This is just a little writing assignment I had to do for English. This fic uses Hetalia characters (England and America) and their personalities to some degree, but my inspiration was The Other Wes Moore by Wes Moore. I had to read the book for summer reading, and I thought I would hate it. But the message in the story and the story itself really struck a chord in me, and I wanted to show my appreciation. BTW: my school actually had Wes Moore come speak to us! He is the most awesome and inspiring speaking I have ever seen/heard!
Warnings: Talk of drugs and teenaged pregnancy. It was supposed to be more or less clean for my English teacher, so no cursing except saying 'godforsaken hell' one time (shocking right?)
Disclaimers: I haven't gotten any OOC complaints, but I suppose England isn't quite right. I don't own the basis of Arthur or Alfred, but I own everything else! (And the statistics are actually correct for some intercity school in the US)
Arthur knew it was a bad idea to let Alfred watch that horror movie. Every time his son watched any thing even the slightest bit frightening, even just mildly scary, he would not be able to fall asleep that night. Which is why, right at that very moment, Arthur was sitting on the worn out couch with Alfred curled on his lap, crying out of fear. "But Pa! If I go to bed now, the monsters will come out from the big crack in the wall and eat me!" Alfred bawled into Arthur's neck.
Which crack? Arthur bitterly thought to himself. There were lots of cracks in their walls since money was and had always been tight, especially now. All the businesses in the area were cutting back on their employees, and Arthur counted every lucky star he had that he had been one of the few managers left from an original thirteen at his company. Even though Arthur still had a job, a job that was one of the best in his neighborhood, his family was still quite poor.
Arthur and Alfred lived in a small three-room apartment in the part of the ghetto that Arthur found completely depressing. The area was not in deep in the ghetto, which was nice because it was one of the safer areas of the slums, but it was close enough to the nice part of the city that it's inhabitants could see, just up on the high hilltop, the life they wish they had which was just outside their grasps. Down here, dark shadows were born that would always drape over Arthur, crushing his slight frame in hardship. It was easy to fall down to the slums, where everyone's face was drawn and cold, but it was difficult to escape that place of sunshine. Up on the hills was such a place, where the bright sun could shine lightly on Alfred, but only if he could get to it.
It pained Arthur to see people so carelessly living the life he worked so hard to earn for his son. He was also a bartender at night to try and make enough money to send his boy to a good high school. A school that had a higher graduation rate than 60% and with more kids going to college than 5% of the class. Arthur thought that maybe between football, since Alfred was already showing great promise as a quarterback at seven years old and the money Arthur would make from work, he would be able to send his son to a good school while still putting food on the table and keep them in a relatively decent apartment.
"Pa, can I sleep with you?" Alfred begged, looking at Arthur with tear-filled eyes. He was jarred out of his bleak and melancholy thoughts and could only sit, staring with a blank expression on his face before smiling, scooping his son up and carrying Alfred to his bedroom. With Alfred in his arms, Arthur slipped under the sheets of a bed that was more of a thin cot. Both were tightly clutching each other, attempting to draw some comfort out of the other's presence. It was difficult to tell which one needed the comfort more. Was it the little boy whose fear of ghosts and monsters kept him up most nights or the young man who lived a hard life, and who had eyes that belong to someone far older than his twenty-five years?
Becoming a father at nearly eighteen would be the end of most people's lives, but it was actually the moment Arthur's life turned around for the better. From when he was fifteen to a little less than a year before his son was born, Arthur was a hardcore partyer. He was into drugs, drinking and had a number of tattoos and piercings adorning his body. Even more dangerous was that he was deep in the drug game. A game of violence and cunning where one misstep could leave one in a coffin with your family sobbing, even though they had already prepared when one first got in the game for this to happen.
Arthur was a ghetto kid, a lost-boy from the slums whose life seemed to be rocketing downhill at an alarming pace, a pace he could not slow let alone stop. One night, after a hard party, some kind soul found him on the sidewalk nearly dead from an overdose. She was probably the only kind soul left in this godforsaken slice of hell. She stayed with him the entire time he was in the hospital, sobered him up when he was released and became his angel. Arthur could never figured out how he was so lucky; somehow, he managed to get himself out of the drug game. He picked up a job as a waiter, and even though the loss of money was hard, he was safe. Being alive and having her was all Arthur needed.
About a year after Arthur and she started dating, he found out that her family was moving, and they could not stay together. About a seven months after that, he found out she had given birth to his child and unless he came to get the boy, his son would be given up for adoption. Arthur traversed the distance between them as quick as he could to get custody of his son. Arthur held his son for the first time, kissed his golden blonde locks and looking into his sky blue eyes, windows to a soul of untainted hope and possibilities. And he cried knowing his own were already darkened by the hardships of life and never again would they be so bright.
And that is how Arthur came to be here: laying in a rubbish bed in a tiny apartment, working his way out of the slums to create a better life for the pure, bright being that lay in his arms. Here he was, clutching his pride and joy trying to chase away his son's fears while simultaneously fending off his own. Here he was, hoping beyond hope, praying to every god he did not believe in, that his son, his sun, would be able to grasp the good life just outside the broken windows.