AN: Hey y'all :D I know, I've been pretty scarce lately... I just, I heard this song, I thought of this couple, and I had to write it. :) Plus, it reminded me of me and my boyfriend a lot of the times. :) and by the way, if you look closely there's a bunch of little idiosyncrasies from the official video that you'll see in this fic :D Flufffy fluffy flufff! I miss writing fluff! I haven't done it in a long time! :D
"Just a little further, Arthur… Okay, that's- Stop! Stop! STOP!"
CRUNCH!
Immediately, the blonde driver slammed on the brakes, half-throwing the car into park and swearing loudly. "Goddamn it!" he hissed, Brittish accent heavy in his words and face bright red.
Across from where the Buick was now parked against a telephone pole, there stood a tall, lanky man dressed in a white button-up shirt and tight jeans holding his head in his hands. He asked his lover to back up his car ten feet- TEN FEET!- and this is what happened! The man ran his fingers through his chin length wavy blonde hair, frustrated and close to boiling over, but right as he was about to lose his temper completely, he opened his eyes and saw the smaller man in front of him. His face was still bright red, and it looked like he was almost about ready to cry. His thick English eyebrows were furrowed in an expression of apology. The taller blonde felt his anger slowly melting away at the sight of the dirty-blonde in front of him. "I'm sorry, Francis." Arthur said, his lips drawn in an ashamed frown. "I didn't mean to, really! I-it was an accident…"
Francis's irate expression softened, to an affectionate half smile. He shook his head a little and chuckled a little bit under his breath. "It's alright, mon amour," he assured him, taking the shorter-by a whole head shorter at that- blonde in his arms, planting a loving kiss to his forehead. "Mon Dieu, you silly Brit, what am I going to do with you?"
Francis was about to enter the kitchen when Arthur stopped him. "Francis, would you read something for me?" he asked, offering him a thick volume of what appeared to be a cookbook. "That line there. The print is too small for me."
"Where are your glasses?" Francis asked with a slight roll of his eyes, taking the book and half knowing the answer. "You agreed you'd start wearing zem more…"
Arthur looked away with a scowl, grumbling under his breath. "I bloody hate them…" he muttered, "they make me look like an old man…"
"You are an old man," Francis nudged his lover playfully, knowing he'd get a reaction from him.
"Well, you're older, Birthday Boy," Arthur smirked, feeling smug about his retort, "Well go on, now! What's it say? I don't have all day now."
Francis took a closer look at the text. "It says 'bake for 20 minutes at 275.'"
Arthur went positively pale. "A-are you sure?" he sounded half- panicked. "B-because I could've sworn it said-" He was cut off by the sound of smoke detectors screeching loudly, all throughout the small flat.
"Oh cock," the Brit cussed under his breath, running back into the kitchen at full speed to rescue his culinary concoction.
Francis followed behind him as the shorter man grabbed a potholder and half threw open the oven door, black smoke billowing from it, and grabbed the pan inside, "Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! OW! Fucking prickshit!" he hissed and cursed, putting the pan up on the stove burners and exposing his burned-through-the-mitts hands to the cool air.
A part of Francis wanted to shout. The kitchen was HIS domain, Arthur was such a terrible cook he normally wasn't allowed in the kitchen past the refrigerator the microwave. And even then the microwave was questionable! And now his precious oven was ruined, all over the inside, there was burnt… cake batter? "Bloody hell," Arthur's voice sounded small and broken, like the shorter man was about to cry, "I wanted to bake you a cake for your birthday, and…" the dirty blonde started to sniffle a bit.
All the sudden, that bit of anger Francis had felt in the far corner of his mind washed away completely. Actually, with the exception of his love's tears, he found it positively hilarious now. He trapped his love in his arms, trying so desperately not to laugh, but failing miserably. "It's not funny!" Arthur half-wailed indignantly, "I spent all damn day on that cake!"
That sad, but feisty tone of voice only made the Frenchman laugh harder. "I know," he said, trying to stop laughing, "I know, mon coeur….. But Mon Dieu, you look so adorable right now! All red cheeks and pouty look! I can't 'elp myself!"
Arthur exhaled sharply, snickering slightly under his breath. "Arse," he told the Frenchman promptly.
"You love me anyways." Francis kissed him on the forehead. "What do you say we go out for dinner and cake?"
"I agree." Arthur muttered, "It's far beyond saving."
Francis awoke abruptly sometime during the night to a blast of cold air over his naked chest and midsection. He hadn't realized how cold it was, he may have actually dressed in sleepwear after lovemaking had he realized the temperature. The Frenchman groaned, scratching at his untrimmed beard with one hand, the other trying to locate the blankets that had been effectively yanked off his body sometime in the night. When he finally found a corner of the blankets that had not been snatched and tucked away by a very heavy sleeping Englishman, he gave the sheets a good hard yank to try and dislodge them from around Arthur's frame.
The sleeping man grunted in irritation, his grip on the comforter tightening. "Come on, Arthur," Francis half-whispered, some tired irritation in his voice. "We do zis every night… just a LITTLE bit of the blankets for moi?"
Arthur seemed to respond with a subconscious "Nmmmm…." And a muttered, "Bugger off, James…" and Francis's irritation grew. Unlike Arthur, he had to be to work early that morning, and sleeping without a blanket was not an easy feat for him.
"Merde," Francis muttered crossly, tugging the blanket harder, finally giving up, getting up from the bed. "oh pour putain, fine Arthur! You win tonight!"
As Francis crossly grabbed the spare comforter from the linen closet in the corner of the bedroom. As the door closed- quietly, Francis had hoped- the blanket cocoon in the bed stirred a bit, and seemed to morph into a sitting position. "Francis?" Arthur's voice was heavy with sleep. "what're you…?"
"You were stealing covers again," Francis half sighed, "So I just went and got the spare."
"Oh…" Arthur yawned, looking up at Francis with his emerald colored eyes, still heavy with sleep and mostly visible in the full moon light. "Sorry, love… I didn't mean to…"
Francis sat back down on the bed, smirking the tiniest bit, pulling the second comforter over both of them. "It's okay, Arthur," he said, wrapping his arms around the smaller dirty-blonde man and guiding him back down to the pillow. "Go back to sleep, it's late."
Arthur muttered a little bit, snuggling into the Frenchman's warm embrace. "I love you, Frog…"
"I love you too, Arthur."
"Are you sure this is the right way?" Francis asked, "We've been driving around in circles for almost a half an hour now, I'm pretty sure this isn't the way to the meeting place."
Arthur sat in the passenger seat, looking carefully at the paper they had printed for directions to the place of the World Meeting. "I've checked it over twice," he insisted, "We're going the right way."
Francis tapped his fingers against the steering wheel, trying to distract himself from how late they were going to be for the meeting. "Let me see, maybe I can figure out where we went wrong?"
"You're bloody driving, you git!" Arthur half-shouted, "I won't be killed because you were seeing for yourself we had to turn left onto Haycraft Avenue!"
Francis smirked to himself, glancing down at Arthur's free hand, resting on the shifter. His smirk widened slightly, and he slipped his hand on top of Arthur's. the smaller man linked their hands, and brought it to his face for a small peck, and a simple half smile that said the simple words he didn't have to speak out loud.
"I'm lucky to have you in my life… I love you."
"You're going to laugh at me," Arthur's remark brought Francis out of the clouds.
"I laugh at you anyways," he flashed a joking wink to his passenger. "Why will I laugh at you, Arthur?"
"It's not Haycraft we turn on. It's Hayloft." He shook his head, chuckling a little bit. "I'm such a blind idiot."
Francis couldn't help but laugh along with him, keeping a firm grip on his hand. "I thought that seemed weird." He said, giving his partner's hand a squeeze. "It's okay. I don't think they'll care if we're a little bit late."
"Can I ask you something?"
Francis glanced away from the bright screen of the television down to the sleepy face of his Arthur, snuggled up to his chest on the loveseat they pursued their nightly ritual of watching BBC dramas. "Anything, Mon Coeur," Francis responded, stroking his hair absentmindedly. "What is on your mind?"
Arthur yawned a little bit, and snuggled up to the Frenchman's muscular chest. "Why on earth do you stay? Honestly, for the life of me I don't understand it some days."
Francis smiled down at Arthur, still stroking his hair. "You don't 'ave to understand it, mon amour." He said, "I certainly don't. l'amour is blind, as zey say."
Arthur was about to retort, but Francis tilted his face up to face his. "Honestly, Arthur… I know you're not perfect. But I thank god you're not. If you were perfect and didn't 'ave all zose little traits and idiosyncrasies you do, life would be so damn boring. I love you exactly ze way you are, for exactly for who you are."
Arthur smiled tiredly, and nuzzled Francis's hand. "I love you too, you bloody git," he murmured affectionately.
Francis kissed him on the lips, keeping his forehead to Arthur's. "Je t'aime, toujours et pour toujours, mon doux amour." He smirked a little back at Arthur.
Arthur pouted a little bit, settling back down at his position over Francis's arm and against his chest. "You and your bloody French…" he wouldn't admit it but he adored when the other would speak French to him.
"You love me anyways," France said, kissing his hair, "Watch your shows."
Francis watched as Arthur rested his head against his chest, thinking about how amazingly lucky he really was. Sure, sometimes Arthur got on his last nerve. And he's sure he got on Arthur's at times. Even still, he loved moments like these, just the two of them on the couch in love, watching some melodrama on the telly. Francis sat there for another half an hour, using one hand to stroke Arthur's back, and the other still trapped underneath the smaller man. "I'm glad you've gotten me into zis," He admitted, "zat Sherlock is a very well written—"
When he realized Arthur wasn't watching with intense excitement-as he usually did when watching Sherlock- he smiled and kissed his forehead. But when he tried to move his arm, he found that it was trapped. He sighed a little bit as the numb pins and needles sensation slowly coursed through his arm. But then he looked down at Arthur, and his sleeping face…. it looked so much like an angel's. Francis decided he would just have to suffer through his arm falling asleep. He pressed a kiss to his love's eyelid. "Je t'aime, mon couer." He whispered before returning to watch the modern day detectives on the television.
