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

Chapter 13

First snow, and they decline Mr Conti's invitation into the heat of the kitchens. He loans them an umbrella. They sit on the roof, on borrowed seat cushions, leaned together underneath the umbrella's black dome, their world small and misty with steam and their breath pale from the cold.

The Ghost is huddled down quite small in the cloak wrapped around the both of them, very aware of Phalanx's arm through his, the way it shifts as Phalanx takes a drink of coffee and lowers the cup again. "Dad, um." he says, and his fingers play a little on Phalanx's arm. "Wants you to come home with me for Christmas. If you don't have plans. He even said to bring your brother if you wouldn't come because of him."

"Your dad wants to meet Cooper before me."

"That is not what he was suggesting and what the hell does 'secret identity' even mean to you - ?"

"Okay, okay, jeez, forgot, sorry." Phalanx shuffles his boots of the rooftop a little, shrugs tightly. "I can ask him. Yeah, it'd - be nice to meet your family. Get some time off together."

"I don't . . ." The Ghost watches the snow drop down-down-down, white and carrying silence with it somehow heavier than normal silence, silence like a sound in the dark. "I hate going home for Christmas. Not - not how it sounds. Not like that. I just . . . if I should ever be here helping people it's then. No-one wants Christmas killed forever because one year something horrible happened and no-one was around to help."

"You are not responsible for every person in this city."

He says to his knees, "It's hard."

". . . I know." Phalanx swallows some more coffee, and the Ghost leans his own cup over so he can get both hands around it against the cramping of the cold without loosening his arm from Phalanx's. "My parents are in the Philippines for it, Coo- my brother doesn't want to . . . yeah, actually, it'd be nice." The Ghost tilts his hood so he can see Phalanx's little twitching smile. "A normal family Christmas. I'd like to see what that's like."

"I don't know if we're all that normal," the Ghost says, thinking about his stepbrother the police officer, his girlfriend the student reporter, himself bringing home his superhero boyfriend and his famous brother and how that might be less awkward than previous years but god knows it'll be much weirder. Phalanx rolls his eyes, says, "Okay, a happy family Christmas. Normal's pretty relative anyway I guess, abnormal pretty much is normal as far as I can tell -"

". . . is your family really that bad?"

"Secret identity," Phalanx sing-songs, and shakes his head. "I don't know. No. Just - I don't know, nothing ever . . . feels enough. Like they just . . . they just don't get excited by things. Don't really - feel things. They're just, um. I guess I'm not much like them."

He shifts his leg closer, pulls Phalanx's arm closer. The thought of lovelessness unsettles him in a way he can't understand, a jarring emptiness in his stomach. He'd once been scared that his father would be revolted by him; he never even thought to be afraid that his father wouldn't feel very much for him at all. I'll love you now, he thinks, the feeling fierce white hot as the snow falls all around them, gripping his arm tight. I'll love you enough. I'll make up for it. I'll love you so hard you'll never feel unloved -

"That first winter -" Phalanx says, and tips the umbrella so they can look directly up into the falling snow, so white against the black like the stars are coming down. "When I heard about you, you must have only just . . . I used to check the weather for New York more often than my town. Hoping you weren't cold." He turns the umbrella to shield them again, and the Ghost watches his face. "I can't believe you never knew so many people cared so much."