A/N: I'm back in college and full of more ideas! I couldn't get to sleep last night and this idea was born. Oh yeah.

I want to actually have a plot and actual depth to a story this time around, instead of just humor and everything happening because I want it to that way. So, this is a bit of a change for me, but not one that I won't enjoy! It just might make uploading chapters a little bit longer and a bit of a rough start.

So, tell me what you think of this! Please, I'd really appreciate any kind of criticism so I know how I'm doing with this. Thank you!


Arthur Kirkland believed that he had lived a very normal life. Up until a certain point of time, of course. Not a normal life in which he thought the monotonous routine of his daily life was dull. Not a normal life in which he thought he had accomplished nothing before the age that he was able to realize such feelings.

No, he believed that his normal life had been very well lived. Up until this point, you see.

He had been born and raised in the small suburban town a few miles outside of London, England. There, he lived eighteen loud and busy years of changing the diapers of his youngest brother – Peter – and bickering with his three older brothers, Allister, the oldest of them all, Seamus, and Dylan – over who would be watching the telly after school before actually walking the block to the learning center.

He had graduated high school in the twentieth percentile of his class – not as great as Arthur had hoped for, but it could have been much, much worse – before moving across the pond to the United States to continue his education.

Yes, everything had been quiet peachy, so fantastic in fact that Arthur was expecting some comical mass of something evil to jump out from a corner to break the spell of his perfectly normal life. But nothing did.

That is, up until a specific time in his life.

Arthur had everything he could have ever asked for. He had a handful of good friends, as much as he wanted and most of them immature (he continued to wonder to this day why he hung around people such as the perverted frog), supportive parents who continued to send care packages despite calling them to let him know that he was no longer a teenager without a job, and high grades in his courses.

And then he had noticed something.

Having high marks apparently made classes very dull and unneeded, and Arthur found himself in the library more often than not. With nothing to do since studying wasn't needed most of the time, Arthur browsed the shelves of fiction and non-fiction of novels alike until that, too, became dull. So he people watched.

And then he found that something.

All of the engineering and accounting students would come into the library right after lunch and leave just before dinner. The same pattern revealed itself day after day without fail, which caused him to know that as soon as the kids left, the couples began to pour in. Girls, dragged by their boyfriends, would shuffle awkwardly towards the back of the library or to the separate room or the bathrooms and do whatever it was that couples did alone.

A few weeks after learning this pattern, Arthur began to think very strangely. He wondered when he would get a girlfriend, and promptly smacked himself for such a stupid idea. He was in college to get his degree in English, not for picking up women.

But still the thoughts continued. Sneakily, they crept into his mind in the vulnerable state just as he was about to fall asleep, or in the increasingly dull searches for new books. Whispers of relationships and loneliness ghosted about his brain, patiently waiting for the next opportunity to assault.

And then the chance came.

Arthur was walking back to his dorm after lunch and found himself taking the long way back. The path wound its way around the soccer field and reached to the back door of the building. Instead of turning back to the shorter road, something pushed him in the direction of the small dirt road.

A sudden soccer scrimmage had broken out on the field. Shouts and curses and laughter floated through the chilly spring air as the college's team broke into two and began to kick the ball around.

The whispers struck; the mist enveloping. And Arthur's breath caught at a shock of blond hair.

The captain of the boy's soccer team had just scored a goal and was dancing about the field as the other half grumbled and set up their next attack. Childishly, the captain stuck his tongue out at the other team and riled them up with shouted taunts. And Arthur hated people who were childish. He hated those who thought them better.

But he could not take his eyes off of the man.

Heart racing and eyes wide, Arthur forced his feet to move, just one step and then another, all the way back to his dorm room. What was wrong with him? He had never shown any affection towards anyone, let alone any homosexual tendencies.

The voices in his head were just messing with him, he was sure. They were just desperate and the soccer player was a well-built man, he could admit that he would make any woman happy. But there was no way that he could fall for a man.

Yes, that was it. It was just his confusion for a companion was all. Maybe his friend Francis could help him clear things up. He did seem to know a lot about relationships, though Arthur knew the disgusting and rude reasons for that knowledge.

It was better not to dwell on the subject, Arthur decided, and sat down at his desk. He began to pull out the books needed for his homework assignment, and, despite all efforts at concentration, he was not able to get the soccer captain, the blonde, the man known as Alfred Jones, out of his head.