Chapter Text
By the time Lucy had called him, John was almost relieved. Whatever it was Lucy had to say, it couldn’t possibly be worse then what was happening to John- and he hadn’t been sure if that was the sort of thing that a person reached out about, anyway, so in actuality it was fantastic that he was being forced to come over to see his brother and his family, even through the anxiety, because maybe they could help him.
Or at least, that was what John had thought.
He had spent the whole taxi ride, frozen stiff in response to the bubbling anxiety that made him want to move, to pace, so badly that he resisted all but the instinct to blink.
He had just sat there, in silence, but not alone.
No, not anymore.
Then, suddenly, he had been bustled onto some horribly rusty stool and Lucy was blabbing on about this and that and why was she speaking about James in the past tense.
John, for once, kept his eyes firmly on Lucy’s face while she spoke, not daring to look over her shoulder.
He let her talk without much interruption, until she reached the point where she claimed James was missing.
“No note, not a word, nothing,” Lucy was saying, and John…
He felt faint.
Finally, finally, he lost the battle of wills.
His eyes slid over Lucy’s shoulder and met the identical ones of his twin brother, who was staring at him in horror.
“He- James, he has, he has gone missing?” John said, with a startling softness.
And then Lucy’s eyes were welling with tears.
“I just- I know something’s horribly wrong, I know it,” she said, beginning to sound frustrated. Were it anyone else, John would have been panicking, but he knew her well enough to know that her frustration was directed at her own tears, not him. (Yet, at least. He had always, unfortunately, been rather good at drawing the ire of others, no matter how hard he tried. And how he did try.) “I just want to think that he’s doing something top secret for the government or other some-such thing, but… He isn’t, I know he isn’t. John, you know I wouldn’t ask this of you if I had any choice but…” her voice choked, and she wrung her hands tightly before her, her eyes pleading as she struggled to hold back her sobs.
“You want me to help figure out what has happened to your husband,” John said slowly, numbly. “You want me to pretend to be my brother, in the hopes of finding him, in the hopes that he isn’t dead.”
The man in question flinched over Lucy’s shoulder from where he had made one last desperate attempt to comfort her, and could it be that John already had the answer?
No.
He was simply going insane, not…
No.
Definitely not.
Lucy’s lower lip trembled.
“Please?”
John must have nodded, because suddenly he was engulfed in an extremely uncomfortable hug. Before he knew it, he was led into a guest room and the door was closed and there he was, alone.
Or at least, as alone as he had gotten in the past few days.
“J- uh, James?” he whispered, his voice trembling.
And then, there, before him, was his brother.
In all honesty, James wasn’t looking too hot, and that was in comparison to how he seemed to look normally these past few days, even as a pale and desaturated blue ephemeral spirit.
…John? James’ voice whispered like the faint rustling of ancient parchment paper.
“I, I uh, I assume they still couldn’t hear you?” John managed to say, because no matter how he’d tried to ignore this disturbing manifestation of his brother, he was just as bad at ignoring his twin as he always had been.
He could pretend not to notice, he could avoid direct interaction, but his brother had always been too loud, to big, to aliv-
Well.
Perhaps not that one anymore.
In any case, his brother had always been impossible to ignore completely.
James just stared at him, shaking his head minutely.
Was this what a ghost- a real one- looked like?
Was this what John would look like, when he died? It was quite disconcerting, seeing his brother’s face- so similar to his own- framed in softly glowing light, not a shadow to be seen on his visage, only gentle light and lighting that was further dim.
Above all else, why?
Why him?
Why was he being haunted by the ghost of his brother?
Why could he see him, why could he hear him?
Why did he always obey Lucy’s whims, why did he agree to come all this way, why did he decide of his own accord to pursue answers, why did he hate being alone so much when he feared others even more, why couldn’t he ever fit in, why couldn’t he just be normal for one moment, why had his father left?
There was nothing- absolutely nothing at all- that John hated more than a question he couldn’t solve, an answer that he couldn’t find.
So why was his life full of them?
(Or could it be that his obsessive need to find answers through puzzles came from his inability to find it in his regular life?)
John… Am I dead?
John’s breath caught, and he looked at his brother, his twin, his greatest rival and most longed for friend. “We’re going to find out, I suppose,” he said, trying to rally himself, because there was his big brother (they were the same age- John was technically older even- but James had always felt bigger in ways John couldn’t describe.) looking at him with fear, with uncertainty, with the same expression John always saw in the mirror.
He knew how that expression felt. Oh, sure, he’d never been in an experience like this before, and he wouldn’t pretend he had been, but he understood the almost childlike denial and fear in his brother’s eyes more than he had perhaps understood anything else about his brother.
Was this how James had felt, all those years, with John looking up at him with a completely identical expression?
No, certainly not. James had always known what to do, had been confident and bold in ways that made John shrivel up inside. James had certainly never felt this.
Even so, John took a deep breath and did his best to smile. It was a wan thing, a weak thing, likely unflattering and even creepy or freaky like he was always told, but he knew James knew that smile before either of them had learned to speak.
And just as he had hoped, James relaxed. Not much- John would have been shocked if he had!- but just a little, and that was more than John had expected.
You need to sleep, James said after a moment. I know how you get about socializing, especially with strangers.
John visibly cringed. “What did I sign myself up for?” He whispered, horrified. “I blame this entirely on you! You’re always doing this to me!” (He was only partially joking.)
Like a gust of wind, eerily beautiful and distant, James laughed. Yet, somehow, despite the unearthly qualities, it was familiar, the same as James’ laugh had always been.
I will be with you, his brother assured him, and John hated how after all these years the relief was instant at such a proclamation. All will be well. But first, sleep.
And just as John was intrinsically hardwired to obey Lucy, so was he unable to resist his brother. He’d never been good at that sort of thing anyway.
He tucked himself into this foreign bed- it smelled different then his, and was a different size, and too squishy in certain parts and not squishy enough in others, unused to the form of his body, and just overall it was extraordinarily disconcerting to be in a room other than his own- and closed his eyes, feeling more than seeing his brother settle in the front of the room, relaxing into the seemingly trance-like state he seemed to take on while waiting for proper hours to awake the rest of the world.
And just like that, John was asleep.