Dummy Dummy

'What Could Possibly Go Wrong?'

It had been a peaceful day for Arthur Kirkland- which was saying something, considering he had more idiot brothers than he could remember, attended secondary school (or 'high school', as it were) with a collection of people who were seemingly too stupid to spell their own names correctly (Feliciano), or so scary they'd been voted 'Most Likely to Murder Someone Before Turning 20' (Natalia), and just the other day had been attacked by his microwave and almost burnt his eyebrows off.

The school day had passed without great event, save for Gilbert proclaiming himself to be the Lord of the Universe or some such thing in Chemistry, and then promptly setting his shirt sleeve on fire over the Bunsen burner.

Elizaverta had found the whole thing quite hilarious, and nearly collapsed in peals of laughter whilst Gilbert flapped his arms and – subsequently – made the fire even worse. This was a shame, because Gilbert's antics had, most likely, been a misguided attempt to impress the Hungarian girl. Too bad Elizaverta's sometimes-on-sometimes-off-sometimes-on-again-with-no-viable-explantion-other-than-to-confuse-everyone part-time boyfriend, Roderich, was more than capable of working in a Chemistry lab without hurting himself/any other poor, unfortunate soul who happened to be ambling past, and was also not a complete and utter moron.

Not that Arthur cared about such petty events. To him, it was childish to get so immersed over other people's affairs; not to mention downright rude, and generally intrusive.

So, after school, Arthur had been walking home at a leisurely pace. The sun was shining, the sky was blue and the grass was green. Or at least, the grass would have been green, provided the bustling city wasn't just an odd jumble of concrete and tarmac. But the pavement looked less gum-splattered and rubbish strewn, at any rate.

In a nutshell, everything was okay.

Not amazingly awesome.

Not terribly depressing.

Just… fine, really.

Or at least, it 'had been' – with the 'had been' in massive quotation marks, because Arthur knew such a calm, tranquil moment could never exist for long in his pitifully unlucky life.

"Heyyy, Iggy! Wait up, will ya?!"

And he was right.

Oh, good.

Arthur winced in pain, as a giant hand clapped over his shoulder, with almost enough force to send him falling to his doom. Fortunately, Arthur was not at all unfamiliar with this face-meet-floor scenario, and owing to years of experience, was able to keep his balance and shrug off the intrusive hand with relative ease, all the while looking appropriately irritated.

And people said men couldn't multi-task.

Turning about on the spot, Arthur shot his most devastating 'death glare' at Alfred F Jones.

Alfred smiled back obliviously.

"Hey, Iggy~" he sang, prodding at the shorter boy's forehead. Arthur swatted it away, as one would an irksome fly. "Can I just ask you for-"

"No."

Alfred pouted, moved to prod Arthur again- and missed, as the other side-stepped out of the way. Well, blehhh, thought Alfred. What good was playing video games until 4 a.m. if he couldn't even launch an epic ninja-stealth prodding-attack on someone small and skinny and generally uncool as Arthur?

Obviously, he'd have to start taking first person shooters more seriously.

Or maybe not go to bed so late, so his reflexes wouldn't be shot to hell the next day.

But- nahh! That would never, ever happen. Who needed early nights when you had caffeine to wake you up?

"What gives, Iggy?" pouted Alfred, jogging to catch up with his 'friend' (who had since then started to walk away, pointedly not looking at the American). "You didn't even give me a chance to say what I wanted!"

"Because I know you and, therefore, I know that every single favour you ask of me results in pain or misery or sheer stupidity, which I have no desire to take part in."

"Geez, Iggy, you're so boring."

"And you're so bloody infuriating, but I don't make a point of whining about it every five seconds."

"OK, cool, but, um, you sort of are. You know. Whining."

Arthur nearly halted in his tracks at this flippant statement but, at the last second, managed to catch himself. He couldn't give in to Alfred- that was what he wanted. Instead, he'd do the mature thing and act as though Alfred didn't exist.

"Yeaahhh," Alfred continued, charging on (and on… and on… and on) with all the tact of a cardboard box in a coma. "You're totally moaning all the time, it's kind of downer. You should be happy sometimes! Not like an old man! I mean, you're not even that much older'n me, but the difference in our personalities is like, whoaaa! Like-" he gestured with his hands "-like, the freaking Grand Canyon, man! Hahaha!"

Arthur wished he had an iPod to drown out Alfred's incessant chatter- or else some kind of heavy rock, to bash against his skull until he died of brain haemorrhaging.

Both options seemed rather appealing.

Finally, after about ten minutes of incoherent babble (most of which was incoherent due to the fact Alfred had starting eating. Where he pulled those hamburgers from was anyone's guess, but he always seemed to have a dozen or so on him at any given time), Arthur grew tired of it.

He only wanted to go home, do his homework, and maybe get started on his needlework (which definitely was not girly, it was relaxing, and a lot better than those stupid first-person shooters Alfred liked so much). Not be plagued by a vicious swarm of… of sheer Alfred-ness for two hours.

Arthur had better things to do that listen to the American eat, insult him, insult his cooking, eat, insult his clothes, eat some more, insult him some more, and then poke fun at that one time seven years ago when Natalia decapitated Arthur's unicorn plush toy and stuck it's head on a pencil for some weird reason only Natalia knew, but nobody was willing to find out.

"Look," said Arthur sharply, shooting Alfred a Filthy Look to end all filthy looks. "Tell me your problem, and then bugger off." As an afterthought, he tacked on an insincere "Please."

So much hate had never been conveyed through a pleasantry before.

To Alfred, it was kind of amazing.

"Haha! I thought you'd never ask!" Alfred beamed, swallowing the last bit of greasy burger. After licking his fingers (Arthur winced; for some reason, his brain kept screaming 'germs! Disease! Parasites!' like some demented parent who actually gave a damn), he began to talk.

"Okay then. It's like this. Listen up, 'cause you might not understand."

"I'm sure I can keep up."

"Great! I just figured, because you're kind of old-"

Arthur's left eye twitched. "If you don't get your act together, Alfred, I'll get it together for you with a fist to the face!"

"Ooooh," said Alfred, grinning. "Scary."

"It will be in a few seconds, if you don't hurry up."

"Okay, okay! Jesus!" Alfred held his hands up in defeat. "Anyway, what I really wanted to ask you, is kind of a big favour- but I know deep down inside your black, withered heart there lies the faintest trace of love and compassion!"

Arthur's face blanched. "You're not going to give me a friendship speech, are you?"

"Hmm, I dunno. Do you want me to?"

"H-hell no!"

"Something like; 'Oh Iggy, you mean the world to me and I couldn't possibly live without you. Together we could do anything! So let's stay together!'"

At these ridiculously melodramatic words, Arthur's cheeks began to flush red. Cursing at his own moment of weakness, Arthur folded his arms and (once more) turned away from the American with a noise of contempt. Really, this was a clever(?) ruse, designed specifically so Alfred wouldn't catch on the fact Arthur's face was heating up like a furnace.

"T-that's so stupid!" Arthur stuttered (seriously stuttered. Arthur could practically feel his pride oozing slowly, painfully, down the metaphorical drain. Infuriatingly, this only made him blush MORE). "L-like I'd ever want you to say something like that! As if you'd even mean it!"

"Ahaha, that's what you say, but your face tells a different story, Iggy~ Poor little Iggy," Alfred grinned, effortlessly managing to ruffle Arthur's hair (the smaller blond had been too busy resolutely looking the other way, and melting into a pile of goo and embarrassment, to defend himself).

"But whatever, this isn't even the issue at hand," said Alfred nonchalantly, as Arthur began sputtering out indignant half-sentences (most of which were nonsensical).

"T-then get to the fucking point already!"

"You see, the thing is… Vash was being a complete asshat! I was trying to talk to his little sister, y'know, the really cute one; I think her name's like Lilith or something?"

Arthur raised an eyebrow. The danger zone had passed for the time being; this conversation seemed a lot safer than the previous one.

"I highly doubt Vash's sister is named after a succubus."

Alfred blinked. "Is succubus, like, a freaky English compliment or something?"

"...I don't know whether to be amused or horrified."

"Well, ANYWAY. So I go up to Lilith-" (Arthur sighed) "-and try to talk to her, because she always seems so nice and friendly. But then Vash comes along, and he's all 'get away from my sister or I'll bla la bla torture pain hang you from your eyelids bla bla.' And I said I only wanted to talk to her. And he says 'as if a guy like you has a CHANCE of flirting with my sister.' And I say 'why not?' 'cause I'm not ugly or anything! I'm not, am I, Iggy? Am I?"

"I suppose not…?"

"EXACTLY! So, I say that to Vash, and then he says 'hahaha' except he doesn't, because Vash is a total KILLJOY and NEVER smiles, NEVER, EVER. And he says 'it would impossible for you, because you are afraid of ghosts, and no self-respecting male can get frightened during horror movies, or in the dark, or of the AI that plays Boo in Mario Kart. Isn't that stupid? I mean, it's not like I'm into unicorns or pixies or-"

"T-that was a long, long time ago!" said Arthur defensively, trying to retain his 'better than thou' façade, which seemed to be slipping a tad too much for his liking as of late. "You never know when to keep your mouth shut, do you?"

"What?" Alfred seemed genuinely confused. "What did I say…?"

"You're an insensitive bloody-minded wanker, that's all."

"Ehh? You sound just like a jealous girlfriend when you do that, Iggy."

"According to Vash, you'll never have a girlfriend, so maybe you're just projecting all of your woe onto me. Certainly, I never made any such statement which resembled that of a jealous girlfriend's. Or maybe you wish I was jealous, in which case, I am very sorry," Arthur countered stubbornly.

Urgh… The more time I spend hanging around with this moron, the more childish I begin to sound. Another hour or so of this nonsense, and I'll cease being myself all together.

"Now, please tell me the issue at hand here, because I have failed to spot one."

"Well, it's like this!" Alfred beamed cheerfully, and gave Arthur a rather overwhelming, white-toothed smile and a thumbs up gesture. "Let's go camp out at the graveyard at midnight! That'll prove I ain't scared of no ghosts!"

…And just like that, Arthur's life suddenly became a lot more complicated.

a.n: I think maybe I sort of kind of referenced a lot of things in here XD Some seem fairly obvious, but maybe not others. I wonder if you can catch them? Ahaha C: Maybe some would be only obvious to me…

Lilthhh! Lilith was one of the Biblical wives of Adam (depends which Bible though, I think) and she bore Adam many evil children like death and disease and all that cheerful stuff XD

Liechtenstein is the embodiment of evil XD She's just biding her time, and trying to look cute, haha XD

Also, asshat in the best insult. EVER. XD

Read, review, relax
Reiimuu ^^;;