Lost Boy

A Twizardck production

I do not own Hetalia

Birthday Update Fest – Number 5

This is a companion to "Magic Doll." It's an overview of the childhood of Arthur and touches a bit on his relation with human Alfred. I might write a third companion, one in between the time periods of this story and "Magic Doll," but if so it won't go up for a while. Enjoy!

I never knew what my birthday was. Sometime early in the year of 1987. Mother hadn't had a calendar since 1985. I was born on the streets of London, christened Arthur Kirkland – Arthur after my mother's father, who she said had left her a considerable sum of money that the bank refused to give to a woman of her trade, Kirkland from my father's surname because he insisted.

His definition of insisted was raise up his hand – ready to deliver a backhand blow – and put on his meanest face until Mother relented, sobbing.

My mother said that because I didn't know my birthday, I could pick any day I wanted. So every year, once, maybe twice if I was feeling indulgent, I announced that I was turning older. And that is how it came to be that in the year of 1997 I was fifteen, despite the fact that if I went by normal reckonings I was nine – ten at the oldest.

The birthdays I had were the best days of my life. It would just be me and my mother and my sister. Mummy and Danielli as they liked to be called. Mummy would make up some reason why we had to be out and about that day and not in our hovel should Father come knocking, choosing that day to be one of those in which he would randomly show up and beat me to a pulp in his drunkenness, my older brother who stayed with him watching as his junior tormentor-in-training. No, on those days the two good and proper ladies – for that's what I thought of them – in my life would make sure that I was safe. They'd scratch up all the money that they had saved up from the jobs they had – that I didn't know much about other than that it involved standing on the side of a road in a bathing suit and hopping in random cars – and buy me meat pies and sweet cakes.

But my fifteenth birthday – the one that I decided was my fifteenth, whether it was or not – did not go like I had planned. It started out the same, with us out in the market laughing and whistling happy tunes, ones like "Happy Birthday" and "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow." I had my teeth in a particularly good toffee when he came through the crowd and grabbed my ear, pulled me close and whispered to me, whispered awful things.

The last thing he said to me that day was, "You're a man now, and men don't need their Mummies."

I hadn't even seen the knife. But before I knew it the hilt was poking out from my mother's belly and she was gasping on the floor, and people were screaming. I could see my brother – Anthony, who I hated – leering, and my father laughing, and then Danielli's hand was around mine and she was pulling me away, crying, crying, both of us crying.

We lived on our own then, Danielli still doing the jobs that she had done before, the jobs that Mummy had done as well, and us getting by – but just barely. She was eighteen and old enough to take care of me, so the officers didn't intervene, and we both felt lucky for that. But when she was out at night Father would come by and when she was back the next morning my face would have new bruises.

She moved us in with some well-to-do man who looked hungrily at her, his face and expression making me distrust him and everything about him without a word said. I hated him but he was better than father so I dealt with it, instead choosing to talk to the fairies who stayed in my room to keep me company. He walked in on me speaking with them one time and sent me to a white place where doctors asked me questions. They poked and prodded and took notes, labeling me "schizophrenic," a word that I did not know the meaning of, having never been privy to the means necessary to go to school.

I ran away from that place the first chance I got, away from the cold white hospital with the doctors who called me names. I ran back to my sister only to find out that she was dead, killed by the man she had trusted to take care of us. He was now gone and the officers didn't care, wouldn't search for him, because he was wealthy and she was a slut. Whore. Prostitute. Words I knew from the street and didn't think matched up with my sweet, loving sister.

Already used to living on the streets, I developed a pattern. When I was hungry I stole. But not being a dishonest man – boy, teen, – I also got a job washing dishes at a French restaurant called "Amour de la nourriture" in the better part of town. The year was 2001 and I was nineteen, though the manager had looked at me down the line of his nose and demanded my real, true age. So to everyone who worked there, I was fourteen. The smirking French frog of a junior chef with all the talent and money in the world was quick to remind me of this fact every time I teased him for his accent. For he was seventeen and so much better.

He was Francis Bonnefoy, who was living with his British aunt so that he could get experience in this field, the one he wanted to practice for life. I became used to hearing him calling me "petit frère" with an annoying broad smile on his face. Some endearing French term that I thought from the start meant gross and perverted things – for if my sister was a whore, then this man was the king of whores – but it turned out to only translate to little brother. For once I was glad to be wrong.

I walked the same route "home" every night, home being a cardboard box in one of the nicer alleyways – for after all, I was a high class homeless boy. I even had a pillow. I knew every person I would see on the walk, and someone new always stuck out. So when a small boy – ten perhaps, all that mattered was that he was younger than me – stared at me from across the street, his blue eyes narrowed in thought, he definitely stuck out. I walked to him and before he could realize that I was there and run, I grabbed his shoulder.

We sat down right then and there and talked about why the hell he was staring at me. His clothing was in worse shape than mine, his hair far more snarled, more bruises prominent. But he held his head up high. The first words he said to me were:

"Because I'm the hero and I want to help you."

His accent was American, New England if I was not mistaken. A lot of tourists came into Amour de la nourriture and I would watch them from behind the one-sided window, trying to ignore Francis's comments about my ass. I had memorized their accents, learned where they were from. I couldn't wait to be promoted to waiter.

I kept the boy talking and when I learned that he was a runaway from his foster parents – rich snobs who beat him and his little brother – I felt a connection bloom. Without even asking his name, I invited him to stay with me, for I had already heard of his current home. He and this brother he kept talking about were living behind a flower bush next to a hotel. An officer was sure to find them and ship them back to the fosters.

When the boy went to bring his brother to "move in" with me, I felt good inside. But the instant I saw the other boy, saw the spots on his face, saw his body rack in a cough, I knew something was wrong. He was sick – sicker than I had ever been, because as a street boy I was used to it all. But perhaps it was a curse that I had never been this sick, for it meant I had no idea how to deal with it. It meant I had to find help.

I set up the two in my box – I learned that they were called Alfred and Matthew, the one I had talked to being Alfred, the hero – and ran to the restaurant, knowing that someone must still be there despite the fact that it was closed. The only one was Francis, who was experimenting with cakes and pies and other sweets that I had refused to eat since that day.

He beamed at me and greeted me with a "Salut petit frère!" before switching back into blessed English. And I explained the situation, watched his face get grimmer and grimmer until all traces of his haughty perverted personality were gone.

That night Matthew moved in with Francis Bonnefoy. But since he could only hide one from his aunt, Alfred and I were still on the street.

He was a good thief. A good dishwasher too. He started working at the restaurant while I got bumped up to waiting tables, talking to the customers, learning the accents, their lives, their feelings. And at night Alfred and I would sleep in the box and sometimes I'd sing to him, like my Mummy would do for me when I was little. He said my voice calmed him.

He was a good boy, all tan skin and blue eyes and dirty-blonde hair. And it wasn't long till "petit frère" slipped out of my mouth when I was talking to him. He stared at me and laughed it off and beamed up at me and responded with a "big brother" and so it was.

I had been a boy lost in a wilderness of homelessness and abuse and hatred, and Alfred pulled me out. He truly was a hero.

2002 Francis turned eighteen and moved out into an apartment of his own. Alfred and I went to live with him. And then I really wasn't lost anymore.