woodsgotweird said: man i just jumped on the bandwagon because i am a sheep. i have no idea where it came from and i ask myself this question all the time
Maybe someone made a typo and it just got out of hand?
I kinda feel like panic!at the disco started the whole exclamation point thing and then it caught on around the internet, but maybe they got it from somewhere else, IDK.
It’s a way of referring to particular variations of (usually) a character — dark!Will, junkie!Sherlock, et cetera. I have suspected for a while that it originated from some archive system that didn’t accommodate spaces in its tags, so to make common interpretations/versions of the characters searchable, people started jamming the words together with an infix.
(Lately I’ve seen people use the ! notation when the suffix isn’t the full name, but is actually the second part of a common fandom portmanteau. This bothers me a lot but it happens, so it’s worth being aware of.)
“Bang paths” (! is called a “bang"when not used for emphasis) were the first addressing scheme for email, before modern automatic routing was set up. If you wanted to write a mail to the Steve here in Engineering, you just wrote “Steve” in the to: field and the computer sent it to the local account named Steve. But if it was Steve over in the physics department you wrote it to phys!Steve; the computer sent it to the “phys” computer, which sent it in turn to the Steve account. To get Steve in the Art department over at NYU, you wrote NYU!art!Steve- your computer sends it to the NYU gateway computer sends it to the “art” computer sends it to the Steve account. Etc. (“Bang"s were just chosen because they were on the keyboard, not too visually noisy, and not used for a huge lot already).
It became pretty standard jargon, as I understand, to disambiguate when writing to other humans. First phys!Steve vs the Steve right next to you, just like you were taking to the machine, then getting looser (as jargon does) to reference, say, bearded!Steve vs bald!Steve.
So I’m guessing alternate character version tags probably came from that.
100% born of bang paths. fandom has be floating around on the internet for six seconds longer than there has been an internet so early users just used the jargon associated with the medium and since it’s a handy shorthand, we keep it.
I did that thing where I was checking out a wip I haven’t touched in a long while, and before I knew it I was really sucked in and just reading it and enjoying it, and then it just fucking ended abruptly during a good scene and I nearly started screaming, and then I remembered it’s my own fucking wip and that means I have to be the one to fix this and finish it and I really really nearly started screaming and just asdfghjkl
Use descriptors as replacements for a characters name when you want to draw attention to that character's specific feature, otherwise, do it sparsely. Using random descriptors too often results in your writing being kinda all over the place.
FOR EXAMPLE
You can just say
[character's name] walked into the house.
But if you say
The bespectacled man walked into the house.
Now think. Why is it so important to bring to attention that this man is wearing glasses? Is it just a random thing because you're feeling repetitive? Then it's fne to repeat the name. No worries.
But is the fact the character has glasses relevant to the scene? Or perhaps you're setting the tone of the scene by using glasses to demonstrate the first time he appears to indicate something about him? Are the glasses gonna break or be relevant in the scene in some way?
Randomly throwing non-relevant descriptors out there, like "the doctor" for a central character randomly mid-conversation where their profession isn't relevant can kinda make the readers go "I get that he's a doctor but why bring it up now. Why is it relevant?"
Your descriptors are powerful. Use them wisely.
Say "the teenager" to indicate their youth in, perhaps, a conversation where they're faced with a dire situation. Call the main character "the prince" in a scene where they assert their power, instead of their usual name.
It's not bad to use these replacements every now and then to spice things up, but using them out of context and just for the sake of differentiation can make your writing fall flat.
For example, imagine the following slapped into the middle of a work.
"Good evening," Giorno said.
"Hello." Mista greeted.
The blond laughed and the hatted man chuckled in turn. The mafia don then took a seat, and waited for his gun-slinging companion to follow suit.
"I trust you had a safe flight?" The teenager questioned.
"Of course." Replied the bodyguard.
"I hope you'll enjoy this dinner," said the the witty man.
"I know i will," chuckled the dark-eyed man.
As you can see, the random descriptors aren't really relevant at all to the scene. If I's described Giorno as the don alone, and built the scene with more description of grandeur, then we would get the sense that he is The Don and Very Extra. Something don-like is happening.
Now if i had described him as a teenager once, and played on a relaxed note, it's clear that in the scene he's enjoying his youth and trying to be a tad more carefree, drawing attention to the fact that he is a teenager.
hope you are doing ok, havent seen you in a while...!
Hey there!! firstly i'd like to apologize for not having responded to this ask sooner jajfkssk ;w;
Yeah, I've been inactive on tumblr as of late and haven't really written fanfic in almost a year. Honestly, I didn't really expect anyone to be waiting for a post from me, haha! So thanks for asking and yeah, I'm doing good.
I figure I should give a bit of an explanation, but yeah, I graduated from junior high and got into art school! It's been really great and yeah i can draw better now lmao. But I've also been really busy and have been getting into newer things.
Okay, now here comes the hard part, so I might make a separate post adressing this if enough people care XD so yeah
an update on my fic writing i suppose
So, I don't think I'll be able to continue writing fanfic anymore. I'm just verily out of time and kind of out of passion for it. Who knows, I might get back to it in the future, but as for my current WIPs and fandoms, they probably won't be picked up any time. I feel like if i do come back to fanfic, I'd be so detatched from my current works now, haha.
I do wanna apologize to the few people out there who enjoyed what I did. Thank you so much for your support and love, especially you, scones :))
I do have a crazy idea of writing a one-shot conclusion for every WIP i have so, to anyone reading this, lemme know if you're interested hehe
(a/n): This took a bit longer than expected, but heyyy, I’m gettin to that good stuff.
ff.net || <<ch 4 ch6>>
------
“Hey, Arthur, can I ask you something?”
It was nighttime now, and Alfred was not surprised to find Arthur sitting on his own bed by lamplight, a thick book in his hands and all his attention focused in between. A tiny twitch of an impressive eyebrow was the only signal that he’d acknowledged Alfred’s presence, albeit in a manner that was far from pleased.
Hopping onto the foot of Arthur’s extremely large bed, Alfred repeated his question. With a sigh and deliberate lowering of his book, Arthur grumbled out a reluctant, “Fine.”
Alfred had not seen Arthur during lunch that day, the latter having requested that his food be brought into the library so he could continue his reading and exploration of its collection without interruption. When Alfred tried to visit him afterwards, he was given the cold shoulder until the young king retreated back to the winding hallways of the palace, left to juggle doorknobs all afternoon. When the sun was low in the sky he made a round trip back to the secret garden where he met the old man, who he now knew as Reece the gardener, and conversed with him until dinnertime.
Now he had Arthur sitting several feet away from him, both on a large bed that could fit ten orphans, while he read a book in an attempt to ignore Alfred as much as possible.
“What’s your favorite flower?” Came Alfred’s voice. Arthur seemed to startle and lower his book even more, although his eyes never looked up.
“Why would you ask such a question?” He said with the usual scowl.
Alfred shrugged. “I was in the gardens today, and I didn’t see too much flowers. That just got me wondering what sort of flowers you like.”
“The gardens hmm?” Arthur muttered as he flipped a page. “Were there any roses out there?”
Alfred lit up at that. “Roses? I didn’t see any. Are those your favorite flowers?”
Arthur seemed to hesitate at that, drawing out a long silence, until finally he nodded in that slow, unsteady way. “I suppose so.” And as he said it, without even looking up, the young queen could already feel the physical embodiment of childish glee lighting up as an impossibly wide grin on Alfred’s face.
“Well I think it would be awesome if we had roses in the gardens,” said Alfred in a vain attempt at a casual tone. “I wonder if they could make roses in all sorts of colors! We could have blue roses, they might like that; it could go along with all the blue decorations in this palace!”
“I don’t think those exist, Alfred.”
“Maybe we can have some made! After all, we are the ki—um, I mean,” Alfred furrowed his brows. He’d caught himself in time. “I mean, Yao told me if we had a request he’d look into it! Maybe they actually did find a way to make blue roses.” He tried for a laugh, but Arthur seemed unimpressed. He had made no acknowledgement of Alfred’s words and kept on ‘reading’.
“I explored the gardens today,” said Alfred again.
“You already told me that.”
“Well, what did you do? Were you reading that same book all day?”
“No, I was not. I’ve finished two others earlier.”
“Woah! You’re a fast reader. That thing would’ve taken me like, a month to finish!”
Arthur raised a brow. “Makes sense, I suppose, if it’s you we’re talking about.”
Alfred snorted. “Well you probably had a lot of practice so that’s no fair. Miss Amelia usually reads the books to us. You’ve probably read a lot of books on your own.”
“Well, I suppose I have.”
“Woah, did your old orphanage have a huge library too?”
“No. In fact, it was rather similar to Miss Amelia’s. My home had a small collection that my father used to add to.”
Alfred raised his eyebrows at that. “You remember your home?”
Arthur squinted at his book, holding it up a bit more over his face. “I wasn’t in the orphanage that long.”
“What happened? Did your house burn down? Was there an accident?”
Arthur didn’t respond. He held the book closer to his face.
“Arthur?” Alfred tried to prompt him, but it was clear that the older boy was closed off for the night. Alfred made a mental note to add ‘family’ to the list of things he should never mention around Arthur, alongside being king and queen, as he made his way over to his own bed.
OOOOOOOOOO
The classes began a week later. Three kind teachers a day sat them down in the library for a few hours, teaching them history, and arithmetic, and sciences. Arthur was quiet most of the time, but he’d be able to answer any question their teachers shot at them. Alfred was vocal; he tried to answer as best as possible and steer any lectures away into an off-topic story from the teacher’s life, because he found those more interesting.
They’d have lunchtime and the afternoon to play. Then they met up with Captain Herdevary, who initiated little games and races. Arthur wasn’t one to care and tended to idly run the laps as Alfred tried, and failed, to awaken his competitive spirit.
It would be like that for five days, and then they were free to explore as they pleased on the weekends. Arthur would coop himself up in the library and draw, write, or read. He always became hostile whenever Alfred got more insistent on him joining his exploration. Nevertheless, Alfred tried every day.
By himself, he’d walk down hallways he was unfamiliar with until he’d wind up at some ominous locked door or dusty broom closet. He’d walked into a few lavish bedrooms whose furniture were covered in immaculate white sheets. He ogled at the various tapestries that depicted royalty and war, often wishing Yao would be there to explain them to him.
He had visited the kitchens and befriended the sparse servants and cooks who worked there. He’d found the smithies where he found busy, burly men working with glowing hot metal and splintery woodwork. He’d also visit Reece and converse with him about the gardens and the old monarchy, about the stars and the sunset and whatever the old man would endure. Sometimes he was like Arthur, Alfred thought. Reece would be impatient and irritated if Alfred bothered him while he was working on a cluster of weeds, perhaps, or a bush or a stalk, but would eventually open himself to a bout of conversation. Sometimes, he’d laugh, and quite heartily at that.
Then, Alfred thought, maybe Reece wasn’t like Arthur. Maybe Arthur was like Reece. Maybe Arthur was like a grouchy old man who just needed to be spoken to even if he never talked back.
So, every night, when Alfred returns from his after-dinner explorations, he’d sit down at the foot of Arthur’s bed while the older boy read his novels. He’d talk and talk about what he’d seen that day. He’d talk about the extremely kind cooks who gave him desserts, to the heat of the smithies, of the fresh breeze in the gardens, of the tapestries and ornately carved doors and wide open windows and seemingly secret passages that wound themselves throughout the palace.
Arthur would never really look up at him in his pretense of ignorance. And Alfred would’ve bought it if Arthur wouldn’t snort at his misuse of a word, or supply a name to an interesting object Alfred would describe, or call him an idiot whenever he mentioned tripping on a rug or getting hurt otherwise. Sometimes, he’d even laugh.
And even if those instances would be called Arthur’s selective hearing, Alfred never failed to notice how frequently it had become when Arthur would ‘read’ with the book upside down in his hands. And when the book was upright, he never seemed to turn a page.
Weeks went by like this, and Alfred reveled in Arthur’s not-so-discreetly hidden attention at his tales of the palace. Although, Alfred had come to wonder why it is Arthur would never want to explore the place himself.
One night, three months after they had arrived at the palace, Alfred dared to voice out his question.
“Hey, Arthur, how come you never want to explore the place yourself?”
Arthur snorted. “What gave you the idea that I would want to do that?”
Alfred stared at the upside down cover of the book in the older boy’s hands. “Well, a few things,” He mumbled. “I don’t know. You like the place, don’t you? You call the gardens I talk about pretty, you say that the tapestries are interesting. Wouldn’t you want to see for yourself?”
Arthur hesitated, but his attention was still clearly not on his book. “I would,” he said carefully. “I would think them a, well, pleasing sight. But I’d hate to look at them thinking that I own them.”
Alfred tilted his head. “But it’s not like you own them, right?”
Arthur let out an exasperated huff. “We own them, Alfred. Our home, our place, our stuff, as Yao said. What do you think makes all of this our stuff?”
“Well, we’re the k—oh.” Alfred blinked. “Oh.”
Arthur glared at him over the top—or perhaps bottom—of his book. “Yeah. Oh.”
So that was it, then. The palace, everything—it’s another reminder to Arthur.
“Aren’t you happy about technically owning the library, though?”
Arthur seemed to pause again, but then shook his head. “I’m happy knowing it’s something I’ll use, anyway.”
Alfred didn’t really get that. Heck, he didn’t completely get anything Arthur said or did, but as long as he knew what not to mention, he felt that he would be a few steps closer to winning the other boy over.
OOOOOOOOOO
The next day was the sixth breakfast Yao had been late for. He showed up with his coat sloppily slipped on, bags deep under his eyes, and he was practically dragging himself towards the table. Even Arthur was sporting an expression of concern.
As Yao walked through the doors, three guards followed him and took up position at the entrance. After the Jack had slumped into his chair and began wearily scooping up porridge, Arthur spoke.
“Yao? Are you quite alright?”
“Yeah, dude, you look like you haven’t slept in weeks.”
Yao gave Alfred a sidelong grin. “You’re not that far off, kid.” He chuckled lightly and began to eat his food, whereas the boys were nearly finished with theirs. “But don’t worry about me. It’s just that, well, tensions have been rising for the past few days now—but you needn’t concern yourselves! Things have just been busy.”
Arthur furrowed his brows. “Tensions? What sort of—?”
“Yao!” Interrupted a familiar cry from the doorway. Captain Herdevary was there, hair tied in a ponytail and half-dressed in leather armor, taking a few long strides into the room. “Yao, I need you at the Hall now.”
Yao looked rather dejected, but gave the two young monarchs a weary smile then he took his final gulp of orange juice, before getting up and following the captain of the guard. Elizabeta only had time to flash the boys a slightly forced smile before disappearing beyond the doorway.
Across the table, Alfred shared a worried look with Arthur, and they finished their meals in silence.
OOOOOOOOOO
The next day, things seemed a bit off around the palace.
Alfred and Arthur woke up to two guards posted by their door, both regarding them with solemn nods as they headed off to breakfast. Yao wasn’t with them at breakfast and neither was he there at lunch. At both times, a set of guards were posted in and out the doors, as well as trickled throughout the hallways.
When Alfred tried leaving through the front doors of the palace for the gardens, the guards posted there—who wore heavier metal armor and carried a greater set of weapons—forbade Alfred from leaving the immediate courtyard, whose gates were also generously guarded. The young king attempted to amuse himself by splashing around in the marble fountain, but that quickly became boring.
He went to see Arthur but was surprised to find guards by the library door too. When he sought out his other routes to the gardens, he’d found the doors to those were guarded as well and was forbidden from leaving.
Finally, Alfred found an exit that wasn’t guarded. The passage to the king and queen’s private garden must have been so far behind the palace and lost in the inner maze of the outer gardens that whoever was posting the guards didn’t see it necessary to have them there.
Alfred found Reece and was relieved to finally be entertained. They began speaking of the flowers again, beginning with their daily discussions of Alfred’s gardening plans and winding up somewhere obscure like the evolution of horses. Eventually, the young king talked to Reece about the guards.
“It’s weird. They’re everywhere! I can’t take a shower or get some bread without passing like, fifty guards!” Alfred exclaimed.
Seeing the young boy’s wild grin, the gardener decided to take that statement with a grain of salt and regarded him with raised eyebrows. “Oh? Come now, mayhaps your Jack’s just been increasin’ them guards for your sake! You seem to be a rowdy young’un and he might think you to set the place on fire with all yer runnin’ about.”
Alfred scrunched his face in an attempt to look offended, but ended up with a mix of furrowed eyebrows and a half-suppressed grin. “Please, I don’t go running around with a match!” Alfred giggled. “But really, I can’t even go out around the gardens. I only got here because those doors were the only ones without guards. All the side entrances—heck, even the front doors! They’ve all got guards carrying swords with them. What if we’re under attack?”
Reece hummed thoughtfully as he worked on trimming his bush. “Maybe your jack’s just bein’ extra secure, eh? After the last monarchy were killed he’d never been quite the same. Maybe he’s just been takin’ precautions for your sake, lad. Nothin’ to worry about.”
Alfred mimicked his thoughtful hum and planted his rump on the grass. “I guess so,” he muttered with furrowed brows. “Still. I feel kinda caged in. The guards being all around are giving me a bad feeling.”
OOOOOOOOOO
“Alfred?”
The young king jumps. Upon walking into his shared room, he was surprised to have his companion speak to him first.
“Yeah?” Alfred responds, taking his usual seat at the foot of Arthur’s bed. Arthur, meanwhile, has his book open on the mattress and he stares at it with hands folded in his lap.
“Yao wasn’t at dinner today,” Arthur muses.
“Or lunch.” Alfred nods.
Arthur clearly isn’t staring at his book any longer, instead picking idly at the sheets. Alfred waits for him to say something, and when he finally does, it’s in a hoarse, strangled voice that shook with something that was almost like fear.
“Are we in danger?” Arthur whispered, eyes lowered. “Yao’s been talking about tensions rising. Are we… Do you think we’re about to head into war?”
Alfred’s brows furrowed, and he instinctively inched closer to the other boy. “W-well, maybe Yao’s just adding guards up to be secure, because, you know, we’re kids. Maybe he just wants us to be extra safe. I mean, I don’t think we’re in danger, you know. I’ve been talking to Reece—the gardener I told you about—and he says Yao really cared about the last king and queen. He’s just adding extra protection ‘cuz he cares about us too!”
Alfred offered his brightest smile and got a nervous glance in return. In the candlelight, Arthur’s eyes were wide and unsure, that pretty forest-green flickering with a warm gold. In an instant those eyes weren’t pointed at him anymore, and were instead staring out the windows, up at the silver glow of the moon over the gardens. He seemed concentrated, contemplative, like he was deciding something in his head.
Then Arthur sighed, and closed his eyes, shoulders sagging. “You know, Alfred…”
Arthur trailed off at the distant sound of breaking glass that came from down the hall. There were footsteps, loud and rushed, as though the guards at their door were running away. Then, there was a short, distant yell, almost a cry that was immediately cut off by what sounded like a loud thud.
Arthur was frozen and Alfred was right next to him, clutching his arm in his childlike grip.
(a/n): This just in: 3000+ words of fluff and some angst. I’m going for a one-update-a-week schedule, so let’s see if I can keep it up. ;) Enjoy!
ff.net || <<ch 3 ch5>>
Chapter 4
“The archers,” Arthur breathes.
The way he stares and holds his breath as he looks up at the skilled bowmen is evidence of how wondrous they seemed to the young queen in that moment. “I want to be like the archers,” he said again, and slowly took another breath.
Elizabeta, the captain of the guard, smiled at him endearingly while the young king beamed like the endless light of the sun.
“That’s so cool! I can totally see you being an archer, Arthur. You’re so tall and your arms are so long you could handle that bow like nobody’s business.” When Alfred raised his arms in one of his enthusiastic gestures, Arthur was tugged along and a flush came to his face—perhaps at the complement, or the realization that his hand was still being held securely in the younger boy’s own throughout the whole walk to the center of the training ground where they now stood.
The soldiers moving about them gave them a sizable berth, but the curious looks they chanced over their shoulders was not lost on Arthur, making the boy a little more squeamish than he’d like to be. But when he watched the archers, so intently focused on their targets, their entire bodies poised so pristinely and calmly, yet filled with the strength and power of a drawn bow, Arthur couldn’t look away. He’d like to feel that sort of power, that sort of poise and calmness. Wielding a bow seemed like mastery and control, and Arthur found that immensely appealing.
He turned to Elizabeta in a rush. “When can I start?”
The tall woman laughed and set a hand on Arthur’s shoulder. “In time, dear boy. We’d have to have a smaller bow crafter for you if you’d like to start in the next month, for I doubt you’d be able to carry a bow larger than your own body.”
“Arthur can do it!” Alfred piped up. “He’s super strong, you see. He threw an apple once and it hit me in the head from all across the lawn in the orphanage! I think he was aiming for the basket next to me though, but he can work on his aim!”
“I was aiming for your head,” said Arthur.
“Oh. But see? He’d already make a great archer!”
Elizabeta laughed and Arthur shook his head. “What are you going to do, Alfred?” asked the older boy.
Alfred’s eyes sparkled, then he turned to the side and pointed to the greater mass of soldiers who were sparring with gleaming blades of steel, sweating in the sun and letting out great laughs and yells.
“I want to fight with a sword!” The cheery boy exclaimed.
“Hmm, messy and impulsive. Just like you, Alfred.”
Alfred snorted, but his disbelieving look disappeared when he saw the small smile Arthur sported. He spoke just like he would back in the orphanage. Biting and a bit mean—but hey, that meant he was getting back into himself!
Alfred smiled wider.
He began to talk about how he would fight with a sword as they followed Elizabeta through the field. He talked about how he’d lead the ranks into war one day and obliterate the enemy with his sheer skill. He alone would crumble the enemy’s palace with his strength and his sword. All the while, Arthur rolled his eyes and made biting remarks of how unrealistic and stupid he sounded. But the longer the insults Arthur shot, the happier Alfred seemed to get.
“And you know, because I’m going to grow up to be the superest, strongest hero, I’m going to be your protector!”
“Firstly, superest isn’t a word. And second, that’s already in your job description as king.” Arthur huffed, but Alfred just grinned cheekily.
“Yeah, well even if it wasn’t I’ll still make it my sworn duty to protect you at all costs!”
Arthur looked surprised. He didn’t say anything, but made a half-hearted attempt to roll his eyes. Alfred didn’t know what that look meant, but he knew that he meant every word of what he’d said. Well, alright, he wasn’t exactly sure he could break down concrete walls with his sword, but he was definitely going to be the strongest hero so he could be Arthur’s hero. From now on, it was his actual sworn duty to protect Arthur, and he’d stay true to that.
------------------- - - -
After their walk with Elizabeta, the very worn-looking Yao took them back into the palace to explore the inner walls. Alfred had spotted him being spoken to by what seemed to be a palace official when they were returning from the field. The expressions on their faces were anything but cheery and prideful. Almost… fearful, actually.
“You don’t think something’s wrong, do you?” Arthur had asked. Alfred shrugged in response and shared a worried look with the older boy.
As they walked the well-lit and decorated halls of the castle, Arthur quietly asked Yao what that talk was about, if it was something dangerous.
The Jack only laughed and shook his head. “Nothing serious, my boy. A few financial worries—stock market and employment rate—all that boring math stuff you kids shouldn’t worry about. We’ll be fine.”
“I like math!” Alfred said. “Can I help?”
The Jack laughed again, a little less forced, a little less strained. “This is grown-up math, Alfred. Even I kind of don’t get it. Hey, let’s quit talking about boring math and get to looking around, yeah?”
“Yeah!” Alfred cheered. Arthur remained quiet.
They walked through the palace seeing it in better light than before. They explored room after room filled with paintings and rich-looking junk. Old furniture glazed with gold, tapestries depicting battles and past monarchy. Some rooms were bed rooms, some were sitting rooms, some were locked and Yao refused Alfred’s pleas to find their keys.
Yao spun the stories of the great battles depicted in the large paintings that hung along the hall. There were battles for land, for power, for the right to rule their own people. In the old days, the Four Kingdoms fought for dominion of the land, the borders constantly shifting, growing, and shrinking. And then two great wars broke out, one after the other. The Red Kingdom of Hearts was blamed for multiple atrocities, but with their allies turning against them, and with Spades leading the offensive, the country fell into defeat and tremendous debt.
When that debt was repaid and the country forgiven, nearly a hundred years passed, peace ruled over the land for a hundred years more.
“Do you think another war will break out soon?” Arthur asked. When Yao didn’t respond immediately, he went on. “Do you think… we’ll have to lead the fight?”
“Heavens no!” The Jack jumped. “Of course you’re too young to be involved in a war, much less lead it. O-of course, there is no war, Arthur. There will be no war. We live in peace now. We have secure trade and diplomacy arrangements with the other kingdoms, and if a fifth one shall sprout up and threaten us then the other three colors are our allies.” Yao smiled reassuringly but shaky, and Arthur lowered his eyes.
“I-I’m sorry. You’ve probably been very stressed lately. I didn’t mean to burden you with… stupid questions.” Arthur grew quieter as he spoke, and all but mumbled the last couple of words.
Yao’s eyes softened and he placed a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “No, Arthur, it’s alright. Your questions are not stupid. I did say I’d answer any question you’ve got as long as I have an answer.”
Arthur nodded, but he was quiet for the short rest of the walk. Alfred’s jokes and attempts to coax him back into his biting demeanor did nothing to change the way Arthur lowered his head and kept as still as possible.
Eventually the royal trio wound up at the large pair of doors that lead into the vast library. Yao paused there, then yawned loudly.
“It seems to be an hour before lunchtime,” He remarked, flipping open a pocket watch he drew from his suit. “Please, explore the palace at your own leisure. I’m going to have a nap and I’ll see you both at lunchtime, if that’s alright with you?”
“Of course,” said Arthur.
“Yeah!” Said Alfred.
With a polite farewell, Yao walked back down the hall and disappeared behind the corner.
Alfred turned to his companion and beamed up at him. “Wanna go exploring?” He giggled.
Arthur rolled his eyes for the nth time that day and turned to push open the heavy oaken doors. “No. I am going to be in here, if Yao asks for me. There’s been a good bunch of novels I’ve been wanting to read so you can go bugger off somewhere else.”
Instead of buggering off like Arthur had quite roughly insisted, Alfred followed Arthur inside the library. He whistled lowly at the vast walls of books and polished marble tables. Sunlight flooded the room from floor-to-ceiling windows that lined one wall, illuminating the tremendously large hall in all its glory.
Arthur briskly ran to one of the closer shelves and selected three books that looked like concrete blocks to Alfred. He probably would’ve used them as weapons instead of reading material.
When Arthur plopped down at one of the tables and opened a book, Alfred attempted to peer into what he was reading but quickly found the giant block of tiny text to be terribly uninteresting and hopped away.
“Hey, hey, Arthur.” He nudged at the older boy, repeatedly trying to get his attention. But when Arthur growled out a low threat to leave him be, and perhaps made a gesture of throwing the boulder of writing at Alfred, he huffily left the room in search of something more interesting to enjoy. He really would rather have Arthur with him, but if he sat there to keep the older boy company, he knew he’d grow so bored he would begin to annoy him again, which might lose him the friendship points he’d gained from their earlier ventures.
Besides, Arthur really did feel like he wanted to be left alone.
So he walked the halls and looked back at the tapestries, deciding that he’d want to get more and more lost. He climbed carpeted stairs and walked deeper into the palace until he saw no windows and the passages were lit with candlelight.
He saw paintings of people he didn’t recognize, and peered into keyholes of locked rooms only to find silhouettes of dusty furniture.
Eventually, the boy began seeing windows again, that looked out into the greener part of the grounds that Alfred didn’t recognize. He must have ventured around the very far back of the palace by now.
The windows began to become covered with lush green ivy, as well as the vines that grew the tiny, blue spadian flowers. Eventually, Alfred was led to a meek wooden door, and out he went into the sunlight.
He seemed to have been led into a garden of sorts. The grass was trimmed here, and all around were neatly cut hedges, stone pillars where more of the spadian vines grew, marble benches, and blue stone pathways. The area was quite large, but bordered by a familiar stone wall on all sides. To the far right, behind all the greenery, Alfred could see a closed iron gate that seemed to lead out into the rest of the gardens.
Then, Alfred heard the snipping.
Up ahead, the columns supported a stone roof where all over grew vines and ivy and all sorts of flowers that created a roof of greenery. Alfred walked beneath the leaves, and there he found an old man wearing a worn old shirt and raggedy old trousers, leaning on his haunches with a pair of large shears, sniping away at stray weeds on the ground. He noticed that the areas that would normally be filled with an array of plant life was bare, only the green grass to cover them up, and they looked quite recently covered up too. The grass was sparse and the earth wasn’t even. Alfred didn’t know much about gardens but he was certain gardens were to supposed to have flowers. To him, it simply felt like something was missing. Everything was simply too bare.
Alfred turned to the man working on the weeds and saw that he’d now stopped. He was staring back up at him, with eyes wide and mouth agape.
“Wh-who are you?” The man said in a shaky, bewildered voice. Then, suddenly, his brows furrowed and with great difficulty, he rose up with hands on his knees, shaking the shears threateningly. “Are you a little thief, eh? Are you one of em’ hoodlums that keep breaking into my shed an’ stealing me shovels? Well I’ll have you know that I can get you arrested! I’ll be calling on ‘em guards!”
“No, wait!” Alfred exclaimed. He stepped back and raised his hands in surprise and a little fear. “My name is Alfred!”
“I don’t care what your name is, ya little—” The man’s garbled voice stuttered to a halt when his eyes fell upon Alfred’s raised palm.
After a long moment of intense staring, the man turned his crusty eyes to meet a pair of fearful bright blue ones. “Yo… you’re the king,” he mumbled in disbelief, definitely in shock at the tattoo that sprawled all over the young boy’s arm. Then, with a great start, exclaimed, “You’re the king!”
He dropped his shears and hobbled to his knees, bowing his head as low as it would go, shaking in slight fear. “For-forgive me, yer majesty. I was-was as an ignorant fool, is all. Please seek fit to punish me in any way you see, but please spare me my job, this is all I have.”
He was shaky and sounded close to sobbing. The small bit of pride Alfred felt at being recognized as king was quickly replaced by a sort of panicked horror at making a poor old man become so fearful as to beg at his knees.
Feeling like his heart was being wrenched out of his chest, Alfred let out a hurried yelp. “No, please! Don’t do that! I won’t hurt you, I promise. I’m not a mean king—I wasn’t going to steal anything. I just wanted to become friends. Please stop bowing, um, old man.”
Cautiously, the old man lifted his head and straightened his back—well, as straight as it would go given the hunch he seemed to have. He stared at Alfred with a hint of fearful reservation and nodded.
“What does me king ask of me?” He said carefully, blinking every now and then at the blue tattoo as if waking from a dream.
“Hey, call me Alfred,” the boy said, trying for a smile. He put out his hand for a shake, and the old man stared, once more fearful, at the vines that grew all over it. Seeing this, Alfred began to talk. “I know you think because I’m the king and all that I’ll be like one of the snooty, snobby rich kids that parade around the streets in their carriages sometimes, but I promise I’m really nice! I just want to make friends. I don’t really wanna order anyone around ‘cause that feels really weird. Just, don’t be afraid of me, okay? I don’t think I have the power to take away your job anyway.”
With look of even more disbelief, the old man let out a shaky laugh. “Ha! Well, thy majesty has the power to take away any one of ours jobs. And a king like yourself would likely be demandin’ some respect.”
“That would be rude,” said Alfred. “And I don’t want to do that. And hey, if someone’s not slapping me in the face I think that’s respect enough. So will you shake my hand so I can know if we’re friends yet?”
The old man let out another hearty giggle, and with a half-toothless smile shook the small boy’s hand. “Friends, eh? No king’s ever wanted to be friends with no common folk. I been serving three kings in my whole lifetime including you, and neither of the two’s been very kind to folks like us. The nicest they get is when they ain’t speaking to us.” He let out another laugh. “You best keep that attitude as yer growin’ up, eh boy? The kingdom needs it. I certainly hope you don’t get all spoiled by the fancy riches that they give ya in there.” He nodded up towards the palace, and Alfred turned to look.
He looked back at the old man with a smile full of pride, and declared, “No, I won’t turn all stupid. That’s a promise! Only stupid people would take away someone else’s job just for being yelled at.”
The old man laughed again, but this time he was cut off by a bout of loud, watery coughing.
“Are you okay?” Alfred asked as soon as the fit was over. The old man got up with a shaky smile.
“Indeed I am, your majesty. Just caught a bit of a lousy cold. Should be fine in a couple of weeks.”
He picked up his shears and resumed cutting off weeds in the grass. “So, what does my majesty come to ask of me?”
“Honestly, I didn’t even know you were here,” said Alfred. He took a seat cross-legged on the ground and watched the man work. “So you’re a gardener? Do you only watch this place? And where are all the flowers?”
The man shook his head with a fond smile. “I don’t believe myself to keep up with all your highness’s questions, but I’ll try me best. Let’s see, I am a gardener, and I watch this plot of land here. This is the King and Queen’s private garden, you know. They tell me what to put in here and I do it. At first it was just the queen, he was very kind. His wife? Not so much. They got all sorts of lilies put in here.
“The next set of royals had only recently discovered the place. King Ram, now, he was an imposin’ figure, and a great leader, but he didn’t take as kindly to lowly gardeners like meself as much as the queen. The two talked a great deal about adding lights an’ fountains an’ a waterfall, an’ a whole bunch of expensive flowers brought in from the east. The land over here was bein’ plowed up, you see?”
“So what happened?” Asked Alfred. “Where’s all the flowers? And the fountain?”
“Well, them majesties were killed,” The gardener shrugged. “The Jack had us cease all the work an’ return all the land back, an’ with no orders I can’t plant anything. It’s turned into more of a lawn, really. He was practically raised by the king and queen, you see. He was just a bit over your age, I believe, when he came here, orphaned, and became jack. Probably couldn’t bear to see the garden of the people who’d never see it. But hey! This is your garden now, and you can have whatever you want planted here.”
“Woah,” Alfred gaped. “Anything?”
“Yes sir, anything.” The old man chuckled. “Anythin’ you an’ your queen desire. Speakin’ of which, where is your queen? Are they as young as you?”
“Oh, Arthur’s in the library. He’s kind of a grouch and a bit older, and he kind of hates me.” Alfred shrugged. “It think if I were to get something planted here, I’d have Arthur’s favorite flowers.”
A gleam of amusement came into the gardener’s eyes. He hefted up his shears and faced the young king on his haunches. “And what, exactly, are the queen’s favorite flowers?”
(a/n): Alright, so I know it’s been forever since I updated. I am deeply sorry. ;v; This chapter went through a lot of rewrites but it’s nearing a 3000 word count so hopefully that makes up for it. This chapter’s also dedicated to @sherlockscones because they’ve been so loving towards this fic and they’ve been waiting this whole time and they’re great asdfghjk
ff.net || <<ch2 || ch4>>
Chapter 3
It must’ve been around midnight, Alfred decided, when he finally allowed his eyes to shoot open after hours of tossing and turning in the impossibly soft mattress he was assigned.
He couldn’t sleep. For the first time in a long time, Alfred couldn’t sleep. This, he thought, was peculiar. The last time he found himself unable to drift into peaceful slumber was the first night he was separated from his twin brother, Matthew, who had been adopted by a young couple who’d opted to leave Alfred out. It broke his heart, but he couldn’t beg the parents to take him or beg Matthew to stay; it was simply better for Matthew to leave, even if that meant Alfred would be alone.
But now Alfred was the King of Spades, an over-privileged seven-year-old lying in the softest mattress in the world, belly full with warm roast meals and buttery deserts. And yet he found himself awake, with the old, sickening feeling of isolation churning around with the remains of his dinner.
Alfred groaned and turned on his side. Maybe the feeling had to do with room?
It was big, three times bigger than the old bunker-rooms. The ceiling was so, so impossibly high that Alfred could bring the old apple tree into the place and it wouldn’t even reach the top. On his side, Alfred could look out the magnificent window, its velvet curtains drawn open, and then further out into the palace gardens that was now a field of moving and shifting shadow, sprinkled with slivers of white where moonlight caught on marble statues.
If Alfred listened closely, he could hear the leaves sway and rustle in the cold evening air, almost like a distant ocean whose waves crumbled gently over a rocky shore. And above that he could hear soft, even snores, muffled by the mount of blankets and cushions that lay across the room from his feet.
Arthur was under there, sleeping away, the only evidence of which was the steady rising and falling of his cocoon of sheets.
Alfred wondered about him. He wondered about the boy’s stubbornness, his anger, especially his anger towards Alfred. He could’ve sworn Arthur was already warming up to him, but for some reason because of the universe’s sudden announcement that they were the official Monarchs of Spades, Arthur would do everything he could to avoid looking at him. Hell, he’d probably never touch him again after the hand-mark fiasco.
But no one was like that by default, Alfred argued. Perhaps it was all the change. Yes, that must be it. Arthur had gone from his home, gods know what happened to his parents, to an orphanage, to another one, and then scarcely a week later, was declared the Queen of the Kingdom and told that the giant palace that was always looming over the city was now his home.
The poor guy probably didn’t even know what to call home anymore. He must have been dragged around from place to place and felt that nothing was permanent.
It was sort of like when Alfred was assigned a different cot bed with Matthew each night and he wasn’t sure whether they would gain a permanent cot bed ever again, but they found one eventually, and they rested easy for a solid year.
So he would just have to let Arthur know that they could rest easy, and they’ll be having it for way over a year.
Oooo00000oooooO
Arthur had been basking in the morning light long before Alfred had, but he remained on the edge of his own grand bed, and had been staring at the younger boy for a solid five minutes when tiny blue eyes finally cracked open, to find Arthur up and the room flooded with light.
After a small session of yawning and stretching, Alfred, voice cracking from sleep, thought to ask, “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“I was just thinking, you know,” Arthur blinked, and tilted his head. “About how unfair this is.”
Alfred sat up and raised a brow. “Unfair? Uh, did you want to have my bed…?”
“No,” Arthur sighed, and finally looked away. His green eyes were still squinty from sleep as he stared off into the now brighter palace grounds. “I think it’s unfair that we’re forced to be king and queen all of a sudden. We’re just kids. We can’t handle this responsibility.” He looked at Alfred then, eyes narrowing with distaste. “You can’t handle this,” he spat.
It was then that Alfred jumped awake, flared up by a sudden defiance. Instead of going off on his statement about how they were young and would be trained, yadda yadda, he piped up with an irritated, “How come?” He knew he said it like a challenge, but when Arthur pointed that glare at him, he immediately wanted to back down.
“Because you are a young, naïve fool. You will never take responsibility. You will never take any of this seriously,” Arthur said coldly.
“And you will?”
He paused, gaze faltered. Then, it just as quickly hardened to stone. “Maybe I won’t,” Arthur said in defiance. “That’s why the both of us are better off on those streets than we are running this place. The only difference is that I know that truth and you do not.”
The older boy stood and walked out of the room, leaving Alfred a shaking mess of fear and anger in his own grand bed.
Ooooooo000ooooooO
The dining hall was ten times larger than the bedroom in every conceivable way. Massive windows flooded the place with sunlight, tapestries depicting all the previous monarchs decorating the spaces in between. And the grand centerpiece of the hall was the long oaken dining table that could fit up to over half a hundred people, surrounded by five other tables of smaller size.
The two young monarchs sat at that immaculate table in the front center, gaping at an array of scrumptious breakfast foods laid out before them. The eggs alone came in so many different varieties that Alfred couldn’t even name them all; devilled eggs, sunny-side up, poached, boiled—all hot and ready and mouth-watering.
But it was still kind of lonely. A hall that could feed over two hundred people serving only two, and the only other guest present wouldn’t even look at Alfred.
The sounds of clinking metal was the only thing that filled the room, bouncing up and away towards the ceiling to remind Alfred of how the previous night’s dinner had been just as empty. At least then he had Yao to speak to.
Then, as if by magic, at Alfred’s thought the heavy double doors glided open and in stepped the Jack of Spades, dressed in a pristine blue suit that did not match the weary smile he wore on his face.
“Alfred, Arthur!” The young adult greeted, approaching the boys with so much enthusiasm Alfred couldn’t bother to comment on his tired frame.
He took the seat at the head of the table, right between the two children, and proceeded to shovel a hefty helping of toast and eggs onto his plate. “Boy, you two wouldn’t believe the morning I had!” Yao laughed.
“It’s—well, only half past eight,” said Arthur timidly.
Yao gave him a knowing look as he shoved a forkful of pancake into his mouth. “Exactly, my dear boy.” He winked.
“Hey, Yao, are you doing anything later?” Alfred asked through a mouthful of omelet.
Yao peered at down at him with a curious look that was punctuated with a small grin on his lips. He swallowed, then brought a glass of fruit juice to his mouth. “Why is my King asking?” He chuckled before gulping the drink down.
“I wanted to know if you can hang out with me and Arthur again. We haven’t seen much of the palace and I’m sure we’d get lost if we tried to explore on our own, you know?”
Across the table, Arthur looked like he was going to object to something, but Yao interrupted with the loud thump of his empty glass slamming onto the wooden surface.
“Well,” said the Jack, shoveling another helping of food onto his plate. “I’ve been awake for four hours and am very caffeinated, so I suppose I can go for a little adventure before I collapse after lunch. Does that sound good, Alfred?”
Alfred hummed. “Sounds awesome!” Although he had no idea what caffeinated meant.
Again, Arthur had sat up to seemingly object, but Yao turned to him with a softer smile. Any words of protest died on the boy’s tongue, and he closed his mouth.
“Arthur,” the Jack began, turning in his seat to face him. “I know you’ve been through a lot I don’t know about lately, and are probably confused and afraid and are over-thinking this whole monarchy thing, yeah? What I want you to do is to stop thinking about that for now. Don’t think about being King and Queen, don’t think about ‘responsibility’. Maybe Alfred here has the right idea—think about this place as your cool new home with cool new stuff. It’s a place you can adventure through and explore at your own leisure, you know? You said it yourself, you’re just a kid. So enjoy this place like a kid would.”
Arthur didn’t meet Yao’s eyes. He nodded quietly in his seat, hands folded in his lap. “I’ll… do my best.”
Yao nodded, despite the boy’s obvious uncertainty.
“Alright, I’ve cooked up a plan in my head for you guys today. I’ve heard they’ll be starting their training out back in a few minutes, so how about I let you guys check out the Royal Guard in action?”
Oooooo00oooooO
Yao decided to take them through the scenic route. They waltzed out the front doors of the palace and began walking around the gardens. Alfred gaped at the topiary depicting images of valiant knights on horses, majestic bird-like animals, and most popular of all, the symbol of the Spade. It was in elegant white statues and carved into pillars. Some stone paths were chunks of blue rock carved into the prominent symbol.
Butterflies fluttered around bushes here and there, and all about grew a curious vine that sprouted bright blue flowers that, when Alfred watched Arthur pluck one up, was in the very shape of a Spade as well. He almost giggled about how the palace was so patriotic that even the plants were in line with the Kingdom’s emblem.
Finally, after perhaps a quarter of an hour skipping around the bright garden, they arrived at a high stone wall split in the center by a pair of heavy wooden doors. Beyond the wall Alfred could hear rhythmic shouting and clanking of metal.
His heartbeat sped up, and blood rushed to his ears. This was actually happening. He was going to see soldiers fighting with real swords and spears, not like the cardboard swords they played with back in the orphanage. Alfred had always wanted to be a real knight, and now he was going to see a whole army!
At Yao’s word, two guards stationed by the doors pulled them open and Alfred was thrust into an open field of lush green grass. All over it were hundreds of grown men and women wielding swords, spears, bows and arrows, sparring with one another, hacking at dummies, and shooting at targets. Vibrant laughter and gasped conversation mingled in between the practiced yells of those soldiers to create the buzz of noise that hovered over the field.
They moved with such practiced ease, such agile grace, athletic bodies seemingly not breaking a sweat with every turn of their weapon and quick maneuvering of their bodies.
Turning to Arthur, Alfred saw, for the very first time, something other than fear and contempt gleaming in his companion’s bright green eyes. In that look was the same feeling that Alfred had bubbling up in his chest—a strange mix of wonder and excitement that resulted in a sort of euphoric agitation. Both of them were in awe at the sight, seemingly caught in a trance. And then a woman spoke up.
“Cease at once! Pay respect to your Majesties, the King and Queen of Spades!”
At the first word all movement stopped, heads snapping in the direction of the doors. And then suddenly, weapons were dropped, swords stabbed into the ground in dramatic fashion, every soldier who’d previously been so occupied now ground to a halt to kneel and bow their heads, mumbling some variation of acknowledgement to the two young royals.
In that moment Alfred felt exactly like he did when Miss Amelia had put him on the spot to give a birthday speech in front of all the other orphans. He was looking at them and they were looking at him, all expectant, and finding he himself was expectant of them. He could only stutter and wait for a reaction until the words came to him.
But now he wasn’t sure if there even was a need for words. He was about to turn to Yao to ask him what to do, but then he saw Arthur by his side, shoulders stiff and eyes wide with silent panic.
He was terrified. Alfred had no idea why, but Arthur was terrified.
In a rush to do something quick, Alfred slid his tiny palm into Arthur’s trembling hand, squeezing reassuringly. What he expected was for the older boy to snap back into himself and withdraw his hand with a scowl, but instead Arthur squeezed back, and his shoulders slowly lost their stiffness.
Yao had likely noticed the exchange, as well as Arthur’s current panicked state, and dutifully barked out an order for the guards to return to their positions.
“Forgive me, your majesties,” Yao said, attempting a joking smile. “Captain Herdevary is simply one for grand entrances and great dramatics. Don’t mind her. She’s just flamboyant.”
“Flamboyant, huh?”
Calmly walking through the ranks of sparring soldiers was a long-haired brunet woman dressed in leather gear, wielding a sword which she slung casually over her back. Alfred recognized her as the same woman who had announced their titles earlier, and instinctively moved closer to Arthur, who seemed to be grateful for his touch. He didn’t shy away at all, and in fact took a tiny step closer.
“You scared them, Lizabeth,” Yao said disapprovingly. She arrived to a stop in front of the trio and was peering down at Arthur and Alfred curiously, but also smiling apologetically.
She hummed, and lowered her sword, so the hilt was about level with Alfred’s chin. He kind of wanted to touch it.
“Forgive me your majesties, but I’ve trained my soldiers to give respect and discipline wherever it is due, and addressing the monarchy is quite the higher forms of due respect.” She straightened up and held out a hand. “Captain Elizabeta Herdevary of the Royal Guard, your majesties. Sworn to protect the kingdom and sworn to protect you.”
Though her smile was welcoming and warm, Arthur only retreated further behind Alfred. Not wanting to be rude, Alfred shook the hand, despite having to stretch up quite the ways to reach it.
Elizabeta chuckled lightly. “Alright, so it looks to me you two came over here to have some fun! Come with me, and I’ll show you around the field. You know, you guys are going to be trained to use these weapons too, and you can eventually pick out which ones you’d like to specialize in.”
She began to walk back into the organized chaos of soldiers and Alfred moved to follow, but Arthur tugged on his hand, not budging from his spot. When Elizabeta turned to find the boys haven’t moved, she offered another apologetic smile and knelt in front of Arthur, gently nudging Alfred aside with another sheepish grin.
“Hey, I’m sorry about earlier. Probably made you uneasy about the whole royalty thing, right? I won’t do that again, that’s a promise. I’m just a little too grandiose for my own good.” She laughed again. “In all seriousness, I’m sorry, my queen. How about I give you a little apology tour, yeah? It’ll be fun.”
Alfred gave Arthur’s hand another squeeze. “Yeah, come on, Art. It’ll be great,” he said.
Green eyes turned to him, uncertain, and briefly glanced over the captain who crouched in front of him.
“Alright,” he mumbled finally, and allowed Alfred to tug him enthusiastically behind the equally cheerful captain of the guard.
A USUK WWII Fanfiction
"Set in the summer of 1940, chronicling through the personal writings of one RAF fighter how the Battle of Britain began to unfold, the weights that pressed down on every pilot, the physical and emotional challenges that fell before him, and the one American who sailed across the sea, joined his squadron, and taught him that sometimes it's the smaller things worth fighting for.
//I wanted to share this here again, because this is a pretty big fic I poured a lot of time and effort in, and, even though its been a year, I’m really proud of.
Go give it a read if you’re interested in emotional roller coasters, air force badassery, and happy endings! And leave a review to tell me watcha think~
Summary: They were told how the world was going to end, but they would never be told when. Arthur Kirkland is 14 years old and had accepted the end of the world, but what he couldn't accept was that his best friend and maybe crush was to die without ever really smiling again. If he had five more minutes left to breathe, he'd want to spend them knowing Alfred Jones was happy.
|| FF.net Link ||
They said the world was going to end like this:
From giant rings and metal tubes being built towards the sky, sticking straight out of the hollowed ground, titanic fumes would be released into the air—fumes that would bleed into the atmosphere, that would dissolve trees’ leaves like paper in water. Among the fumes, all the oxygen in the world would amount to a needle in a haystack, eventually being reduced to nothing. The fumes aimed to kill and destroy, aimed to bleed into one’s lungs and deprive them of precious air. The fumes were poison.
And they would be invisible.
No one knew when they would come. No one knew when the poison would start to be fed into the air, and no one would be able to see it begin. But the tubes were on full display; the workers of the law gradually built great hollow structures of metal and concrete, all over the world, and in Arthur’s town, there were three.
Like football fields being stacked on top of one another, they rose higher and higher.
Arthur saw people protesting, saw them hurling stones and rallying, but metal fences kept them nearly a mile away from the construction sites, their screams meaning nothing.
It was the government, they said. And the government didn’t stop all the news people and TV people to broadcast what they were doing all over the world. After all, every country was on board with the destruction. Not the people of course, but their governments. And they were all silent.
Any group of citizens that dare sabotage the work were killed without a second thought. That was the aim anyway—to kill them. All of them.
Sitting on his rooftop, Arthur watched one of the tubes being built over the horizon, its rim now above the old factory in the distance. Rooftops rimmed with the golden sunset glinted out of reach of its shadow, and the misty silhouette of city buildings clouded the orange sky beyond.
He looked to the boy sitting next to him, his sandy hair whipping all about his face and loose hoodie moving restlessly in the summer wind. In the golden light, his precious blue eyes were almost green.
“Alfred,” Said Arthur, shifting his weight on his hands. “Would you have stopped this, if you could?” He swallowed, eyes flickering from the rooftops and to his friend, then back again.
Alfred smiled, bitterly, eyes focused on the horizon—or perhaps on the construction. “Of course. But if I tried, I’d die anyway.” He laughed, short and sarcastic.
“Well,” Arthur lowered his eyes. “Aren’t we all going to die anyway? I would’ve thought you would, perhaps, run at full speed towards them with grenades in your hands with the justification that you ‘at least tried’.”
Alfred laughed again, a bit less sarcastic. “Like you said, we’re all gonna die anyway. I just think it’s a bit more heroic to stay here and live life, and help others live life, and give them a smile before we all go, you know?”
He was smiling now, and Arthur smiled too.
“Is that what’s going to make you happy, then, before you go? Helping others?” The Brit asked.
Alfred shrugged. “Maybe. Well, it’ll help, at least.” He turned to Arthur now with a lopsided grin. “Beats uselessly running towards a bunch of loaded guns and making my mom feel horrible afterwards. She doesn’t need two sons to mourn over. Heh.” Arthur didn’t smile. “And hey you’ll finally be rid of the ‘stupid bloody git’ you’re always complaining about.”
Arthur frowned then. His fist curled towards the rusty metal beneath his palms. “You know I don’t hate you…”
His voice was weak. Alfred had been like this for a while now. Sarcastic smiles and all accepting and cozying up to the notion of inevitable death. He was too melancholic, too… too sad. It wasn’t like him, and Arthur knew his best friend, known him for seven years, for half their lives.
Alfred dropped the smile, worry edging into his eyes. He tried to be nonchalant, but that’s not how Alfred worked. Arthur knew, Arthur saw.
“I know that,” said the teen, placating. He looked at Arthur for a moment, concerned eyes searching his face, then he opened his arms with a small smile playing on his lips.
Arthur crawled forward without a second thought. He curled up into that familiar body and hooked his arms around the waist. He let Alfred hold him, and neither said a word.
They stayed there until the sky was black; and it was black without the sparkle of even a single star.
--- - - - - - -- - -- - - -
Arthur walked out the door to a grey and dusty morning. Living on the edge of a city, in the suburbs where people always had places to be, Arthur was used to the noise and yelling, to the honking cars and thrumming engines. But this morning, it was quiet.
Ever since the tubes, it had been very quiet indeed.
People walked now, or biked everywhere, with few people bothering to hop into their cars anymore. Around half of the people never even bothered to go to work, while the other half stuck to their nine-to-five schedules to keep up some semblance of a normal life. Arthur’s mother was one of those people, and he watched her speeding down the driveway in their rusty van in the bleak light of day.
Arthur didn’t go to school nowadays. He couldn’t think of anyone who did anymore. And yet he was to be found hitching his backpack up his shoulders at 8 am on his front porch, dressed comfortably for the chilly autumn air.
He walked down the sidewalk, the rustling of leaves filling his ears. The houses and their gardens were all quiet, shrouded in a muddy yellow light that matched the dead feeling of the world. From windows and behind picket fences, muted faces gave him muted glances, brief flickers of interest, and then the people went back to whatever they were doing—gardening, conversing… it didn’t matter, not to them, not to anyone.
A block later, Arthur was looking up towards the roof. On that one charming little house sat Alfred, staring off into the distance, wind ruffling his loose hoodie like a flag around his teenage frame.
It didn’t take long for him to walk through the house, up the stairs and the ladder to the roof. He sat next to Alfred, and without any notice from the other boy, hefted his backpack onto his lap and started rifling through.
After perhaps a long minute of shuffling around, Alfred turned to him inquisitively.
“Uh, watcha got there, Artie?”
Arthur looked up, once, before sticking his nose back into his pack without responding.
Alfred waited, and waited, and then Arthur sat up with a triumphant smile, his hands now stilled in his backpack, obviously already holding onto whatever he’d been searching for.
Slowly, with a smug grin, Arthur pulled out a think book secured tightly in a somewhat dusty sheen of plastic. Alfred squinted, confused, and then his eyes widened suddenly and his face was frozen in that precious look of shock that had Arthur giggling as he recognized the identity of the brightly colored book cover.
“I meant to give this to you the other day,” said the Brit, holding down a chuckle. “But boy, if I’d known this was to be your reaction I would’ve gotte—”
“H-how?” Alfred gasped, grabbing at the book. The comic book. A copy of the very first original edition of one of Alfred's most treasured comic book series in perfect mint condition. “Arthur—! This… this thing’s like, an artifact! How…?”
Alfred stared, eyes tearing up. He read the dates and turned it over in his hand, verifying its authenticity.
Arthur gave him a warm smile. “Old Billy over at the shop down the block’s been selling this thing for over a hundred dollars since last year. I’ve been eyeing it for you, actually, wondering if he’d settle for ten dollars one day. I supposed last week was the day because I’d seen him dumping out the contents of his shop, I suppose he was closing up, and agreed to let me have it for five bucks.”
It’s been a while since Arthur saw Alfred smile this wide. His friend was a huge nerd, and he knew this fact very well. He’d been rather down ever since the tubes, much like everyone else. He’d been sitting on the rooftop, he’d been shutting people out. He didn’t read his books or play his video games, he simply… sat there. Much like his mother in her room, he supposed.
But now, when Alfred wrapped his arms around him tightly, burying that grinning face into Arthur’s coat, he felt that he’d finally done something right for his friend. He couldn’t do much when they had Matthew’s funeral, he couldn’t do much when they heard the media spread the recent news, but if he could do anything to make Alfred happy for whatever’s left of their lives, then he would’ve done something right in the world.
But even in that serene moment of peace, in the quiet that draped over the city, the distant, constant, banging of metal was not lost on them. The tubes grew taller each and every day, and the sound was like the ticking of their time bomb.
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(a/n): yeet, so I hope you liked that. tell me watcha think and I might actually have it in me to keep writing lmao luv ya~
- college au. alfred is studying law and arthur is studying art. the two of them meet in the same geography class, and it’s instant chemistry. alfred invites arthur to study. the rest is history.
- pretend dating au. alfred needs a date for matthew’s wedding across the globe, and arthur needs a vacation, so he humors it. they really play up their relationship, being just the right amount of mushy to really sell it. arthur gets wayyy too drunk during the after party, and alfred takes care of him, getting him back to the hotel safely and tucking him in before making himself a bed on the floor. when arthur wakes up (with an awful headache) and sees alfred on the floor, the night comes flashing to him in pictures, and FUCK, is he really in love with alfred, a complete and utter gentleman???
- celebrity au. alfred is a young actor who is known for his superhero and romcom roles. arthur is the lead singer of a popular rock band from the late 90s/early 2000s. arthur is cold and bitter towards the media, while alfred is naive and too friendly to everyone, often letting people walk on him. they meet at an award event, alfred winning his first award and giving the most charming smile arthur had ever seen to the camera. he reaches out to alfred after the event, congratulating him for his win. alfred is skeptical at first due to arthur’s mean reputation, but he thanks him, anyway. by chance, they keep ending up in the same cities or at the same parties, and they grow closer. paparazzi creates rumors that they try to dodge, and they do a really good job at it until they’re busted holding hands right outside of alfred’s new york apartment complex.
- GHOST HUNTERS AU!! for someone who prides himself in being brave, alfred is a HUGE baby when it comes to paranormal. he walks into every haunted location super confident, but the moment spooky shit starts happening, he jumps behind arthur for safety. arthur won’t mention it, though. ur secret is safe, alfred.
- titanic au. alfred stops arthur from jumping off of the side of the ship after arthur gets into a fight with his fiance. instead of alfred being an artist like jack though, he is a beautiful pianist. he plays the most lovely tunes arthur has ever heard. the two of them sneak around on the ship, hiding from all of the upper class folk that arthur was familiar with. you already know how this one ends..
I got your Heathers post in my recs, and didn’t realise you had already put it together,,, I got bored and casted everyone, but with Arthur as Veronica since the whole “snarky and tired” thing matched up more to me than Alfred’s boundless energy. ( and I’ve got an entire other section on how Alfred’s motivations differ from JD’s so he’s still in character )
Actually I've casted this thing looong ago and have just been tossing it all over in my mind, hehe. I have Arthur as JD because the "hates the world punk" feel feels nice for me and Alfred as the well meaning protagonist is cool.
Still though, I'd LOVE to hear your casting ideas on this! Sounds really freakin interesting!!
Oh look, the Heathers AU drabble I been talking about.
USUKUS! by the way~
SPOILERS for Heathers, loosely based on the Musical.
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//Set right after Veronica (Alfred) learns that Kurt and Ram (Gilbert and Matthias) have spread the rumor of having sex with them. //
Words: 646
The hallway smelled like smoke and dust, like a forgotten memory buried beneath the hollow trophies in the attic of a life left behind.
The lockers lining the hall were swathed in shadow, glowing at the edges of their metal frames from light that came blaring through the windows of the cafeteria doors at the far end. Song and noise blurred together, pushing through the darkness in lonely, muffled waves that barely reached Alfred who sat unblinking against cold metal.
He was restless, but he didn’t move. His arms ached and his legs were beginning to fall asleep. A thundering in his skull grew louder and louder until it began to drown out even his own thoughts.
His mouth opened, but he made no sound, and out came a rush of air in a silent, chocked sob. His chest heaved, a cold feeling settling into his heart. He didn’t like this. Alfred didn’t like this. He hated this. He hated everything. His stomach was twisting and turning and tightening, and an acidic burn came rushing up his throat. His eyes began to sting and his glasses slipped off. He had bowed over, clutching himself, desperate and hollow.
And then he woke up.
Alfred blinked. He was still in the hallway, still hearing the muffled mix of song and noise from beyond the cafeteria doors, but he felt lighter—he could breathe.
Alfred looked up at the source of warmth that now nestled against his side, the source of his sudden calm.
It was Arthur, staring blankly in return, bangs covering part of his eyes and long trench coat splayed out beneath him. Then the punk smiled, a small sad one, and put his arm around the other teen. Alfred didn’t move.
“Is it true?” Asked Arthur, careful with his tone.
Alfred shook his head wildly, suddenly pleading, looking into Arthur’s eyes with, not guilt, but hate. A burning, passionate hate that sought something to blame, pleading for Arthur to see the fire nestled behind his eyes.
“I-It’s not true! You know I could never!” Alfred’s voice cracked. His fists curled into Arthur’s shirt, and then he cried.
Slowly, his chest heaving, tears pricked at the corners of his eyes and ran down his cheeks. His breath came out in short gasps, but he kept his lips close together, not quite shut.
“I could never do that to you, please…”
“Shh, it’s okay, poppet. It’s okay.” Arthur hugged him, pulled him closer. He let his lips plant loose kisses along the younger blonde’s forehead, let his ringers run through his hair. He consoled the crying teen with whispers and caresses, with declarations of affection.
“I believe you, it’s okay,” said Arthur.
Alfred’s voice wavered as he spoke. “I-I hate them,” he swallowed thickly. “I hate them. The rumors, the lies. I hate all of them. I hate Gilbert and Matthias. I hate Matthew and Antonio. I hate being a goddamned Heather!”
Arthur was quiet, smiling into the other’s hair where he couldn’t see. “And it’s right to hate them,” he said, finally. “You wouldn’t fuck any of those jocks with a knife to your throat. I can hardly believe people fell for that rumor.” Arthur chuckled, possessing a knowing grin. “But, Poppet, believe me when I say they’ll have their due.”
Alfred sniffed. “What do you mean?”
Arthur hummed, quietly, not answering until the other teen dug himself out of his embrace and peered questioningly up at the blonde. “There’s a way to get revenge. I have a way to humiliate them all throughout the school and, if we play this right, even international news.”
Alfred’s eyes lit up. Arthur rand a hand through is hair.
“Do you want to do it?” He asked.
Without missing a beat, Alfred sighed, nearly dreamy. “Yes.”
He almost failed to care when Arthur drew a gun out of his pocket.
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//Anyway, hope you enjoyed that! I’m gonna go ahead and write a full-length story so let me know if you’ll want to read that~
