So...hey everybody. I'm pretty shocked if you clicked on this story, but in a good way. this was written by an insomniac (I'm actually submitting this at 4:30 am xD), for insomniacs, and if you fit inside that distinction, you'll probably have a better natural idea of what's going on here, but otherwise I'll explain the cycles of my own sleepless weeks. it goes:

day 1: tired, bleary, still feeling pretty good but it seems like the contrast on the world is turned up, and there's fuzz around the edges

day 2: cranky times! I snap at everything and everyone, heavy on the sarcasm and foul language (even more than is normal for me xD), and if someone laughs about my deadpan, I generally chew them out.

day 3: EVERYTHING IS HAPPY AND HILARIOUS. OMG, DID ANYONE HEAR A FROG JUST NOW? LOLOLOLOLOLOL OMG FUNNY. CAN THE GOOSE REALLY READ YOUR MIND?

that's pretty much the important part of the cycle.

also if you care to skim through this: http: /www. socialphobia. org/whatis. html (without the spaces. goddamn ff. net effing up my links...). it's my headcanon for this story that this is kind of what's going on with Arthur.

anyhoo, the record begins with a song of rebellion!

"I'm Arthur. And…I guess I'm…" Arthur stopped, shoulders lowering and eyes closing as the steam from the shower, still warm in the corner of his shit-hole bathroom- which somehow miraculously retained the ability to even gargle out warm water- fogged up the mirror again. Even in the obscured view, he could see his dishwater blonde hair sticking up at all odd angles, as he could comb through his hair as many times as he wanted, but when he tossed his bangs out of his face, it all just sort of decided it wasn't feeling the whole gravity thing that day and stuck in place. Christ but it was a pain having hair as thick as a horse's and at many times the cut-with-a-spoon choppiness. "I'm a fucking twat talking to himself in the mirror." Arthur wiped at the mirror with his arm, glaring at the reflection with poison green eyes, daring the wanker in the mirror to come out and punch him a good one, because he felt he quite deserved it, actually.

You see, Arthur's problem was, in actuality, a simple one.

Insomnia.

Yes, the very affliction that kept up some of the internet's finest citizens and provided the world with nonsensical rants about nothing in particular, some, if not most of the ideas for new films (although Arthur was convinced that a fairly large portion also came from drug usage) trolls, and not to leave anything out, 4chan's 'anonymous' postings, so as to pollute the earth with pictures of children being raped by tigers with enormous spherical testicles. Not that Arthur frequented the site often. He had insomnia after all.

Most of the time he spent his nights fascinated by commercials of spray-on hair.

But that was beside the point.

Arthur was not the type of insomniac who lay awake doing nothing or was scared of the dark like a little girl without her favorite teddy bear. No, Arthur's main problem was that he couldn't stop thinking about things. Everything. Sometimes re-living his life from the beginning, in fact.

And it was incredibly unhelpful that during those times, Arthur could conjure up every single embarrassing event in his life in awful detail. It wouldn't be so bad if it was just remembering, but Arthur had the unfortunate physical reaction of twitching violently, flushing bodily, and yelling out some profanity, usually at a fairly loud volume. It was no wonder he lived alone. He'd never managed to have a girl over without sitting up at some point and yelling, "Ah, you fucking cunt!" They never really understood that he was talking to himself, and if they did, they assumed he was insane and dumped him anyway.

Arthur sighed. He was getting nowhere. He went through this cycle of self-deprecation every day though, so why break the habit? He was a grown man of the age of twenty-two, who still claimed to see fairies; although most if not all of his close friends (who weren't all that close. Arthur usually quite enjoyed his splendid isolation) thought it was just due to the fact that in order to sleep, Arthur usually drank himself into a coma on at least three nights out of every week, and lately it had been tending more towards four.

Ah, and that brought Arthur back to his present predicament, staring at himself in the mirror, flushing terribly as he remembered the unfortunate time when he had called his third-grade teacher "mum", trying to state his name and say that he had a problem.

Because he was headed to a goddamn group therapy meeting for alcoholics, just as soon as he practiced what to say a few times so he wouldn't blunder over his words like the daft bastard he was looking to be at the moment. It wasn't like he needed another thing to writhe around in shame about while he wasn't sleeping, and now, apparently, not utilizing that bottle of whiskey in the cupboard either. Arthur fervently hoped he wouldn't have to get rid of that; it was such a shame to toss out that much good Tullamore.

Arthur wandered out of the bathroom after a while, fully dressed and realizing that he had less than half an hour to get across town in rush-hour traffic, and he would no doubt make a fool of himself and immediately draw every pair of eyes in the room when he walked in a bit more than fashionably late. It was why Arthur always hated asked for things in class. Everyone had to turn and stare.

Maybe he should have just skipped it after all and told his friends that he was seeing a doctor instead. Maybe he shouldn't have even bothered listening to his friends in the first place. It's not like he needed them or anything. He didn't even like having them around most of the time. Arthur huffed as he threw himself into his car, blinking a few times as he realized that he hadn't slept the previous night, and also that it was probably not correct to try to jam the key that unlocked your flat into the ignition of your car.

Arthur managed to get out onto the road and nearly ran into three oncoming cars before he remembered that he had moved from England nearly three years prior, and they really did drive on the wrong side of the road in America. Arthur congratulated himself on even getting into the correct side of the car, as it might have been a problem if he had climbed in only to find that there was no steering wheel in front of him.

Oh bravo, Arthur. This day is going so well for you already, the little thoughts in his head piped up, the same ones that taunted Arthur every time he had the idea that me might get a little bit of natural sleep. Arthur sighed, and resisted the urge to bang his head on the steering wheel, because with how he was feeling, he'd probably nod off, only to be awoken three seconds later with a twitch, a blush, and a rather loud "FUCK," which would undoubtedly direct him off the road and into some unsuspecting biker on the shoulder. Oh yes. You're quite the polished individual Arthur. I'm sure that biker would be just delighted to know that you ran him over because you remembered wetting yourself in the first grade.

"Oh fuck me." Arthur muttered, and tightened his grip on the wheel.

Arthur didn't like meetings like this. It could have been because of the circles of hard folding chairs, and walls plastered with self-help posters. Or maybe it was because they were all filled with a million pathetic sobs who were either withering old hags who had to deal with copious amount of children hanging on their every limb, or the husbands who beat those wives.

Or maybe it was just because Arthur had been talked into it by his not-quite-a-friend-sometimes-sympathizer-always-womanizer Francis, who would be down the hall in the sex addiction therapy group, though it was only to find the most attractive and take them home with him to "empathize with their condition". Arthur rolled his eyes as he strolled into the large building, noting the empty halls and the closed doors, behind which he swore he could hear the sobbing of people who probably had incurable diseases or something. It was a depressing place, really. Arthur hoped he remembered where this thing was being held, because his mind was a bit fuzzy, and he'd forgotten to bring along the flier that Francis had shoved at him, in the same sentence as the words, "you reek terribly of stale beer and hangover, mon cheri." In retrospect, leaving the thing behind had probably been some attempt at passive aggression that Arthur's mind had done, but hadn't thought to notify him about.

When Arthur thought there was one more hall to go, he started stalling, peering in partly open doors and windows to see what he was really getting himself into. A surprising number of the ones with open doors he found empty, but he did have the misfortune of finding Francis, so he knew he had to be close, and quickly shuffled on past before the Frenchman had time to remove himself from the cleavage he was talking into.

One turn left and Arthur was sure he'd gone the wrong way, until he heard a voice.

"I'm Alfred."

Arthur paused in his progression down the hall when he heard the words, because the voice sounded young. Much too young. Not to say that Arthur had mothering instincts or any such ridiculous thing like that. It was just the curiosity that got the better of him…

"I'm eighteen."

Arthur's heart clenched. He had been right. Whoever this young man was, and whatever his problem was, Arthur felt slightly bad for him. Peering around the edge of the door, Arthur's eyes fell on a tall and decidedly attractive boy, of movie-star quality looks really, though he had huge dark circles under his eyes that Arthur imagined must have mirrored his.

"And I'm uh…an alcoholic." He finished, and flashed a bright grin that didn't at all match the content of his sentence, or the intonation he had spoken it with.

"Hi Alfred." Said everyone else in the room, and Arthur looked around to find that all the rest pretty much fit the description of the attendees he had been expecting. Arthur's stomach flipped, and he realized this must be where he was supposed to be, but his feet were rooted to the floor. Another man in the circle stood, and Arthur began to step away, but then he felt it.

The eyes.

Someone was staring at him. And then, the strangest thing happened.

The person laughed.

"Hey dude, why are you lurking in the hall? You gonna come in or what?" Arthur turned back slowly, moving like his joints were rusted, and he realized that the young blonde boy had risen halfway from his seat, and was gazing at Arthur with enormous, hopeful blue eyes.

Arthur twitched, and his face flamed as he stammered incoherently. "It's not like I belong here! Why are you calling me out anyway? There's no harm in curiosity. Who are you?" Arthur blurted, or at least he hoped that too many of his sentences hadn't stumbled over themselves that it sounded like more than just Arthur sputtering in embarrassment at having been caught. Alfred seemed to understand, and he rose from his seat, extending a hand to Arthur as he stepped across the room. Now his face didn't just look hopeful, it looked immensely relieved.

"I'm Alfred Jones." He said, and he smiled at Arthur, stepping forward again until Arthur was forced to notice that the boy was just a miniscule bit taller than him (a couple of centimeters at the most, but enough to make Arthur want to stand up straighter), and from the look on his face, seemed to be looking for an excuse to escape.

Just then, Arthur for some reason remembered a painfully embarrassing incident from high school- probably because the boy looked like he was a football player or something- and twitched, yelling some profanity and dashing away down the hall.

He couldn't do this. Fuck it. His friends would just have to ignore him or be disappointed. Or both. Damn them all.

"Hey!" someone called, but Arthur just kept running, sure that he hadn't turned so many times on the way in, until he found a door that looked like it lead outside. Of course, Arthur was a bit too distracted to notice the "alarm will sound" sign above it, and slammed his shoulder into the door with all the force in his body, dashing out into the open as, what do you know, the alarm sounded.

"Shit." Arthur hissed, looking over his shoulder just in time to have a heavy hand catch hold of his collar and choke him to an abrupt stop. "The…hell." He coughed, ramming a firm elbow into the gut of the person behind him, as he'd grown up with brothers and if you weren't willing to throw a few fists you were the brunt of every practical joke, and sometimes got a cigarette put out on your arse, an unfortunate fact which Arthur had the scar to show for. It was quite satisfying to hear the breath rush out of the other person in a whoosh, but Arthur had to admit he wasn't expecting the extra arm added around his neck.

"Ow…okay I admit…I thought…you'd hit more like a girl." A voice wheezed, and Arthur wriggled out of the hold of the boy -Alfred, Arthur's mind supplied helpfully- staring at him in horror.

"What the hell…you followed me?" Arthur gasped, and Alfred blinked a few times, a blank look coming over his face.

"Well yeah. It…seemed like a good idea. I dunno man. I'm tired. I don't have a reason. Those people were making me wanna kill myself. Or drink or something. By the way, do you have a flask? You look like the kind of guy who would carry a flask…" Alfred prattled on, and Arthur tuned him out, finding the constant, repetitive drone of his voice simultaneously soothing and grating, though it would have been more of the prior if the boy hadn't insisted on using improper grammar. And Arthur did carry a flask, but that was hardly something to be discussed at a failed meeting for alcoholics. Besides that, it was less than half full.

Arthur suddenly turned on his heel and started walking away as a few people came out of the building through the fire door, as the alarm was still blaring and he didn't want to give any indication that he'd been the one to set it off. He'd assumed that Alfred would get the hint, but the boy just followed him, talking on and on without seeming to need to even breathe.

"I'm sorry, but are you planning on following me forever? I'd just like to go home now." Arthur interrupted, and Alfred's eyebrows went up. Once again Arthur noted the dark circles under the boy's clear blue eyes which were half-hidden behind thin glasses, before Alfred tossed his sunny hair, and Arthur's eyes found themselves glued to a stray piece of hair that stuck straight up in the front of Alfred's part and bobbed whenever he shifted his weight. It made Arthur want to laugh a bit, which was never a good sign in terms of his sanity, as when Arthur started wanting to laugh at everything, that usually meant that it wasn't a good idea for him to drive, as he'd once run a stop sign and nearly caused an accident when he was laughing at how funny the word "stop" sounded.

In the present, Arthur twitched and cursed under his breath, covering his face with his hands. Alfred didn't seem to notice, or at least didn't make fun of Arthur, because he began to talk again about the subject they had just left off.

"Hey, that's cool! I could follow you, we could hang out. Or you could follow me. I know a great burger place. We could get lunch. And then-" Alfred suddenly cut himself off, staring down at Arthur's incredulous gaze (still from between his fingers, mind you) with a frown. "Oh sorry. You're right. I don't have a car."

Arthur dropped his hands to his sides and lowered his eyebrows, letting his jaw slacken and staring at Alfred, wondering when exactly he had said something besides "son-of-a-bitch". But Alfred giggled just then, and when Arthur glared deeper, it turned into a full out laugh, one where Alfred squeezed his eyes shut, dropped his chin to his chest, and crossed his arms over his stomach.

"I-I'm sorry! Ha ha- oh my god! Your eyebrows! I just noticed, they're so funny!" Alfred gasped, between fits of giggles, while Arthur desperately tried to restrain the slow curling of his fingers into fists. When Alfred didn't stop laughing, Arthur cocked his head to the side, an epiphany dawning in his mind.

The only time he laughed that much over something that ridiculous was either when he was high off his ass, or as he was now: having gone about three days without sleeping.

"Oi, when was the last time you slept." Arthur said, waving a hand in front of Alfred's face to get his attention, trying not to move his eyebrows too much, because Alfred seemed to find it hilarious, a fact which was steadily draining Arthur's already nearly non-existent patience. They weren't that strange. They completely suited his face. right?

"Oh man, you can't ask me that!" Alfred said, wiping at his eyes, or rather, trying and then remembering that his glasses were in the way.

"I just did."

"Oh."

"Yes. Well?"

"About…two days and uh…eight hours or so, I guess." Alfred said, mood suddenly sober and thoughtful. "That's why I'm here, by the way. I'm not, like, really an alcoholic. I'm too strong of a person for that kind of a thing, you know?" Alfred said, and bounced up onto the balls of his feet, smiling, but Arthur thought he saw a strange emotion around the corners of those blue eyes, before Alfred opened his mouth again, "So, you a drunk?"

Arthur stared at Alfred, mind actively working to figure out what had just been said to him. Had Alfred just asked if he was drunk? If he did drink?

"You mean am I an alcoholic." Arthur corrected after a solid second of silence, and Alfred rolled his eyes.

"Yeah. Duh. That's what I said."

"No." Arthur said, surprising even himself, because really, if he thought about it, he did fit the mold, "I just self-medicate." Someone had told Arthur he suffered from social phobia once. If that was true, what was the point talking about his problems with strangers when there was perfectly good whiskey waiting to be mixed into his evening tea? Feeling as though a bit of a weight had been lifted, Arthur began to walk towards his car, because the fire trucks were sure to arrive soon, and he didn't want to be around for questioning when it happened.

"That's a good one! I'll have to remember that next time Mattie gets after me. Self-medicate…" Alfred said, and Arthur flinched, because he hadn't realized (or remembered, to be perfectly honest) that the boy was still following.

"Are you still there?" Arthur said, a bit put out, but also feeling grudgingly grateful (not that he'd admit it) because there weren't many people who actively tried to engage him. As a rule, Arthur tended to make himself unapproachable.

"Uh, yeah." Alfred said, and lowered his eyebrows, rolling his eyes up and spreading his hands in a gesture like he couldn't believe that Arthur even had to ask, "You're giving me a ride, obviously."

Arthur paused, looking over his shoulder for a long, dragging moment, until Alfred grinned winningly at him, giving a thumbs up.

Really, Arthur was just staring while his brain worked over that particular bit of their conversation. Oh yes, of course was he giving this…over-enthusiastic little boy a ride. Because of course it was perfectly sensible that Arthur should give a complete stranger (and possible teenage alcoholic) a ride in his car to god-knows-where.

Right.

Well it seemed sensible enough.

"As you like. But after this I'm going straight home!" Arthur snapped, and Alfred's eyes got wide and delighted, like a child with a sweet-tooth who'd just been given an enormous rainbow lollipop and told that once he finished it, there was a truckload more where it came from, just waiting to be dropped on his doorstep. Not that it was charming or anything. Arthur's current smile was purely coincidental.

"Awesome! Do you have video games at your place? If not I have a League of Legends account if you're, you know, okay with me downloading stuff onto your computer." Alfred said.

Well there went the smile. That was short-lived.

"What." Arthur said, and Alfred giggled.

"heh, eyebrows…"

"Stuff it. What makes you think you're coming home with me?" Arthur snapped, and Alfred's face grew suddenly somber.

"Uh…well. I dunno. I kinda thought, like, we could be bros or something." Alfred said, and put his hands in the pockets of his jacket, which briefly diverted Arthur's attention yet again, because he hadn't yet managed to process what the boy was wearing. It wasn't very interesting, at any rate. A t-shirt, jeans, and what looked to be an antique bomber jacket.

After a very obvious up and down, Alfred bounced up onto the balls of his feet again, smiling a little. "So do I pass…?"

Arthur jumped, rearing away from Alfred and stomping away to his car without another word.

We'll be adding that one to the list of things to agonize about, I assume. Arthur glowered at the nagging-conscience-voice-definitely-not-an-insane-person-type-voice in the back of his mind, and then added to his own uninvited train of thought, I wonder if he's following. Wouldn't that be just great, a walking reminder of the embarrassing rubbish that pours out of my mouth.

"Boy, you sure can walk fast."

"FUCK ME." Arthur yelled, whirling on Alfred, who had spoken far too close to Arthur's general sphere of influence with much too quiet of an approach, though he could have been stomping for all of Arthur knew, he had been too busy mentally flogging himself to really notice. The stranger thing was, although Arthur had thrown a sharp left cross, it had been strangely met with thin air. Arthur blinked a few times before he realized that his target was on the ground, laughing his ass off.

"F-f-fuck! Ha ha!" Alfred put a hand up to his mouth, biting the back of it to keep from laughing. "Dude, why do you yell so loud? You almost scared the shit out of me! Literally!" Alfred sat up, still snickering, and Arthur blinked at him sporadically.

"Don't be disgusting!" Arthur said, flustered by the fact that Alfred thought his outbursts of foul language were in some way ridiculously amusing, "And get off the ground or I'm leaving you here." Arthur heard sirens, and all but dove into the car, tapping his foot all the while as Alfred strolled over and tugged at the door handle, only for Arthur to find that it hadn't unlocked by using the remote. He pressed the button on his door to automatically unlock the stubborn thing, but nothing happened. Rolling his eyes, Arthur leaned across the grungy seats and smacked the inside of the door with a fist, smirking briefly in triumph as the button popped up. When Alfred climbed in, it was with sparkly, excited eyes.

"That's so cool! I wanna try that!" Arthur tried to motion for him to stop, but Alfred had already slammed his fist into the door, as hard as he could, it seemed. To his credit, the button did pop up, but Arthur's rear-view mirror also fell off and cracked.

They drove away with Alfred telling Arthur what awesome modifications he could do to his piece-of-shite vehicle, and Arthur retorted with sharp comments about whatever he could, be it the boy's personal appearance, way of speaking, or that fact that, "No, not everybody wants a nine-foot-high truck painted with the American flag," which only garnered him an odd look. It seemed that what had started out as a day for Arthur to pretend he was dealing with alcoholism had instead turned into a meeting of Insomniacs Anonymous.

as you can see, Arthur is day 2-2 1/2, Alfred is firmly day 3 level, but doesn't have as much of an insomnia tolerance, so to speak ;D

I promise I meant to submit a better story for my first one, but then my computer deleted it, and then it died, so so much for that plan. You get insomniac's ramblings.

Like I (sort of?) mentioned above, Arthur's going to be REALLY prone to swearing for...well forever. if that bothers anyone, I'm sorry. ^^;

hope you liked it, and new chapter will be up soon!

btw, this is UKUS. don't like seme!UK? don't read~ :)