starscape.
I’d seen superheroes with the power of flight before, or with flight rings or whatever. But there was a difference between that and… wings. This wasn’t a superpower, but instead something a lot more… magical.
It was almost a full moon tonight, so the moonlight kind of… bathed Arthur and caused his great white wings to sort of glow. It was, why deny it, really, really beautiful. Arthur flapped his wings like some kind of huge swan or… well there was a lot of strength to it, so maybe an eagle.
But either way, it looked amazing, and I sort of really, really wanted to be up there with him. I was so enraptured by the ease in which he flew; up, down, around, as if stretching his wings, that I didn’t even notice when he came down to land.
Or when he missed his landing by just an inch or two and stubbed his toe on the edge of the patio.
But I did notice when he landed smack dab on top of me, his face mere inches above me, his green eyes wide, his warm breath tickling my face, and his body pressed firm against mine.
“H-hey…” I managed, and I guess I was so infatuated with what I’d just seen that I didn’t even think to shove him off.
“H-hallo,” Arthur said, breathless. He didn’t push away either.
“I’m surprised you have warm breath, since you’re… you know…”
Well that had been lame.
“I’m an angel, not a ghost,” Arthur retorted.
I laughed shortly. “Ahaha good, because I’m afraid of ghosts.”
I was still staring at him, and I could tell that he was staring at me. It’s odd, because usually when you see someone up close, you… start noticing little flaws that make them less attractive. That wasn’t the case with Arthur.
His eyebrows were huge, but as I looked at him closer, I realized that they really kind of worked for him, for the shape of his face and just... complimented his features, I guess. He had a slightly small nose that was sort of cute, especially because there was this light spray of freckles over it that I just…
It kind of made me want to pinch his cheeks.
I could hear the summer cicadas singing, but even they weren’t as loud as both our heartbeats. He had that too. It… kind of caused a little pang in my chest. How could Arthur be so alive in every way, and yet… not be alive? It didn’t seem that fair to me.
Arthur was still above me, and it was… almost like he was frozen. His hands were clenching my shoulders. His cheeks were bright red. Mine felt like they probably were too.
“Hey Arthur?” I asked.
“Mmm?”
“You uh…” Oh god, why was I asking this? “You’re kind of old fashioned right, I mean like… it was a long time ago when you died and….”
“I suppose, to you I would be old fashioned,” Arthur cut in, and his voice, like mine, was still raspy and breathless. “Why do you ask?”
“Were you uh… married or anything?”
I probably sounded really weird to him, but I wanted to know. I wanted to know if Arthur would be disturbed that I thought he was cute, or that he was beautiful when he flew and… just… stuff like that.
Arthur snorted. “Absolutely not. Never planned on marrying either…”
I bit my lip. “Oh ah… why not? I thought everyone got married back then.”
“Firstly, that’s not true,” Arthur began and oh god we were still on top of each other, “Secondly… I’m not…” he exhaled deeply, “I’m not interested in women.”
I kind of wanted to hug him then, squeeze him around the waist in excitement, but I resisted. “R-really? Th-that’s… cool. Me too, I think. I mean, I’ve dated a couple of girls and… they’ve been okay but… I think that I---I well I had uh---“
I couldn’t say anything else, because it was then that Arthur leaned down and touched his lips to mine.
It wasn’t really a proper kiss. Arthur could even brush it off as an accident if he’d wanted to, I’m sure. It was more like, he sort of… grazed his lips against mine, soft and feather-light. If I had been the one doing it, the message would have been something like "I’m not going to kiss you, but I’m going to do this because then you at least know that I want to!” I wasn’t sure if that’s what Arthur meant, but it was really the only explanation I could think of. And it was the one I liked best.
Arthur pulled away, and his bright green eyes were sort of half-lidded for a moment. He pushed himself off of me and stood up, finally, brushing his pants off upon doing so. After taking a second to catch my breath, I did the same.
And I stared at him as he stood with his back to me in the moonlight, his wings glowing bright and his halo shining gold.
If I were less awesome, less heroic, I might have… cried or something. As it was, I was totally just rubbing the ball of my palm over my eyes because something had gotten caught in them.
Arthur the angel was… so beautiful, but it also meant that Arthur was dead, that in some unfair twist of fate or destiny or whatever, the world had barely had a chance to know him before he was taken from it. Of course I’d known this before, but it was kind of like what that meant hadn’t really sunk in. It caused my chest to tighten and my throat to feel raw. I was so used to being able to fix problems. I’m a superhero, after all. If my powers couldn’t do it, someone else’s could. But… no amount of awesome heroics could fix this. Freedom Star was useless here, and I hated that. I hated it so damn much that I was balling up my fists at my side and I was clenching my eyes shut and I was shouting inwardly, a constant stream of curses.
Especially because at that exact moment, Arthur turned his head and looked back at me, bathed in moonlight and with a soft, tiny smile on his face.
It was the first of many times, that it felt to me, for a moment, that Arthur Kirkland was the only thing in the world that mattered.
---------------------------------------------------
Note:
Davara- Tavara or Davara is a demon of the night or nightmare in Turkish folklore of the Trabzon region.
Pairing: AmericaxEngland (Also: GreecexJapan)
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Romance/Humor/Drama/Alternate Universe/Action
Word Count: 3,512
Summary: Arthur is a guardian angel who feels as if he's at the bottom of the heavenly ladder. Alfred is Freedom Star, a young superhero at the top of his game. When their paths cross, Alfred's life (and Arthur's afterlife), will never be the same.
Chapter Summary: I’d seen superheroes with the power of flight before, or with flight rings or whatever. But there was a difference between that and… wings. This wasn’t a superpower, but instead something a lot more… magical.
Author's Note: This is the second half. The first half is posted here. As always, feedback and comments are very much appreciated. For those wanting to see some good stuff between America and England, this is where it really starts. :)
To Arthur, there was nothing so organic, so pure, as pen on paper. Nothing like having the ability to whip one’s hand across it and weave stories, like a magic wand conjuring dreams into life. He had hardly been without his stories after dying, but he had been without a manner in which to record them.
Well, that wasn’t entirely true. He’d told them to thousands of children, and it was his wish that many of them had passed those stories down to their own children. It was improbable that they’d remember him specifically, for humans had a habit of forgetting all magic they’d encountered in their childhood. But perhaps, he hoped, they’d still recall the stories.
He liked these pens much better than the ones he’d used when he was alive. They were easy to use, and when he ran out of ink, he’d just snatch another one from the small writing utensil cup on the counter. He’d gone through four already.
Arthur stared at the stack of paper. He had only stopped writing to eat, a sandwich because he didn’t trust himself with the modern heating appliances, as well as now, to watch the interview that Alfred had left a message about.
He could manage something as simple as turning the TV on, at least.
Alfred was ridiculously charismatic, he discovered upon watching the interview. As Freedom Star, he had a permanent smile on his face that never came across as forced. Either it was natural or he’d had loads of practice. Arthur took several moments to survey his skintight superhero outfit in the better light of the studio. It was mostly blue, the high neck cut down into a V in front, revealing a bit of bare skin, that ended a bit above the collar bone. His sleeves were long and his hands were bare. A great white star decorated the center of his chest, and teeing down from that; it was red all the way to right below his white utility belt. The bottom half was blue, and he wore knee high white boots. Alfred was sitting in the interviewee’s chair, one leg resting atop the other as he babbled in response to the reporter’s queries.
Somehow he managed to look both ridiculous and fantastic in what he was wearing.
None of the questions he was asked gave much insight into his character, Arthur felt. They were… for lack of a better description, rather shallow. The news anchor, an older man, asked him the same kind of questions that Arthur thought he might ask a film star or a singer (from Arthur’s limited experience, at least). But Alfred was a superhero, wasn’t he? He was… not in the same league as celebrities like that. He was famous because he helped people, but they discussed his defeat of ‘Ice Phantom’ or whatever as if it were a role he’d just completed in a film. Arthur half thought it a bit degrading that they treated him like a common gossip subject, although Alfred either didn’t notice or was taking it in stride.
“Well as usual, we look forward to seeing more heroics from you, Freedom Star!”
“Thanks a lot.” That smile again.
“Anything you’d like to say before we sign off?”
Alfred looked straight at the camera. To Arthur, it felt like he was staring straight at him. “Um, I have a friend that I met recently. I told him to watch tonight, so uh… Arthur, I hope you’re watching like I told you to.” He waved at the camera, and Arthur felt his cheeks flare up in a hot blush.
“I-idiot…”
The interview ended and Arthur turned off the television, cursing over the fact that his face still felt warm. He grabbed a glass of water to cool himself down (it hardly worked), and went back to weaving his story. The pen graced the paper and he wrote…
“Can you fly?” she asked, pushing a strand of long golden hair behind her ear. Her eyes were bright; brimming with the joy and wonderment that she imagined came with adventures untold, ones that she wished to experience.
“As sure as a fish can swim and a horse can run, I can fly,” he answered.
She took his hand.
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Heracles closed his eyes, wanting more than anything to just tune Sadiq out and fall asleep.
“I ain’t got time to wait for yer messin’ around, Heracles,” Sadiq said from his place at the head of the glass table. Gupta was sitting on his left side, quiet and observant, whereas Heracles was on his right, wishing he was anywhere but at the headquarters of the Davara Syndicate.
“Geh, Sadiq,” Heracles snapped, “I’m working on it. I just…” He turned away, his expression rueful. “I just really don’t think that he’s Omoikane, all right?”
It was a lie. Kiku’s behavior was suspicious. He left quickly after every date, he never allowed Heracles to know where he lived, and he caught him sneaking text messages under the table almost every single time they ate together.
Sadiq rested his chin in his hands and snorted, his eyes rolling behind the white mask he wore. “Yer fucking sweet on him, ain’t you?”
Heracles struggled to remain cool, beating down any embarrassment and shaking his head. “Don’t be stupid, although I know you can’t help that. Kiku’s… not my type.”
Also a lie, Heracles told himself. He definitely felt something for the other man, cherished his time with him and his quirks and just… all that made him Kiku. When he kissed him, it was real. By now, everything he did with Kiku was real.
The room was empty, save the three of them. A small standing clock ticked in the middle of the table, and there were dozens of computers spread throughout the large room. All were on, all were searching and combing for information on two things; Freedom Star and the Cooper family.
“Dammit! I’m tired of waitin’ around for you to catch a hint though!” Sadiq smacked a hand on the table. “We should just bring ‘em in. Capture Kiku and get information out of ‘em that way.”
“You know that won’t work,” Gupta finally spoke up. He had his arms crossed over his chest and a neutral expression on his face. “If he is Omoikane, he’ll never tell us anything about Freedom Star, no matter what we do. That’s just fact. We can’t use force to get this information.”
Heracles sighed, pressing a hand to his forehead. “Sadiq, you’re basing this all off one tiny hint…”
Two months previously, the Davara Syndicate finally came across something in its quest to unmask Freedom Star and Omoikane. Their reasons were simple. It had nothing to do with the duo’s penchant for heroics. The Syndicate and its leader, Sadiq, could care less about those. Instead, it was about the technology the two had access to, had created. For years, people had been buzzing about technology beyond what the duo had released to the public, items they hadn’t patented and had kept to themselves for various reasons. And sometimes, Freedom Star would slip and even admit as much. “We have a lot of stuff we’re working on, a lot of stuff we haven’t released to the market yet;” an innocent comment, but enough to assure Sadiq that what he was aspiring to capture was real. He would acquire those machines, computers, whatever from the two, and patent them himself. The money he would make would be… extraordinary.
All he had to do was find out who they were, threaten them with fully disclosing their identities to the world, then make a promise to keep it secret in exchange for the tech. That would be enough. They didn’t have to come to harm at all if they cooperated.
As for the Coopers, they were another matter entirely.
The lead they were following was a phonecall. Just one phonecall, from a small business firm in mid-town; a short “Freedom Star, you’re needed downtown, at the corner of Perry and Devine!” from the extension of one Kiku Honda. And sure enough, Freedom Star had shown up at that location less than fifteen minutes later. A careless slip, but it was enough.
“It’s a damn good hint, and it’s the best one we got, Heracles!” Sadiq snapped. “I’m endin’ the meeting tonight. Ain’t got time for any more of this, especially if you got no shit to tell me even after nine dates.”
Heracles huffed and stood up, more eager than ever to get home to his apartment and to his horde of inevitably hungry cats.
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It was obvious that Arthur had written a lot when I was gone. Yeah, there was the giant stack of used paper, as well as the several discard pens. But what I first noticed was actually the fact that his fingers were stained with ink.
Well, I was glad that he’d seemingly enjoyed himself. That was awesome, at least.
We were sitting down eating dinner (carryout, because Kiku had gone out and picked up pizza for us), when I finally decided to bring up the interview. Okay, the thing was that I really had kind of hoped he’d watched it. It wasn’t like there’d been anything special about the interview. I think I have a staple collection of like, sixty questions that reporters cycle through, if that. It gets… well eventually you kind of feel like you’re giving canned answers, but what can you do when you’ve already been asked that question twenty times in the last week? No I don’t have a girlfriend, no I’m not planning on holding auditions for a sidekick, and no I don’t mind if Project Runway dedicates an episode to designing a new costume for Freedom Star. As long as they don’t expect me to actually wear it, because my current one is awesome enough as is.
But I just wanted to know that Arthur had paid attention to me, I guess? I don’t know. It had seemed like a great idea at the time…
“I watched your interview,” Arthur said, picking at his pizza. He’d asked for a fork and knife, and was now eating it as if it were a steak or something. Okay, I guess he’d never had pizza before he died. Now that was tragic.
Kiku had gone down into the base to work on something. He’d asked me if I had been confronted by the CIA to stay silent about the Cooper explosion (I had been, right before the interview), and then headed off.
“Oh yeah, I was just about to ask you about that!” I exclaimed, shoving a piece of really, really cheesy pizza in my mouth.
“Don’t talk with your mouth full, you git,” Arthur grumbled. Geez, what was up his… oh right, dead.
“Wasn’t it awesome?”
Arthur rolled his eyes. I stared at him, far more than I really… thought I should be staring, but for some reason, wings and halo aside, Arthur just always caught my eye when he was in the room. I just… liked looking at him. I don’t know.
Well I do now but… not at the time.
“It was preposterous,” Arthur replied. “An entire hour of you being asked asinine question after asinine question, nothing of value at all. Doesn’t that bother you?”
I blinked. That… hadn’t been the reaction I was expecting. “It’s almost always like that,” I began. “It’s celebrity. To a lot of people, that’s what they see, like I’m a movie star or whatever.”
I wiped my hands off on my pajama pants and rested them behind my head. Arthur raised one of his (kind of big) eyebrows.
“And you’re okay with that?” he asked. “You go out there and risk your life to be a hero, to save people’s lives and stop more from being lost and… you don’t mind the fact that to a whole load of people you’re just a pretty face on a glossy poster?”
I grinned. “You think I’m pretty?”
Arthur’s face went really, really red. It kind of worked for him, in a strange way. “Sh-shut it I didn’t mean…”
I waved my hand. “Nah, I think that people do get it though. Yeah, I’m all over magazines and stuff, but… well I kind of like that for one.” Arthur scoffed. “But when you save someone, when you… do something really awesome and heroic, the reaction you get, the fact that you know that… someone’s alive because of you? It’s just… it’s like…” I paused, because it was damn hard to put into words, “like everything you’ve worked for, everything you’ve done to reach this point… all the pain and frustration? You’d do it all again a thousand times.”
Arthur blinked, processing what I’d said, I guess, before a small smile crossed his lips. “Bloody hero,” he snorted.
I felt my cheeks warming at this, which I thought was kind of odd, because it’s not like I didn’t get called hero all the time.
“Th-thanks.” I scratched the back of my head. “That’s what I do!”
Arthur finished off his pizza and pushed himself out of the chair, walking over to me and cocking his head in a gesture that looked like it meant ‘follow me.’
“Uh, huh?”
“You’ve got a backyard. I saw it,” Arthur said.
“Yeah, we do… it’s kind of small though.” I stood up alongside him.
Arthur waved his hand. “No matter. I’m invisible to anyone but you and Kiku.”
“Oh right but…”
“I thought I’d show you that flying thing now,” he interrupted.
I nodded, in a way that was probably really dumb and enthusiastic and not that heroic. But no taking it back, because I’d already done it. “Yes!”
We walked out to my back porch, and it was a cool summer night, my favorite kind. There was a light breeze, but it felt mellow and awesome. Back before I went to university and met Kiku, I used to spend nights like this outside under the stars, thinking and dreaming of what I could do, what I could use my power for.
It’s kind of a cheesy thing to say, but there’s no place better for dreaming than under a starry sky.
I grew up in a pretty small town, so there were always a lot of stars to see. Here in the big city, there weren’t half as many, which was sort of sad.
But… when Arthur took flight, I discovered that it was cooler than any starscape.
I’d seen superheroes with the power of flight before, or with flight rings or whatever. But there was a difference between that and… wings. This wasn’t a superpower, but instead something a lot more… magical.
It was almost a full moon tonight, so the moonlight kind of… bathed Arthur and caused his great white wings to sort of glow. It was, why deny it, really, really beautiful. Arthur flapped his wings like some kind of huge swan or… well there was a lot of strength to it, so maybe an eagle.
But either way, it looked amazing, and I sort of really, really wanted to be up there with him. I was so enraptured by the ease in which he flew; up, down, around, as if stretching his wings, that I didn’t even notice when he came down to land.
Or when he missed his landing by just an inch or two and stubbed his toe on the edge of the patio.
But I did notice when he landed smack dab on top of me, his face mere inches above me, his green eyes wide, his warm breath tickling my face, and his body pressed firm against mine.
“H-hey…” I managed, and I guess I was so infatuated with what I’d just seen that I didn’t even think to shove him off.
“H-hallo,” Arthur said, breathless. He didn’t push away either.
“I’m surprised you have warm breath, since you’re… you know…”
Well that had been lame.
“I’m an angel, not a ghost,” Arthur retorted.
I laughed shortly. “Ahaha good, because I’m afraid of ghosts.”
I was still staring at him, and I could tell that he was staring at me. It’s odd, because usually when you see someone up close, you… start noticing little flaws that make them less attractive. That wasn’t the case with Arthur.
His eyebrows were huge, but as I looked at him closer, I realized that they really kind of worked for him, for the shape of his face and just... complimented his features, I guess. He had a slightly small nose that was sort of cute, especially because there was this light spray of freckles over it that I just…
It kind of made me want to pinch his cheeks.
I could hear the summer cicadas singing, but even they weren’t as loud as both our heartbeats. He had that too. It… kind of caused a little pang in my chest. How could Arthur be so alive in every way, and yet… not be alive? It didn’t seem that fair to me.
Arthur was still above me, and it was… almost like he was frozen. His hands were clenching my shoulders. His cheeks were bright red. Mine felt like they probably were too.
“Hey Arthur?” I asked.
“Mmm?”
“You uh…” Oh god, why was I asking this? “You’re kind of old fashioned right, I mean like… it was a long time ago when you died and….”
“I suppose, to you I would be old fashioned,” Arthur cut in, and his voice, like mine, was still raspy and breathless. “Why do you ask?”
“Were you uh… married or anything?”
I probably sounded really weird to him, but I wanted to know. I wanted to know if Arthur would be disturbed that I thought he was cute, or that he was beautiful when he flew and… just… stuff like that.
Arthur snorted. “Absolutely not. Never planned on marrying either…”
I bit my lip. “Oh ah… why not? I thought everyone got married back then.”
“Firstly, that’s not true,” Arthur began and oh god we were still on top of each other, “Secondly… I’m not…” he exhaled deeply, “I’m not interested in women.”
I kind of wanted to hug him then, squeeze him around the waist in excitement, but I resisted. “R-really? Th-that’s… cool. Me too, I think. I mean, I’ve dated a couple of girls and… they’ve been okay but… I think that I---I well I had uh---“
I couldn’t say anything else, because it was then that Arthur leaned down and touched his lips to mine.
It wasn’t really a proper kiss. Arthur could even brush it off as an accident if he’d wanted to, I’m sure. It was more like, he sort of… grazed his lips against mine, soft and feather-light. If I had been the one doing it, the message would have been something like "I’m not going to kiss you, but I’m going to do this because then you at least know that I want to!” I wasn’t sure if that’s what Arthur meant, but it was really the only explanation I could think of. And it was the one I liked best.
Arthur pulled away, and his bright green eyes were sort of half-lidded for a moment. He pushed himself off of me and stood up, finally, brushing his pants off upon doing so. After taking a second to catch my breath, I did the same.
And I stared at him as he stood with his back to me in the moonlight, his wings glowing bright and his halo shining gold.
If I were less awesome, less heroic, I might have… cried or something. As it was, I was totally just rubbing the ball of my palm over my eyes because something had gotten caught in them.
Arthur the angel was… so beautiful, but it also meant that Arthur was dead, that in some unfair twist of fate or destiny or whatever, the world had barely had a chance to know him before he was taken from it. Of course I’d known this before, but it was kind of like what that meant hadn’t really sunk in. It caused my chest to tighten and my throat to feel raw. I was so used to being able to fix problems. I’m a superhero, after all. If my powers couldn’t do it, someone else’s could. But… no amount of awesome heroics could fix this. Freedom Star was useless here, and I hated that. I hated it so damn much that I was balling up my fists at my side and I was clenching my eyes shut and I was shouting inwardly, a constant stream of curses.
Especially because at that exact moment, Arthur turned his head and looked back at me, bathed in moonlight and with a soft, tiny smile on his face.
It was the first of many times, that it felt to me, for a moment, that Arthur Kirkland was the only thing in the world that mattered.
---------------------------------------------------
Note:
Davara- Tavara or Davara is a demon of the night or nightmare in Turkish folklore of the Trabzon region.