Funny Things, a hetalia - axis powers fanfic

Warning(s): Vague bullying... I s'pose? I mean this is a pretty tame fic. No one is getting their faces sliced off and slapped against brick walls while I'm around. Plus I guess, homosexuality? But I mean, if you're reading a Hetalia story, that's kind of a given... Eheh. Plus brief sexual stuff, but it's mostly vague.

Disclaimer(s): Don't own Hetalia, the Hetalian characters, The Black Keys, or anything else you know I don't own. I mean if I did, I wouldn't be here would I? XD

Read on and enjoy.

Alfred F. Jones might tell you the F in his name stands for freedom. The majority of his ninth grade class knows it actually stands for Frederick, however, and have taken to calling him 'Fat Freddy' every Friday for the sake of alliteration. Their English teachers haven't been prouder.

It was on a Thursday he met Arthur Kirkland, the sarcastic senior from England who'd apparently failed a grade and had also killed a man who'd been out caroling on Christmas Eve and has been missing ever since. Arthur had been grinding out a cigarette into the pavement of the sideways sidewalk students took to get to the shoddy McDonalds just across the street, and Alfred had politely pointed out that tobacco would give him lung cancer and that his teeth really would become as nasty as the British stereotype insisted they ought to be, as he was passing by. Arthur had wrinkled his nose, sized him up, then proceeded to toss his Physics textbook at him. "Do my homework and I'll consider being your best friend, brat".

The two became best friends only a day later.

It was on that day that Alfred had told Arthur that his middle name stood for freedom. Of course in the hallway, upon the senior catching wind of his nickname, the elder had snickered, grinned, then ruffled his hair. "Sure, kid, and I'm Captain Kirk." Alfred did in fact call his elder 'Captain Kirk', when he didn't appear agitated or anxious about something. On Arthur's bad days it was usually best not to approach him at all.

A rarity was having Arthur hug him, a little something he realized a few months into their friendship. Alfred had only experienced it twice. The first was after he'd gotten his head smacked into a snotty green locker in the boy's locker room. Arthur had said he ought to learn how to beat the shit out of the bastards. Alfred had mentioned assault was illegal, especially against kids that didn't know their fathers. Arthur hadn't appreciated the joke at the time. Probably because he'd had to help stop the gash along his friend's pudgy forehead from bleeding so much red. Alfred had been surprised it hadn't been lard spilling from the wound.

The second had been in his dreams. Arthur had taken the form of a toad and had insisted they kiss so that he could transform into a dragon and destroy America. Alfred had hugged him instead, because that alone was enough to get him flustered. Plus... He understandably, didn't want America destroyed, seeing as he lived there.

On Christmas, in the wake of a snow storm, Arthur had showed at his doorstep with a gift wrapped in newspaper and a red runny nose.

"Don't think much of it." He'd said before lightly punching his shoulder then turning on his heels and disappearing into the rage of white. It was more so curious how Arthur had known where he lived, than why he'd bothered with coming at all.

The gift had been a box of coffee beans.

Alfred resigned himself to never telling Arthur he didn't drink coffee, and still keeps the box under his pillow.

He failed the majority of his tests over the span of a couple of dreary weeks after the winter holidays, and didn't mind that much. His teachers were worried he had some sort of 'issues', in contrast. The hush hush kind of issues. He'd like to have told them he was failing because he just didn't care, and not because he had 'issues', but he doubted they'd have heard him even if he'd spoken up in all those conferences and one sided conversations after class. His words came out in garbled, blubbery whispers, and he suspected they didn't speak 'pitiful blob' well enough to understand him.

Arthur had gotten him to smoke some time in the Spring. It had been awful. Alfred had coughed for a total of five minutes after his first drag. Arthur had called it 'cute'. Alfred had never gone as red in the face in his life.

He smoked with him often after that moment, despite his distaste for it.

"Did you really kill a guy?" Alfred had asked on a regular day in particular, staring down at the end of his lit cigarette. It was burning, and he'd felt like a man with that nasty thing between his fingers. He also felt sick, but that had been because he'd skipped lunch. Arthur hadn't brought up that fact, and Alfred adored him all the more for minding his own business. "Nah." He'd replied after he'd exhaled grey poison into the sky. He made shaped 'o's sometimes, when he felt like amusing an easily amused Alfred. That day he was agitated, however, and so he made no such shapes. "I don't know how the rumor started... But I do fucking hate carolers."

The name 'Fat Freddy' died off eventually, when Arthur became a more permanent fixture in the boy's life. Most didn't say a thing to him, afraid they'd be murdered via switchblade. Alfred found that funny. Arthur was so clumsy he couldn't even wield a butter knife straight- he came to school with a sandwich cut up into various nonexistent shapes due to that fact, most of which Arthur practiced tossing into girls v-necks around lunch time.

At some point Arthur had began mentioning 'college'.

Alfred didn't care.

He'd even told the older boy that one day as they were sitting in his bedroom. He'd had his eyes fixed on a 'The Black Keys' poster. 'What a stupid band', he'd thought, lips twisted in this awkward little smile he'd had on since the day Arthur had said the word college.

"I don't care," He'd began, still staring at that stupid, stupid poster. "About you going to college, I mean."

Arthur had quirked an eyebrow. Viewed him with an expression that Alfred had long ago labeled as his 'impenetrable mask'. Mainly because he couldn't think of a better name for that unreadable face of his. It was one he made when he was thinking, and that's all Alfred knew about it. "You going to cry over me, Jones?" He'd finally said. And originally it had been in jest, but Alfred really had cried immediately after the statement had been made, so for the third time in their friendship Arthur had hugged him. 'Stupid, you're so stupid. And so is that poster!' Alfred had sobbed into his shoulder.

They don't discuss what happened that day much, but when they do, they often joke that The Black Keys made him cry, rather than the much more obvious conclusion one would come to upon hearing the story.

Alfred had started eating healthier some time later, after that. He didn't lose much weight, unfortunately, gave up, and reverted to not eating at all. No one noticed. Arthur probably had, because one day after school he'd said very pointedly,

"Mate, let's get something to eat, yeah? I'm starved." And despite Alfred's initial protests, he'd been dragged along with him. He hadn't looked at the senior, but had instead kept his eyes on their interlocked hands, promising himself he'd never forget the feel of Arthur's fingers.

He'd never tell him, or anyone for that matter, about his need to keep that exact memory locked in his mind.

Arthur had done the deed with some girl maybe at the end of March. He'd told Alfred about it, and Alfred had pretended to listen as he again found himself staring at that stupid, stupid poster on the other's wall.

What was it like?

What would it be like with Arthur?

Those had been the two thoughts circulating through his mind at the time. And before he became utterly mortified by the fact that he'd even consider the latter of those options, he answered himself.

He'd probably make a quick joke about Robin's name being dick and I'd laugh, and then we'd both be laughing way too hard to actually do it.

"Did she uh... Ya know?" He'd asked, picking at the burgundy carpet. Arthur had laughed at him, though he sobered quickly enough to respond, "Orgasm, mate. Orgasm. And hell, I don't bloody know. Doesn't quite matter does it?" Alfred had shrugged, still picking at the squiggly loose bits. "I hope you didn't catch anything, mate." Was all he'd said. Albeit, bitterly, but Arthur acted like he hadn't noticed and so it was as though that moment had never actually happened at all.

Who knows when he started liking Arthur like that?

Certainly not Alfred. It had just sort of snuck up on him one day.

Maybe it was because he was a lonely freshman that didn't have many friends. Maybe it was because Arthur was just so cool. The kind of cool that no adult approved of, which just made him all the more attractive. Hell, but Alfred hadn't even known he was into guys. He told himself he was confused and pretended he was just as into pussy as every other normal male student attending his school.

He never slept, when they had sleepovers. He'd lie awake and stay completely still beside his friend in the dark of his, or Arthur's, bedroom. He'd lie there and stare up at the ceiling, or at Arthur, or at that God forsaken poster. And this only ever happened because he was almost always painfully aware of Arthur's presence. Some of those nights, they held each other, and neither ever brought that fact up, when daylight struck and it was time to get up.

Alfred ran in the mornings sometimes.

Late in April Alfred had kissed a girl, but all he'd been thinking about at the time was Arthur. He didn't want him to graduate, and he certainly didn't want the future to take his best friend away. It had been a girl by the name of Natalia that had took him to a ratty couch in somebody's garage and kissed him. Or rather, tried to eat his face off, because all she did was suck and bite and he was pretty sure he'd been bleeding by the time she got off of him. God only knows how he'd gotten in to that party. Maybe it had been Arthur... No, it definitely had been Arthur. And when he left him in a few more months, he'd revert back to his low status of 'Fat Freddy'.

But about Natalia.

He didn't know why she'd kissed him. Maybe it had something to do with her brother... 'Ivan'. Ivan had cold, cold eyes, and a smile that could make you wonder just how many secrets he was keeping locked behind those stiff lips of his. She must've wanted his attention, or something... Because minutes later Alfred was getting his ass kicked by the big guy.

It hadn't even been that good of a kiss.

Arthur had been outside with the kind of kids you'd hear about in movies, doing the kind of stuff you'd hear about on the news. Alfred had decided he hadn't wanted to see him like that. He'd walked home alone, with a can of lukewarm Bud Light held to his left eye.

The thing about smoking was, Alfred only ever did it with Arthur.

He once tried to do it alone in a bathroom stall during study hall.

A teacher caught him and he spent two weeks in detention. The adults started thinking there were 'issues' again.

Sometimes, Arthur could get really weird. His hands would shake, he'd act skittish, and all hell broke loose if anybody so much as breathed on him. Alfred had seen most of his moods, and knew, usually, when he ought to leave him alone... But it was on the day he had first acted 'weird', that he'd made the mistake of checking up on him at his home. A home in which that had always been empty of anything living, excluding Arthur himself, whenever he'd visited.

And it was on that day that Alistair Kirkland had answered the door... And Alistair Kirkland had this kind of vibe about him. You were either put completely at ease, or he made you so wary your skin crawled.

Alfred felt his skin crawl before the guy had even said, 'Hello'.

Arthur had been coming down the stairs, swiping at his eyes, when he'd saw the two of them. And Alfred wasn't sure just how to feel about seeing his best friend shaking, but when Arthur yelled for him to get the fuck off his porch, Alfred had done just that. And it was just another one of those things they didn't talk about.

Arthur still acted weird, sometimes.

"You know what love is, Jones?" Arthur had asked one night out on his roof. They'd gotten up there through the attic, but the night sky had been full of smog.. And so they hadn't seen a single star. "You gonna get cheesy on me?" Was Alfred's reply, and the older of the two had laughed. "It's inevitable." Their hands had touched, Alfred's heart had sped... And Arthur had looked at him differently. Just for a second. They never finished that conversation.

Natalia dated Alfred a little while after that party. And it's said that way for a reason. It had all been rather one sided. She'd just grabbed him one day and said, 'we're going to the movies'. Then from there she took him everywhere she pleased. Alfred didn't know what she'd want with him. He was still a pudgy mess of acne and all the awkwardness that came with being Alfred F. Jones. Maybe she wanted Arthur, and so she was going through him to get to the Brit. He wouldn't mind it so much if Arthur wasn't his.

W-Well.

Well.

Not his, but...

"This your little girlfriend? Cute." Arthur had been smoking out on the back steps to the school. Jeans tight, hair a mess... Eyes bright and full of the sort of wrong that flustered Alfred, from time to time.

Natalia hadn't batted an eyelash. Hadn't tossed her chest forward, or smiled coyly.

In fact... She must've hated Arthur the moment his eyes had fixed on Alfred's, because all Alfred had done was laugh this sheepish little laugh that was only a step above a giggle.

Ivan hadn't minded him much, when Natalia had made him have dinner with her family. The initial beating had apparently been because he'd thought he was taking advantage of his little sister.

He'd apologized immediately when they'd met under those much better terms, laughing all the while saying,

"How could I think you would hurt Natalia? She probably was the one attacking!"

If only he knew.

"Who you gonna take to your prom, Romeo?"

Arthur had been flipping through a magazine, cigarette hopping between his lips. Alfred had gotten to know his room so well, and yet he still insisted on staring at that band poster he supposedly thought was stupid.

"How about... I take you?"

Alfred laughed. Arthur hadn't. There was a pause. Then the older had laughed, and Alfred was suddenly aware of the fact that something very frightening had just passed over their heads.

"Kidding, only kidding. You looked like you were about to piss yourself!"

They laughed more, and that frightening thing returned to the shadows.

Natalia managed to swipe one of her brother's condoms.

Alfred had been nervous.

He couldn't look Arthur in the eye for a week.

"Sex, Alfred. It's just sex for God's sake."

Alfred fiddled with his shoelaces as he sat on familiar burgundy carpet.

"Did you think I'd be angry? I'm glad. Look at you, growing up right before my very eyes."

Alfred wondered what the tip of his shoelace was called.

"I mean... How neurotic do you think I am? I really am bloody well glad. Glad, yeah."

The grind wheel to a lighter was flicked. Moments later the room smelled of tobacco. He could hear pacing.

The pacing paused.

"You don't love her do you?"

Alfred chanced looking up, and Arthur had laughed wryly before any answer came, swollen red eyes fixed on the ceiling.

"Of course you don't."

Arthur graduated.

A/N: I guess it's a strangely abrupt end, but I didn't see a reason to keep going. I feel like it fits... Course, maybe they talked after he graduated. I mean it's not impossible to keep old friendships. Just hard, I guess. Erk. I'm too lazy for angst. Maybe I'll think about adding more later, if I get in the mood...