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chantillyxlacey · 5 years ago

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Holiday Spirits Gift! An OT3 mer-AU in a series of vignettes

Merry Xmas @fishbones-wishbones!! I had so much fun writing this! Your prompt was about as tailor-made for me as it could possibly be lol-- I may have gone a little overboard with it, to the point where it might not even stop with what I’ve got written here-- I’m highly tempted to spin off these vignettes into a long-form fic-- thank you so much for the inspiration!! I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it :3 Merry Christmas!

One: In Which Vivi and Arthur have become castaways

Vivi woke up sunburnt, sore, and salt-crusted, the taste of that same awful stuff burning her mouth. The last time she’d woken up to comparable discomfort had been the day after she’d been arrested by the Regnate’s men-- but no matter how unpleasant the waking up was, it did at least mean that she hadn’t drowned. ‘I’m still alive’ was always a good square one to start from.

Despite easing her eyes open slowly, the bright nearly-noon sunlight still stung like needles, so harshly that her optimism was nearly overcome by the urge to just roll over and go back to sleep for awhile. She valiantly resisted the temptation and sat up, ignoring the aching protests of what had to be every individual bone, muscle, and tendon she had to her name.

Even breathing scraped at her lungs and aggravated her rib cage, but the air was fresh and clean, and with each breath the fog cleared from her head more and more. The more sensible she felt, the more miraculous it seemed that she had really made it to see today. She’d more or less resigned herself to death last night, though she’d refused to just give herself up to it for as long as she had the strength to cling to that swath of wood with--

“Arthur!” she gasped, prepared despite her weariness to launch to her feet and scour the beach inch by inch to find him-- but that didn’t turn out to be necessary. He was sprawled on the sand right beside her, still unconscious but clearly breathing.

He looked about as worse for wear as she felt: his skin was an angry red from the sun and peppered with bruises and scrapes from the impact that had scuttled the ship. When she leaned down to shake him gently, trying to rouse him, she could see salt crystals clinging to his eyelashes.

“Arthur-- hey, Arthur!” she called softly, and after a moment he started to stir, a thin groan ekeing between his lips. It turned into a sharp hiss through his teeth when he tried to open his eyes-- Vivi didn’t know if it was the sun or the salt that had stung him more.

She helped him to slowly sit up, and couldn’t stifle a laugh at the way his hair had dried into stiff peaks that stood almost completely vertically.

“If you’re laughing at me that’s a good sign I’m not dead, I guess,” he rasped, then coughed and rubbed at his eyes.

“You guess right!” Vivi thumped him lightly on the arm, careful to avoid his sunburn. “Congratulations on not drowning!” He laughed at that, though it still sounded a bit like a cough.

“How--?” he asked.

“No idea!” Vivi said cheerfully, and he grinned at her for a moment before turning to stare pensively out at the sea.

“Okay then-- What do we do from here?” he asked.

“No idea,” she said, more soberly. She’d read her share of stories about shipwrecked adventurers, but how much could those stories help them through the real ordeal? “We’ll figure things out as we go, I guess.” She willed confidence into the words. Arthur hummed softly, still watching the waves.

His brow furrowed and he squinted, then suddenly shot to his feet, craning his neck and shading his eyes from the sun.

“What is--? Vivi, do you see that?”

“See what--?” Before she even finished asking she spotted it too-- a huge, fast-moving shadow under the water’s surface several yards out from the shore. Distance and the blinding glitter of the sun on the waves made it impossible to guess what it might be, and within moments it vanished entirely, fading into the endless blue.

“What do you suppose…?” Arthur murmured, more to himself than to her. Vivi shrugged, more to herself than to him. For awhile they watched the sea bob and roll, but the shadow did not reappear.

Two: In which Vivi and Arthur explore

The myriad of books Vivi had read about exotic locales, swashbuckling novels and natural histories alike, combined with Arthur’s practical experience travelling served them rather well as they took stock of their surroundings.

It was an island, or could loosely be called that at least; they’d swept up on what seemed to be a ring of clusters of sand and marsh, held together by tree roots that started several feet before ground level, as though the trees themselves were balanced atop scuttling insect legs. Vivi had read about mangrove forests like this one, but had never seen so much as an illustration before and hadn’t imagined just how eerie the whole tableau turned out to be; Arthur had seen them before but had never learned the name.

The marsh ring wrapped around a lagoon where the water was the clearest, most shining blue Vivi had ever laid eyes on. To their great surprise it turned out to be entirely fresh, despite opening up into the mangroves in several places, where seawater should have been able to leak in and render it too brackish to safely drink. They weren’t about to dwell on the impossibility though; instead they drank until the burn in their throats cooled and the taste of brine was washed from their mouths.

No longer distracted by thirst, they contemplated the second, smaller island nestled in the center of the lagoon. It looked to be real, solid land rather than marsh, but it was difficult to tell: trees clustered there even more densely than in the mangrove, trailing weeping curtains of leaves to brush the water’s surface and shroud the little island from sight.

“I’ve never seen trees that look like these before…” Arthur murmured. “Have you ever read anything about something like that?”

“I’ve read about trees with colorful bark before,” she answered. “But in greens and reds, not blue. And I’ve never heard of a tree with white leaves at all.”

The lagoon was too deep to wade across, but not too wide to swim-- or it wouldn’t have been if they weren’t still tired and aching from the shipwreck, and not too keen on getting into the water again from the same. They’d have to investigate it later, after they took care of the more pressing need to find food and a place to take shelter.

When they returned to the beach they’d woken up on, Arthur’s arms laden with fruit picked from various of the island’s trees (none of which should be growing in a mangrove; but again, they weren’t about to look any gift horses in the mouth, no matter how impossible they were) and Vivi’s with bits of dry wood for a fire, they were surprised to find that more had washed onto the shore while they were away.

Swathes of sailcloth of varying sizes were heaped just out of reach of the rolling surf, along with a mismatched pile of tools, two knives, several planks of wood and lengths of rope, and one badly dented tin bowl. Strangest of all, though, was the large fish stranded far enough up on the sand that it couldn’t have scuttled itself there, still alive and twitching weakly.

“There’s no way this happened just on accident,” Vivi said.

“No…” Arthur agreed, sounding nervous. Vivi didn’t blame him-- if anyone else from the ship had survived and made it to the island as well-- They wouldn’t be terribly thrilled to share a sanctuary with a prisoner and a traitor to be sure, and neither of them were in much of a state to put up a fight.

“We should get back into the trees,” Arthur said, clearly thinking along the same lines. “And just wait and see-- right?” He was already backing up as he spoke, and Vivi followed.

They waited amongst the strange, ghostly roots until the first lavender tinges of sunset crept into the sky and the fish had long since stopped moving. No one came, but they crept back out into the open with caution anyway.

“Arthur, look--” Vivi gestured at the sand when she’d put the firewood down. “There’s no footprints.” “That’s-- Hm. That’s worse somehow, actually. So... what does that mean, exactly? Did a ghost do all this, or what?”

“Thoughtful ghost,” Vivi mused, starting to arrange the firewood and shave off some bark to catch sparks. “Do you know how to cook fish?” “Uh.”

“We’ll figure that out as we go, too,” Vivi laughed.

The fish ended up unevenly cooked, but they were too hungry to care much, and it tasted alright anyway. They ate their fill and slept like the dead.

Three: In which Vivi and Arthur develop routines

The days passed much like the first-- they foraged and tried their luck fishing, and they built a fairly sturdy lean-to between some of the more tightly packed trees, which they shared. The first few times they had woken up to find that the chill of the night had nudged them into each other’s arms as they slept had been awkward, but now they were so used to it that they dropped all pretense, and fell asleep holding one another from the start.

There was plenty of opportunity to explore the central island once their lingering aches subsided, but they never did. Something about it was-- offputting. It had the air of an intensely private place, and even Vivi’s usually insatiable curiosity was cowed in the face of its forbidding aura. They ventured into the lagoon itself to bathe, but never past the deepest point.

Each day also saw a new cache of useful flotsam awash on the sand where they had first woken up: more boards and rope, metal utensils, and one especially lucky morning, one of the smaller iron cookpots from the galley. Something like that could never have just floated up on its own, but they never saw any sign of whoever it was helping them.

Their anonymous angel also left them food. Sometimes it was another fish, sometimes a pile of live clams left in a pit full of seawater dug into the sand, and once a pile of seaweed that Vivi had vaguely recalled could be boiled to make a broth. Whoever it was, they never left any footprints, or any other evidence of their existence but their gifts.

“Maybe it is a ghost,” Vivi mused one evening as she dug a roasted clam out of its shell with a twig.

“What kind of ghost would be so interested in feeding a couple of castaways?” Arthur wondered back, taking a gulp of the sweet water they had recently discovered was hidden inside the hard green fruits that grew on some of the island’s trees closer to the shore. Vivi chewed her clam thoughtfully, but ultimately had no answer beyond a hum and a shrug.

“Getting better at cooking these,” she said instead, reaching for another. “Not that you’d know.” She wrinkled her nose at Arthur, who preferred to eat his raw. Vivi found it detestable. He grinned at her, unrepentant, and held the palm fruit out to her. She drained the last mouthful, then flopped against Arthur with a sigh and hooked one arm into the crook of his elbow, sliding the other around his waist.

She couldn’t be absolutely certain, between the night’s darkness and the orange cast of the firelight, but she’d be more than willing to bet that the color in Arthur’s face wasn’t just from sunburn. She snuggled closer and closed her eyes, smiling to herself when she felt Arthur’s cheek lean against the top of her head.

They sat like that for awhile, warm from more than just the fire, and listened to the night sounds. Vivi spent a few minutes weighing the pros and cons of letting go of Arthur long enough for her to lean up and kiss him. She gradually became aware of a new sound-- something that stood apart from the sigh of the waves and the rustle of leaves, and shook her from her thoughts. Arthur shifted, raising his head as though listening too.

“Artie? Are you… singing?” She already knew the answer before he shook his head-- the sound was distant, so far away that it had to be coming from out at sea. “Could that be a whale? I’ve read that they sing but I never thought I’d get to hear it-- Can you hear whalesong from shore like this?”

“You can,” Arthur said distractedly, staring out at the waves with his brow furrowed. “But I’ve never heard any whale that sounded like this before, though… This sounds too much like…”

“It sounds like a person singing, right? Maybe a ship…” She didn’t finish the thought. The moon was full and fat tonight, and if a ship had been so close they should be able to see it, but nothing interrupted the smooth, dark line of the horizon.

“Most captains are smarter than to risk their ships sailing through this part of the sea,” Arthur murmured. The captain of the Morgause had thought himself above those stories, and everyone but the two of them had paid for it dearly.

Four: In which Vivi and Arthur meet someone interesting

Whatever she’d thought they’re mysterious benefactor would be like-- she’d never have guessed he was a real-- living, breathing, real and right there-- merman.

He was enormous; had he been a man standing on two legs he would have been at least ten feet tall, even if she estimated on the conservative side. The broad, sinuous tail that trailed in the surf behind him was nearly that long all on its own, covered in ink-dark scales that glittered with startling violet iridescence where the sun hit. White stripes marched along its length, looking for all the world like he’d simply had ribs painted on.

His huge hands, each big enough to cover Vivi’s entire torso, were webbed and the fingers tipped in blunt claws, but they handled the gift they’d left for him with utter delicacy. Pale slashes of gills lined his sides, standing out starkly against his brown skin. Other than those details however, from the waist up he looked remarkably ordinary.

Well-- perhaps ‘ordinary’ wasn’t the right word. Remarkably human was probably more accurate; ‘ordinary’ simply didn’t take into account just how astonishingly... appealing his appearance was. Even with half his face covered by an overhang of dark violet hair, Vivi could already tell that he had to be the most attractive man she’d ever seen in her life. Arthur looked just as gobsmacked as she felt, standing beside her and looking down at the same impossible figure on the beach.

“Are you--” Vivi started to call out, and the merman’s head snapped up, his face a mask of shock for a single moment before it-- disappeared.

That handsome, almost-entirely-human face was replaced in an instant with a fanged skull, twin sparks of magenta burning in the empty sockets where eyes should belong. Arthur yelped a curse and tried to scrabble backwards so fast that the powdery sand under his feet gave way and he crashed down on his back. Vivi sucked in a gasp, but it was more amazement than fear.

“Wait!” she called, darting forward even as the merman started to retreat backwards into the surf. “Please, wait-- don’t go just yet!”

As she got closer, she realized that he hadn’t actually shape-shifted or dissolved into shadow and bone-- his skin had simply changed colors, as she’d read certain sea creatures were able to do. Most of his color had deepened to a shade nearly identical to his tail, with patches leeched of color in shapes that mimicked a skeleton.

The patterns faded and his skin returned to human tones as she approached; his eyes, however, remained the same. The whites weren’t white, but as black as his pupils, and the irises were vividly pink. The look in them was guarded and uncertain.

“Was--” She paused. There was no guarantee he’d understand her. There was no reason to assume he could speak English, or any human language at all-- but what else could she do but at least try to communicate? “Was it you who’s been helping us?”

For a moment she thought he didn’t understand, and felt a stab of dismay at how to bridge a language gap that vast-- but then he nodded, face still tight with wariness. “You rescued us, too, didn’t you?” Another nod, although there was an odd hesitation to it, his eyes downcast in something almost like-- shame?

“Did you sink the ship?” Vivi gaped at Arthur, who by now had stood back up and come to her side, aghast that he’d jump to that conclusion. When she looked back to the merman, however, he nodded again.

“It came too close to the island,” he lamented. His voice surprised her: a soft tenor that didn’t seem like it should belong to someone so huge and imposing looking, and laced through with an accent she couldn’t quite place. As he spoke, she could see sharp, triangular teeth flashing behind his lips like pearls. “I’m tasked by My Lady to keep any intruders away, by any means necessary.”

“Why save us, then?”

“You didn’t deserve to drown. You kept each other afloat through the storm, you helped each other even though it put your own safety at risk.” He sounded as though he was reasoning it out to himself as much as explaining to them. “I couldn’t just… Duty or not, I couldn’t just let you die.”

Vivi and Arthur shared a glance. Neither of them were quite sure how to respond. After an uncomfortable silence, the merman offered back the amulet they had made. Vivi blinked.

“You don’t like it?” she blurted.

“N-no-- that isn’t it. I thought you would want it back. That you wouldn’t want to give a gift to someone who…”

“Someone who saved our lives, and has been looking out for us ever since?” Vivi offered.

“Your lives wouldn’t have needed saving if it hadn’t been for me.”

“We kind of needed saving before the ship sank, to be honest,” Arthur said. “There wasn’t anything good waiting for a couple of prisoners when we made port.” “Prisoners?” He sounded horrified.

“Vivi was arrested unfairly and I got caught trying to help her escape. That kind of mutiny gets you hanged-- If it hadn’t been for the storm they probably wouldn’t even have waited ‘til we came ashore.” “I’m sorry,” the merman murmured.

“You don’t have to be. Like I said, you saved our necks.” Arthur offered a wry half-smile, but the merman still looked unsure.

“What’s your name?” Vivi knelt on the sand before him-- even lying on his belly and sunk low in shame, his gaze was even with hers.

“My-- what?”

“Oh--” Vivi wondered if she’d just asked something incredibly stupid, or perhaps even insensitive. “Do you… have a name? Something you call yourself?”

“Yes, of course,” he said, still sounding completely baffled. “I’ve just-- I’ve never had to introduce myself to someone before. My name is Lewis.” It was an astoundingly ordinary name for a mythical-- or supposedly mythical-- being to have. Vivi had to stifle a laugh that was wholly inappropriate for the moment, but she did smile at him.

“Thank you for saving our lives, Lewis.”

He ducked his head again, though this time it seemed more like a flustered movement than an ashamed one.

“You’re… welcome,” he mumbled.

The rest of the afternoon was spent sitting on that beach, trading further introductions and asking Lewis questions about the island.

They learned that the smaller central island, which they still hadn’t yet dared to explore, housed a temple hidden among the weeping trees. It belonged to goddess who Lewis would not name, only calling her “My Lady.”

There were not-- at least as far as Lewis knew-- other merfolk, and he had no parents or family. His Lady had created him with magic for the sole purpose of guarding her island and her temple from any intruders-- the second-to-last line of defense after the enchanted storm she had concocted with magic stole from an ancient rival; he was under orders to sink any ship that braved that tempest, though thankfully crews that were bold or foolish enough to do so were a rarity. Past him, there were wards growing within the trees on the central island itself to repel trespassers. Vivi and Arthur were the first humans to ever set foot on the isle to test them.

“Is it safe here?” Arthur asked. “If your, ah-- your ‘Lady’ comes back to find us here…”

“I wouldn’t expect her to. There are decades between her visits, and she was here less than a season ago. She won’t be returning any time soon.”

Most other questions about his Lady Lewis was cagey at best about, but on any other topic he was happy to give thorough answers. He had apparently never had a conversation with anyone other than the Lady he served before, and he seemed to be enjoying it immensely. They talked through the entire evening, parting ways only when it grew so late that sleep became impossible to fight.

Five: In which Lewis procures a very strange looking fish for lunch

Arthur eyed the lumpy creature with amused skepticism. “Don’t take this the wrong way, Lewis, but I really hope this guy tastes better than he looks.”

Lewis didn’t seem the least bit offended. “He isn’t much to look at, that’s true,” he laughed. “But we don’t know-- perhaps among fish he’s a real Prince Charming.”

“Isn’t that you, instead?” Arthur grinned, then realized just exactly what it was he’d said. His and Lewis’ faces were mirror images of wide-eyed surprise until Arthur went pink from the tip of one ear across to the other and he turned his attention to the cookfire with sudden enthusiasm. “So uh-- how’s the best way to cook his highness? Does the fire need to be hotter, do we need more firewood--?”

Lewis didn’t blush-- Vivi wondered if he could blush at all-- but he looked equally flustered as he explained that this kind of fish needed a more delicate heat, and how they should wrap it in palm leaves. Vivi smirked to herself, eyeing the way that their hands seemed to ‘accidentally’ brush far more often than could be entirely accidental as they prepared the fish together.

Six: In which Lewis and Arthur have a heart to heart

“I’ve been wondering something,” Arthur hesitated. Lewis flicked the very tips of his fins against Arthur’s arm.

“You can ask anything, Arthur. I’ve told you that before.”

“How did you learn so much about the world? You said you’ve never left this island before, but you know a lot-- did-- did you used to be human, Lewis?” Lewis looked surprised, then sad.

“No, Arthur. I’ve always been this.”

“Wait-- I didn’t mean it like--” “I know you didn’t; I know you’d never. I just…” He sighed. “There was a man that My Lady used to create me. I never really was him-- I don’t have any of his memories-- but whatever knowledge he had is now mine. So I know a great deal about a world I’m not a part of.”

“That’s-- so she turned him into you? I’m not sure I understand.”

“No. I wondered myself, when I was new. She told me that he did not become me any more than the earth a seed is planted in becomes the tree.”

“....I still don’t really get it.”

“I didn’t either,” Lewis laughed ruefully. “She said that whether I understood my origin or not didn’t matter, as long as I understood my purpose.”

Without thinking, Arthur laid his hand over Lewis’.

“Why haven’t you ever left?” He asked. “You said your Lady only even comes around every few decades, you could just… go, and see the world for yourself.”

“I was afraid.” Lewis drew abstract shapes in the sand with one blunt claw. “My purpose here isn’t much, but it’s more than I’d have anywhere else.”

“Didn’t you ever get lonely though?” “Not really. And now I never am,” he looked up at Arthur, and finally smiled again.

Seven: In which Lewis invites Vivi and Arthur over for dinner

“Where on the island do you live, anyway, Lewis?”

“Not anywhere on it-- Under it. Beneath the temple there’s a large cavern, and that’s where I live.”

“Oh,” Vivi hummed thoughtfully. Lewis tilted his head, seeming confused.

“Did you want to see it?”

“Isn’t it underwater?” Arthur wondered.

“The entrance is, but there’s a pocket of air in the cave, and a little beach. It might be too far for you to swim on your own but I could carry you--!” He broke off, folding his hands sheepishly. “Ah-- if you didn’t mind me doing that, of course.”

“I wouldn’t mind at all,” Vivi said with a flutter of her eyelashes that was playful but nonetheless made Lewis duck his head shyly.

Lewis met them at the lagoon and they waded in until the water reached their chests. With absolute gentleness, Lewis scooped them against his chest, one of them in each of his massive arms.

“Take as deep of a breath as you can,” he said, and waiting until they had before diving down with them. The water was warm at the lagoon’s surface, but it rapidly cooled as they delved deeper and the light that filtered through her eyelids dimmed. If it hadn’t been for Lewis and his warmth, she didn’t think she would have been able to stand the cold, even though it was mercifully brief. The water warmed back up, and the light returned.

Just when Vivi’s chest was starting to burn with the need for air, the water broke above her head. She sputtered and drew in a long, grateful breath, swiping water from her eyes until she could focus.

“Oh--!” She didn’t know where to look first-- The cave would have been beautiful even unadorned: the ceiling was high-- so high it must have breached the surface and belonged to the ground of the island itself, and peppered with holes that let sunlight stream in. Embedded in the rich black stone of the walls were freckles of micah, which glimmered faintly and reflected like stars in the water’s surface. Even the sand making up the cave’s beach seemed to have a pearly sheen to it.

Garlands were strung in a complex web throughout the cave. Abalone shells and bits of sea glass clinked gently along their lengths, throwing dancing blots of color around the chamber. A band of colorful mosaic, stretching from just above the water line to presumably as high as Lewis could reach, wrapped about two-thirds of the way around the cavern walls. Even clearly incomplete it was gorgeous-- a lovely and chaotic mix of abstract shapes, pictures of sealife, and even maps of constellations. In the water tiny, colorful fish darted around them like living jewels.

Along one wall were natural ridges of stone that Lewis had utilized as shelves, which were covered with an array of dishes and vessels. Some of these were made of stone, some were fashioned from large shells, and a few seemed to be human-made and had probably been salvaged from the seabed. A fire pit sat in the middle of a stretch of pebbles further away from the water’s edge, and a wooden rack nearby seemed to be a setup for drying out firewood. The trinket Vivi and Arthur had made was set in a prominent niche in the cave wall, directly in a beam of golden sunlight.

“It isn’t very much,” Lewis said sheepishly as he set them on the sand.

“What on Earth are you talking about?” Arthur nudged him lightly with his elbow. “Lewis, this place is incredible!”

“It’s like something from a dream!” Vivi agreed, beaming up at him. She clung to his bicep, having to use both her arms around just to reach all the way around. He cast his eyes down and clearly would have been blushing if he could. He’d let them go, but his arms curled gently back around them now.

After a while, Lewis lit a fire with a flint and steel, and prepared a pot of soup for them that was more elaborate than any Vivi had seen before, and was also about the tastiest thing she’d ever eaten. They spent hours sitting by the fire, so absorbed in talking and sharing their meal, that they hardly noticed as the light filtering into the cave from above shifted into rosy hues, then faded. Rather than face the cold of the depths, especially not in the chilly night air, Vivi and Arthur opted to bed down in the soft sand of the cave’s beach.

Eight: In which Vivi is happy precisely where she is

Vivi woke up warm and serene. For a few blissful minutes she didn’t open her eyes or think about where she was, just basked in the comfort of the moment. When she did open her eyes at last, her field of vision was filled with a swathe of skin-- Lewis’ specifically.

Though he’d fallen asleep alongside them on the main beach plenty of times before, Lewis had always kept a respectful distance between himself and the two of them. Now, in the much smaller space of the cave, the three of them had gravitated together as they slept. Vivi was tucked against the expanse of Lewis’ chest, and she could feel Arthur’s arm draped over her waist, as well as the tickle of his breath against the back of her neck. Lewis’ tail was curled up around her and Arthur both, as though holding them in just his arms wasn’t enough.

Vivi was who knew how far from home, from any kind of civilization at all, and at the moment she had no idea how or even if she’d get back. Somehow, she didn’t find the thought distressing-- in fact, she’d never felt as safe or as much like she belonged somewhere as she did right now, wrapped up in Lewis and Arthur’s warm embraces.

They’d figured things out for themselves as they went pretty well so far, and Vivi didn’t doubt that they could keep right on doing so. She craned her neck up to brush a kiss under the edge of Lewis’ jaw, which was as far up as she could reach, and threaded her fingers through Arthur’s. Sighing contentedly, she settled back down into sleep.

#msaholidayspirits2019 #Mystery Skulls #MSA #Mystery Skulls Animated #lewvithur #Lewis Pepper #Vivi Yukino #Arthur Kingsmen #the ot3 #lacey writes

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distractedhistotech · 5 years ago

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The Secret Santa OT3 fic that got way out of hand

@artmayhem

Arthur’s world was pain and confusion. He’d been dreaming…No, it had to have been a nightmare. That couldn’t have happened. Lewis would never do something like that. It was just…impossible. Like rain falling up.

Little by little, he started to hear and become aware. He could hear…familiar voices. He knew them but couldn’t quite identify them. A woman’s voice that made his heart smile. A man’s voice that made him feel safe. Another man’s voice that made him want to cry. And…who did that last voice belong to?

It took a bit longer, but he started to hear a bit more. They were whispering. And shouting. And it had to do with…murder?

Oh, no no no no. He couldn’t lose anyone else. He forced his eyes open.

There was Vivi, standing over him like she was trying to shield him with her body. She looked furious, and her eyes were red and puffy from crying. There was a bandage on her face. Lance was next to her, looking just as furious and like he wanted to shoot something but couldn’t because he’d had his gun taken away. They were both looking at something…on the other side of the room. Arthur laboriously turned his head to see what had both of their attention…

…And found himself staring into the eyes of Lewis. Except they weren’t Lewis’ eyes. They were the eyes of the ghost that had tried to kill them. But it was Lewis. So why…

And suddenly everything snapped into place.

Tall with broad shoulders.

Silly pompadour.

Deep voice.

Purple and pink.

The ghost that wanted them dead…was…was Lewis?

It wasn’t a nightmare.

Arthur’s world suddenly snapped into sharp focus as he realized that he was in a room with someone who wanted him dead. He screamed and somehow managed to push himself away despite missing his arm.

He fell off the bed, and his body was on fire! He gasped in pain and panic and there was shouting and he was breathing fast but he couldn’t breathe-

Blacking out was practically a relief.

The next time Arthur woke up he had a much easier time thinking. He had the familiar haze of painkillers, but he could tell he was in a hospital this time. Now that he could remember what happened (Oh my God! Lewis had dropped him off a cliff!), Arthur realized he’d been injured pretty badly and may have almost died. He didn’t feel too awful though…He had all his remaining limbs and could move them. His left shoulder and back felt pretty bad though. He looked around as much as he could without moving his head. Vivi and Lewis (Why?) weren’t around, but Lance was. He’d probably seen Arthur open his eyes so Arthur just turned to meet his gaze. “Hi Uncle Lance.”

Lance seemed to relax a little. “Hey Arthur. How’re you feeling?”

“Loopy.” He hated pain medicine. “Achey. Not as bad as when I lost my arm.”

“That’s…well, it’s not bad, but I wouldn’t say it’s good either,” said Lance. He paused for a moment, giving Arthur a concerned look. “How much do you remember?”

“Lewis is…” Dead, dead, dead. “He dropped me off a cliff,” he finally said, trying very hard not to cry.

Lance nodded. “Yeah.”

“Why would he do that?”

“Because he’s an idiot,” snarled Lance.

Arthur gave Lance a surprised look. Lance had always been pretty fond of Lewis so hearing him talk about Lewis in that tone of voice was rather jarring even if it wasn’t surprising. “Where-where is he? And Vivi? And Mystery? They were here before.”

“We kicked Lewis out,” said Lance matter-of-factly. “Vivi’s family showed up a while ago. Her father said they had some family stuff to talk about. I’m guessing it had something to do with that sword and the tree lady.”

Arthur blinked. “Tree lady?”

“…” Lance sighed. “Right. You were out for that. A tree lady showed up and tried to kill Mystery and Vivi.”

“Why?” Arthur was trying to figure out if they’d ever done anything to piss off a tree or the like but nothing was coming to mind.

“Something to do with Mystery not being a dog.”

Arthur made a face. “What else would he be?”

“Vivi called him something. Can’t remember what,” admitted Lance. “Some sort of fox with a bunch of tails.”

Thanks to being friends with Vivi and Lewis (and watching anime) Arthur realized Lance was talking about a kitsune. “But kitsune are scared of dogs!” Why that popped out, Arthur had no idea. Lance looked just as confused and shrugged. Arthur groaned. “It sounds like Vivi and I need to have a talk.” Preferably in private if it involved things like magic and ghosts. “Do you know when I’m going to be released? I don’t feel as bad as last time…” But he had been dropped off a cliff…Wait. There had been stalagmites. “How am I not dead?”

“Ah, your shoulder was all torn up, but your implant was too tough for the spikes to go through. It sort of deflected you so you missed the others, but your port got caught and torn off,” explained Lance.

“Oh shit.” Arthur’s remaining hand went to his shoulder where the port was connected. “Were they able to reconnect it? Was my shoulder or the implants damaged? Do I need to keep my arm off?”

“They reconnected the port and replaced the implants. You’ll probably need to keep the arm off,” answered Lance. “It’ll need time to heal. The good news is that you should be able to get out as soon as the doctor is able to get a look at you.”

“That’s a relief,” sighed Arthur. Being reminded of the time he’d spent in the hospital last time made him feel sick. “I can live without an arm for a few weeks.”

Lance nodded. “Good. Remember. It’s only for a little while.”

Arthur nodded in thought. This was all a lot to take in. Still, at least Lewis was back. He was…messed up, but that sometimes happened with new ghosts. He was sure he and Vivi would be able to help him recover so that he thought like a normal person…

But what made Lewis want to kill them anyway? They’d all been friends. Even if Lewis had been confused and delusional while getting used to being a ghost, he should recognize that. Maybe he’d been upset about being left behind? That was all Arthur could come up with, and it seemed like a reasonable thing to be upset about.

Arthur certainly wouldn’t want his body rotting and possibly getting eaten by coyotes somewhere.

Well, they could look after Lewis and his body now…And thinking about the fact that Lewis was dead with his body cold and motionless somewhere was really starting to depress Arthur. Should he maybe try to talk to Lewis?

The memory of Lewis looking at him with ruthless contempt and hatred before dropping him flashed into his mind. He inhaled sharply.

“You okay?” asked Lance.

Arthur nodded. “Y-yeah.” He swallowed. “Just thinking…remembering. I think it’s gonna be a few weeks before I can talk to Lewis.”

And something flashed across Lance’s face too quickly for Arthur to properly identify what it was. “That’s fine,” said Lance.

Arthur wondered if he should push it but decided not to. Lance isn’t someone you want to push.

When Arthur is released two hours later, Vivi and Mystery are waiting outside with his van. She let out a rush of air as she ran up and gave him a less-crushing-than-usual hug. “Arthur! Thank God!”

Arthur smiled and gave her a one-armed hug. “Hey Vivi. How’re you and Mystery? You got whacked pretty hard by that bat…” he trailed off as he noticed bandages on her face and hand. “Oh man, did you get cut up in the crash?”

“No, that was the crazy tree lady,” explained Vivi. “Tried to cut my head off.”

“What?!”

Vivi nodded. “Yeah, get in, and I’ll tell you all about it.”

The three climbed in, Vivi driving for once and Mystery flopping onto Arthur’s lap. Arthur studied Mystery curiously. “So…you’re a kitsune?”

“Yes,” said Mystery.

Arthur stared at Mystery in shock, less from the confirmation and more from the fact Mystery just spoke English. “And you can talk?”

“Yes.”

And Arthur connected a couple of dots. “Do you know how Lewis died?”

Vivi slammed onto the breaks. Arthur immediately panics because he completely forgot about Vivi and her not being able to hear about Lewis, but she turns to him with a panicked look on her face. “He wasn’t there!”

Arthur blinked. “Wait. You didn’t-You got your memories back?!”

Vivi turned away from Arthur and started driving again. “Yeah.”

Arthur felt a grin spread across his face. “That’s great!”

“Yeah.”

“We can talk about anything now!” said Arthur. “Oh! How’s Lewis doing?”

“I don’t know,” said Vivi.

Arthur blinked. “You don’t-You’re still upset about him trying to kill us, aren’t you?” Vivi’s hands tightened around the steering wheel. “I’m…upset too. I don’t think I’ll be able to talk to him for a while,” admitted Arthur.

“You shouldn’t talk to him at all!” shouted Vivi.

Arthur gave her a surprised look. “Where did that come from?”

“He dropped you off a cliff!” shouted Vivi. “The only reason you’re not dead is because the stalagmite hit that plate in your shoulder!”

“I-I forgot about the stalagmites,” muttered Arthur. Now he can’t stop thinking about that. “Okay, no talking to Lewis.”

Vivi must be really angry if she doesn’t want to talk to Lewis. Maybe Arthur should give her a few days to calm down.

When they got to the garage, Vivi made it clear she and Mystery were staying for the night. Arthur didn’t argue. He wanted Vivi and Lance nearby after everything that had happened.

There was something depressing about how he didn’t want Lewis around right now.

Arthur was still sore from the injury and tired and loopy from the medication so they just sat on the couch with a blanket covering them for most of the day, even eating on the couch. It was the least Arthur had done in months…He was actually a bit antsy sitting still like this after spending so much time trying to figure out what happened to Lewis.

Oh wait.

“Vivi, this might be a bit random, but how did Lewis die and I lose my arm?” asked Arthur.

“I don’t remember,” said Vivi.

Arthur blinked. “Oh, I’m sorry. So your memory…” He thought she’d gotten it back.

Vivi gave him a reassuring smile. “Oh, no, everything else is fine. It’s just that night I can’t remember.”

Arthur let out a sigh of relief. “You had me worried for a moment there…Although if it was bad enough to make Lewis a ghost maybe it’s better we don’t remember,” he admitted as much as it grated him to admit it. “Still, I’d like to know what happened.” He looked down at Mystery, who was lying across their laps. “I don’t suppose you saw what happened?”

“Of course he didn’t,” said Vivi. “He was with me the whole time.”

Arthur blinked. “Oh. Okay.” That didn’t sound right though. If Mystery had been with Vivi, he’d have seen everything Vivi did. Vivi’s memory loss had something to do with what had happened. Mystery hadn’t had any memory loss, right? So…either nothing happened with Vivi (Which made no sense. Her eyes literally glowed.) or Mystery hadn’t actually been with her.

Why were they lying to him?

No. Not both of them. Mystery hadn’t actually been doing a lot of talking (Force of habit?). It was Vivi who was giving all the explanations. So if he was able to talk to Mystery without Vivi around…

Easier said than done. Vivi wasn’t leaving his side.

So Arthur just continued to sit there and stroke Mystery and joke with Vivi and watch the silly cartoons playing today.

It was…nice…but sad. It still felt like something important was missing.

Eventually, it was starting to get late. Lance went to pick up some pizza, including Surf’s Up Surprise. No one felt like cooking.

When Lance got home, Vivi got off the couch to give him a hand. “Want anything to drink?”

“Just some soda, thanks,” said Arthur.

“What would you like Mystery?”

“Meat lover’s pizza.” Mystery licked his mouth. “I’d like tea if Lance has any. If not, just water for me, thanks.”

Vivi nodded. “Be back in a minute.” She walked over to the kitchen. It wasn’t really that far away. Arthur could get over there and back just fine, even with the pain starting to work its way through the medicine.

He bit his lip. He was gonna feel bad about going behind Vivi’s back like this. “Mystery,” he whispered. “Do you know what happened when Lewis died?”

“Yes,” Mystery whispered back.

That hurt. “Then why didn’t you say anything?”

“Vivi made me promise not to tell you, and kitsune can’t break promises,” explained Mystery.

Arthur bit his lip. So Vivi did know and just didn’t want to tell him for some reason. That hurt.

“But Lance and Lewis know too,” whispered Mystery. “I’m not sure if either of them will tell you, but it’s worth a try.”

Arthur nodded. “Okay. Thanks.”

And that was when Vivi got back. “Here’s your gross fish pizza.” Mystery jumped off Arthur’s lap so she could put the plate there. “And your meaty pizza,” she said, putting several plates in front of Mystery, who immediately dug in. “And my supreme pizza.” She flopped down next to Arthur.

Arthur chewed his pizza thoughtfully. “You know…This explains why Mystery can eat stuff dogs aren’t normally supposed to eat. Do you even have any dietary restrictions?”

Mystery licked his lips. “Nope. I actually have a wider range of foods than humans. I just stick to human food because it’s so much tastier.” And with that he went back to eating his pizza.

Arthur hummed in thought. “Actually, why do you disguise yourself as a dog? I thought kitsune were supposed to be scared of dogs…”

“Yes, exactly. I didn’t want anyone to think I was a kitsune, and most people with experience looking for kitsune are aware that we are typically scared of dogs. Pretending to be one would convince most that I’m something else,” explained Mystery. “Also, considering my power level, it seemed kind of silly to be scared of dogs so I decided to get over that fear, and turning into what frightened me seemed like a good way to work on it. It took a while, but eventually it stopped bothering me.” He grinned. “Not to mention the perks that come with being a dog. They knew what they were doing when they let you domesticate them.”

Vivi snorted. “Right, ‘cause you love to be lazy, eat all the food, and get belly rubs.”

“And now I’m wondering who was actually behind all of that,” muttered Arthur. “So, how many tails do you have? It sounds like you’ve been around for a while.”

“Oh, bit of a story there. I used to have nine tails.”

Wow, so Mystery was really old.

“But I made a few bad choices,” continued Mystery. “I ended up having several of my tails cut off and lost the power that came with them.”

“That can happen?” questioned Arthur.

“Yes, fortunately she didn’t get my original tail so I was able to survive and escape with the help of Vivi’s ancestor, who I swore loyalty to as thanks,” continued Mystery. “I’ve been with her family ever since.”

“Still can’t believe I didn’t notice,” muttered Vivi.

“Don’t feel too bad. I’ve gotten pretty good at hiding it,” said Mystery.

“You wear glasses and have a spiky hairdo!” protested Vivi. “How did I not think that was strange?!”

“You know. She has a point,” admitted Arthur. “How did none of us think that was odd? Other dogs don’t wear glasses…”

Mystery chuckled. “I may only have 7 tails, but I still retain the knowledge and tricks I’ve learned over the centuries.”

That made some sense. It was sort of like when Arthur had lost his arm. He’d still had the knowledge to build and repair things. It was just a bit more difficult to do those things until he had gotten his prosthetic attached. “So, you’ll always be around then?”

Mystery nodded. “Unless the Yukinos die out, but I’ll do everything in my power to prevent that.”

“And there are other Yukinos,” admitted Vivi. “I think Mystery just sticks with the ones that decide to go into paranormal investigation. He belonged to Grandmother before me, and she was a priestess. Dad wasn’t interested in that sort of thing so Mystery skipped him as an owner, er, partner? I’m not sure how to describe this.”

“I’d prefer you not refer to yourself as my owner, although I admit that it might be necessary to do so to keep up the illusion,” admitted Mystery. “Other than that, I don’t care too much about how you refer to our relationship. Although I would like to be considered your friend.”

That’s a bit of a relief if Arthur is being honest. He knows that kitsune can become powerful enough that humans can seem…he guesses the best word for it is insignificant. They don’t live as long, they’re not particularly strong, and probably seem pretty foolish at times. Sort of like a silly pet mouse. Given some of the stories Vivi’s told him, he doesn’t think all kitsune share Mystery’s opinion. “I’m happy to be friends.” Mystery flinched. Arthur wouldn’t have noticed if he hadn’t been in contact with Mystery. Arthur frowned. “You okay?”

“It’s nothing,” said Vivi. “He just feels bad about hiding it from us for so long.”

“…Yeah, I can see why that would be upsetting,” admitted Arthur. “Why didn’t you tell us anyway? It seems like it would be pretty easy to prove.”

“I still had enemies that I would have attracted to us. Pretending to be a dog isn’t just convenient. It hides my energy and power so that I can’t be tracked, and there are entities that wanted to find me and would have hurt or even killed you if they succeeded.”

“Like whoever cut off your tails?” asked Arthur. “That’s someone I wouldn’t want to run into.” For some reason that sent Mystery and Vivi into a giggle fit. “Am I missing something?”

“You ran her over with the van,” explained Mystery.

Arthur abruptly recalled the mad dash away from Lewis’ horrible semi-truck. “Holy crap! I completely forgot that we hit someone! Oh, wait, she attacked us.” Arthur paused. “I think it was a ‘she’ anyway. Was that a tree growing out of her head?”

“Yes, she was a jubokko, a type of tree yokai that feeds on blood,” explained Mystery. “It’s…complicated. I’d rather not talk about my past with her.”

Arthur could understand that, and he was pretty sure she didn’t have anything to do with the original injuries so he let it drop. “Is she going to come back?”

“No.” Mystery grinned. “I took back my blood from her, and that is what gave her life in the first place.”

“Oh, that’s…good to know.” Spirit rules. So complicated.

Arthur fell asleep at some point and slept the whole night. He woke up on the couch with Vivi leaning against him. He felt a bit sore from sleeping on the couch, and he had phantom pains that he didn’t know how he’d slept through, but he felt more rested than he had in months. He glanced at Vivi, debated for a moment, and decided to shake her awake. “Huh, wha-what is it?”

“I need my pain medication,” grit out Arthur.

Vivi shot up. “Oh! Right! Want me to get it for you?”

Arthur shook his head. “Nah. It’ll work better if I eat something with it. Let’s eat breakfast.” He paused. “In the kitchen. Not out here.”

Vivi smiled and nodded. “Sounds good.”

It was just cereal since they still didn’t feel like cooking. “You should try to go to work today,” said Arthur. “Duet’s pretty lenient, but I don’t think she’ll be happy about you taking even more time off.”

Vivi bit her lip. “I don’t know. You almost died…”

Arthur smiled. She’d been like this last time too, staying at his place, worrying over his health, trying to do everything for him. She’d been overprotective and overbearing, but he understood why. He’d have done the same if it was Vivi who’d lost an arm and nearly bled to death. Still, he wasn’t nearly as bad off this time, and he knew how to do his daily tasks with only one arm now. “I’ll be fine. This isn’t like last time. Heck, I’m thinking of going back to work today too.”

Vivi gave him an annoyed look. “You just had surgery. You should be resting.”

“Yeah, I won’t work a full day, and I won’t do anything too difficult. Mostly secretary work, some oil changes, the like.” Vivi still looked unsure. “C’mon, there’s no way Uncle Lance will let me do anything that might make things worse.”

Vivi nodded. “Right.” If there was one person who was as concerned for Arthur’s health as her, it was Lance. “You’re right. We need to get back to our normal schedules…or at least as much as we can.”

Arthur frowned. “Yeah.” Lewis was a ghost. Nothing would ever be normal again. “Yeah, I think I’ve been putting that off for longer than I should.” And Heaven help him, but the smile Vivi gave him made him feel even better than the medicine.

Arthur really did stick to secretary stuff for most of the day. He’d figured out how to do most repairs and maintenance stuff with one arm, but it could be tricky and more physically demanding.

That being said, Arthur really wanted to get back in the garage, so he called dibs on anyone who came needing a battery or oil change. Tire changes took enough physical effort that he’d save them for once he was feeling better.

And being in the garage would give him a chance to talk to Lance. “Uncle Lance?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you know what happened when I lost my arm?”

Lance paused for a moment. “Yeah.”

“Will you tell me?”

“No.”

Arthur huffed. “Why not? What is going on?”

“You have enough problems as it is,” said Lance. “I’m not adding to that burden. Just let it go. Please.”

Oh no. It was bad if Lance said please. “Okay. I won’t ask you again,” promised Arthur.

There was still Lewis after all.

Actually talking to Lewis was easier said than done. Arthur was still having some nightmares about Lewis looking at him the way he had and dropping him and all the other attempts and…

Yeah, Arthur wasn’t sure he was ready to face Lewis yet. Maybe one day, but not now.

But talking over the phone should be okay!

That was the plan anyway. Except he was still getting that out of service message whenever he tried to call Lewis.

…

Lewis’ phone must’ve been busted when he…died. Actually, could Lewis even use a phone anymore? Arthur was pretty sure Lewis had something to do with the malfunctions his van and arm had experienced, and other ghosts had messed with their electronics before.

So…Arthur would have to call a different Pepper. Should he call Mr. or Mrs. Pepper? Or…

Well, there was one more option that might know what happened. Arthur dialed the number and waited while the phone rang.

“Arthur!”

Arthur smiled. “Hi Belle.”

“I heard about what happened! Are you okay?!”

Arthur nodded. “Yeah, I’m…well, I’m injured and a bit traumatized, but it’s not nearly as bad as last time. I just have to let my shoulder heal for a few weeks before I reattach my prosthetic.”

“That’s good.”

“So, how are you guys doing? How…How’s Lewis doing?”

Belle was silent. “He’s grounded.”

Arthur blinked. “He’s 21.”

“Well, he’s a ghost. He can’t rent his own apartment, and Mom and Dad were pretty upset with him.”

“But you’re okay with him being…you know?”

“We’re not happy about him being dead,” said Belle. “But he’s still here so it’s not as bad as it could be. Paprika’s kind of scared of him because of how he looks though.”

Arthur laughed nervously. “Yeah, he can be pretty scary looking, huh?”

“Cayenne thinks he looks pretty cool though so she keeps him company,” continued Belle. “I…I know that he’s changed. He’s not as happy. But maybe he’ll go back to how he was before?”

Arthur winced. “I’m not sure. He did die. That had to be traumatic, and trauma can change a person.”

“Yeah…”

“But how is Lewis doing? I…I wasn’t conscious to see what happened, but it sounds like he’s calmed down.”

“Yeah, he doesn’t seem like a rage ghost. Actually, he’s been kind of emo, locking himself in his room most of the day.”

“Oh, wow, that’s bad.”

“He feels bad about what happened,” said Belle. “And he’s kind of beating himself up over everything he did.”

“About that. Did Lewis ever say why he was trying to kill us?”

Belle was silent for a moment. “You don’t know?”

“No. I’m pretty sure Vivi and Uncle Lance know, but they won’t tell me for some reason. It’s actually starting to freak me out a little.”

“Um, well, Mom and Dad did tell me, but we don’t really want Cayenne and Paprika to find out,” explained Belle.

Arthur winced. “Wow, was it really that bad?”

“Yeah. Did Lewis zap your memory too?”

“Wait. ‘Too’. As in he zapped someone’s memory?”

“Um…”

“Is that what happened to Vivi?!”

“Um…Yeah, Lewis said she saw him die and he didn’t want her to see that and did something, but he didn’t know he did it until he realized she didn’t recognize him,” explained Belle. “He managed to fix it. Maybe he could fix yours too.”

“I don’t think my memory loss is magic,” said Arthur. “I lost a lot of blood when I lost my arm, and that can cause just enough brain damage to retain all the normal functions but permanently lose recently recorded events.” Besides, if Lewis had caused the Arthur’s memory loss, wouldn’t he have reacted the same way as Vivi? “Although I guess he could sort of cure me by telling me what happened. I’m kind of nervous about seeing him again though…I tried calling him, but I guess he messes with electronics?”

“Actually, Mom and Dad took his phone privileges away,” said Belle. “They said he could have them back once he proved he could be reasonable and responsible.”

“So, he isn’t messing with electronics?”

“I think it depends on how he feels. He’s been watching the TV just fine most of the time, but sometimes he’ll get upset and the TV goes all fuzzy until someone hits it,” explained Belle.

“That’s good to know.” Now that Arthur thought about it, his arm had functioned fine in that haunted mansion.

…

Where did Lewis even get a haunted mansion?

“So, uh, do you want me to tell you what happened?” asked Belle. “I might be missing a few of the details, but I got the main gist of it.”

Arthur opened his mouth to say ‘yes’ but found himself stopping. “I feel conflicted.”

“Uh, so you don’t want me to tell you?”

“I want to know, but I feel like I shouldn’t hear it from you, which is really frustrating because clearly something horrible and important happened that everyone is hiding from me for some reason!” rambled Arthur.

“Well, I kind of understand why they don’t wanna tell you,” admitted Belle. “But why wouldn’t you want me to tell you?”

“I have no idea!” Arthur thought for a moment. “Did you have any questions after you were told?”

��A lot. Most of them haven’t been answered.” Belle paused. “By the way, were you feeling some sort of emotional turmoil when all that happened?”

“I can’t say for sure. Probably. I’m usually freaking out pretty badly during the investigation.” Plus his general feeling of being left out and longing and jealousy. He didn’t want to talk about that with Belle. Oh. “I think I just figured it out.”

“You did?!”

“There’s a lot of personal feelings involved that I’m not comfortable talking about at all, but if I have to I would prefer to only say it to the people it involves,” explained Arthur. He sighed “Which means I’ll have to talk to Lewis.”

“Are you sure you’re okay with that?”

“No. I guess I’ll have to make myself be okay with it then,” said Arthur.

“Uh…How does that work?”

Arthur paused. “I guess I’ll stare at pictures of Lewis until I stop panicking.”

“Will that work?” asked Belle.

“I don’t know. I gotta try something!” Arthur groaned. “Why does this all have to be so complicated?”

“Because you guys run around hunting ghosts?” suggested Belle.

“…Yeah, that’s probably it,” admitted Arthur. “So, I’ll see you soon, hopefully.”

“Yeah, hopefully,” agreed Belle. “…We miss you.”

Arthur winced. He’d been avoiding the Peppers. It was…painful seeing them without Lewis around. “Yeah, soon. I promise.” He ended the call.

So, now he had to learn to not be scared of Lewis. Easier said than done.

The next couple of weeks were spent recovering enough to work full time in the garage again, hanging out with Vivi and Mystery while watching a lot of sci-fi. Arthur actually had to suggest a couple of scary movies to break things up a bit.

Vivi and Mystery were actually spending a lot more time with him than they had last time he was injured. Nice as it was, this meant that Vivi wasn’t trying to talk to Lewis.

Arthur knew what it felt like to be left out like that, and that was what pushed him to go to the Pepper house a little over three weeks after the incident.

Not that it was going well. He was just starting at the door, willing himself to knock on the door or ring the doorbell, but then he’d think about Lewis answering the door and freeze up.

Maybe he wasn’t quite ready for this.

Then the choice was taken out of his hands by the door opening. Thankfully, it wasn’t Lewis that opened it. “Hi Mrs. Pepper.”

Mrs. Pepper sighed. “Hello Arthur. It’s nice to see you are doing well.”

“Yeah, you too, and I, um, kind of wanted to ask Lewis something. Is he home?”

Mrs. Pepper nodded. “He’s still grounded. We said he could go back to working at Pepper Paradiso in the kitchen, but he’s having some trouble making himself look human so he prefers to stay home.”

“Oh, wow, that’s not good.” Lewis loved cooking. He only refused to do it when he was really upset. “Can I see him?”

Mrs. Pepper hesitated for a moment. “If you’re both up to it.”

“I’m not sure I am,” admitted Arthur. “But I want to try.”

“All right.” Mrs. Pepper moved aside so Arthur could come into the house. “Lewis! Arthur’s here!”

“What?!” Lewis appeared at the top of the stairs. Arthur winced. Lewis was still in his suit, but had his face instead of the skull. Thankfully, Lewis looked more shocked than anything else so Arthur didn’t get a flashback. “Arthur, what-what are you doing here?”

Arthur took a deep breath. “We need to talk.”

“Right, I, uh, let me come down-”

“In private. I…I think this needs to be a private conversation,” interrupted Arthur.

Lewis looked nervous. “I could…soundproof my room?”

He could do that? “Yeah, that sounds good,” agreed Arthur.

“I’ll check on you two in half an hour,” said Mrs. Pepper. That got a wince from both Arthur and Lewis. She used to be willing to leave them alone for hours…

Still, they went to the room, and Lewis did something that caused everything to get a purple tone. Arthur poked at the wall curiously. “Huh, does this have something to do with that haunted mansion you were in before?”

“Yeah, I, uh, made that,” admitted Lewis.

“That’s pretty impressive,” complimented Arthur. Lewis was a pretty powerful ghost to pull something like that off. “But why did you do that instead of coming to Tempo?”

“Because I wanted to scare you,” admitted Lewis. He closed his eyes. “I wanted to hurt you. I knew that everyone else would disprove, but I still wanted to because I thought I knew better than them.”

“Right, um, that’s what I wanted to talk about…sort of. What happened that made you want to kill us so much?” asked Arthur. “I know it must have been something bad, but-”

“Wait,” interrupted Lewis. “You thought I was trying to kill all three of you?”

Arthur nodded. “Yeah, you stopped all of us in front of your mansion and then tried to attack and blow us up. And you ran us off the road and down a cliff.”

Lewis covered his mouth, looking ill and muttering something under his breath. “That-I, uh, wasn’t thinking things all the way through. I didn’t want to hurt Vivi and Mystery. Just you.”

What? Arthur suddenly didn’t feel nervous and scared now. He just felt numb and a bit sick. It took a few minutes for him to find his voice. “Why?”

“I thought you killed me,” admitted Lewis.

“I could never do that,” Arthur immediately responded. “Why would you think I would do something like that?”

“You really don’t remember?” asked Lewis. When Arthur shook his head, Lewis handed him the golden heart that was always floating in front of his chest. “Maybe this will help.”

Arthur stared at it in confusion before realizing that it could be opened. Inside was a picture of Lewis and Vivi hugging each other with smiles on their faces. All it did was make Arthur feel depressed. “Is this supposed to be doing something?”

Lewis looked a bit surprised. “I don’t get it. This fixed Vivi’s memories.”

Arthur let out a hysterical giggle. “That-I’m missing my memories because I nearly died from massive blood loss and spent a week in a coma!” Seriously, just because they were ghost hunters didn’t mean everything had a supernatural explanation. “I could barely move when I woke up! How the Hell could I have hurt you?!”

Lewis just stared at him. “You really don’t know.”

“Of course I don’t! I wouldn’t be this frustrated and upset if I did!” complained Arthur.

Lewis pinched the bridge of his nose. “Okay, okay, I can-I’ll tell you, but neither of us is going to like it.”

“I can already tell,” muttered Arthur.

“So, we went to investigate a haunted cave,” started Lewis. “Very creepy. Opening looked like a monster face, and there was green mist all over the place.”

Arthur nodded. Sounded like the sort of place Vivi would love to visit.

“You wanted nothing to do with it, but we convinced you to go inside.”

That was typical too.

“And we came to a fork in the cave and decided to split up. Vivi went to the lower level with Mystery. We went to the upper level.”

“Why?”

“Well, we thought it would be faster that way,” said Lewis.

“No, I mean why did we split up like that. After you and Vivi started dating you two always paired up when we had to split up. So why did you suddenly change it this time?” pressed Arthur.

Lewis’ face turned sort of purple and see through enough for Arthur to just be able to see the skull underneath. “Well, you were really scared, and we felt like we might have been leaving you out of things a little too much.”

Arthur had felt left out. It had felt like he only saw them on ghost hunts in the weeks leading up to whatever had happened. The split up still seemed to come out of nowhere though. “Okay, I’ll buy that.” He supposed the why wasn’t that important in this case. “And then what happened?”

“We followed the path up to a cliff that was pretty high up.” Lewis swallowed. “There-there were stalagmites.”

Arthur gripped at his pants. He could tell they were getting close to the point where Lewis died.

“And I wanted to see if I could see Vivi, but I couldn’t, and you made a sound, and I turned, and your hand was on my chest-”

What?

“And you pushed me and-”

“You’re lying,” interrupted Arthur.

Lewis blinked. “Huh?”

“You’re lying,” repeated Arthur, glaring at Lewis. “I would have never hurt you, much less-” Arthur stood. “If you’re not going to tell me then I’ll just ask your parents or Belle.”

Lewis stood. “Whoa! Wait! Don’t! It wasn’t you!”

“You just said it was!” Arthur reached for the door.

“You were possessed!”

Arthur paused for a moment. He turned back towards Lewis. “Possessed?”

“There was a demon in the cave,” Lewis rapidly explained. “You were freaking out pretty badly, which let it possess you, and it used your body to…kill me.”

That…That was awful, but Arthur could admit it made more sense than him wanting to kill one of the people he loved. “If I was possessed, then why would you want to kill me?”

“I didn’t know you were possessed, okay?!” said Lewis. “I just remember seeing you grinning and pushing me! I didn’t know about you being possessed until the demon showed up and possessed you again!”

“Again? It happened twice?!”

Lewis blinked. “Uh, yeah, when I…dropped you. It, uh, showed up and reattached itself and we had to rip your arm off again.”

Arthur’s hand went to his port. “My arm?! Again?!”

“Um, yeah, it was sealed in your arm. Did-did no one tell you about this?”

“No! Why was there a demon in my arm?!”

“Uh, well, apparently the possession started in your arm and was mostly in there,” explained Lewis. “So to stop the possession Mystery removed your arm.”

“Mystery?! But he’s a little-” Arthur stopped himself. “He’s not a dog. He’s a kitsune. And I never asked how big he is out of his disguise.”

“He’s big enough for you to ride him like a pony,” said Lewis.

Big enough to maim someone then. “And you didn’t know any of this?” pressed Arthur.

“That happened after I died. I think it took a few hours for me to wake up,” explained Lewis. “If I had known…I swear I would have never tried to hurt you. You have to believe me.”

Arthur’s mind was racing too much for him to answer. He’d been possessed. Something made him hurt Lewis. Did that mean he killed Lewis? Or did the blame lay squarely with the demon? Why would Vivi and Lance hide this from him? Why didn’t Mystery warn him while he was looking for Lewis?

Why him? Why Lewis? What did they do to deserve this?

Why? Why? Why?

“I need a minute.” Arthur was barely aware of the words coming out of his mouth, but he knew they were true. He flew out of the room, down the stairs, out of the house, barely hearing people calling his name. He needed to get out of here. He needed to go, go, go.

And now he was in his van and driving, driving, driving. He wasn’t even paying attention to where he was going. Did it matter where he went? Did it matter if he came back?

Eventually, Arthur started to calm down. He was still an odd combination of upset and numb, but he was thinking a bit more clearly now so he realized that it was starting to get late and he had no idea where he was.

…

Now what?

Eventually, Arthur started to get hungry so he finally stopped at a gas station to refuel, grab a snack or two, and maybe get directions to somewhere to eat/sleep.

The door dinged as Arthur walked inside. “Hey,” said the cashier.

“Hey,” said Arthur as he walked over to the snack aisle. They had a few protein bars. That would work. Arthur eyed the energy drinks for several minutes before sighing and getting a can of coffee. He didn’t want to stay up all night, just last long enough to grab a meal and find a motel or something.

“I’d like to buy these,” said Arthur, placing the two items on the counter and pulling out a twenty. “And put the change on pump five.”

The cashier started to ring him up. “Sure thing.”

“Also, I’m not from around here. Do you know anywhere I can buy some food this time of night and a decent motel I can stay at?”

“There’s a Motel 8 a few streets down with some fast food places nearby,” said the cashier.

Arthur nodded. They’d stayed at Motel 8’s before. They were usually decent and had cable. “So will do I need to head straight or take any turns?”

“Turn right out of the station. You should see the sign in a few minutes. There’s a few fast food places around that might still be open.”

“Thanks.” Arthur walked out, tossed his food into the van, and got his gas. He took a moment to eat the protein bar before heading back out.

The Hotel 8 was right where the cashier said it would be. Arthur went ahead and got a room for two nights in case the reception would close later. Then he went and grabbed a fish sandwich and fries from a nearby McDonalds.

And now he was sitting in his room, just staring at the wall as he tried to figure out what to do. It wasn’t like he’d planned any of this. Arthur’s phone buzzed in his pocket.

Oh. He’d forgotten about that. He pulled it out and saw dozens of missed texts and calls, mostly from Vivi and Lance. They mostly consisted of how he was running late, did something come up, you should’ve been home by now, are you okay, are you hurt, where are you?

Arthur felt a bit guilty. What should he say? He bit his lip. He didn’t want to talk to them right now to tell the truth. Still, he should let them know he was alive. “I’m fine. I know about the cave. I need some time to myself,” he texted back to Lance and Vivi.

Then he turned off his phone. He didn’t have a charger with him, and his phone was starting to run low.

God, Arthur was exhausted in so many ways. Arthur flopped on a bed. He hadn’t bothered to bring any clothes, but what he was wearing should work as pajamas.

…

He couldn’t sleep.

Arthur groaned and turned on the television. He didn’t bother to change the channel. He didn’t care what he was watching. He just needed a distraction.

He wished he’d remembered to grab his medicine before he’d run off.

Arthur must have fallen asleep at some point because he woke up the next morning feeling sore and with the beginnings of a headache.

Something squeezed his arm.

Arthur screamed, flailed, and managed to throw what was on his arm off and into the wall. The startled shriek and purple caused Arthur to do a double take.

It was one of Lewis’ little ghosts. It was looking at Arthur like he’d just told it Santa didn’t exist. “Shit! Sorry, you startled me!” Arthur looked around for a moment. He didn’t see any other ghosts, including Lewis. “Where the heck did you come from?”

The little ghost let out a warble. It still looked pretty upset. Arthur sighed and held his hand out in front of it. “Okay, look, I’m sorry. I went to sleep alone, and then woke up with something else in bed with me. I thought you were a wild animal. Or maybe a clever cat. Something that might try to bite me.”

The little ghost was looking a little less contrite. It nuzzled Arthur’s hand. Arthur pet it. “Huh, when you’re not trying to kill a guy, you’re actually kind of cute,” admitted Arthur. “But what are you even doing here? I’m pretty sure Lewis isn’t nearby. I guess he could’ve followed me, but he doesn’t have a car so that would be obvious.”

It was at this point the ghost let out a chirp, flowed up Arthur’s arm, curled around his neck, and nuzzled his cheek with another chirp. Arthur shuddered. “Uh, you’re cute and friendly, but wow that feels weird…” The nuzzling stopped, but it stayed curled around him. Arthur sighed. “Okay, so I’m on my own with a ghost. Well, now’s as good a time as any to make a plan.” Arthur sat on the bed. “Well, I guess I should get something to eat first.” The ghost perked up and gave him a happy look and chirp. “…Can you even eat? And if you do how does that even work?” The ghost warbled. “Then…I don’t have any other plans. I’ll have to eat lunch and dinner at some point. Maybe stop at a bank and pick up some supplies. I can’t exactly live in the same outfit for the whole time I’m here.”

The ghost scrunched up its face and stuck out a tongue. Arthur chuckled. “I guess I’ll make it up as I go along, but for now I’d like to clean up so could you let go for a bit?” The ghost did so, curling up on the bed instead. Arthur briefly wondered how much the ghost understood before heading to the bathroom.

While he could clean up pretty much the same as usual with the provided soap, there wasn’t any hair gel provided. His hair was already starting to droop. Maybe he had a tin in the van from their last trip.

A quick search showed that A: Uncle Lance had been very thorough about cleaning up the van when he’d moved it inside the garage and B: There was no hair gel or any other styling products of any kind. Arthur debated on whether to buy a new tin or if he could survive a ponytail for a few days.

Eh, he’d have to buy more eventually.

“I’m heading out. Do you-” The ghost flew out of the hotel room and into the van. “Well, okay then.” Arthur locked the door and got into the van where the ghost was exploring everything. “I’ll have to leave you in here during some of my shopping. You okay with that?” The ghost let out a chirp. It was smiling so Arthur took it as a ‘yes’. “Off we go.”

First stop was the McDonald’s again. Arthur got a parfait specifically so he could save a couple of berries and see if the ghost could eat them.

They fell back out of the ghost. Go figure.

After that, Arthur managed to find a bank and withdraw some money. Then he found a Wal-Mart and got a few essentials that would let him survive a few days away from home.

That was really all he had planned for today. “Well, I came here to think. Maybe I can find a park or a nature walk or something?” Although the latter seemed unlikely. This was a pretty small town.

The park they had was a bit small. There was some playground equipment that was mostly deserted except for some mothers with very young children. A couple of people walking dogs.

Oh, right, school day. Well, it worked in his favor.

Arthur just walked for a while, going in circles after a bit. Thinking on everything. Lewis had tried to kill him specifically, not the whole rest of the gang. Vivi had lied to him about why. Lance…Well, Arthur wasn’t sure if he’d lied, but he’d made it clear he wasn’t going to tell Arthur what had happened.

And that was without getting into the issues with Mystery. If he’d been able to talk the whole time, he could have told Arthur what happened in the cave the whole time! Heck, Mystery could have told Lewis and calmed him down. Or even told them that there was a demon in that cave and prevented everything!

A demon…Arthur rubbed his scarred shoulder. He’d been possessed by a demon. Twice by the sound of things. That couldn’t be good.

Arthur still didn’t remember what had happened. Not that he was surprised, but he was a bit disappointed that he was still drawing a blank.

So…what did he know about demons? They’d never run into one before, thank goodness, but Vivi had talked about them before.

They could be repelled by faith, holy water, holy salt, could not set foot on sanctified ground, you should never say a demon’s name because that would catch its attention (Arthur briefly wondered if that applied to other means of communication before shutting down that line of thought for his own peace of mind.), they lied, they only told the truth when it would hurt someone, they could possess people, they targeted people who were emotionally or psychologically vulnerable…

Arthur ran his hand down his face. Anxiety, fear of being abandoned by his now dating friends, longing for said friends, some admitted jealousy, and more than a little panic and fear at being in a rumored to be haunted cave where people had been horribly murdered. He could see why the demon had latched onto him. Vivi and Lewis had both been excited and eager to explore. They hadn’t even grabbed half the supplies Arthur had brought.

…

That happened a lot. Lewis and Vivi would get excited and be so sure that nothing bad would happen that they’d run in with the bare minimum of preparation, like they were invincible. Meanwhile Arthur would run after them telling them to be careful because there were bears around here, and that house is not structurally sound, and you should have a way to keep from getting lost in a cave!

…And that was the practical, normal dangers that Arthur could look up on his phone if he needed to. The more esoteric, supernatural stuff was Vivi’s domain. He didn’t recall seeing her take more than a bat with an ofuda on it and a few vials of holy water unless she knew they needed something specific. A lot her supplies were left in the van…

Arthur shook her head. Even if Vivi could have maybe prevented it, that was a big maybe. They’d never know for sure…and if Arthur was being honest he probably could have prevented it by telling them…Well, not how he had feelings for them but at least that he felt left out and would like to spend more time with them. And maybe asked if they could do something other than sleuthing, like go to a convention or something. It might’ve helped lessen his anxiety.

Arthur had no idea if Lewis could’ve done anything to prevent his death. He liked ghosts and stuff like Vivi but wasn’t knowledgeable enough to get the same amount of use out of Vivi’s collection. The only thing Arthur could come up with was Lewis taking the lower path with Vivi, and who knows how that would have gone. Maybe the demon would’ve made Arthur jump off the cliff or gone after Vivi or Lewis.

The fact of the matter is that Arthur just didn’t know enough about what had happened. Yeah, he’d gotten the story from Lewis, but that was from Lewis’ point of view. If Arthur still had his memories he could look back and point out every moment he’d messed up and what he could’ve done differently.

…

Maybe it was a good thing he couldn’t remember what happened in that cave. He felt guilty enough as it is even knowing he’d been possessed at the time. He’d probably be a mess if he actually remembered anything.

It was at that moment he saw a food truck. What time was it? He didn’t have a watch. He mostly used his phone to tell the time when he was out and about. Well, he was getting hungry and there was a line so he was going to say it was around lunchtime. He walked over and got in line. Looked like a Mexican food truck. Maybe they had fish tacos.

No fish tacos. He settled for a couple of chicken tacos instead. They were actually pretty good. “Now what?” He felt done with walking for the moment. He walked back to his van where the little ghost wrapped around him making happy sounds. “Want to explore a bit?”

While exploring Arthur found an old-fashioned movie theatre. He figured he could sneak the ghost inside so he bought a ticket for a movie he was unfamiliar with.

It was a weird movie, but Arthur would watch it again. The ghost fell asleep part way through. This made it easier to leave in the van when Arthur found a small library.

Arthur spent his time on reddit looking at threads about people talking about being lied to or who survived murder attempts. It wasn’t exactly pleasant to read, but it did help Arthur sort through his feelings.

Once it got a bit later, Arthur left the library and found a semi-decent restaurant where he made a half hearted attempt to eat healthy by ordering the grilled chicken sandwich and green beans. Then it was back to the hotel room for the night.

Arthur sat on the bed, kicking his feet as the ghost channel surfed. “You know…That was nice. Being on my own and just doing whatever for the day,” mused Arthur. “It’s something that’ll get old fast, and I think I’d rather be with…a friend. But I guess it’s good to have some time to yourself every now and then so you can sort your thoughts out.”

The ghost just yawned. Arthur yawned too. “Yeah, bed sounds good.”

The next day started much the same, except Arthur woke up a bit earlier and didn’t panic when he felt the little ghost cuddling him. He decided to be lazy and lay there for a bit before getting up.

He decided on pancakes for breakfast, just because. Then he went back to the park. He wasn’t sure it he’d be there long enough to see the food truck again, but he had seen a café he might be able to try.

Arthur had been watching a squirrel navigate some branches when he heard a dog barking. He didn’t think anything of it since he’d seen a few dogs walking around.

“Arthur!”

“Wha?” Arthur turned just in time to find himself with an armful of Vivi. “Vivi?!”

“Oh God, I didn’t think we were gonna find you!” Vivi pulled back to give him a glare. “What were you thinking running off like that!”

Arthur winced. “I’m sorry. I just wanted to be alone,” admitted Arthur. “I did send those texts to let you know I was okay.”

“Anyone could’ve sent those texts!”

“My screen has a lock on it,” argued Arthur. “How did you even…” Arthur trailed off as he noticed who else was there. Mystery was standing a respectable distance to let Vivi have her say, but behind Mystery was a very-nervous looking Lewis with a familiar ghost rubbing up against him. “…Were you spying on me?”

“No!” Lewis shook his head rapidly. “I didn’t even mean for Anaheim to end up with you!”

Arthur blinked. “You named him Anaheim?”

Lewis did that weird purple blush. “Um, yeah, anyway I guess he must’ve wandered into your van while we were talking. I didn’t notice until I realized he was moving away with you, and when Vivi said you were missing I thought maybe I could use that to track you,” he explained with a shrug.

Vivi spun to face Lewis with a glare. “I still can’t believe you told him! Isn’t it enough that you tried to-”

Arthur slammed his hand over Vivi’s mouth. She gave him a startled look. “Look, we are in the middle of a public park. Do you really have this conversation here?”

Vivi removed his hand. “We shouldn’t be having this conversation at all!”

Arthur took a deep breath. “Vivi, you are a strong, independent woman and one of my best friends, but this is my life, not yours. I…I think I’d actually forgotten that.”

Vivi looked confused. “Huh?”

Arthur sighed. “Let’s find somewhere private when can talk about this.” He turned to Lewis. “That means you too.”

Lewis looked a bit surprised and…hopeful? Wow, he really must’ve been miserable since coming back.

For some reason, they ended up at…Arthur wouldn’t call it a mall, but it was sort of built like one. There were a bunch of stores in a larger building, along with a couple of restaurants. Arthur waited until they got some food (Arthur absentmindedly noticed Lewis slipped his food onto the seat next to him for Mystery to eat.) to open the conversation. “Why did we start the Mystery Skulls?”

Vivi paused. “Because we wanted to travel around and investigate ghost sightings.”

Arthur shook his head. “That’s what you and Lewis wanted. I was perfectly fine with traveling and spending time with you guys,” he said with a fond smile. “I love spending time with you.” His smile fell. “I never liked the investigating part. I always felt scared the whole time. I would’ve been all right with just driving you guys around and staying with the van, but…” Vivi and Lewis always convinced him to come with them. “I guess I wanted to spend even more time with you guys…” He shook his head. “Anyway, I convinced myself it was fine because we were doing something you liked, but…” He scratched the back of his neck. “How do I put this? Even when we went on a trip to somewhere I wanted to go, we got sidetracked by investigations to and from, even if we could’ve avoided it or left it to the local authorities. I think at some point I convinced myself that it was okay because it’s not like you planned any of that, except…except it wasn’t okay. Everything was about the Mystery Skulls the paranormal investigators, even when I wanted a break, even when I was scared out of my mind, even when my anxiety got worse…” He shook his head. “I can’t spend the rest of my life doing something that terrifies me. I can’t be a Mystery Skull anymore.”

“Oh…” Vivi looked devastated. “I mean, I was going to suggest a break, but if you’re sure you don’t want to be an investigator anymore…”

Arthur nodded. “I’m sure. I still wouldn’t mind traveling with you guys and taking care of the equipment, but I’d rather stay out of the way when you do your work.” He shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe eventually I’ll be comfortable enough to occasionally go on a job with you, but I think it’s time for me to move on and do something else with my life.” He smiled sadly. “And I know that’s selfish, but…I think sometimes you have to be selfish to take care of yourself. I tried to be selfless, and it ended up messing me up pretty badly, so now I kind of have to be a bit selfish.”

The whole table was silent as everyone digested that. “Then…I guess the Mystery Skulls are over,” said Vivi.

Arthur blinked. “What? No, c’mon, you’ve still got Lewis and Mystery.”

Lewis winced as Vivi gave him a look. “Vivi’s only tolerating my presence because I had a way to find you. She’s…still understandably angry with me.”

“And I disguise myself as a dog so most sane folks won’t consider me an investigator,” pointed out Mystery.

Arthur huffed. “Vivi, I’ve already forgiven Lewis for trying to kill me.”

“What?!” The rest of the restaurant turned to stare at Vivi and Lewis’ shout.

“Sorry, sorry,” said Lewis, whose hair looked a little wispy. “Just, caught us by surprise there.” He chuckled nervously as most of the other patrons returned to their meals. He turned to give Arthur a confused look. “And what’s this about forgiving me?”

“I’d like an explanation for that too,” said Vivi.

“I got possessed by a demon. So when it pushed him off a cliff he didn’t see a demon pushing him. He saw me pushing him. I can understand the confusion. Heck, the demon probably wanted Lewis to think it was me,” admitted Arthur. “And I admit I feel awful about that. I probably always will, but that’s not what we’re talking about right now.” He turned to Lewis. “You don’t have to go into detail, but what did you think when you first became a ghost?”

Lewis winced. “Well, it took me a few seconds to realize I was dead…and it took me a little while to remember what happened. Then I just got so angry I could barely think straight. I just knew you’d…pushed me. It wasn’t fair. I-I had to hurt you too. It was only fair, and I kept thinking like that…” He turned his gaze towards Vivi. “Until you protected him.”

Vivi gave him an unimpressed look. “And you still tried to blow us all up.”

Lewis winced. “Yeah, I was still hazy. I didn’t snap out of it until…until I dropped Arthur and realized I didn’t want that after all.”

“Uh huh.” Vivi turned to Arthur. “Is there a point to this?”

“You said ghosts can be really confused and not think straight when they first die,” Arthur reminded her. “And let’s face it, Lewis has every right to be upset about dying! And, well, it made sense to think it was my fault at the time, so I can see why messed up logic led him to think I had to pay for his death.” He turned to Lewis. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m still terrified that your first reaction was to jump straight to murdering me instead of, like, leading police to your body or appearing to your family and telling them what happened. Yeah, one of those would have probably ended with me getting arrested, but if you figured out that you were wrong, you could appear and, I dunno, pretend you had amnesia or something. Murder…is kind of permanent. I would have never imagined you’d do something like that…”

Lewis looked guilty. “I wouldn’t have thought I was capable of it either. I just…hurt so much.”

“Everyone was hurting,” said Vivi. “Yes, that includes me. I might not have been able to remember you, but I saw how upset everyone else was and couldn’t do anything to stop it, and Arthur lost his arm and nearly died! And what did he focus on? His missing friend! He nearly worked himself to death looking for you!”

Lewis was getting pretty cowed so Arthur decided to interrupt. “I’m pretty upset with you too Vivi.”

Vivi gave him a startled look. “Me? Why?”

“You lied to me, and not a little lie either. You consciously decided to hide how Lewis died from me!” He pointed at his shoulder. “And you knew I was trying to find out what happened even before Lewis came back as a ghost!”

“Well, it’s not like we need to find Lewis anymore,” pointed out Vivi.

Arthur winced along with Lewis. “Ow, that’s harsh.” Arthur shook his head. “That’s not my point. Would you like it if-Oh, wait. That’s actually a pretty good comparison.”

“Hm?”

“Lewis tried to hid how he died from you. How did that feel?” asked Arthur.

Vivi winced. “Yeah, that wasn’t…A part of my life was ripped out of my head. That’s not the same thing.”

Arthur nodded. “I guess not, but you were still trying to cover up a major event in my life that irreparably changed it.” He sighed. “Try to put yourself in my shoes. You spent months trying to figure out what happened during a period you lost your memories. Suddenly everyone knows, but won’t tell you. Won’t, not can’t. You know the difference.”

Vivi huffed but was silent for several minutes. “Okay, I can see where you’re coming from.”

Arthur let out a sigh of relief. “Thank you.”

“But I’m still angry with you,” she said, looking straight at Lewis.

Oh come on. What would it take to get her to talk civilly with Lewis?

A throat cleared itself under the table before Mystery climbed into the open seat next to Lewis. None of the other patrons or workers batted an eye at the behavior. “If I may, Vivi, how would you react if Arthur pushed you off a cliff to your death?”

Arthur let out a hiss. What would he do if Vivi and Lewis both died?

“Is Arthur possessed?” asked Vivi.

“No,” said Mystery.

“I wouldn’t-I couldn’t-” Arthur shook his head. He knew he couldn’t do that.

“Well, I guess I’d go confront him about it,” said Vivi.

Mystery raised an eyebrow. “And is that all you would do with your temper?”

Vivi blushed. “Okay, I might’ve beaten him up…or worse…I guess if I wasn’t thinking completely clearly it would be easy to go overboard.”

Mystery nodded. “You would try killing him.”

Vivi looked away. “Maybe…Probably.”

“Oh, it seems I was mistaken. Arthur was possessed when he killed you.”

Vivi’s head snapped towards Mystery. “Wha-You just said he wasn’t!”

“Well, if it had been you, you wouldn’t have had any way of knowing that it wasn’t Arthur,” pointed out Mystery. “Demons are crafty like that. I wouldn’t be surprised if it influenced Lewis after he manifested.”

“Is that why I’m a skeleton?” questioned Lewis.

“No, that’s what happens when you’re killed by an act of betrayal,” explained Mystery. “Or a perceived act of betrayal in this case.” He turned his attention to Vivi. “And as I’ve pointed out before we wouldn’t have beaten Shiromori and the demon without his help.”

“Oh, that’s right. Lewis mentioned I was possessed again,” interrupted Arthur. “Did I hurt anyone?”

Mystery shook his head. “Nothing permanent.”

Arthur smiled. “That’s good.”

Vivi frowned. “You’re not gonna ask what else happened?”

Arthur shrugged. “You guys fought a demon and this Shiro lady and won, but how’d you get the demon out of me?”

“The same way as I did before,” said Mystery. “Although it did a lot less damage this time.”

So his arm had been ripped off again. “Hey, wait. Does that mean my port wasn’t ripped off by the stalagmite?”

“Uh, no, that was the demon,” said Lewis. “You…You were impaled.”

Arthur blanched. “I what?”

“Yeah, but you didn’t die immediately.”

“No one mentioned that in the hospital,” pointed out Arthur.

Lewis winced. “When the demon possessed you it made the holes close up.”

Okay…so he’d been closer to dying than he thought. “Do I need to be worried?”

“I am not sure,” admitted Mystery. “The demon is completely out of you, and we…sealed the arm away. Still, it did technically change your body, but it was for survival purposes so I don’t think it will have any side effects unless you are badly injured again or run into a powerful entity.”

Arthur looked between Mystery and Lewis. “Don’t you two count?”

“I keep my power suppressed unless I actually need to use it,” said Mystery.

“I’ve been doing that too,” said Lewis.

“Okay…” Arthur didn’t really get it, but he figured he’d find out if they had some sort of effect on him eventually. “Actually, I was wondering. Why didn’t you say anything to us in the cave?” Arthur asked Mystery. “If you’re a super powerful kitsune. Shouldn’t you have been able to pick up on it? I mean, it would’ve been a bit of a shock to find out you could talk, but it would be a lot better than…you know.”

Vivi groaned. “He was so afraid of attracting that tree chick that he doesn’t even tell people he can talk!”

Mystery bristled. “You saw what she was like. She would’ve killed us both!”

“So how dangerous was this lady?” asked Arthur.

“She could grow back all of her body parts, including her head,” said Lewis. “And she could travel underground about as quickly as a car. Pretty sure she was as physically strong as me at least. And she had those scissors…”

Mystery cleared his throat. “As, you can see, she’s a dangerous enough opponent that I wanted to avoid attracting her attention.”

Arthur could accept that. He understood being afraid and wanting to protect someone you cared about. “But…why didn’t you do something as soon as the demon started to possess me?” He’d be fine with losing his arm in that case. At least then Lewis would still be alive.

Mystery’s ears lowered. “I…I didn’t want to hurt you. I thought maybe I could restrain you, find a way to force it out, but it was stronger than I thought, and the possession progressed so rapidly. By the time I realized I would need to find another option it was too late to save Lewis.”

Arthur could understand not wanting to hurt a friend too. He sighed. “Let’s face it: We all fucked up, and I’m pretty sure we all did at least a couple of things that could’ve prevented all of this. Can we just try to move on? You guys are my best friends. I can’t-I don’t want to imagine life without you.” He’d already seen what it was like without Lewis. “So, even if we can’t go back to the way things were, maybe we can at least have something similar?”

Lewis looked rather stunned by the suggestion, Mystery looked pleased, Vivi looked exasperated. “You really wanna be friends with the guy who tried to killed you?”

Arthur laughed nervously. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m still feeling nervous being around Lewis. I probably will be for a while, but I know that he’s acting more or less like he did before he died, although you’re being a lot quieter than usual.”

“Of course I am!” said Lewis. “I thought that you killed me! Even though we were best friends! And…I nearly threw everything away…” he muttered looking down.

Arthur and Mystery gave Vivi a pointed look. She threw up her hands. “Okay fine! I will try to get along with Lewis!” She gave him a look. “As long as he behaves.”

Lewis nodded rapidly. “I swear I have absolutely no desire to hurt anyone!”

Arthur smiled. It wasn’t much, but it was something. “So, what’s the plan for the rest of the day?” asked Arthur.

“We go back to Tempo, of course!” said Vivi.

Arthur winced. “Can we wait until tomorrow morning? It took a while to get down here. We’d either have to stop somewhere on the way back or arrive at, like, 2 in the morning.”

Vivi winced. “Ugh, and we have two cars to drive back too…” She sighed. “Fine, but at least call Lance. He was worried sick about you.”

Arthur winced. “Oh. Yeah. My phone should have enough of a charge for that.” He started to take out his phone before he remembered they were in the middle of a crowded space. “Actually, can we go somewhere more private for this? We’re done eating anyway.”

Vivi thought for a moment and nodded. “Good point! Lance can be pretty loud when he’s upset.”

They ended up back at the park, Arthur sitting on a bench while Vivi and Mystery played fetch and Lewis hovered nearby. Literally. “Uh, Big Guy, your feet are kind of…”

Lewis made an annoyed sound and lowered to the ground. “You would not believe how hard it is to keep your feet on the ground when you don’t have mass.”

Arthur honestly had no idea how to respond to that and decided to turn his attention back to calling Uncle Lance.

…

This was gonna be bad.

Arthur turned on the phone, dialed the number, and waited for Uncle Lance to answer. Usually it took two or three rings, but he answered after only one. “Arthur?”

“Hi Uncle Lance,” Arthur said sheepishly.

“WHERE THE HELL HAVE YOU BEEN?!” Even Lewis winced from the shouting. “Do you have any idea how worried I was?!”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to run off like that,” said Arthur.

“How do you accidentally run off to another town?!”

“It just happened. I just was gonna drive somewhere to be alone, but I guess I was in a sort of…trance? I feel like there’s a better word than that, but I’m sticking to trance until I can remember it. I was sort of in a trance thinking about all the stuff I’d just found out, and my body was on autopilot, and I guess since I didn’t have a destination in mind I just kept driving until I snapped out of it.”

Uncle Lance was silent for a moment. “I knew you were gonna react badly to that.”

Arthur nodded. “Yeah, I can see why you wouldn’t tell me…Anyway, I wanted to work through my feelings and thoughts on my own so I figured I’d stay here for a few days and then head back. I wasn’t expecting you to send the rest of the gang after me.”

“You saw what happened when Lewis went missing. Why wouldn’t we do the same for you?” pointed out Lance.

Arthur paused. “Uh…That’s a good question. Low self-esteem?”

“Arthur…”

He winced. “I have to start seeing that therapist again, don’t I?”

“I’m going to make an appointment as soon as this call is over.”

Arthur sighed. “Yes sir.”

“…You are feeling better, aren’t you?”

Arthur nodded. “Yeah, I am.”

“And you’re all right with Lewis being there?”

Arthur looked over towards where Lewis was watching him. “Yeah, he’s acting like his old self. I’m a bit anxious because of everything, but I don’t think he’s going to do anything like that again.”

“If he does I’ll kill him myself,” said Lance, ignoring the fact that Lewis was technically already dead.

Heck, Lance would probably find a way to make him double dead.

“You’ll be coming home now?” asked Lance.

“I ended up pretty far away so we’re gonna wait until tomorrow morning to head back. We should get back some time in the afternoon,” said Arthur.

“That’ll work,” said Lance. “But I ain’t letting you out of my sight for the next week.”

Arthur snorted. Lewis gave him a confused look. Arthur lowered the phone. “I’m grounded,” he whispered before bringing the phone back up to his ear. “That’s fair.”

“Good. And after that you better not disappear ever again. You got too many who care about you, understand?”

“Well, it’s pretty obvious now,” admitted Arthur.

He heard Uncle Lance sigh over the phone. “You take care of yourself. Stay safe.”

“I will.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow. Love you.”

“I love you too.” Arthur hung up with a relieved sigh. “Well, that’s done.”

“He wasn’t too upset?” asked Lewis.

“Once he calmed down, no. Just worried. Can’t blame him,” admitted Arthur. He paused. “Hey, where are Vivi and Mystery?”

Lewis wordlessly pointed behind them. Arthur turned and saw Mystery running around with the ball while Vivi chased him, trying to get it back. She was smiling so she wasn’t upset or anything. Arthur smiled. “Huh, that’s…She looks happier than she’s been the past couple of weeks.”

Lewis winced. “Oh.”

Right, Vivi hadn’t visited him. “Maybe we should let ‘em go at it for a bit.”

“Hm.”

The two watched Vivi and Mystery for a bit.

“So…you’ve been seeing a therapist?” asked Lewis.

Arthur nodded. “Yeah, after…the cave, when I woke up I started having panic attacks. I figured it had something to do with what happened even if I couldn’t remember it. It’s actually pretty good, my therapist helped me work through some of my more illogical fears and got me to feel a bit better for myself. Got me on a decent anti-anxiety medicine too.”

“I think Lance gave that to Vivi,” said Lewis.

Arthur nodded. “Yeah, I can probably afford to miss a dose or two, but if it gets out of my system I think I’ll be in trouble.” He paused for a moment. “You know, it might do you and Vivi some good to see a therapist.”

Lewis sighed. “I…probably could use it, but what would I even say? I can’t exactly say that I was killed by a demon possessing my…” Lewis trailed off. “What are we to each other?”

Before Arthur would have responded that they were best friends without a moment’s hesitation. Now though…Was that accurate? “I’d say we’re friends at least. Maybe we can work back up to best friends.”

Lewis looked away. “…At least you’re still willing to be friends,” he muttered.

Arthur looked back towards Vivi. “Give her some time. I think once she sees you’re the same as you are in her memories she’ll warm back up to you.” He wasn’t sure Vivi would want to date Lewis again, but he wasn’t going to say that. “…Do you guys feel up to seeing a movie?”

They ended up seeing the same movie Arthur had seen before. There were jokes, lampshade hanging, and making fun of dumb decisions. It was great.

After that, they picked up a bunch of Chinese food and went back to the hotel room where they watched random stuff Anaheim and the other tiny ghosts (Lewis called them Deadbeats. Funny.) would choose. If you took away the ghosts it was pretty similar to what they’d do when they were on their own before.

“We should get to bed. We need to get up early to head out,” said Vivi.

Arthur checked the time. “Yeah, you can use the bathroom first. I can change out here.”

They were all guys. Arthur just made sure to angle himself so that Lewis didn’t see the scars and port.

The problem was that there were two beds, and it didn’t hit Arthur that he probably wouldn’t be sharing with Mystery until he saw Vivi climbing into the bed he’d obviously been using. “Uh, that’s…Should I use the other bed?”

“You’re not sharing with Lewis,” said Vivi in a tone that brokered no argument.

“He can have it to himself,” said Lewis. “I don’t sleep anymore.”

“Yeah, that works!” Arthur quickly climbed into the other bed and Mystery jumped into Vivi’s. “Feel free to keep watching TV. Just keep the volume low, okay.”

He said that, but he lay there for about half an hour unable to sleep. That wasn’t really odd. He’d had this problem since he was a kid. He turned, opening his eyes for a moment.

Lewis was floating between their bed in a reclining position. “Trouble sleeping?”

Arthur nodded. “Just the usual.”

Lewis was silent. “You…you oughta have an easier time if you shared with Vivi.”

Arthur frowned. “I don’t feel comfortable climbing into her bed while she’s sleeping.”

“She won’t care,” said Lewis.

She wouldn’t. She’d done it herself several times. “Let me rephrase that: I don’t feel comfortable doing that to you,” said Arthur.

Lewis looked surprised for a moment before looking away with a grimace. “She said the same thing.”

“Hm?”

Lewis shook his head. “Nothing. I just said something stupid to Vivi before.”

“Oh.” It seemed like more than that, but Arthur wasn’t going to press him. “Well, if you’re okay with it, maybe Anaheim can be my snuggle buddy instead? I was getting pretty comfortable with him by the time you got here.”

There was a chirp right before he felt something smooth wrap around him and nuzzle under his chin. Arthur reached up to give him a good scratch only for the hairs on the back of his neck to rise. He didn’t think he’d done anything to make Lewis upset. He glanced up. Lewis looked unbothered, but the other Deadeats were watching him. “Um…Lewis…”

And then Arthur was suddenly buried under a mass of Deadbeats. He let out a distressed sound. “Whoa! No, don’t do that!” The Deadbeats were quickly removed by an apologetic Lewis. “Sorry. They can be…very affectionate.”

“I am not ready for that many ghosts,” admitted Arthur. In fact he was feeling a lot less sleepy now. “I think I’ll watch TV with you for a bit.”

Arthur did eventually get to sleep and woke up to the sun starting to rise and shine through the window. He sat up in bed, Anaheim making a yawning sound. He frowned and looked around in confusion. Vivi and Mystery were still sleeping in their bed, but where was Lewis?

Arthur glanced down at Anaheim. “Well, he must be coming back if he was willing to leave you here.” He gave Shaggy a good scratch. “Wonder what he’s doing.”

Several minutes of sitting in the bed later, he noticed something out of the corner of his eye and turned to see a hand coming out of the door. Fortunately, he recognized it as Lewis’ hand before he could panic. Lewis’ hand groped for a moment before grabbing the doorknob and turning it so he could walk inside with a couple of bags.

Well, that explained why Lewis hadn’t just gone through the door. “Good morning,” greeted Arthur.

“Good morning,” greeted Lewis. “You would not believe some of the looks I got when I went to buy breakfast.”

“Well, you are wearing a full dress suit,” commented Arthur. Could Lewis not change into other clothes? “And…you’re wearing sunglasses?”

“I can’t change my eyes,” explained Lewis. “Most people would panic.”

Arthur nodded in understanding. “I get it.”

“So, uh…” Lewis hefted the bags. “I got breakfast.”

Arthur smiled. “Thanks.” Arthur got out of bed and shook Vivi. “Up and at ‘em.” Vivi groaned. “Lewis has food.”

That got Vivi to crack her eyes open. “Is there coffee?”

Lewis nodded. “I ordered a couple of large ones.”

“Mm…” Vivi and Mystery rolled out of bed. “Right. Let’s eat up so we can head out.”

Arthur paused. “Does anyone have a coin?” Lewis dug one out of his pocket and handed it over. “Thank.” He flipped it. “Tails.”

“And that means?”

“I’m riding with Vivi,” said Arthur matter-of-factly. He turned to Lewis. “Would you mind driving the van back?”

“Sure, no problem.” Lewis’ eyes went to Arthur’s port. “Uh, not to be insensitive, but how…?”

“Lots of practice,” deadpanned Arthur.

A quick breakfast and wash up later, they were getting into the cars. “I think I’ll keep Lewis company,” said Mystery before jumping into the van.

“Looks like it’s just you and me,” commented Vivi as she climbed into her car.

“Yeah. Wow, I can’t remember the last time I saw you without Mystery,” commented Arthur as he climbed in as well.

They set out. Arthur glanced in the rearview mirror to watch the van. Still behind them. It made him a bit uncomfortable. Maybe if they talked it would distract him.

Actually, it was a bit odd that Vivi wasn’t talking yet. Maybe she was still a bit upset at Arthur? Should he try saying something. What should he say? “I really am sorry for scaring you guys.”

“Just don’t do that again,” said Vivi. “I was terrified that I would find you and you’d be dead.”

Arthur winced because as much as he wanted to deny that would happen it had been what happened with Lewis. “Yeah, not one of my better ideas. I’ll stick with you and Lewis from now on.”

“You really care for him,” muttered Vivi.

“Of course I do,” said Arthur. “He’s…well, he was my best friend. I guess right now he’s a good friend, could be a best friend again once we adjust to everything.”

“Are you in love with him?” asked Vivi.

Arthur spun towards her? “What?! Where did that come from?!”

“You forgave him way too easily for trying to kill you. You’re trying to get me to forgive him so we can all be friends again. You spent months looking for him at the detriment of your own health. Before he died, you were willing to do pretty much anything for him,” listed Vivi.

“I’d do anything for both of you!” protested Arthur. “You’re my friends!”

“I don’t want to be friends!” Arthur felt his heart break. “I want to be more than that!” Wait. What? “But every time I drop hints you ignore it, and you completely miss my flirting! I thought it was because you’re ace, but now I’m wondering if you were willfully ignoring all of that.”

Well, that, wow. “I, uh, I did notice some of the flirting, but it was while Lewis was missing, and, well, you couldn’t remember, but you were Lewis’ girlfriend, and it seemed like it would be wrong and taking advantage of both of you.”

“Well, we’re not dating now! Heck! He practically gave you permission last night!”

Arthur blinked. “You were awake for that?”

Vivi nodded. “I wanted you to say yes. Why wouldn’t you?”

Arthur sighed. “I don’t want to be a replacement for Lewis. You were probably projecting on me when he was missing or something.”

Vivi gave him a look. “Did you seriously convince yourself of that?!”

Arthur shrugged. “It makes sense!”

“No, it doesn’t!” argued Vivi. “Everything to do with Lewis was gone! And you really think I would flirt with someone I’m not interested in?”

“Um, playfully, maybe. That’s what friends do, right?” asked Arthur.

Vivi made a frustrated sound. “Do you ever flirt with Lewis or me?”

“I don’t know how to flirt at all,” pointed out Arthur.

“…Okay, I can believe that,” admitted Vivi. “Generally, friends only flirt with each other if they find each other attractive.”

“Oh.”

“I flirted with you before Lewis died,” continued Vivi.

“You did?” Arthur couldn’t remember that. “It seems like that would upset Lewis.”

“He was flirting with you too.”

That made his brain short circuit. “Huh?”

“We’d been trying to figure out if you were interested in joining in our relationship practically since Lewis told me he’s bi,” explained Vivi. “You didn’t exactly make that easy by the way. Given, it was only like two months, but still. How could you miss all of that?”

“But…You were dating each other,” said Arthur, still too shocked to date properly.

“You can have more than two people in a romantic relationship,” explained Vivi. “Dunno why it doesn’t happen more often,” she muttered.

“And you…both of you…wanted…with me.” Arthur was stumbling over his words pretty badly by this point. Of all the things he’d been expecting today, this wasn’t one of them.

“Yeah, we were pretty sure you felt the same way from what we could tell,” said Vivi. “Did you feel the same way? Considering how much confessing we’ve been doing, I’d really like to hear your answer.”

“I…” Arthur swallowed. He’d been hiding this for so long. It would have been wrong of him to say anything. It would have been selfish. He didn’t want to ruin his friendship with either of them But maybe now…Maybe it would be all right. “I did. Do. I do. I still like both of you. Like that.”

“…How can you still have feelings for Lewis?” asked Vivi.

Arthur thought. It would be pretty reasonable to avoid someone who tried to kill you, but…

Arthur kept thinking of all the good times he’d had with Lewis, and the bad times…Well, in retrospect they weren’t so bad and showed how much they were willing to help each other. And they were happy around each other.

Lewis made a mistake. He’d admitted as much and obviously felt guilty about it. “People mess up. As long he doesn’t try to hurt either of us again, I can forgive him.”

“But if he does do something like this again?” pressed Vivi.

“…” Arthur sighed. “Then the Lewis we knew is gone for good.”

Vivi nodded. “If we can agree to have nothing to do with him if he ever tries something again then I’ll give him a chance too.”

Arthur smiled. “Thank you.”

…

“I missed him too,” muttered Vivi. “After everything he did. It’s so stupid.”

Arthur reached over and clapped Vivi on the shoulder

“And since you’re not going to ask…” Vivi looked towards Arthur as much as she could while driving. “Would you like to go out some time?”

“Um…” Arthur glanced in the rearview mirror back towards the van. “…We shouldn’t hide it from Lewis.”

“We won’t,” said Vivi.

“Okay, but let’s not show off in front of Lewis,” said Arthur. “It’ll be hard enough on him as it is.”

“Hm. Yeah, best not to push him,” said Vivi.

Not quite what he meant…although it was a fair point. “So, uh, you know more about dating than I do. What do you want to do?”

“We could go to Nekoya. Maybe see a movie depending on how we feel,” suggested Vivi.

Arthur nodded. “Yeah, that sounds good.” Nice and simple.

They broke the news to Lewis when they stopped for lunch. The only sign that Lewis was upset was his heart turning blue with a crack in it and his skull briefly becoming visible before he looked down. “Right. You two. That makes sense.”

“It was my idea,” said Vivi.

“I figured,” said Lewis.

“We’ll be keeping it pretty casual for now,” said Arthur. “And we can hang out during our downtime, all three of us.”

“…I missed that,” admitted Lewis.

“We all did,” said Arthur.

“Oh come on! That’s the fifth time in a row” complained Lewis as they played Super Smash Brothers Melee.

Arthur stuck his tongue out. “I’m just that awesome!”

Vivi giggled and punched his arm. “You dork!”

“We could play videogames again,” suggested Arthur.

“Uh, I tend to make electronics malfunction when I touch them,” Lewis reminded them.

“I bet I can find a way around that,” said Arthur.

“No one’s getting left out this time,” said Vivi. “Not after what happened last time.”

Arthur winced a bit at that. Yeah, feeling left out had probably contributed to being possessed.

The rest of lunch was awkwardly silent.

They got back to Tempo and headed straight to the Peppers’ house. The living Peppers were all waiting outside. “Arthur!” Paprika ran over and hugged Arthur around his legs. “You didn’t disappear!”

Arthur winced before hugging her back. “Yeah, I’m sorry for scaring everyone like that.”

Paprika looked up at Arthur with big eyes. “Are you gonna stay for dinner?”

…He guessed it had been a long time since he’d done that. He should try to make a casual visit, no earth-shattering revelations, no fights, no yelling, just spending time with them. Not today though. “I should get home. Uncle Lance is probably worried sick about me.”

Paprika pouted but nodded. “But you’ll come back?”

Arthur nodded. “Yeah, Sunday.”

Paprika smiled and nodded. “Okay!” Then she ran over to give Lewis a hug. That made Arthur feel a bit better. At least Lewis had support at home.

Mr. Pepper walked over. “Are you feeling better?”

Arthur nodded. “Yeah, sorry if I frightened anyone. I wasn’t really thinking straight.”

“I can’t really blame you,” admitted Mr. Pepper. He breathed in. “You know…none of us blame you for what happened. We know you’d have to be possessed to do something like that.”

Arthur smiled at him. “Thanks. That helps a lot.”

“I’m heading home,” said Vivi. “I’ll see you Saturday.”

Arthur nodded. “Okay, see you then.”

The rest of the Peppers walked over as Vivi drove off.

“Why is Vivi angry with you anyway?” asked Cayenne.

“I messed up her memory,” lied Lewis.

Belled frowned and pointed at his heart. “Wasn’t that orange before?”

Lewis hid his heart with his hand. “It’s changed color a couple of times before. I’m still learning how this works.”

Arthur knew what had caused the color change and was sure Lewis knew too. “Well, I better get going. I’ll see you guys…in a few days.” He’d see if he could convince Vivi to come too.

Uncle Lance was not outside when he got home. That was just how Lance was. Arthur walked inside. “I’m home.”

“In the garage!” Arthur walked in and saw Lance working on a car. Right, Lance had a larger workload while Arthur was gone. Lance glanced over towards Arthur. “You okay?”

Arthur nodded. “Yeah.”

“Got it out of your system?”

“Yeah…I wish you’d told me, but I understand why.”

Lance paused in his work for a moment. “I was gonna tell you eventually. When things calmed down. I was worried you’d do something to hurt yourself if I told you too soon.”

Arthur thought for a moment. “Okay, I might not have reacted badly if it had been broken to me gently over time,” admitted Arthur. “Asking Lewis to just tell me might not have been a good idea. No changing it now though.”

Lance grunted. “Did you straighten things out with him at least?”

“Yeah, I still feel kind of uncomfortable around him, but it’s not as bad as before. Still kind of worried about upsetting him if I’m not careful, but if he didn’t-Oh, um, right. That.”

Lance gave Arthur a somewhat worried look. “What happened?”

“Nothing bad! Just a bit unexpected. Vivi asked me out on the way back, and I said yes. I guess we’re dating now,” announced Arthur. “Anyway, we told Lewis. He didn’t shout or try to hurt anyone, but I think we broke his heart a little.”

Lance narrowed his eyes. “Did either of them mention that Lewis thought you killed him to have Vivi to himself?”

Arthur’s eyes widened. “He-what?! Neither of them ever said anything about that!” He thought a moment. “Although I guess it didn’t occur to me that Lewis would try to come up with a motive for me killing him.” Finding out he’d been possessed had been enough reason for Arthur. Sometimes people just suddenly turned out to be awful or sociopaths or something, but now that he thought about it even they wouldn’t risk a murder unless there was something they really wanted. “Well, uh, that might make things…more awkward than they were already going to be, but I think we can move past it.”

Uncle Lance gave Arthur a long look. “I’d feel more comfortable if you put down some of those protections you keep around.”

That was fair. Arthur put those defenses up all the time, usually when he was feeling more anxious than usual. “Okay, and since that seems like a good segue point, I sort of quit the Mystery Skulls.”

Lance raised an eyebrow.

“I say sort of because I said I didn’t want to do the investigations except maybe maintain the equipment, but I’m fine with traveling with Vivi and Mystery and maybe Lewis if we all manage to make up. Just to hang out with ‘em, you know? I’d just hang out in a hotel room or the van while everyone else investigated. Vivi agreed with it and said she was going to take a break from investigating for a while. I think she needs the break just as much as I do to tell the truth.”

“She did,” agreed Lance. “I won’t lie, I’ll feel better knowing you’re staying away from that sort of thing, if only because I know you’ll be happier this way.”

Arthur laughed nervously. “Yeah, I guess it was a bit overdue.” He leaned against the car, watching Lance work. “So, what’s wrong with this one? Fan belt?”

“Yeah, broke and got stuck in the rest of the engine,” said Lance. “Hand me that ratchet, will ya?”

Arthur nodded. “Sure thing.”

The rest of the day was spent helping Lance repair the car, and thing were good between the two of them.

Vivi and Mystery came to the garage around lunchtime the next day. “Hey Arthur! Hey Lance!”

Arthur blinked. “Vivi? I wasn’t expecting you today.”

Vivi smiled. “I thought I’d surprise you. Brought you some lunch.” She hefted a large box.

“Oh, thanks. That’s nice of you.” Arthur frowned as something occurred to him. “Oh, wait. Is this a couple thing? It seems like a couple thing.”

“A bit, but I also wanted to check up on how you were doing,” admitted Vivi. “I know we should plan lunches ahead of time once you start fixing cars again since you won’t always be able to stop working on a car immediately.”

“But I could probably surprise you if I wanted to,” said Arthur.

Vivi thought for a minute before nodding. “I might have to take a moment to finish a task or helping a customer, but, yeah, you’d have an easier time coming to surprise me for lunch than I would you.”

Arthur nodded. He wouldn’t mind doing so on a slow day. “Okay, well, let me check how Uncle Lance is doing.” He ducked into the garage where Lance was taking a wheel off a car. “Can you break for lunch?”

“Gotta finish rotating these tires first,” said Lance.

“Okay, well, Vivi came to visit for lunch so I’m gonna go on break with her.”

“Sure, go ahead. I’ll join you two in a bit,” said Lance.

“Okay, thanks,” said Arthur as he ducked back out. He opened the door to his and Lance’s apartment. “After you.”

Vivi had brought over BLT’s. Hers was bigger than Arthur and Lance’s. Mystery had a sandwich that was even bigger than Vivi’s that he was scarfing down. “So how are you doing?” asked Vivi.

“It’s been pretty much the same as it’s been since the crash,” said Arthur. “I’m doing secretary stuff and really simple stuff. I’ve had a lot of free time that I’ve been using to look my arm over.” He swallowed. “I’m thinking of adding a heat coil to it or at least an attachment. Cold weather’s supposed to make stumps hurt.”

Vivi, familiar with Arthur’s fight against phantom limb syndrome, nodded sympathetically. “At least we live in Texas. I know the prosthetics are going to be worn by people in colder climates though.”

“Yeah, might need to make it adjustable,” muttered Arthur. Some places were colder than others. “So, what about you? Duet didn’t mind that you missed some work?”

“She considered it an emergency,” said Vivi. “I might need to put in a bit of overtime to make up for it, but that’s if Duet can find something for me to do. I’m more worried about Chloe.”

Arthur blinked. “Why would you need to worry about Chloe?”

“When Lewis and I started dating, she interrogated me about it for two days,” explained Vivi. “When she finds out I got my memory back, dumped Lewis, and started dating my other best friend, she’s going to try and press me for all the juicy gossip.”

Arthur made a face. “Yeesh. Is this how people feel when we ask questions about them? No wonder they don’t seem to like us.”

“It’s not just that. I have to keep her from figuring out Lewis is dead,” pointed out Vivi.

Arthur groaned. “She’s still after an undead boyfriend?” Vivi nodded. “Hey, uh, how do you think that would work?”

Vivi hummed. “I guess it would depend on the type of undead. Some would be safer to be in a relationship than others, and some are more likely to take advantage of you than others.”

“Where does Lewis fall in that spectrum?”

Vivi paused. “I’m sure. If he’s the way he was before, I’d say it’s safe, but, well, outside of our little trip we haven’t spent a lot of time with Lewis since he came back.”

“Yeah, I guess we could’ve handled that a bit better,” admitted Arthur. “Um, uh, you said you and Lewis wanted to bring me into your relationship. Do you think we might bring Lewis in once we see how he’s doing?”

Vivi was silent. “I love that you’re the type of person who would forgive Lewis after everything, but like you said we haven’t spent much time since with him since he came back. We’re not sure if he’s the same person still.”

“Oh…”

“That’s not a no,” said Vivi. “I just want us to be sure he’s who we fell in love with before we jump into something serious.”

That was fair. If Lewis was managing to hide all that rage…Well, Arthur was pretty sure dating someone who tried to kill you counted as being in an abusive relationship.

…Yeah, best to avoid that sort of thing.

Lance came in around then so they switched to lighter topics. Vivi and Mystery finished their lunch shortly afterwards and headed back to the bookstore.

That had been nice. Arthur thought he could enjoy that happening regularly.

Saturday rolled around. The plan for the date was an early dinner and a movie, but there was no rule saying they couldn’t hang out before then.

“How did you do that with one arm?” questioned Vivi.

Arthur grinned from where he was hanging upside down from the monkey bars. “I climbed up on top of them, flipped over, and moved up from there.” He shrugged. “It was pointless but so satisfying.” He was gonna need to get back into shape if he wanted to keep up his parkour habit.

Vivi grinned. “Any other acrobatics you wanna try?”

Arthur thought a moment. “Nothing I should get up to right now. Actually, can you help me down? I’m starting to get lightheaded.”

Vivi helped steady him as he climbed down. “You must’ve been a clown in a past life or something.”

“Clowns are clumsy though. Wouldn’t an acrobat be more likely?” asked Arthur.

“I dunno. Clowns have to be pretty nimble to get away from bulls.”

Arthur blinked. “Huh, you know I never thought of it like that.” And now he was picturing himself in a clown outfit. “So, are we gonna play fetch or not?”

“Yes, please!” said Mystery. “I brought my favorite frisbee!”

“Quick question: Why do you enjoy fetch so much if you’re not a dog?” asked Arthur.

“Foxes are canines,” explained Mystery.

Eh, that and many videos of playful foxes was enough to explain it for Arthur. “Okay then. Guess we’ll run around until we get hungry.” Then he grabbed the frisbee and threw it as far as he could.

The next couple of hours were spent on shenanigans in the park that may or may not have involved the swings, a baby carriage, and so many squirrels.

“We can never tell anyone about that,” said Arthur as they drove away from the park.

“I don’t think they’d believe us,” said Vivi.

Arthur glanced in the backseat where Mystery was playing with a squeaky toy. “What about other people who deal with weird stuff?”

Vivi paused. “Okay, maybe they would, but like you said we won’t tell them.”

“…We might tell Lewis one day when we actually find it funny,” commented Arthur.

Vivi hummed. “He might not believe the part about the squirrels.”

Arthur snorted. “Really? That’s the part that’s unbelievable?”

“He knows what we get up to.”

They were still giggling a bit hysterically when they got to Nekoya. “So, will Mystery be coming with us?” asked Arthur.

Mystery shook his head. “I’ll let you two have your privacy. Just bring me some chicken.”

“He’ll probably sneak into the movies somehow though,” warned Vivi. “We won’t be able to tell though so don’t worry.”

“Should we still get him a ticket?” asked Arthur.

“Oh, there’s no need for that. I won’t be using a seat,” reassured Mystery.

“Now, c’mon, I’m hungry,” said Vivi.

Arthur had been to Nekoya before. It offered mostly authentic Japanese cuisine with a few not quite authentic dishes for people who wanted something a bit closer to western fare. Arthur had a pretty good idea what he wanted to eat: Seafood udon. Maybe a couple of pieces of sushi.

“I’m getting a sushi boat!” decided Vivi.

“Ah. I was thinking of getting a couple of pieces of sushi,” said Arthur. “Mind if I poach ‘em from you?”

“Nah, go ahead. That’s not all you’re going to eat, is it?”

“I’m getting some seafood udon.”

“Dessert?”

“Oh, uh, maybe if I’m still hungry.” Something hit Arthur. “Uh, do we split the bill?

Vivi nodded. “Yeah, I know you’re sort of rich now, but I’m not gonna make you pay the whole bill when I’m getting something worth $40.”

“I’m not rich. I mean I guess I might become rich in a few years,” admitted Arthur. “But that’s if someone doesn’t come up with an improved version of the technology that will be used instead.”

Vivi snorted. “Don’t sell yourself short. I know you’re always coming up with ways to make your arms better. If anyone is going to make your tech defunct, it’s going to be you.”

Arthur blushed at that. “I’m not gonna make any assumptions. Anyway, since I’m stealing a bit of your sushi, I’ll pay like $10 of your bill. That sound good?”

Vivi hummed for a moment. “Sounds fair. Just give me $10 when you have the time. I don’t think they can split an item between two people.”

They spoke a bit more about work, customers, coworkers (Not that they had a lot of those.), and any difficult cases they’d had. While they were waiting for food, Vivi asked a bit more about his heating coil idea and asked if there was a cooling coil. He admitted that he probably could’ve used something like that when he’d first gotten his arm attached, but he’d been focusing on other things at the time.

While they were eating Vivi spoke about a book she’d read recently. It was a horror novel. Arthur was a bit relieved actually. She’d been avoiding the genre around him lately, and he’d been getting a little worried about her.

Arthur was still a little hungry so he ordered a scoop of red bean ice cream. Vivi ordered a decadent chocolate lava cake. Arthur might have stolen a bite.

They were pretty full when they headed to the movie theatre. They decided to see Big Hero Six, but had a little while before the movie started. They spent it goofing off in the small arcade. Arthur somehow managed to beat Vivi, much to her frustration.

The movie was good. The death of Tadashi hit them hard. Vivi figured out within a few minutes who the villain was. Arthur commented on how viable some of the tech in the movie would be in real life. He wouldn’t mind seeing if he could replicate a couple of them.

They both were rather curious about whether the fact the movie ended with two Baymaxes would come up in a sequel.

All in all, it was a pretty good night.

As Arthur stopped in front of Vivi’s apartment he turned to her. “That was pretty fun, not that different from just hanging out.”

Vivi chuckled. “Yeah, I’ve noticed that too. I like to think it means we were always compatible.”

“So, do I walk you to your door? I kind of want to.”

“I won’t complain if you do.”

Vivi’s apartment was maybe 50 feet from the van, but it was nice to spend another couple of minutes with her.

“So…we can do this again next week?” asked Arthur.

Vivi nodded. “Yeah, if there aren’t any movies we want to see out we can go to one of our houses and watch something.”

That made Arthur feel happy. “Great, that’s great.”

Vivi giggled. “And now I’m going to kiss you.”

That made Arthur freeze up. He had absolutely no experience with kissing. At all. He had no idea what to do. Vivi tugged him down a bit a planted a peck on his lips. She gave him a wink. “We can practice kissing next time,” she promised.

Arthur’s brain wasn’t working enough to respond.

“I’ll see you tomorrow when we go to visit Lewis,” promised Vivi as she opened the door. “Drive carefully, okay?”

Arthur nodded dazedly. “Okay.”

Vivi smiled and gave him a hug. “I love you.”

That got Arthur to grin goofily. “I love you too.”

They stayed like that for another couple of moments before parting. Vivi gave one last wave as she and Mystery entered the apartment.

Arthur took a moment to recover his wits enough to get back to his van, and he was grinning goofily the whole time.

That was the best day he’d had in a long time.

Arthur was still feeling ridiculously happy the next day as he spent the morning messing around with his heat coil idea.

He’d sobered up a bit when it was time to go visit Lewis.

“You’ll be careful? Vivi’s got those paper spell things?” questioned Lance.

“I’ll be careful, but I don’t know what Vivi’s going to be doing.” She may in fact be bringing ofuda to the dinner. “Other people are going to be around. Anyway, I don’t think Lewis is interested in attacking me anymore.”

Lance made a considering sound before nodding. “All right, but if he does anything to you, I’ll exorcise him myself.”

Arthur nodded. “I’m sure Lewis already knows.”

“Then I won’t hold you up.” Lance made a shooing motion. “Get out there and have some fun.”

Arthur smiled. “Thanks Uncle Lance.”

Arthur made a quick detour to pick up Vivi but arrived at Lewis’ house after about 20 minutes. “…Are you as nervous as I am?” asked Arthur.

Vivi nodded. “Yeah, but don’t worry. I took precautionary measures!” She rolled up a sleeve to show a couple of ofuda taped to her arm.

Huh, what were the chances?

“I wouldn’t worry. I spoke with Lewis when I was alone with him, and he was genuinely remorseful,” reassured Mystery. “Even after you two decided to start dating. A bit depressed, but not violent.”

Arthur could understand the depression. “Well, let’s see if we can cheer him up and hope we don’t make it worse.”

Things were finally getting better. Arthur didn’t want everything to slide backwards.

They knocked on the door. It was immediately opened by a deadbeat that chirped at them. “Hi there,” greeted Vivi.

“Jalapeño!” The deadbeat let out a startled sound before flying away. Lewis appeared a second later. “Oh, good, just you guys. The deadbeats keep trying to answer the door even though I told them to lay low!”

“They’re probably bored,” said Arthur. “Actually, maybe you can get your parents to let you out for a little bit to let them burn off some energy.”

“Yeah, just find a graveyard or some deserted forest or something,” added Vivi.

Lewis gave them an odd look. “That’s a nice suggestion. Come on in.”

“Thanks.”

“Vivi! Arthur!” Paprika and a few deadbeats ran over to give them hugs. “I missed you!”

Vivi gave Belle a smile. “You saw us just a few days ago.”

Belle pouted. “You guys left as soon as you got here though!”

Arthur laughed nervously. “Yeah, don’t really have a good excuse for that, but we are here now!”

“Yeah, I, uh, helped cook,” said Lewis. “It’s been a little off since I can’t smell anymore.”

“Nah, it tastes the same,” said Cayenne from the sofa. “Wanna watch Spongebob with us?”

“I was hoping to get some samples of the cooking,” admitted Vivi.

“It’ll be ready in 10, 15 minutes,” said Lewis. “Just give it a few minutes.”

Vivi pouted. “Fine…”

Arthur was distracted by the Spongebob episode by this point. “Oh, I love this one!”

“You’re an adult. How do you still like Spongebob?” questioned Belle.

“Hey, I was even younger than you two when this started airing,” pointed out Arthur. “You don’t always outgrow what you like.”

Vivi made a sound as she came over. “Personally, I don’t care for it much anymore except for the scary episodes.”

Arthur turned to Mystery. “What do you think?”

Mystery barked and put his head on Arthur’s lap like a normal dog. Cayenne giggled. “Dogs can’t see TV screens.”

Did…Did no one tell the Peppers about Mystery? Arthur met Vivi’s eyes, and she shook her head. Okay, pretend Mystery’s a normal dog for now. “He can hear it though.”

At this point Spongebob laughed causing Mystery to dart his head towards the television and growl. Guess he didn’t like Spongebob Squarepants.

True to Lewis’ word, Mr. Pepper was calling everyone over to eat within a few minutes. It was the familiar Mexican-Spanish-Italian cuisine, spicy enough that you could feel the burn in your sinuses. There were some lighter parts of the dishes for Arthur since they knew he couldn’t really handle spicy food.

“It looks delicious!” said Vivi as she happily started piling food onto her plate.

Arthur nodded in agreement as he got the less spicy food. “I have missed eating your cooking.”

Cayenne pouted. “You should’ve come by the restaurant!”

“That’s sort of my fault,” admitted Vivi. “I got horrible headaches when I visited you guys, and Arthur was keeping an eye on me, so…yeah.”

Arthur coughed uncomfortably. “I probably could’ve made more time to visit you on my own…” He could admit he’d been obsessed with putting his arm together and figuring out where Lewis was. “Guess I lost sight of things a little.”

“But how ‘come you guys didn’t come to visit after Lewis came back?” asked Cayenne.

You could practically cut through the silence that arose after her question. Arthur glanced at Lewis, who looked rather panicked. “Partly because Uncle Lance was being protective of me. I hurt my shoulder pretty badly. Partly because I have enough of a ghost phobia that I had to work myself up to seeing Lewis again. I still panicked pretty badly though.”

“My head hurt for a while after my memories were repaired, especially when I thought about anything to do with Lewis,” lied Vivi. Her head had been fine after a couple of days.

“It’s been a rough time for all of us,” said Mrs. Pepper. “Let’s not dwell too much on how we dealt with the pain and focus on moving forward.”

It was very good advice, even if it was difficult to follow. Arthur focused on eating and trying to come up with something to talk about with Lewis.

So he realized that Lewis looked more downcast than usual while staring morosely at his empty plate.

Oh. Oh…

“You can’t eat at all?” asked Arthur.

Lewis clenched his fists. “No.”

Arthur had suspected as much after eating out with Lewis, but the idea was just…horrifying. Lewis loved cooking and eating with his family. Losing that along with everything else just seemed cruel. Arthur felt guilt and wished there was a way to let Lewis eat something.

It was another few minutes before the idea occurred to Arthur. “Can you possess people?”

That got Arthur several shocked looks. “I have no idea,” said Lewis. “It’s not something that ever occurred to me to try.”

“But do you think you might be able to eat if you did?” pressed Arthur.

“I, uh, I don’t think it would affect the other person’s abilities. I guess I could, but I’m not sure I’d actually taste what they can,” said Lewis.

“It would make sense for you to be able too,” said Vivi around a mouthful of pasta. “You could still see and hear and touch, so you oughta have all the senses.” She swallowed. “Might have some sensory deprivation going on though.”

So, he needed less spicy food then? “If that’s the case he’d be better off trying it with me,” commented Arthur. “I…don’t mind giving it a try.”

“Whoa! Hold on! You got possessed by-” She glanced at Paprika and Cayenne. “That other thing!”

“I don’t actually remember any of it though,” pointed out Arthur. “I’ve tried. All I got was a headache and a weird sleep paralysis dream with a cat that turned into a raccoon.” He paused. “There weren’t any tanuki, were there?”

“No, just a couple of bats,” said Lewis. “What would a tanuki even be doing in Texas?”

Arthur gave Mystery a meaningful look. Mystery was doing his best to look innocent.

“You could try later with one of us,” pointed out Belle. “We could eat some potato chips or something.”

Lewis made a bit of a face at that. He wasn’t a big fan of junk food. “Nah, I think I’d rather try it while Vivi’s around in case something goes wrong.” He turned to face Arthur. “You’re all right with this?”

Arthur nodded. “Sure, just don’t do anything weird with my body.”

“Okay…” Lewis stared. “How do I do this?”

“Maybe if you hold his head or something?” suggested Vivi. “Or turn intangible and try to go through him…”

“Right.” Lewis carefully cupped Arthur’s face in his hands and pressed his forehead to Arthur’s. He was so warm…and he smelled the same he had in life. Arthur closed his eyes and leaned into the touch.

Then Lewis was gone, but not gone. Lewis wasn’t holding Arthur, but Arthur could still feel him, just on the inside instead of the outside.

He opened his eyes, and felt a sense of disorientation. Wow, this feels really weird.

“Where’d Lewis go?” asked Belle, looking like she was about to cry.

“I’m right here,” Arthur’s mouth said with his voice. His head looked down to see Lewis’ heart floating in front of his chest. “See, here’s my heart. I can’t believe that worked,” Lewis continued. What an odd sensation. “I can stop.” Arthur could probably put up with it for at least a few minutes before he started freaking out.

“How do you feel?” asked Vivi.

“Off balance.” Lewis paused before lifting Arthur’s single arm. “…Oh.”

“I think it took some time for Arthur to get used to that as well,” commented Mr. Pepper.

Lewis picked up a spoon. “Everything seems bigger for some reason.”

“That’s cause you’re not a giant now!” said Cayenne.

Everyone else snorted at that. Arthur would have snorted if he’d still been in control of his body. “Yeah, ha ha,” said Lewis. Then he turned his attention to the plate. There was longing and trepidation. Lewis picked up some rice on the spoon. “I can smell at least. It smells amazing.” Then he spooned the rice into his mouth.

Arthur thought it tasted pretty good, if a bit spicier than he preferred, but Lewis panicked and flew out of his body so fast that Arthur choked. He coughed for a moment, slamming his hand into his chest. Someone was rubbing his back. “Are you okay?”

Arthur nodded as he managed to drink some of the milk he’d been given. “I’m fine. What was that?”

“It was spicy!” Arthur looked over at Lewis in surprise and recoiled a bit. Lewis had his skull out and was holding his hand up to where his mouth had been. “That’s…You ate it so I know it has to be mild, but it was like it was as spicy as the Bhut Jolokia special!”

“Well, if you haven’t eaten anything for a few months, I guess you lost your tolerance for it,” reasoned Mr. Pepper. “I guess you’ll need to work your way back up to it.”

Lewis let out a ghostly moan as several Deadbeats patted him to try and cheer him up. “Wonderful.”

“We’ll figure something out,” said Mrs. Pepper. She turned to Arthur. “And how are you?”

“My, throat’s a little sore, but uh…” Arthur gestured towards Lewis. “Your skull…”

Lewis’ sockets widened for a second before his face was back in place. “Oops. Sorry.”

“It’s all right. No one minds,” reassured Mr. Pepper, glancing towards Paprika, who was wide-eyed.

Oh, right, she was a bit scared of Lewis’ skull appearance. She wasn’t crying or anything though. She looked more startled than anything, so maybe she was less scared now?

Mrs. Pepper reached over to give Paprika a reassuring hug. “Let’s get back to eating, shall we?” she suggested. “We made a cinnamon-chocolate mousse for dessert.”

That was enough to get the younger kids eating dinner again, although Belle took a moment. She looked worried. Arthur couldn’t blame her. He sighed and took Lewis’ hand in his own. “It’s not much, but if you do want to eat something when I’m around, we can do this again.”

“Or he can possess me,” pointed out Vivi. “Or the Peppers, okay, maybe not his sisters. They’re probably a bit young for that to be safe. Point is Lewis can possess people other than you.” She gave Lewis a pointed look. “As long as it’s consensual. Got it Mister?”

Lewis smiled sadly. “Of course.”

Dinner was more or less back on track after that with more mundane topics of conversation, although Arthur noted that no one brought up the fact that he and Vivi were now dating.

Probably for the best. It would feel too much like he was shoving it into Lewis’ face.

Lewis saw them off. “Um, thank you for coming over.”

“It’s no problem,” said Arthur. “I…I really did miss you. I still kind of do if that makes sense.”

Lewis sighed. “That makes too much sense.”

Vivi patted his arm. “Hey, we’ll be seeing each other more often!”

Lewis perked up a bit. “Really?”

“Yeah, I mean I’m sort of grounded this week,” admitted Arthur. “But after that we can come visit sometimes after work.”

“Might come over a bit earlier next week so we can spend some time with you before dinner,” added Vivi.

Lewis made a sound not unlike a sigh as he finally smiled. “I’d like that.”

“Okay, then we’ll see you next week, at the latest,” promised Arthur.

As they drove away, Vivi turned to Arthur. “It really didn’t bother you being possessed?”

Arthur shrugged. “I guess it should, but like I said I can’t remember the possession. Weird I know, but at least that’s one less trauma in my life.” He paused and glanced at Mystery. “That was safe for me to do, right?”

“As long as Lewis doesn’t try to tear your soul apart,” said Mystery. He gave a far too toothy grin. “And you can be sure he wouldn’t be around for long if he attempted it.”

Arthur sweatdropped. “Oh, uh, thanks.”

“Oh, don’t worry. You’re less susceptible to that sort of thing now than when we went to the cave,” continued Mystery. “You should be able to push him out before he does any permanent damage.”

“If you say so,” said Arthur. “But was there anything that made it obvious it wasn’t me in control?”

Vivi snorted. “You mean besides the heart floating in front of your chest?”

Arthur nodded. “Okay, yeah, I guess that would give it away, but was there anything else?”

Vivi hummed. “Well, your eyes turned violet, like Lewis’ before he died. Other than that, nothing obvious.”

“Possessions usually aren’t obvious,” said Mystery. “Partly because the possessor will try to keep anyone noticing and trying to remove them and partly because most entities aren’t powerful enough to affect the appearance of their host.”

Arthur wondered what it said about Lewis that he’d been able to change Arthur’s body at all. “Well, I guess we’ll be learning a bit more about it.”

Vivi nodded. “Yeah, if only to give Mr. and Mrs. Pepper a break. You know they’re going to insist Lewis possess them daily from now on.”

Arthur winced. “Yeah, I guess it would be nice to have a break from that.”

“And I’ll see if there’s a way for him to eat food without possessing anyone too,” said Vivi. “It wouldn’t work all the time, but it would probably be safer.”

Arthur nodded. “If anyone can find a way to make this work it’s you.”

Vivi got a determined look on her face. “Oh, believe me. I will.”

After a couple of weeks, things were getting better. Arthur wasn’t grounded. He was getting used to dating, although he still had trouble believing it sometimes. Things were slightly less awkward with Lewis. There was still a lot of walking on eggshells, but if they got on the right subject they’d relax and talk and laugh, like before the cave. Arthur liked to think their relationship was salvageable.

Then Arthur ran into a problem: Christmas. More specifically, Christmas presents.

Arthur generally would either buy someone a toy or game they liked or something he felt they could use. He already had an idea what to get everyone…except for Lewis.

Lewis was still causing electronics to malfunction if he wasn’t careful, and Arthur hadn’t had a chance to try and get around it so games were out. A movie or something might not be out, but Lewis hadn’t been in a movie theatre since March so Arthur wasn’t sure what Lewis would like.

It didn’t help that Mrs. Pepper regularly bought recently released DVDs and they had a streaming service.

Getting Lewis something he would use was out too. No electronic gadgets (again), and Lewis could literally make simpler stuff if he needed it. Arthur had seen him make a parmesan grater once when they couldn’t find theirs. It was actually really convenient most of the time.

So Arthur wasn’t really sure what to get Lewis. It had happened before, but he hadn’t been trying to mend a relationship the other years.

Arthur decided to just take the direct route. “Hey, Lewis, what do you want for Christmas?”

Lewis blinked. “Where’d that come from?”

“I’m just having trouble thinking of anything,” admitted Arthur as he pet Anaheim in his lap.

Lewis thought for a moment. “Huh. You know. I haven’t put that much thought into it. I guess if you figure out the electronics thing you could get me a new phone.”

Arthur winced. “I haven’t really had the chance to do much about that besides look up some theories and alternate energy sources.” He had some ideas, but it probably wouldn’t be ready by Christmas.

“Maybe a good book or some manga then,” suggested Lewis.

Arthur frowned. “But that’s what Vivi gives you…”

“Yep! I’ve managed to find some gems at work!” Vivi proudly proclaimed. She frowned. “Although, what have you been into lately?”

Lewis looked very nervous for a moment. “Skip Beat?”

“That sounds vaguely familiar,” muttered Vivi. “I’m sure I can find some volumes. How far along are you?”

“Volume 10.”

“Okay, don’t go any further than that,” instructed Vivi.

“Yes ma’am.”

“I guess I could just go for a book,” admitted Arthur. “But…I just would like to get you something more if that makes sense…”

“Ah, don’t worry about it,” said Lewis. “It makes sense that a ghost would be kind of hard to buy for.”

It still bothered Arthur though, even as Vivi showed him the romance books at Tome Tomb. “This one is about a time traveling FBI profiler.”

“Is it violent?” asked Arthur. “I’m not sure I want to give him something violent.”

Vivi sighed and put the book back. “Okay, here’s…no wait, he’s not into harem stories.” Vivi perused a bit more before pulling out a seemingly random book. “This one’s in a fantasy setting. It involves a princess running away from home to avoid an arranged marriage, starting a coup to steal the throne from her father, and marrying a dragon.”

Arthur stared at the book. “Can the dragon turn humanish?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, maybe.” Arthur took the book.

Vivi smiled. “Now, let’s take a look at the manga.”

Tome Tomb’s manga collection was quite eclectic. They had some well known manga, but a lot of it was obscure enough that you’d need an expert like Chloe. Arthur was getting ready to open his mouth and ask for a recommendation when he spotted one of the manga that were on display and let out a gasp. “That’s it!”

Vivi and Chloe gave him a startled look. “What is it?” asked Vivi.

Arthur pointed at the manga. “Sailor Moon!”

Chloe nodded. “It’s a classic and a pioneer of the magical girl genre, although I prefer Digital Princess Alpha myself.”

“I think Lewis has all the volumes already,” said Vivi.

“No, not like that. Sailor Moon has a transformation locket that’s shaped like a heart!” explained Arthur. “I could make something for Lewis to slip on over his…” Chloe was here. “Locket to make it look like Sailor Moon’s!”

“Oh…” Vivi frowned. “Would you have time for that sort of thing?”

“I think so,” said Arthur already drawing up plans in his head. “I can mold some steel in the shape, plate it with silver or chrome, something shiny, paint or enamel it, set some crystals in it, I think I can make this work!”

“Well, I know you wanted to give Lewis something meaningful this year, so I won’t try to talk you out of it,” said Vivi. “But at least buy the book so you have a back up in case you can’t make it in time.”

“Deal.”

Arthur started drawing out the plans as soon as he got home. He had memorized the size and shape of Lewis’ heart by now so he sketched that out first. Then he started sketching how big the Sailor Moon attachment would have to be to keep it nice and snug. Oh, he could line it with something nice and soft, like felt or velvet. Velvet would probably fit with the theme a bit more.

Before long, Arthur had the plans all drawn up. Now he had to make it. The metal working part wouldn’t be too hard. He just had to wait to get the final okay from the doctor to put his arm back on, which he should get in a few days. Until then, he could order the other supplies he needed and wait for them to arrive.

Thank goodness for the internet.

A few days later, Arthur was finally able to reattach his prosthetic. He let out a sigh as he rotated his left arm. This was a bit of an earlier model, but it wasn’t too different from the busted up model. It just required a lot more maintenance. He could put up with that for a few weeks.

Arthur worked the metal into the proper shapes, connected the pieces, electroplated it with chrome, coated it with various colored enamels, set the crystals in place, and lined the interior with velvet.

By the time Arthur finished, he thought he had a pretty good replica, just in time too. Christmas was only a couple of days away.

Arthur slipped it into the giftbox, took care to wrap it, still made a mess wrapping it, decided to just tape the box shut and put it in a nice gift bag instead, and now he just had to wait for Christmas day.

…

But first he could really use a soda.

Christmas finally came around. In the Kingsman household that meant sleeping in until 10, having a brunch that included cinnamon rolls and shrimp ‘n grits, and a quick present exchange.

Most people would question why Lance and Arthur only gave each other one present each, but they tended to buy things for themselves if they needed or wanted something, which made them a bit hard to buy for.

Arthur got…Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney. “Uh…Thanks, but why this game?” Not that he didn’t appreciate it, but it wasn’t his usual genre.

“It’s got mysteries and ghosts. Figured it would make you feel better if you give Vivi a ride to a haunted house and stay behind,” explained Lance.

That did make a certain sort of sense. Arthur made a not to give it a try sometime.

Now, it was Lance’s turn. He took the tissue paper out of the gift bag, shortly followed by…gun oil. “Ah. Thanks. Was starting to run a little low.”

Arthur nodded. “I noticed. I was sort of worried you’d buy more before I gave it to you.”

Lance nodded in understanding. “I figured I could wait a little.” He chuckled. “Now, go spend some time with your girlfriend.”

Arthur blushed but had to admit he did want to give Vivi and Lewis their presents today. “Thanks Uncle Lance. I’ll be back for dinner.”

He and Vivi were going to spend the day together. They were just planning to spend time with Lewis too…assuming they could convince the Pepper parents to let Lewis out for the day.

“Please, please, please, please, please.”

Yeah, they were a couple of adults begging like little kids, so what?

Mr. and Mrs. Pepper stared at them for a moment before Mr. Pepper turned to Mrs. Pepper. “It is Christmas.”

Mrs. Pepper nodded. “True. I think it would be all right.”

Vivi turned towards the living room. “Ya hear that Lewis? We’re busting you out of here!”

Lewis was in the middle of letting Paprika stick bows on him. “Oh, Paprika, I kinda need to go.”

“Not yet.” Paprika stuck another bow on him.

“Now?”

“No.” Another bow.

“Now?”

“No.” Another bow.

“Now?”

“Hm…” Paprika stuck one more bow on Lewis. “Okay, you’re good.”

“Great!” Lewis stood so quickly that he floated off the floor for a moment. “Thanks for the makeover. I’ll be back for dinner, promise.” He walked over to Vivi, Arthur, and Mystery. “So, what’s the plan?”

“It’s a surprise,” said Vivi. “C’mon.”

As soon as Lewis was in the van he let the bows fall through him and with a flash of purple fire changed his jacket and ascot into a purple sweater and lilac scarf. Handy.

It was a short drive to a nice hill that overlooked about half of Tempo. The grass was pretty brown this time of year so they sat in the back of the van with the doors open. It was a bit cool, but Lewis was keeping them pretty warm.

“Okay, gift exchange time!” proclaimed Vivi. She paused and looked at Mystery. “Did you get us anything?”

Mystery nodded. “My blessings and protection. That means a lot coming from a kitsune of my ability.”

“You didn’t have money to buy anything,” deadpanned Vivi.

“That too.”

“I got you chicken jerky,” said Vivi, holding out the bag. She gave him chicken jerky all the time.

“That’s fine by me.” Mystery immediately dug into the jerky.

Vivi rolled her eyes before holding her gift out to Lewis. “Here you go. Merry Christmas.”

Lewis carefully unwrapped the gift. It was a romance novel and the 11th volume of a manga that Arthur didn’t recognize. Lewis gave Vivi a big smile. “Thank you. I love them.”

Vivi handed Arthur his gift. “And here’s one for you.”

“Thanks.” Arthur quickly unwrapped it. “Ooh, Star Wars: New Republic. Awesome. Thanks again.” He handed Vivi a wrapped package. “And here’s a gift from me to you.”

“Ooh.” Vivi unwrapped it. She got an odd look on her face as she pulled out an odd white device. “What is it?”

“A spirit box. You talked about trying one.”

Vivi looked startled for a moment before smiling. “Thanks Arthur. I’ll make sure to use it next time I’m on a job.”

Arthur smiled back. “Happy to hear it.” He turned to Mystery. “I wasn’t sure what to get a kitsune. It sounds like the foods you’re supposed to like wouldn’t last. So instead I got these sweet potato treats from this lady at the farmer’s market.” Mystery immediately stuck his head in the bag and started snapping up the treats. “…And clearly I had nothing to worry about.” He held out the last gift to Lewis. “And then there was one.”

Lewis took the bag, pulled out the tissue paper and blinked. “Oh wow…” He pulled out the locket replica. “This is amazing! Where did-Did you make this?!”

“Yep, open it up.”

Lewis found the latch and flipped it open. “Oh, it’s a box! That’s pretty cool.”

Arthur chuckled. “It’s not a box exactly. I designed it so that you could keep your heart in there if you wanted to.”

Lewis blinked again. “You-really?”

“Yeah, uh…” Oh wait. Maybe that was a taboo thing. “You don’t have to use it for that if you don’t want to. You could use it to hold other stuff if it’s not comfortable.”

Lewis studied the locket for a moment before placing his heart inside and closing it. The locket floated in front of him. “It’s pretty snug…soft though.” He smiled towards Arthur. “Thank you. I love it, really.”

Arthur felt butterflies in his stomach. “I’m glad. That means a lot to me.”

“I haven’t really had a chance to go out shopping, so I made you guys some small cakes,” said Lewis as he pulled some boxes from…somewhere. Arthur decided not to question it. He checked the labels on them before passing them out. Arthur checked his. Looked like chocolate with caramel and sea salt. “Thanks I’ll have some after dinner.”

“It’ll be hard, but I’ll wait too,” said Vivi as she closed her box.

Mystery was, once again, already eating his gift. Looked like peanut butter from what Arthur could see.

“So, do we head back or stick around for a while?” asked Lewis.

“The plan was to just sit here for a bit,” admitted Arthur.

“Might talk a bit, but mostly just watch the town,” added Vivi.

“Sounds good,” said Lewis.

The four took a moment to organize themselves. It ended with Lewis between Vivi and Arthur with his arms around them and Mystery sprawled across their laps. Even better, Lewis was to Arthur’s left, which meant his natural warmth was making Arthur’s arm ache less than it had lately. It was soothing and left Arthur feeling much more relaxed than usual. He could stay like this for hours.

It had been maybe 10 minutes when Vivi tugged at his sleeve. He gave her a lazy look. “Hm?”

Vivi pulled him a bit closer. “We should ask him now,” she whispered into his ear.

Oh…She was okay with it? He glanced up at Lewis who seemed to be trying very hard to ignore whatever they were doing.

Arthur hated that Lewis was being left out at all.

Mind made up, Arthur pulled himself up so that his and Lewis’ heads were at roughly the same level. Lewis smiled at him. “What’s up?”

He was going to lose his nerve if he waited any longer so Arthur decided to just take the plunge and kiss Lewis. On the lips. It wasn’t a deep kiss or anything (He still wasn’t very good at kissing.), but it got the point across.

As soon as Arthur pulled away, Vivi took advantage of Lewis’ surprise to swoop in and give Lewis another kiss. Lewis stared in shock for a couple of moments before starting to tear up and pulling Arthur and Vivi into a big hug. Arthur and Vivi hugged him back and kissed his cheeks. Lewis killed them back. Vivi and Arthur grinned at him and each other.

Mystery snorted. “It’s about time.”

Vivi snorted. “God, yes, why did we wait so long?”

“Does it matter anymore?” asked Arthur.

Lewis shook his head. “No, I…I’m just grateful it was still possible.”

Vivi nodded. “Yeah, now let’s just enjoy it for as long as we can.”

Arthur was going to enjoy this for the rest of his life. He let out a content sigh. Things were finally getting better than they were before the cave.

Life was good.

#giftfic #msa #mystery skulls animated #Arthur Kingsman #Vivi Yukino #Lewis Pepper #Mystery the not-Dog #Some Lance #It was supposed to be for msa holiday spirits but I think I missed a message and got kicked out #oops #slow burn #recovery #Arthur has a pretty nasty freak out #Vivi is angry #Lewis is realizing how badly he messed up #msaholidayspirits2019 #They said I could post it after all!

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