Rubbish Queen

Alfred wasn't hiding. Not exactly...

Hiding wasn't something that a brave and heroic king would do. A heroic king would face his kingly challenges with courage and would never find himself hiding in some random closet, hardly daring to breathe as his Jack called for him from the hallway.

"Where are you, aru? We need to talk about the flower arrangements!"

It wasn't that he wanted to hide from Yao. He just couldn't take it anymore. He'd had people harassing him for weeks now, constantly asking him for his opinions on flowers, napkin colors, seating arrangements… Granted, it was kind of his own fault for telling everyone at the beginning of his rule that he wasn't going to be like his father—totally inaccessible and having no actual influence on how his kingdom was run—but he hadn't meant that he had to have everything wedding-related run by him. Seriously, who would've thought that a wedding would be so stressful?

Granted, this was a royal wedding, but still… Alfred had sort of been wishing that they could just do something simple. Without ridiculously elaborate costumes and invitations sent out to the nobility of every single kingdom. But everyone that he'd mentioned this to had stared at him like he was absolutely insane.

Anyway, so things were crazy and no one would leave him alone. He couldn't even enjoy a burger in peace. Which happened to be the reason why he was currently hiding in a closet. He'd managed to sneak into the kitchen—all secret super spy like—where they'd just finished preparing lunch. And he'd grabbed as many hamburgers as he could find and then sprinted down the hall, almost running into a random representative from the Kingdom of Hearts in the process. And finally slid into a closet that he knew was hardly ever used.

Where he could finally enjoy his burgers without being interrupted.

His delicious, mouth-watering burgers.

He waited until he heard the sound of Yao's voice quieting as he moved to some other area of the castle and then took a bite out of his first burger and felt the intense rapture that you only experience when eating a perfectly-prepared burger.

For a few moments, he concentrated solely on that glorious sensation. Then he allowed his thoughts to wander to other things, like the fact that by this time tomorrow, he was going to be married. He'd be sitting on his throne and Arthur, his queen, would be seated right by his side.

He grinned into his hamburger at the thought and then he took an even-bigger-than-usual bite as he thought about said fiancé. It was a total bummer that he hadn't been able to spend much time with him recently, though. He'd seen him yesterday in passing and had been about to call him over, but then he'd found himself sandwiched between the two jokers.

And by the time he'd managed to extricate himself from them, Arthur had already disappeared behind a corner.

Maybe he could go and find him now; Alfred could liberate his fiancé from his captors like a true hero! Arthur had been stuck in his stupid 'Queenliness 101' class for months now. Ever since Alfred had announced their engagement to his citizens in true kingly fashion. First by shouting it from the rooftop—his advisors had not been happy about that—and then by sending out a 'proper' declaration.

How could he help from shouting it out to everybody, though? He'd wanted to bounce around and let out a whoop for joy when Arthur had said 'yes' to his nervous, kneeling-in-the-fountain proposal.

(The fountain part had definitely been unplanned and the result of one of Gilbert's pranks, but Alfred was trying to forget about that part of the evening.)

Arthur had scoffed and rolled his eyes, but he'd said yes with his eyebrows all scrunched up and with an intense blush spreading across his cheeks.

The public's response to the news…hadn't exactly been as positive as Alfred had hoped. But he hadn't let that spoil his excitement. They'd see how amazing Arthur was; he knew they'd grow to love his queen just as much as he did.

Most of them just had to get used to the idea that Arthur wasn't a girl. It wasn't like the queen had to be female, after all. Look at the Kingdom of Hearts; their king had chosen a queen based on a series of examinations that had showcased the applicants' potential as a possible ruling figure. The Queen of Hearts was a quiet, solitary man named Kiku, who actually did a pretty kickass job assisting his king in managing their kingdom.

So it wasn't like there wasn't precedent. It just wasn't very common, and it'd never happened before in the history of the Kingdom of Spades.

And the rumours hadn't helped any. Alfred had learned a long, long time ago that there wasn't any point in trying to keep things a secret when you lived in a castle with servants who loved nothing more than to gather around the kitchen stove and gossip about the lives of the nobility. He'd tried to keep things quiet, but the word had gotten out eventually that Arthur wasn't of noble birth. And that hadn't gone over well at all.

To be more specific, Arthur was—well, had been—a servant to the King of Diamonds. Who'd been banished from his home kingdom after he got into a fight with said king and broke his nose. A crime which would normally result in execution, but apparently the King of Diamonds had a soft spot for him—or, if you asked Arthur, the king knew that it was his own bloody fault that he'd gotten his nose broken—and had instead simply sent his banished servant to Alfred with a letter asking him to take him into his service.

It hadn't exactly been love at first sight, but there'd definitely been immediate interest on Alfred's part. And that interest had only grown as he watched Arthur begin on the very bottom rung and work his way up through sheer determination and hard work—okay, and Alfred was technically the one who approved the promotions, but he wasn't giving him anything unless he actually deserved it.

Eventually the two of them had started spending more and more time together; mostly because Alfred had started going out of his way to talk with him. And it wasn't too long before they began sneaking away from everyone to dance under the stars and Arthur had told him one evening, as they walked hand in hand through the hedge maze, that he was in love with him. That he knew that they couldn't be together and that he'd pack up his belongings and leave in the morning.

Of course, Alfred had immediately grabbed him around the waist and spun him around to kiss him. And then told him that he'd follow him to the ends of the earth if he tried to leave—which, yeah, was super insanely cheesy. But the man that he'd been falling crazy in love with for the past year had just told him that he loved him too, so he was allowed a little bit of cheese.

Alfred, hiding away in a random closet filled with the smell of musty linen and hamburgers, grinned to himself as he thought about that day. He'd almost finished his burgers by this point, which left him with the dilemma of whether to continue hiding in the closet or go out and face the wedding planning-related music.

Closets were nice, filled with darkness and slightly musty linen and no wedding-related responsibility…

Or at least, they were until the door was violently thrown open and he was almost blinded by bright hallway light.

"There you are! Do you know how long I've been looking for you? People were starting to think you'd been abducted!"

"Like by aliens?" His fiancé was standing in the hallway, hands on his hips, and glaring at him with his eyebrows furrowed like two angry caterpillars. Alfred grinned and held out his last burger. "How'd you find me?"

Arthur didn't take it; instead he lifted an eyebrow and then answered, "All I had to do was follow the scent of that."

"You must have a nose like a bloodhound, then!" If Arthur didn't want the burger, then that just meant more for him. He took a bite of the rejected burger and winked. Arthur's answering expression rested somewhere between disgust and exasperation, with just a little teeny-tiny hint of fondness. But then he reached into the closet, grabbed onto Alfred's sleeve, and tugged him out into the hallway. "Yao has been looking for you for the past hour, Alfred. Apparently Franc—the King of Diamond's entire entourage has arrived a day ahead of schedule and the entire castle is in total chaos. And then you decide to disappear and people start to think that you've been kidnapped."

The look that he sent him plainly read 'And I find you hiding yourself in a closet with a burger'.

Alfred grinned and finished up the rest of his snack, speaking without bothering to finish chewing. "Aw, come on, Artie. I haven't been able to eat anything in peace in weeks."

Arthur didn't seem to care; he wrinkled his nose in disgust and then dragged him mercilessly through the halls and back toward responsibility. It was one of the things that Alfred loved about him; he wasn't afraid of him. He'd talk back to his king and manhandle him and try to poison him with disgusting scones. (Not purposely, he was just a really terrible cook who really loved to try to cook and how could Alfred say no to that face?)

"Hey!" Arthur turned and Alfred took his chance to take his fiancé's cheeks between his hands and swoop down for a totally romantic kiss. For a moment, Arthur remained tense for a moment, as if he was trying to keep up his grumpy façade, but then he relaxed in his arms like melty ice cream.

And Alfred was definitely considering tugged his fiancé into another abandoned closet and just ignoring his kingly responsibilities for a while. Yao was competent. Alfred was pretty sure that he'd be able to govern the kingdom if he ever was actually abducted by aliens.

But his plans were foiled when a figure slipped around the corner and immediately strode toward them with arms thrown wide.

"Mes amis! Mon cher social climber! I was wondering where you had disappeared to."

It wasn't that Alfred disliked the King of Diamonds. The Kingdom of Diamonds could (usually) be counted among their allies and Francis was a…decent-ish…person. He just had a tendency to piss Arthur off within moments of his arrival and a pissed-off Arthur, while usually entertaining, was an Arthur who had much less interest in climbing into closets with him and making out like horny teenagers.

Also, if Arthur was a cat, he would be all bristly right now. As it was, he'd completely tensed and was now glaring at the king with a look that made Alfred feel slightly uncomfortable (and slightly turned on, but now wasn't the time to mention that; later, definitely).

Francis didn't seem to feel at all threatened, as he walked forward and tousled Arthur's hair while grinning at Alfred. "I was a bit surprised to hear about your engagement, Alfred, although I suppose Arthur does have a strange sort of charm to him."

It was pretty impressive, Alfred would later think, how Arthur could move that fast. One minute he was standing by Alfred's side, the next he had slammed a perfect right hook right into Francis's nose.

And then he was back by Alfred's side, grabbing his hand, and yanking him down the hallway. "Come on, before I get thrown out of the bloody kingdom again."

All Alfred could really do was grin, glance back toward where Francis was holding his nose and cursing furiously, and then say, "You know, I think they've still got some things to teach you in that Queenliness 101 class."

A/N: Hello! So this story has a bit of an interesting tale behind it. I actually wrote it quite a while ago for a Secret Santa gift and just rediscovered it today when searching for another fic on my computer. I don't remember who I wrote it for (and I also can't remember if the person I wrote it for actually knows that I was the one who wrote it for them… *shrugs*), but I do remember they gave me the prompt card!verse, so that's what I went with.

So, since it's been at least half a year since I gave this to them, I definitely consider it to be fair game now for me to share it with everybody else. I hope you enjoyed it!