Arthur Kirkland stood in line in the coffee house, his fingers aimlessly fiddling with the collar of his shirt as he impatiently waited for the well dressed gentleman at the head of the line to finish placing his order. A difficult task, it seemed to be, when one was trying to precisely describe the exact recipe for some exotic coffee based thing while ordering employees about on a cell phone and harshly criticising the apparently sleep deprived barista for not knowing exactly what a "penguin mocha" was. After the businessman finished, Arthur hesitantly walked up to the counter, glancing back at the angry hoard of customers.

The barista looked up from the registrar, a plastic grin on her face. "Hello welcome to Moondoe, may I take your order?"

Arthur looked at the menu again and hoped he knew what he was doing."Yes, I would like a cup of tea and-"

"What type?" interrupted the barista as she punched in some keys.

He was taken a bit aback by the question, how many types of tea could there be? "Erhm, do you have Earl grey?"

"Short, tall, grande, or venti?" she said, not looking up from the keypad.

Arthur was now certain that he had no idea what he was doing. "Tall I suppose." he said, hoping he wasn't mucking it up too badly. He had come here because he been in the city long enough yet to go shopping, he didn't realize ordering breakfast could be so difficult.

"Anything else?" the barista asked as she finally looked up at him.

"Yes, do you serve crumpets?" he asked. He had not seen the item on the menu, but he couldn't imagine a respectable cafe without them.

"A what?" she asked, looking at him as if he had asked them if they served haggis on a stick.

"A crumpet." Arthur replied, trying to force a smile.

"A crumpet?" The girl asked as she skeptically looked over her glasses at him.

Arthur hesitated, then launched into his description. "You see, it's this baked bread thing that's about this big and circular" he said, making a circle with his hands.

"An English muffin?" the girl asked, still slightly confused.

"Sure," he said, hoping he got his point across. What on Earth was an English muffin?

"With ham and eggs?" the barista asked, going back to the registrar.

"Sure," He said, at least this bit sounded promising.

"And is the tea for here or to go?"

"Here." Arthur said, wondering if that made much of a difference.

"That'll be twelve forty seven," She said as he pulled out his wallet and paid, smiling when he put a tip in the jar. As he grabbed his tea and wrapped "breakfast sandwich", if the receipt could be trusted, the girl called out, "Welcome to New York City." He shook his head, was his foreignness really that obvious?

He made his way around the booths, looking for a empty table in the packed coffeehouse, finally finding a small one next to the large windows that dominated the storefront. He unwrapped the sandwich and was delighted to discover that this English muffin thing was basically a crumpet. The tea didn't taste quite right, but no matter. Here he was, surrounded by loud and obnoxious yankees, who were yammering away on their cellphones, drinking their coffees out of paper to go cups while never leaving the store, while he had arranged for himself nearly the exact same breakfast he had always eaten at home in London.

He shook his head. No, he needed to stop thinking of London as "home". New York was his home now, and he needed to start thinking of it as such. Merry old England hadn't been too merry to him, well it had been before his father made him want to flee the country...again.

He had crossed the Atlantic when he had been offered a position at the illustrious New York Gazette. It was only a modest journalist/reporter position, but it paid much better than his previous gig as at a London paper as well as offering him a chance to escape the reach of his father, so he lept on the offer, scraped up enough money for a ticket, packed up, and headed out. His employer, a Mr. Honda Kiku, had arranged an apartment for him as well as a pass for the underground, and gave him the address of the building, as well as instructions on how to get there.

Thinking of the job, he checked his watch. He had twenty minutes until he had to get to his job and he had a feeling he would need all of them.

He returned the coffee cup and tossed away the wrap for the crumpet sandwich before heading outside. The air was cool and he tugged at his cuffs, wishing he had brought a coat. The sidewalk was overcrowded with people hustling about on their way to their jobs. He stopped at the street sign and tried to orient himself, the entrance to the underground had to be somewhere nearby, but Mr. Honda had not said exactly where. He looked around, normally there was a modest sign near a flight of stairs going down but Arthur didn't see one. He turned around and mentally chided himself. Three meters from where he stood was railing and and sign saying "subway". He had completely forgotten that was what they called it here.

Arthur made his way down the stairs, doing his best not to trip as the other commuters crowded around him as they descended. At the bottom he found three subway lines and a crowd of people waiting for doors to open. He tried to think back, which was he supposed to take? He looked around for a map, there had to be one somewhere nearby, unless it was considered obligatory to memorize one's route.

That seemed to be the case, there was no map in sight and the names of the lines might help a New Yorker, or at least someone with a general knowledge of the city. Arthur was neither.

Alfred Jones made his way down the subway car, grinning and waving at everyone he knew and a few who he didn't. The train was still fairly empty, considering that having been only one of the first stops and it being still fairly early in the morning, half an hour or so before the morning rush. Alfred finally reached his usual seat and sat down. After self consciously glancing around, he half turned so his face was reflected in the window and tried to pat down a persistent lock of hair that stuck up regardless of weather, static electricity, ten pounds of hair gel, or gunfire. Suddenly it went flat. Alfred gaped for a moment. "What the-"

"Kesesesese! There! The awesomeness of Inspector Beilschmidt has done it again!" Alfred turned around to see the gleeful face that was managing to disturb the otherwise quiet subway car.

"Hey! As an officer of the law I demand you cease and desist!" Alfred flashed the pale man his badge and a hundred watt smile.

"You cannot suppress the awesomeness of GILBERT!" Gilbert replied.

A figure in the corner of the car looked over his newspaper and pushed his glasses up his nose bridge. "Seriously, Mr. Jones and Mr. Beilschmidt? Everyday? Has it ever occurred to that everyone else on this train manages avoid being a public menace?"

"Our apologies to you, Mr. Edelstein." The two aforementioned public menaces chorused.

"Hmph. I have a good mind to call the police now, if I knew it would be any good. I tremble for this city when I think that you hooligans are the best policemen." Edelstein said before hiding his face behind the newspaper again.

"You should be trem-, huh?" Gilbert and Alfred turned to see a dark figure run into them and then off the train as it lurched to a stop. Both quickly checked their pockets. Alfred's eyes widened. "My wallet!"

Gilbert, reassured that all his valuables were intact, waved as Alfred dashed off the car in pursuit of the pickpocket. "Go be the hero! The awesome me demands it!"
Alfred leapt onto the pavement of the subway station and ran after the rapidly retreating pickpocket. The most of the crowd parted before the two running men. Alfred tripped over the leg of a bystander and went sprawling onto the ground to the general chorus of "Hey watch it!" and a few vulgar oaths. The dark man looked over his shoulder and laughed at his unfortunate pursuer, whilst continuing to charge earlong through the subway station.

Alfred unsteadily scrambled to his feet and followed his taunting quarrying, looking down every few seconds to prevent a repeat of his earlier fall. The man looked over his shoulder- and ran right into an oblivious bystander.

Both the pickpocket and the bystander fell to the ground with a dull thud. The man in black quickly extricated himself from the pile of limbs and fled out of the subway station. Alfred stopped in front of the bystander and bent down, catching his breath. "Fucking pickpocket," He said between gasps.

"Ex-excuse me, is this yours?" The bystander asked in a English accent, holding out a leather wallet in one hand. Alfred looked down at the wallet. "Yeah, it is! Thanks!" he replied before taking the proffered wallet and returning it to his pants pocket.

"You're welcome." He tried to regain his feet but Alfred grabbed his hand and pulled his up.

"Thank you," he said as he dusted off his clothes.

Now that they were both upright, Alfred the looked the man over. He was considerably shorter than Alfred, not that that was unusual, Alfred towered over most of New York at well over six feet, and this man's lean frame hardly reached his jaw. He was wearing a neatly pressed shirt and slacks and had a pen clipped onto his shirt pocket. His hair was a lighter blonde than Alfred's and his eyes were a shocking shade of green. As soon as he realized the American was looking at him, he blushed and looked downward.

"Pardon me, I seem to have forgotten my manners," he said, lifting his head again to look the taller man in the eye and sticking out his right hand. "My name is Kirkland, Arthur Kirkland. I'm pleased to meet you."

Alfred hesitated for a moment then engulfed Arthur's hand with both of his and shook enthusiastically. "Not nearly as pleased as I am! Thanks again for getting my wallet, I would have been lost without it."

The Englishman blushed again. "Don't mention it, the man dropped when he collided with me and I merely picked it up and returned it to you.."

Alfred laughed. "That's more than most New Yorkers would do. You're new to here aren't you? When did you leave Old York, or London or wherever? Yesterday?"

Arthur looked at his feet. "Actually, yes."

"Ha, I hit the nail right on the head." Alfred chuckled, looking at the bemused man.

"Is it really so obvious?" Arthur asked, glancing at himself.

"To put it honestly, yes." He then offered, "Do you need any help"

Arthur blushed again. "Actually yes, do you know which subway will take me to West fifty-ninth street? My employer gave me instructions but-" he looked at his feet as he shuffled them. "it seems I've forgotten them."

Alfred patted the Englishman's shoulder. "It's nothing to be ashamed about, many people new to New York get lost. Here, take that subway that just pulling in, it's the-" he counted off the stops on his fingers. "third, fourth, fifth; fifth stop."

"Thank you, good bye!" Arthur rushed toward the train, jerking his hand out of Alfred's grip, then blushing when he realized they had been holding hands the entire time. "O, and you have a paperclip in your hair!" he called back.

Alfred watched the man scurry away, then felt through his hair and removed a paper clip. "That damn albino" he laughed to himself. He walked toward the subway that would take to the office, then paused and swore to himself. He had forgotten to give Arthur his name.


Author's note: Thank you for reading. This is my first romantic story and any help is appreciated. I apologize for all misrepresentations of New York and the out a characterness. I've haven't yet decided on an update schedule. Finally, I am in search of a better cover image, if you know of or have one I may use, please message me. Thank you and have a nice day.