Music was essentially Arthur's life. Seriously, he loved it. It was what he did, what he was, what he kept his heart beating for and even his heart beat to the rhythm of the drums in every song that required them. Arthur would go so far as to say that music lived for him, too.
Arthur's favorite type of music was rock. Any type of rock; he wasn't picky. One day he'd be listening to the Beatles, the next would be Kiss, and after that was either Greenday or The Rolling Stones. Styx, Nikcelback, Korn, the Doors, Elvis Presley – whatever. As long as it was rock, Arthur would listen to it. Whether he would like it or not was purely by chance, which is how a Japanese rock band and a German rock band became two Arthur's favorites. His second favorite song of all time changed constantly with what he listened to and liked.
The first place song could never be replaced, however. Arthur had decided that years ago when he had first heard it, at the ripe old age of eight. "Across the Universe" by the Beatles had to be hands-down the greatest song ever. It had even been shot through space for Pete's sake!
That song had inspired everything for Arthur. Thirteen years later, he was the most successful and well known rock star in the world. He sang for Dystopian Wreckage, a band he and his best frenemy Francis had created four years ago. Francis played lead guitar, Francis' soft spoken cousin Matthew played bass, Matthew's obstreperous friend Gilbert played drums, and Gilbert's pompous cousin Roderich played keyboard. Basically, Dystopian Wreckage was a wreck itself – offstage, of course; they valued their fans and did not want to lose them due to a few petty arguments. Practically none of the members agreed with each other all at once. But Arthur wouldn't have it any other way. He got to sing and that was enough.
Currently, Arthur was relaxing at home; a rarity as he was almost constantly on tour or in the studio recording. But there he was, sipping tea, reading a book. It was nearing eleven at night, not that Arthur noticed. He was in his own little world…
… until there was an unexpected sound from the foot of his bed. He looked up to two grey blobs with ginormous red eyes.
To say the least, Arthur screamed like a girl.
Almost as fast as light, one of the aliens scrambled forward and grabbed a hold on the human's arm. He tried to shake it off, but it held strong and, much to Arthur's astonishment, the alien hand transformed into a human one. Arthur inhaled to screech again, but the hand moved to cover his mouth and the alien's newly acquired human mouth opened and exclaimed, "Please not raise announcer you possess once more; it hurts my and companion receptors."
It was such a poorly put together sentence that Arthur had to cringe and pull away from the hand that belonged to the thing that constructed it.
"Us apologize," it continued, its grammar still obviously and horribly terrible. "Here want smooth receptor that moves like heat; us not bad, want smooth receptor."
After an awkwardly long silence, Arthur finally choked out, "What?" He stared at the humanoid alien in front of him and was quite surprised to see a collection of his band mates' faces. Matthew's golden blond locks, but at Roderich's length (it also had an annoying cowlick, but Arthur could tell it was distinctly all the alien's own). It had Francis's sparkling blue eyes, but its eyes were more of an eternally sky blue than an ocean blue. It was smirking with Gilbert's smirk, teeth shining like Francis's, its skin a shade darker than Matthew's, and its cheekbones as high as Roderich's. Its body was built like Gilbert and Matthew's – strong, yet lanky. Not to mention, it had acquired glasses like Matthew's, but they were perched on a nose a lot like Francis's. It held itself tall and proud – taller than Arthur, much to his displeasure, and perhaps a tad taller than Matthew and Gilbert, too – in such a way that it reminded Arthur of how Roderich stood. Like he owned the world or something.
Arthur was brought back down from his assessment of the thing when it said, "What. Question. Repeat. We apologize; we here for flowing sound pleasing to the ear; we are not bad, we want sound." Arthur was a bit happy to hear that it was slowly learning English properly.
How had it learned English anyway?
"Us have sound, yes," it continued. "Please let us have it."
It looked at Arthur quietly and he realized it wanted him to respond, but he had no idea what it was talking about. "I-eh, what sound, exactly? There are many sounds, so…" Why was he conversing with it so calmly? He should be running for his life!
The thing had the audacity to smile. "The sound that says 'Words are flowing out like rain into a paper cup-" the Brit's eyes furrowed; why did that sound familiar? "-They slither wildly as they slip away across the universe-"
"Ah!" the human interrupted. That's why it sounded familiar. The alien looked at him with interest; it had recognized that he knew what it was and that was one step closer to obtaining it. Instead of presenting it with the gift it yearned for, Arthur continued, but, unlike the alien who just spoke the words, he sang them. "Pools of sorrow, waves of joy are drifting through my open mind, possessing and caressing me, across the universe. Jai guru deva."
"Om," it finished, but it wasn't right. It was staccato and it was then that Arthur realized that it couldn't sing. It wanted to possess the gift of singing.
Oh, dear, would that be hard.
"You can call me Alfred," it continued. "If you like, 'course. Alfred is most like my actual name." It then said something in a language Arthur had never heard before, but he could see how it almost sounded like the name it gave. "And my friend can be called Tony."
The newly dubbed Tony looked up and downright glared and proclaimed, "Fucking no."
Alfred looked at Tony and proceeded to communicate in their alien tongue.
"Fucking bitch," Tony said before going quiet.
Alfred smiled at Arthur. "Tony," it said, pointing at its companion. "We get that sound now, right?"
Arthur regarded them before finally saying, "I'm afraid music is something learnt and either you're good at it, or you're not." The aliens had trouble comprehending that. "You cannot have the sound until you learn how to make it," he said slowly, cursing in his mind at his simple sentence. But it was needed and it was used effectively as Alfred and Tony understood.
Teaching was easier said than done, however. It turns out that Alfred and Tony's people liked the sound of music – the fact that it blew their enemies' heads off was an added bonus, really. Tony wasn't exceptionally good at singing, but Alfred actually had a nice voice. Playing instruments was another thing entirely. Tony picked up piano like nobody's business – he (for Arthur learned in their species they were both male) said it was like typing on a keyboard, or, at least, that was the translation Alfred provided. Speaking of Alfred, he was pretty terrible at every instrument except for the violin and even then, Arthur knew he would probably be most comfortable with a fiddle.
This process of learning music, where music came from, different genres, and so on, and et cetera continued until the aliens were satisfied.
When all of that finished, a bleary eyed Arthur tried to get ready for band practice as quickly as possible while Alfred and Tony called their ship to beam them up. "Can we take a guitar and a CD, too," Alfred asked. Arthur nodded, not really understanding the question – he was too tired to. "Thanks; we'll see you sometime, maybe." With that, the Brit watched as they instantly disappeared with the CD and guitar to who knows where.
Stifling a yawn, rock star Arthur Kirkland was late to practice for the first time ever by thirty-minutes with his lucky guitar missing.
A/N: I wrote this years ago and I'm only publishing it now. -_- Anywho, I'm attending AnimeExpo this year! I unfortunately was unable to attend last year, but to celebrate my return to the fun for the fourth unconsecutive time, I'll be publishing a fic a day (excluding yesterday, day 0). Yay!
Have a nice day! :)