Waiting was never something fun to do. Especially if after the wait came something you desired so very badly. The butterflies, the sweaty palms, the racing heartbeats, things just increasing your growing anxiety and heightening your anticipation. It's a distinctive feeling.

And right now, a young man with messy blonde hair named Arthur was experiencing this feeling.

All his life, he had wanted to become a father. Arthur always loved kids, not inappropriately like his next door neighbor Francis, but in a soft, gentle way. He loved to ruffle the soft hair on top of toddlers' heads, hold babies and feel their soft skin, and just have a goofy time with the older ones, the ones who would later roll their eyes at his childish antics and tell him to knock it off. Even if they didn't like him, he would always like them.

However, Arthur was not a very agreeable person. Quite a few times before had he screwed up relationships because of his words, his actions, or his generally unfriendly demeanor. Because of this, he lost every chance to ever get far enough in the game for marriage, or even engagement.

He didn't care. Those girls didn't know what they gave up. Or so he told himself.

But, Arthur had come to a point in his life where he had grown tired of pointless dating. He was twenty eight years old. He wanted a child now. His final option would have to be adoption.

"Whoa, you're adopting?" His younger brother Alfred exclaimed when he first heard of the news."That's amazing! You have any idea where you might want to look?"

"I'm...I'm not quite sure." Arthur had faltered. "All I know is that I'm adopting. Ok? Don't rush me, you twat."

"Sorry, sorry. I'm just as excited as you are. It's a big deal!" Alfred leaned back, his blue eyes bright. "Wow, just think, I'm gonna be an uncle!"

"It's 'going to,' you git." Arthur reached over from where was was sitting and took a swat at Alfred, trying to hide his growing grin.

Alfred flinched in surprise, but took it in stride.

"Hey, why so abusive, Artie?" Alfred laughed. "Are you sure child services is going to accept you with that kind of behavior?"

"Git, you're an adult!"

Arthur often thought of that chat. It was when he realized that this was what he wanted to do.

He didn't realize adoption was such a lengthy proccess, though. He first had to consider where he might want to adopt. Someplace in America, where he was currently residing? In England, his homeland? Or some foreign country, thousands of miles away, with different customs, traditions, and languages, but with children in need all the same?

He chose the last option. Something tugged inside him whenever he thought of children far away in need. It misted his eyes whenever he thought of it. He had to go through with it.

Many hours of sifting through pictures of children, all cute but not holding any special sort of feeling in his heart, he came across something. It was a picture of a little boy born in rural China. The boy's mother had been sexually assaulted by another man, and her whole family disowned her for it. Unable to care for her newborn, she put him up for adoption, hoping for a better life for her child.

Arthur spent the longest time looking at the boy. He was a beautiful baby, pale skin with chubby cheeks, fuzzy dark hair and almond shaped eyes.

Decision making had come to a close after that.

So after all that, and many more hours of paperwork, he was put on a waiting list. And then he waited.

That was almost a year ago.

Now, he was in the waiting room of the adoption center. He had flown in a couple hours ago. He was ready to see his son. He was ready to accept the responsibility of fatherhood. He was ready for anything in store.

Except waiting. That was the one thing he was hoping to avoid.

Arthur sighed and checked his watch. It was about four in the afternoon. He tried to think of what time it might be back at home in New York, where Alfred was. Should he call and find out?

"Mr. Kirkland, stop fidgeting. I symphathize with your excitement, but you must calm yourself down." His lawyer Xiang scolded, casting a glance at the blonde.

"I know, I know. I'm sorry, I'll calm down." Arthur replied hastily, trying to slow down the tapping of his foot. It had become sort of a nervous tick within the hour.

"Please do so, because I see a very special someone coming right now."

Arthur's heart almost stopped as he saw a woman with shining black hair coming across the room, the definite clicks of her heels sounding sharper the closer she came. In her arms was his dream, now eight months old, seemingly unaware of what was happening.

She stopped in front of the two and began speaking rapid Mandarin to Xiang. He responded just as quickly and gestered to Arthur. He heard a mention of his name, and the woman nodded.

Finally, she turned to him.

"Ni hao." She had a fluid voice that was gentle and melodious. Arthur immediately felt embarrassed for his lack of refreshing on Chinese the night before out of restlessness.

"N-Ni hao." He replied, trying to keep the tremor in his voice to a minimum. The room suddenly got too warm for his liking. He wasn't sweating or blushing, was he?

She understood all too well where he was coming from. Even if her English wasn't fluent, her heart was in the right place. "Welcome to our country. This...this is Wang Yao." She shifted her glance to Yao. The little boy held no interest in what was going on.

Now was the time for heart stopping. Slowly reaching out, Arthur tapped the baby's arm, testing to see if it really was a dream. He received a strange look from Xiang as he did this.

The arm was silky smooth, and squishy, as a baby's arm should be. He ran more of his fingers across the boy. Still smooth.

Arthur held his arms open, trembling as he felt the boy being placed in his arms. This wasn't real. This couldn't be real.

Something squirmed. Arthur looked down at the boy, wondering what was the matter.

Brown eyes peeked out, a brilliant shade that could have been mistaken for gold. The brown eyes were greeted with Arthur's own green ones. There was a long stare, and a long silence.

The little one didn't care too much for this. Snuggling up to the bigger body, he put his head down on Arthur's shoulder and closed his eyes.

Arthur had prepared himself for this, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't fight the tears and began to cry, right there in front of the woman who had brought this boy out and Xiang, who stood there with his regular stoic expression. Sure, it was an awkward situation to be in, but Arthur didn't care. He was now a real father.

"Oh, Yao, do you have any idea how I've been longing to hold you?" He whispered, laughing despite his steadily spilling tears and placed a kiss atop the slumbering baby's head.

"I love you." And with that, Arthur rocked his new child back and forth, singing sweet songs and of better days to come.

This is my first real attempt at fanfiction, so I've got a lot to learn. Please give me some feedback, I love hearing from people. ;w;

This is a little idea that I just wanted to play with. I might turn this into a little series of vignettes. So if you have anything to say, or you would like to see more, please drop a line. 3

Thank you for reading!