There were eight — count them, eight — cats on his yard right now. And none of them were his. They all belonged to his next door neighbor, Arthur Kirkland. Because there were eight cats on his yard, Alfred was trapped inside. He wasn't trapped because he was deadly allergic to cats, nor because the cats were ferocious, but because he knew that if he went out, he would spend hours just petting every cat he could get his hands on and never do anything productive for the rest of the day until Arthur called them in for food or Matthew came outside to retrieve Alfred for dinner.
It had happened before.
Alfred and his family had moved into the small house two years ago and quickly discovered that the attractive man next door (then) owned twenty-one cats. Now there were twenty-three. One for each year Arthur had been alive. As far as Al knew, they all had individual names, but he had never been properly introduced to any of them (or Arthur himself). How Arthur managed to feed all of them, himself, and still pay rent was beyond Alfred.
Staring at the cats only made him want to go out even more, but Alfred had chores to attend to. As he started to look away, though, the cat with the spot of darker fur on its left side decided to stretch and give an adorable yawn and Alfred knew he was lost. Before he could really, actually think about what he was doing, he was outside and across the distance to the cat with his hand already out to start petting.
When the other cats noticed Alfred giving attention to their companion, they gracefully made their way over to get a bit of the action and soon Alfred was surrounded by more cats than had originally been on the lawn. He felt bad for not having more hands to pet with, but he tried his hardest to divide his attention evenly, though the cats all fought and vied for his undivided attention. Alfred was so caught up with sitting on his lawn and petting the (seemingly) never-ending supply of kitties he didn't notice when another body sat down a good foot away from him, also petting the cats. It wasn't for another few minutes until he did notice and almost jumped away in surprise, which would have scared the cats, so thank God he didn't because cats are so freaking cute and, seriously, though, when did his neighbor sit down next to him?
"Oh, uh, hi," Alfred stammered out, embarrassed for having been caught in a horde of cats.
Arthur looked up from petting his cat, the one that was mostly white except for the very tip of its tail. "Hello," he responded. They stared at each other whilst petting the various cats that pushed away others for attention. It was silent, other than cats meowing, until Arthur said, "My cats like you."
Alfred didn't know how to respond to that, so he just said the first thing that came to mind, which was, "I like them, too."
It was quiet for a while longer. Alfred didn't know what to do. Should he introduce himself? Should he leave? Should he just do what he has been doing? Well, he was doing what he has been doing, but beyond that, he was at a loss.
Thankfully, Arthur decided the next course of action for him. "I'm Arthur," he said, holding a hand out, much to the disappointment of the ginger tabby cat he had been petting.
Alfred offered his hand and said, "Alfred." As soon as they shook hands, they returned to petting whichever cat was closest.
Before the conversation could dwindle off again, Matthew poked his head out the door, saying, "Al, Mom said you have to — what're you doing?" An eyebrow raised, he stepped fully out the door, bearing witness to two cat-lovers in their element.
Alfred coughed awkwardly. "Petting cats," he responded for lack of better answer.
"I see," Matt said in a 'no duh' way. "Mom wants you to do the dishes," he continued. "Now." He waited for Alfred to give an affirmative response before going back inside.
When he left, Alfred heaved a disappointed sigh and stood up. "Bye, Arthur; bye, kitties," he said, giving them a long forlorn look before turning away.
"Good-bye, Alfred," he heard Arthur say before collecting as many cats in his arms and heading home with the other cats trailing behind.
That was his first ever interaction with Arthur Kirkland, but not his last.
The next time Alfred got caught petting Arthur's cats, Arthur decided to introduce them all in order of whichever one was close enough to pick up and hold for show. In all, there was Crumpet, Earl Grey, Winston, Scone, John, Paul, George, Ringo, Victoria, Elizabeth, Poppet, London, Bristol, Jack, Shakespeare, Timothy, Sherlock, Lancelot, Camelot, Merlin, Robin Hood, Monty, and Cleo. John, Paul, George, and Ringo were brothers, as well as Lancelot and Merlin, with Camelot as their sister, and Victoria and Elizabeth were sisters, too.
"Those are all very British names," Alfred noted.
Arthur rolled his eyes. "I'm British. Or, more correctly, English."
Alfred cracked a smile. "I noticed. You have an accent."
For some reason Alfred didn't understand, many days after that were spent petting the cats with Arthur. He didn't understand because why the hell would a handsome twenty-three year old want to spend a lot of time with a just-out-of-puberty nineteen year old? Of course, Alfred didn't mind talking for hours on end with Arthur about everything and anything — in fact, he enjoyed it, but he just didn't really think Arthur did. Arthur had no reason to.
It was about a month later when Matt started teasing Alfred about Arthur. "When's your next cat date? I'm surprised you don't purr when you see him. Are you sure that he isn't your catnip? Just ask him to get a kitty with you. When are you going to move into his house so you two don't have to go out just to pet cats together? Or, better yet, he can move here." Alfred would usually ignore these comments and try very hard not to slam the door on his way out to pet the cats.
Matthew's teasing just got worse the longer Alfred and Arthur hung out in the front yard. Thankfully, Matt never went outside and said his taunts in front of Arthur. If he did, Alfred thought he would up and die.
So maybe Alfred had a bit of a crush on the English cat-lover next door; that didn't mean Arthur liked him back. Because cool things like that didn't typically happen to Alfred.
Then again, Matthew coming out to taunt Alfred in front of Arthur didn't typically happen until it did. "So are you two ever going to hang out without the cats?" Matthew stood tall above them, hands on his hips, and an eyebrow raised. Alfred felt practically all of his blood race for his face. He didn't want to glance at Arthur for fear he looked horrified. They were silent long enough for Matthew to prompt, "Well?"
"I — uh, um," Arthur stuttered out.
Alfred scrambled for words, too. "Um — you — he — uh." He felt like running inside and never going out. He also felt like pulverizing his brother's face.
Matthew just smiled sinisterly. "Alfred likes ice cream. Perhaps you two should get some sometime." And with that, Matt walked innocently back inside their home.
It was very quiet after he left. Even the kitties were quiet. Alfred's heart felt like it was going explode out of his chest, and even then it would probably keep on pounding. Oh, God, could Arthur hear it?
As if on cue, Arthur cleared his throat. Alfred held his breath, waiting for Arthur to say something. "Uh," he ended up saying, but Al's breath did not release. "Did, uh, did you maybe want to get an ice cream with me sometime? Maybe?"
If Alfred wasn't already blushing, he probably would have started right there. He finally looked up at Arthur to find Arthur was staring down at George in his lap, blushing. Alfred smiled and released the breath he had been holding. "Yeah," he said quietly. "I'd like that."
A/N: Day 3 of AnimeExpo! :) I bought some art yesterday, but none of it was for anime. Whoops. :P This was based off a prompt on tumblr: tea-and-outer-space. /post/99399 784683/a us (remove spaces). I'm not actually a cat person; I prefer dogs. I hope you liked this fic and have a happy fourth of July! :)