Chapter 1: A Proposal Is Made

or,

In Which Our Heroes Are Introduced and The Screaming Matches Commence

Francis despises his roommate. He is sharp-tongued and cynical, stuck-up and prude, irritatingly OCD when it comes to cleaning their too-cramped dorm, completely incapable of holding his liquor and the sloppiest, most foul-mouthed drunk Francis has ever met (and he is best friends with Gilbert "Awesome" Beilschmidt, so that is saying something) and— worst of all— stick-up-his-arse, tea-swilling, jumper-wearing British.

Arthur, as well, despises his roommate. He is flamboyant and flashy, self-obsessed and a total man-whore, has no concept of personal space, leaves his things all over their dorm, has an obnoxious laugh and even more obnoxious friends (and he'd once been forced to spend an entire, torturous week with his older brother in Scotland, so that is saying something) and— worst of all— wine-guzzling, cologne-reeking, no-sense-of-shame-whatsoever French.

Amelia is of the opinion that two people who put so much time and energy into hating each other have to be in love, and tells them so, one Saturday night when her and Arthur's band is hanging out at one of the many local pubs, as is post-Saturday-night-rehearsal tradition. She giggles at the identical looks of stunned horror plastered across their faces, ruffling Arthur's hair and giving Francis's ass a playful smack before running off to flip through the book of karaoke songs with Maddy.

"I wouldn't touch that rosbif with a ten-metre pole if we were the last people on earth!"

Francis declares as haughtily as he can manage once the shock finally wears off and he regains the power of coherent speech, wrestling Gil into a good-natured headlock as punishment for his fit of hysterical laughter at Amelia's words.

"If we were the last people on earth, I think we'd have a slightly bigger problem to worry about," Arthur retorts, sarcasm dripping from every word.

Francis momentarily contemplates sticking out his tongue, but that is childish. Besides, Amelia is currently dancing on the makeshift stage tucked in the back of the pub for those drunk enough to be cajoled into singing karaoke, and the view of her rather generous cleavage fighting a losing battle with the low cut of her top is much preferable to yet another petty argument with a certain prissy Englishman.

Arthur simply drains the rest of his whiskey in one go, slamming the glass down onto the bar with more force than strictly necessary and waving for another round. He has barely taken a sip when Maddie appears suddenly by his elbow, flashing him the wry, embarrassed smile she reserves for when she has been dragged into one of Amelia's more madcap plans.

"Should I be worried?"

"Well… yes, probably," Maddie admits, her voice sympathetic. Arthur tosses back his drink with an exaggerated roll of his eyes.

"Amelia's friend is holding this party next weekend—"

Arthur knows where this one is going, and opens his mouth to say no, no way in all seven levels of hell, but Maddie cuts him off before he can even start.

"—and told me to tell you, and I quote, 'you're going whether you like it or not, because you really need to stop being so antisocial, and one little party isn't going to kill you,' end quote. Oh, and to please not kill the messenger, because apparently I owe her money."

Arthur gives a long-suffering sigh, rubbing the faint headache forming between his eyes. "Maddie, love, I appreciate—"

"Yo, Artie, my man!" Amelia crows, bounding over to throw her arms around her friend's neck, resting her chin on his shoulder. "Mads told you about the party, right? Did she tell you the best part?"

Maddie immediately snatches up her beer and walks as quickly as possible to where her boyfriend, Gil, is attempting to pick a fight with a chair. Arthur mumbles something that sounds suspiciously like "oh, dear heavens" as he untangles Amelia's arms from around his neck, steeling himself for the worst.

(Which, knowing Amelia, could be anything from proposing a random road trip to a farm in the middle of bloody nowhere that was supposedly the sight of a recent UFO crash, to mapping out an elaborate strategy to hack into unspecified government databases in order to confirm whether or not S.H.I.E.L.D. actually existed.)

"It's a drag party!" Amelia announces, practically bouncing on her toes with excitement.

Arthur immediately chokes on the gulp of whiskey he has, of course, just taken, damn his unfortunate sense of timing, and clutches Amelia's arm for support as he splutters for breath. "No! Just…. no! I'm not going! I'm sorry, I just… that's not my…. I am not going!"

Amelia gives him her patented puppy-eyed pout, stretching her blue eyes as wide as she can manage and puffing out her lower lip, trembling a little as if she is on the verge of tears. Arthur grits his teeth, internally fighting between his dignity and the power of Amelia's blasted puppy-dog eyes, but he only manages to hold out a few moments. (His record is one minute and seventeen seconds.)

"Oh, alright, if it's so bloody important to you," he mutters as venomously as possible, ignoring Amelia's triumphant squeal that gains her several strange looks from the other pub-goers. "Just this once!"

It is about midnight when Arthur finally manages to pry the chattering Amelia off his arm and get back to his dorm, and about two seconds after that that Arthur collapses onto his bed and into a deep, mindless, perfect sleep.

… Well. It would be perfect if Francis hadn't just wrenched him from it with an unlocked door and a giggle that, while not male, very certainly sounds French.

Great, thinks Arthur through the fug of cantankerousness and fatigue. Absolutely smashing.

"Mais – ton colocataire – est-il ici? Peut-être qu'il dort –"

"Non, mon chou. Il sortit avec ses amis. C'est génial, n'est-ce pas?"

Another giggle, breathy and high-pitched. Arthur is going to kill Francis. "Ouais."

The frogs start kissing. Arthur can tell, because he can hear the obscene smacking noises. It's darker than the inside of a tomb. He cannot actually see anything. Nonetheless, he can hear the sounds of clothes rustling and – and other nasty froggy things, and goddammit, Arthur is going to need brain bleach.

(And a cold shower.)

Then a nasty, horrible, no-good very-bad deliciously evil idea clears its throat and makes itself known in the back of Arthur's head.

The sounds get breathier, more obscene. The clothes-rustling has stopped and, dear Lord in Heaven, the moaning has begun. What do they think this is, a porno?

"Veux-tu – ?"

"Oui, François – oui –"

"If you could see that I'm the one who understands you," Arthur sings clearly.

The noises stop.

"Q-quoi?"

"BEEN HERE ALL ALONG," he belts, sitting upright.

"FOUTU ENFER!"

"So why can't you see!" Arthur warbles, rolling out of bed and turning on the lights to point at Francis, a smirk spreading across his face. "You belong with me!"

The girl shrieks wordlessly, her brown eyes wide in a delightful mix of shock, embarrassment, and rage. Immediately she rolls off Francis and begins tugging her clothes back on, to Francis' visible disappointment. Pervert.

"J'ai pensé –"

"Je sais lequel tu as pensé!" She whips her head around to glare at Arthur. "Bastard!"

She wrenches the door open.

"Call me?" comes Francis' plaintive cry.

"Maybe when your perverted roommate is actually out!" she yells, and slams the door behind her.

There is a moment of silence.

"WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT FOR!"

"THAT WAS FOR YOU TWO ACTING LIKE BLOODY PORN STARS!"

"YOU TALK LIKE YOU WEREN'T LISTENING!"

"HOW COULD I NOT BE LISTENING, I WAS RIGHT HERE THE WHOLE TIME!"

"YOU COULD HAVE ANNOUNCED YOURSELF WHEN WE CAME IN!"

"I WAS ASLEEP!"

"YOU WERE AWAKE, DON'T DENY IT!"

"EMPHASIS ON 'WAS', UNTIL YOU TWO STARTING MOANING LIKE DYING SEA ELEPHANTS!"

"'DYING SEA ELEPHANTS'?! WHERE THE HELL DID YOU PULL THAT ONE FROM, YOUR ASS?"

"OH, I'M SORRY, IT'S ONE IN THE BLOODY MORNING, YOU EXPECT ME TO HAVE GOOD METAPHORS?"

"I EXPECT YOU TO BE A DECENT ROOMMATE!"

"OH, THAT'S RICH! AT LEAST I DON'T START SCREWING RANDOM GIRLS WHILE YOU'RE TRYING TO SLEEP!"

"I DIDN'T KNOW YOU HAD COME BACK! YOU COULD HAVE WARNED ME!"

"YOU SAW ME LEAVE THE BAR!"

"EXCUSE ME FOR ENTERTAINING THE HOPE THAT MY ROOMMATE ISN'T AN ANTISOCIAL TWAT WHO WON'T EVEN THINK OF SCREWING THE GIRL WHO'S BEEN DRAPING HERSELF OVER HIM ALL NIGHT!"

"AMELIA HAS A BOYFRIEND!"

"DIDN'T LOOK LIKE IT!"

"AND, IN CASE YOU HAVEN'T NOTICED, I'M GAY!"

"DOES IT MATTER?"

"UH, YES, MOST WOULD AGREE SO!"

"SHOWS WHAT YOU KNOW! CHARLOTTE IS A LESBIAN AND I FUCKED HER FIVE TIMES LAST YEAR!"

"CHARLOTTE'S BI AND A WHORE, SHE DOESN'T COUNT!"

"WHAT WOULD YOU KNOW? YOU'RE A VIRGIN!"

"AT LEAST I DON'T HAVE AN STI!"

"I DO NOT!"

"I DOUBT IT!"

"IT'S CALLED SAFE SEX, YOU IMBECILE!"

"OH THANK GOD, I DON'T THINK THE WORLD COULD SURVIVE A MINI-YOU!"

"OOH, WANT SOME ICE FOR THAT BURN?"

They pause and glance at the door.

"Gilbert," mutters Francis, and then they are back to shouting.

"YOU TAKE THAT BACK! MY FUTURE CHILDREN WILL BE FABULOUS!"

"'FABULOUS'? ARE YOU SURE YOU'RE NOT GAY?"

"YOU WISH!"

"OH, PLEASE. I ACTUALLY HAVE STANDARDS, UNLIKE YOU AND YOUR ... YOUR HUSSIES!"

"IT'S NOT MY FAULT ALL THE LADIES WANT ME!"

"THAT DOESN'T MEAN YOU CAN JUST WALTZ IN AND START SHAGGING THEM WHEN I'M IN THE BLOODY ROOM!"

"HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO TELL YOU THAT I DIDN'T KNOW YOU WERE THERE!"

"THEN YOU SHOULD HAVE CHECKED. OR IS COMMON COURTESY NOT A CONCEPT THAT TRANSLATES INTO FRENCH?"

"YOU STILL DIDN'T HAVE TO BE AN ASS LIKE THAT! WAY TO BE A COCK-BLOCK!"

"BE GLAD I DIDN'T GO WITH PLAN A AND DUMP COLD WATER ON YOU!"

"ENGLISH BASTARD!"

"CHEESEY MONKEY!"

They fall silent.

" … Did you see her face?"

" … Yes."

"I thought she was going to kill one or both of us."

"Both, probably."

"Probably."

Arthur sniggers. "You've got to admit, that was funny."

Francis attempts to keep a straight face. It isn't quite working. "Only the part where you said I belonged with you."

"I'm not even sure how I know that song ... oh, God. How do I know that song?!"

Francis wrinkles his nose distastefully. "Search me. It's vile."

"True that."

" … Cock-block."

"Fuck you."

It is criminally early the next morning that a knock sounds at their door.

Francis, who is closer to the door, rolls out of bed and stumbles over to open the door. A rather irritated Roderich glares back at him.

"Might I ask why you were screaming your heads off last night?"

"Roderich, darling, what are you doing up so early?" Francis asks, and through the fuzz and fog of sleep deprivation he manages to see bags under Roderich's eyes.

"It is six o'clock in the morning, which is when I wake up every morning, because I go to bed at ten o'clock like a decent and reasonable human being," Roderich says icily. "I try to have nine to ten hours of sleep every night in order to keep my brain intact. Do you know how many hours I slept last night?"

Francis opens his mouth, but reconsiders, and closes it.

"I slept for five hours last night. Because you and your roommate were having a flaming row about the fact that you were trying to sleep with a girl. You woke me up in the middle of my sleep cycle, and then because it took an hour for me to fall asleep again, my alarm went off in the middle of another sleep cycle. I am not well-rested. If I end up falling asleep in class today, I am blaming you."

"Me?"

"Yes, you. I nearly called Public Safety on you two because you woke up almost the entire building. Could you not have been a little quieter?"

"Well –"

"And if not, file the paperwork and just find a different roommate, because I cannot live like this," Roderich says imperiously, and he turns heel and flounces off.

"But I can't shove him off on someone else, they would not be able to handle his horrible British ways!" Francis yells after Roderich. Roderich ignores him and slams the door to the staircase behind him.

"Mon dieu, what a ponce."

Translations:

"But – your roommate – is he here? Maybe he's sleeping – "

"No, my pet. He's out with his friends. It's great, isn't it?"

"Yeah."

"Do you want – ?"

"Yes, Francis – yes – "

"W-what?"

"FUCKING HELL!"

"I thought – "

"I know what you thought!"