All the Other Ghosts (Boyxboy Superhero AU Fanfic (Klaine))

Chapter 9

"Ghost Ghost Ghost," Phalanx hisses at him from the other side of the rooftop. "Come see oh my god -"

He gives up trying to tune the little electronic eavesdropping device Phalanx bought to pick up the radio of the cop car twelve storeys beneath them, walks over and dumps it in his hands. "Here, you play with it, I'm not getting anywhere. Where am I loo- oh."

Down on the street, not yet eight o' clock and already dark out, a man and woman are walking with two small children, each child holding a parent's hand and a plastic pumpkin of candy. Each child - impossible to tell their gender under the hood, and neither can be more than six - is swamped in and dragging along the sidewalk behind them a dark grey Ghost cloak. Phalanx looks like he can't quite contain whatever he's feeling, and the Ghost folds his arms, huddles spikily behind his own cloak, feeling the blush rise. "I ought to be getting royalties for all this."

Phalanx pokes him in the arm. "Don't pretend you don't think it's adorable, don't pretend it's not awesome because it is-"

"It's better than those cheap godawful 'sexy Ghostette' costumes girls are barely wearing -"

"You're their favourite superhero, they've been looking forward to this for weeks, they probably haven't stopped talking about it," Phalanx is saying, still staring misty-eyed at those kids, so the Ghost gives him a long look (he is still blushing and, yes, his heart is giving a painful sort of flutter, for those tiny little things in the street who aren't scared of him and aren't shipping him, they just think he's - what? Cool. When has he ever been cool?) and then scans the street again, still some kids and parents around before the night gets out of hand. He raises his eyebrows, catches Phalanx's face in his hands, aims him in the direction of what must be another pair of siblings - probably three siblings counting the older kid with them, a sulking teenager dragging her boots and not in costume. The little girl walking with her is in another grey Ghost cloak, and pink sneakers. The little boy - he must be about eight - is wearing a Phalanx mask, and has green cardboard hexagons stuck to his shoulders.

The Ghost looks at Phalanx's face. Phalanx looks like he's so happy he might start crying.

"Police radio. Phalanx. Please."

Phalanx just stares smitten at those kids, and the Ghost would pretend to be annoyed but oh god look at him, he's the most adorable man on the planet and when has his own life ever been so perfect?

Because it is, absurd as that might sound for someone who slips out of his apartment every night to put himself in harm's way for no reward and endless cost. He never knew how unhappy he was, because he just never knew what happiness was, he thought he was a realist when he never knew what real life could be. Phalanx - Blaine -

Every conversation is a gift, every touch is a privilege, every kiss is a miracle. He doesn't get used to it. How can he start taking this for granted? Every glimpse of his eyes is a blessing. It is actually stupid how happy he is now, he finds himself ridiculous, but then he's with Blaine again and he's just helpless behind the pull of his heart desperate for him, Blaine the sun and Kurt a helpless orbiting comet. He always thought of himself as a cat person. How strange to find that he's got a dog's heart in him, loyal with love to the point of stupidity, too blind to anything but him to realise how obsessed it is, grovelling for every petting, every tossed scrap of attention, and happy in doing it.

It isn't that the undercurrent isn't still there, the undercurrent of everything else, those dark things he pretends aren't still here, aren't still his. The ghosts he insists must belong to someone else, that cold presence, that rattle of chains, no, he can't hear them, feel them, why don't they change the subject to something light and warm and forget the clammy whisper of dead breath behind his back? He just forgets to be afraid, when he's with Blaine. Phalanx. He trusts his shields, trusts his containing arms, trusts in his dog's heart too, he feels it wag its tail in Blaine's chest, thumpathumptahumpathumpa with all his happiness. He knows that he's never been good at working out when the undercurrent will become a riptide and drag him under, it just turns out that he never was a realist, he's always been an optimist. Maybe that was how he survived those empty years, by not even realising that he believed that things were better than they were, and now he has all this and he tells himself that it will be fine, it will work out fine, everything, everything will be fine . . . look at him. How could anything ever be anything but perfect?