A/N: This totally isn't based off the How I Met Your Mother episode "The Perfect Cocktail." No, it totally isn't. Bwahahahaha… But I thought it would be fun for Francis and Arthur to (attempt to) hook up under the influence, lol. Can't you guys just imagine Hungary and Taiwan sitting in the back, plotting like this? Can't you? I totally can. I feel like they would be best friends, yanno?
Agggh enough rambling.
"Hmmm…" A girl with brown hair and green eyes put her chin in her cupped hands, her other hand fingering the stem of her drink. She leaned on the bar casually, her eyes drifting off to another sight across the bar.
"Hey Elizaveta, something up?" An Asian girl slid into the stool next to her. She, too, had brown hair, but a strand of hair curled wildly off the side of her head. She signaled to the bartender for one beer, just so they wouldn't kick her out.
"Hey, Mei," said Elizaveta absentmindedly. "Don't you think that Francis and Arthur would make the absolutely cutest couple ever?" Elizaveta sipped her drink, a small smile on her lips as she watched Arthur fight off an insistent Alfred, who kept offering the Brit drinks. Alfred, it had seemed, had dragged Arthur and Francis to the bar, and currently both were sulking in the same booth. Arthur's green eyes were practically shooting daggers at the Frenchman.
"Yeah, they totally would," Mei said, drinking her beer. "But they fight all the time, and Arthur's in complete denial, so there's no way they'd get together. And it's not like they haven't tried before," she added. "Remember when Francis tried to marry him?"
"Riiiight," Elizaveta laughed, remembering the horrific outcome of the marriage proposal. "Buuuut…"
"Buuuut?" Mei leaned forward towards her friend, a mischievous gleam in her eyes.
"Arthur is just about the worst drunk ever," the Hungarian said, her fingers twisting around the straw in her drink.
The Taiwanese girl's eyes widened. "You don't mean…?"
Elizaveta's eyes gleamed with mischief. "We're going to get them friggin' drunk."
Mei laughed and shook her head, part in amusement and part in disbelief. "Girl, I think hanging around with Gilbert has gotten to you."
"Oh, shut up," Elizaveta said. "We've got some work ahead of us."
"Right. So what's the plan?" Mei surveyed the two men carefully, her eyes flicking back and forth between Arthur and Francis. Arthur had his arms crossed, and Francis was very interested in the Happy hour drink menu that stood on the table. Neither of them were talking. (Not like the American who had dragged them there; he was pretty much having the time of his life.)
"We need to get them to interact," said Elizaveta, frowning. "We need a drink to get them talking to each other… a drink that starts a fight…"
"I got it!" Mei snapped her fingers. "Now, all we have to do is give them…"
xx
GIN.
"Bloody frog!" Arthur slammed his glass down on the table. "You just had to bump into me today causing me to drop all my papers and notes that I had to use today! Do you know how mad my boss got at me today? All thanks to you!"
"Well, it was your fault for not looking where you were going!" Francis slurred, waving his hand around. "You were the one running around like a fucking maniac!"
"I was gonna be late, idiot!" Arthur yelled back. "Of course I was running!"
"Dammit, why can't you at least speed-walk?" Francis groaned. "You Brits, always having to be on time—why can't you fucking be late for once? It's not a crime!"
"YOU'RE SUCH A FROG!"
"VA TE FAIRE ENCULER!"
"YOU WANT SOME? HUH? HUH? WELL YOU CAN HAVE SOME!"
"DONNEZ-MOI, CONNARD! DONNEZ-MOI!"
And the two of them lunged at each other over the table. Meantime, in the back the two girls were fighting hard not to burst out laughing.
"Damn… how did you get Arthur to drink the gin?" Elizaveta shook her head in astonishment.
"A girl has her ways," Mei said, winking. "But you know we can't leave them fighting forever."
"Right. The point is for them to hook up…" Elizaveta tapped her chin. "We gotta get them to calm down a bit. Make them emotionally vulnerable."
"Yes, make them completely stupidly honest." Mei nodded. "Okay… hey, bartender!"
xx
WHISKEY.
"I feel like," Francis mumbled, "that sometimes, when I was a child… that maybe I didn't get enough attention from my mother… she was always doting on someone else, whether it be Antonio or Gilbert or one of my friends… and I'm probably only sleeping around to make up for it…"
"Attention whore?" Arthur said without any contempt in his voice—which was big for him.
"And you're ending up getting the brunt of it… I—"
"No, it's not you, it's just, that… growing up with four older siblings… sometimes the trauma just makes it hard for me to interact with people so I … just… I just shut them out…"
"Arthur, oh god I didn't ever think of that… It's not your fault…"
"That's what everyone says, all the time!" Arthur moaned. "But then I just push them away cruelly… and I always regret it later… And it just tears me inside…." The Englishman's voice broke on the last sentence and tears started running down his flushed cheeks.
"Oh, Arthur…" Francis changed his seat so that he was sitting next to Arthur, wrapping his arms around the younger man's figure. Arthur fell into Francis, sobbing slightly, and Francis made little shushing noises that Mei couldn't help but giggle at.
Her friend wasn't as entertained. Elizaveta yawned. "Okay, this is kind of boring. Maybe we shouldn't have given them whiskey."
"At least they're not yelling at each other like they usually do," Mei pointed out. "Or like they were when they were gin-drunk."
"Yes," Elizaveta mused, "but now we need to get them up and having fun, since they're not fighting anymore."
"Right." Mei squinted in concentration. "Bartender!"
xx
DAIQUIRIS.
This time, Mei and Elizaveta couldn't hold in their laughter. It was just too priceless.
"WOMANIZER, WOMAN-WOMANIZER, YOU'RE A WOMANIZER, OH WOMANIZER, OH YOU'RE A WOMANIZER, BABY," Arthur belted drunkenly into the microphone, as Francis gyrated to the beat of the karaoke machine while staring at himself in the mirror. They'd gotten the bar into complete party mode.
"Oh my god, this is friggin' hilarious," Elizaveta choked out between laughs, wiping away a tear.
"It's all right, Lizzie," Mei said, struggling to hold her hand still—no easy feat, as she was still giggling like mad. "I'm getting this all on video."
"Yes!" Elizaveta cried when Arthur and Francis suddenly started grinding on each other on the stage. "Yes! Dance, my puppets, dance for me!"
"We need to get these bitches daiquiri-drunk more often," Mei said, biting her lip to keep from laughing too hard.
In the meantime, the blond pair had moved over to the side, the part of the bar that was covered in mirrors.
"You're a sexy bitch," slurred Francis to Arthur. Or maybe not to Arthur. He was looking at himself in the mirror, and doing the gesture for "I've got my eyes on you, bitch."
"You don't know what you're talking about, look at this sexy wanker right here," Arthur half-laughed, poking at his own reflection. "Hey, I dare you to dare us to snog," he added drunkenly to no one in particular.
"Mmmmmm what a sexy bitch," Francis said, cocking an eyebrow at the mirror, and leaned forward to make out with mirror-Francis.
"Okay, so they're in a mood to make out, that's good," said Elizaveta with a critical eye. "Buuuut with their reflections."
"Yeah, that might be a little problematic." Mei tapped her chin.
"What to do, what to do…" Elizaveta drummed her fingers on the bar.
xx
MARTINIS.
"Heyyy," Francis drawled with a smile, as he rushed over from the bar to the booth where Arthur was sitting. "You know what would be stupid? If we—that is, me and Artie Rabbit—made out. Wouldn't that be so stupid?"
"Not for you, Francis, you pervert," Elizaveta muttered under her breath, and Mei snickered.
Arthur giggled, too—which was so unusual and so freaky that Elizaveta burst out laughing. "Oh my god that'd be sooo bloody stupid. THE STUPIDEST THING IN THE WORLD!"
"It'd be sooooo stupid," Francis said, giggling. "Hey, I dare you guys to dare us to make out!"
"I DARE YOU GUYS TO MAKE OUT!" Elizaveta burst out, and Mei nearly fell off her stool giggling.
Francis grinned at Arthur. "Well, shall we?"
"What do you think, Franny Froggie?" (Mei and Lizzie were practically losing it at this point.) Arthur smiled back, a rare expression for the Brit to have, and their faces drew nearer and nearer…
"Hey there darlin'!" And Alfred swooped in and promptly landed a kiss on Arthur's mouth.
Elizaveta and Mei groaned. "Are you KIDDING ME?" the Hungarian yelled out, banging the bar. "Alfred, you dork, you ruined everything!"
"Hey, the nachos are taking forever," Gilbert said randomly.
"Show me NACHOS!" Alfred pointed at the bar, and the bartender promptly brought out a basket of nachos topped with steaming cheese, along with a ding from the bell. Apparently Alfred was… impersonating Richard Dawson, the old host of Family Feud?
Either way, the American had ruined Lizzie and Mei's great plan. Mei sighed, leaning on her friend, and watched the two men they'd tried to hook up: Francis had moved on to another target, and Arthur had bought a bottle of scotch and was tossing shots back in his throat like no tomorrow.
"Ah well," Mei said. "Another night, sometime."
"Yes, another night," Elizaveta sighed.