Fuck.
There it was again.
A brrrr sound. But not. More bzzrrzz. No. It sounded more...more like a lawn mower in the middle of the fucking night.
"Fucking AMERICANS!" He hollered and jumped off the mattress. "What in the fuck!" he yelled again, seemingly to no one.
The blond's feet swung off the edge of the bed, toes curling a bit against the cold wooden floor, big toe brushing against a sheet of paper. He stood up, barely glancing down at the mess of papers and books on the ground.
He was through with this shit. Yes, studying abroad seemed like a fantastic idea, especially since he had friends in a little town in New Jersey, not only a half hour from his school with a bus to it available, but with a house he could live in during the time he was over and studying. The area was nice, there was lots of life, not the mechanical industry of New York. . .
But, apparently, they forgot to tell him the neighbors thought it a ritual to mow the lawn at...
He glanced at the digital clock on his bedside table.
10:13 pm.
Ten o' clock.
Arthur growled lightly at the clock, and when he got up, and walked over to the window to tear the blinds up with one swift pull of the string, it had stopped.
The noise stopped. Nothing, silence. There was no light, but a silent street, and in the distance the faint glow of a streetlight.
Nothing.
He stared into the darkness, until the outline of the house across came to him.
Nothing.
Was he imagining it- no. It had been there. His eyes had shot open seconds ago because some bastard thought it'd be perfectly fine to blare up a lawn mower this late. Earlier that day he'd gotten to sleep early, eyes bloodshot from staying up all day and working on an essay. An essay about American History.
He would snort at the thought, him, writing an essay on American history. Though he could say the same when he'd been writing one on the Basics of French Government a while back.
The blinds fell back down with a crack, and he waited for a second, as if the loud sound would start up again.
Nothing.
Bastards.
He sighed softly, and ran a hand through his hair. Fine, whatever. He was tired, he'd been working all day. He trailed back to his bed and flopped onto it, face falling right onto the pillow, not thinking much of the lawn mower anymore. Maybe if he had time he'd be able to go over there and hand over a lecture. A written complaint. He snorted again into the pillow. Lord, he hoped the other neighbours didn't have any shit to pull like this. Though that French guy next door was a pain in itself. Arthur had gotten into an argument with him, which ended with a few last sharp remarks, before both their doors slammed.
Time Check. 9:46pm. With a sigh, Arthur fell back onto his bed.
Another day of school, and it was a horrible bore. He spent another whole hour contemplating whether or not he should waste money on buying a plastic up of tea for $1.50, or just go home to make his own.
Then he spent the rest of the hour contemplating which tea to choose, and if he felt bitter enough to take Irish Breakfast, or enough mercy for himself to take the slightly less bitter English Breakfast.
He went for sweet torture, which he only did once in a while, and bought himself a Honeybush.
He even poured half a little bag of sugar into it.
He felt so badass that day, he didn't even stir the sugar in.
So he got home just as the Frenchman next door was doing something on the porch.
"Frog."
"Rosbif."
The door slammed shut and he dropped his things to the ground, slamming the door shut and groaning, since now he had to pick up his things again in order o carry them upstairs.
Either way, by 9:13 he was exhausted, having had worked on another essay. Or in other words, revising the one he'd started the day before.
Because apparently, college professors don't appreciate sarcasm in essays about their countries history.
At least, those professors that liked to wear plaid shirts, cowboy hats to class at times, and keep an American flag, the one with the 13 stars from the Revolution period, on their desk.
They especially didn't enjoy the bashing nor any mention of mistakes that the great George Washington had committed.
Whoops.
Arthur groaned and rolled over, face in his pillow. God, so much work. He wondered often why the hell he took such a class. But it would look nice on his resume, and somewhere deep, deep inside he appreciated it.
His eyes closed and there was a soft sigh and he tried to sleep, or at least drift off into that state, almost asleep, but not.
And he did, everything going back, blurring out, then fading as everything got farther and farther away...
Bzzzzrrrzt.
His eyes shot open and he shot up into a sitting position, eyes already positioned to glare at the window. He got up, throwing the covers to the side.
10:13. That bastard was precise.
And Arthur was more, as he was already yelling when he flung the window open. "YOU IDIOT IT'S TEN AT FUCKING NIGHT, WHAT IN THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?!"
The mowing kept going, and Arthur was almost tempted to pinpoint the person and throw something at them.
"OI!"
Bzzrt.
"SHUT THAT UP!"
Bzzzzz...
It suddenly went silent and Arthur would have grinned, but a scowl was still across his lips. "THANK THE LORD. JESUS CHRIST, LEARN TO DO YOUR CHORES DURING THE DAY." and with that he slammed the window shut, and shuffled back to the bed, flopping down.
Fuck yeah, three points for the Englishman. He lazily slammed his palm against the pillow in a high five to himself.
That should have scared his neighbor.
A lazy sign of relief floated out of his mouth as he closed his eyes to fall asleep again, before waking up the next morning to a blissful throbbing headache and the alarm clock blaring off in an order for him to go to school.
Bzzzzrrrttt.
No.
Arthur slowly, so slowly he later contemplated if he was trying to mimic the style they would repeat constantly in the movies, a slow-mo turn of the head, and then the camera would change to look at the object the actor's eyes fell on.
And in this situation it was the window, which his eyes seemed to bore through as the sound dared to come again.
Bzzzzrrrrttttttt.
Arthur stared at it for a second, before returning to the papers, and returning to chewing on the pencil in his mouth.
Fine, they'll stop soon. Crazy bastards, probably had some illness, or would use one of the American Amendments as an excuse of their behavior.
He glanced down at the bottom right corner of his screen. 10:11.
Fucking hell.
He focused back on the writing. Editing kept going until today, but he had to finish, absolutely had to.
George Washington, a figure known to bring a Brit to glare when mentioned. Considering, most of the entirety of the English Empire still has regrets about loosing to a man who's best skill was luck.
He stared at the paper, and finally snorted, and with a sigh and much regret, deleted everything back to George Washington.
George Washington,
The line that no one seems to know the name of, the one that would blink on the screen when one stopped writing in their program for a second seemed to taunt him for not knowing what to write.
Bzzrt.
He brought his fingers to the keyboard, and started to click away.
George Washington, an iconic figure of Americ
Bzzzrzrt.
American history, that probably
Bzzzzrt
probably
Bzzzrzzt.
didn't fucking mow his lawn in the middle of the fucking night, because he wasn't such an idiotic dumbass and thought of better ways to piss of Englishmen across the fucking street. Oh wait, there weren't fucking LAWN MOWERS DURING THAT FUCKING TIME!
Arthur stared at the screen, but he wasn't reading what he wrote. He waited, listening.
It was silent.
With a silent smirk to himself, as if he had been the one to stop that godawful noise with what he had written, he started to type again.
a
BZZZZZZRRRRRTTTTTT.
"NO!"
His laptop was almost flung to the other wall, tea almost spilled, and feet almost tripped on all the papers as he bounded to the window.
Bzzzzzrzrt!
It was there, it didn't stop. 10:14, nope, nope, not today. Three fucking days straight, this bloody bastard wasn't getting away now.
The Englishman grabbed a coat, but as he was nearing his bedroom door he seemed to realize he didn't need nor want it, and he flung it back onto his bed, before walking straight out the door, it slamming behind him.
Not today.
Something inside him boiled in excitement as the cold air hit him and the darkness fell upon him, the mowing louder than ever as he walked down his few steps. The entire street was dark, all but the light coming out from is open door and the weak streetlight a few feet away.
He got down the stairs, and could have taken his little walkway to the driveway, before getting across the street.
And he then did the unthinkable, and walked right across his own lawn.
It's getting real.
Bzzzrt. The streetlight down the street faintly lit it, but it barely touched the darkened lawn of the lawn mower person, who was still pushing that goddamned machine.
Bzzzrt.
The house across was normal, similar to the one Arthur was currently in, a typical small American home, a large tree in the middle of the front lawn, the driveway empty, but a car parked right in front of the lawn, blocking Arthur's view of the figure that was coaxing the machine to violently rip apart the lawn.
Oh the mower guy was fucked.
Arthur didn't say anything as he crossed the faintly lit street, walking right over all the cracks, hands balled into fists, and scowling. Finally, he had to walk around the car to get to the lawn, his foot literally stepping on some freshly mowed part of it. He spun on his heel in order to face where he thought the figure to be.
"You-" he didn't get to finish his sentence when there was a roar. The machine moved right up to him, the metal hitting the end of his slippers. Eyes wide, Arthur fell back when trying to step away from the machine, whole facade falling.
And once he fell, for a second he literally thought he was going to get mowed right over, and ripped up himself, like he would have if this was a movie.
But the roaring stopped with a "Holy shit!".
The lawn mower was slammed in some way, turned off and silence started to overcome the night again. "Holy shit, holy shit, are you okay!?"
Arthur's eyes were still wide as he stared at the machine, sitting up slightly on his ass, supported by his elbows. He was almost run over. Even if he wasn't ripped apart, the machine could have run over his feet enough to-
Oh Lord, he shook the thoughts out of his head and blinked to reality as a hand was outstretched to him, before a young man fell to his knees next to Arthur. Arthur's ears had blocked off all noise, and all at once it came back, vision returning as well.
"Are you okay?!" A hand went down on his knee, and the other on his shoulder. "Holy shit-"
"Y-You!" Arthur then realized what was happening, and he shook the strangers away, moving back a little bit and trying to sit up straighter. "What the fuck are you doing?!"
The man blinked, surprised. Arthur's eyes finally got enough adjusted so he could see the other. He wore glasses, right at the tip of his nose, and he was...blond, yes, the light couldn't trick the Englishman. His hair was parted, and right in the middle a little piece was sticking up, as if refusing to stay down. He looked...about twenty, young, maybe in college too. Pretty fit.
But he blinked in surprise, and Arthur recollected himself, narrowing his eyes and snapping. "Do you know what time it is!? Three days in a goddamned row, three days! At 10 pm! People here want to sleep and rest! What in the hell are you doing up this late! Can't do do this during the fucking day!?"
The American stared at him, before cracking a smile. "Sorry I just-"
"Don't sorry me! Every day, don't you bloody-"
"Listen man, are you okay?!" He leaned over Arthur a little bit, hand coming off Arthur's shoulder to reach out to him, almost as if offering a hand, whilst at the same time reaching out to check his forehead, make sure he was still alive or something. Arthur froze for a second, staring at him, and his heart skipped a beat awkwardly, why the fuck was he that close-
"Oi!" Arthur and the other man seemed to glance back over to across the street, where in the house next to Arthur's, a window opened on the second floor. The light shining through it lit an outline around the long haired Frenchman standing there, a hand up on the window that he just opened, the other on the windowsill. "Get a room! Sacre bleu, these horny kids these days." the mutter following wasn't a yell like the first sentence, but Arthur managed to hear it, and he went red all the way up to the tips of his ears. The man seemed to blush himself and move back immediately as the Frenchman's window slammed shut, and the light followed suit.
Silence.
"..E-Er so, um, are you oka-"
"I'M FINE, DON'T INTERRUPT ME! EVERY DAY! I WANT YOU TO STOP! I HAVE ENOUGH SHIT ON MY BACK, AND YOUR BLOODY LAWN MOWER WILL HAUNT ME IN MY DREAMS SOON!" Arthur was blushing and breathing heavily as he moved a bit away from the stranger.
"A-Alright!" he raised his hands up, as if in defense. "I'll stop, I promise, I promise! Just, shit man, you sure I didn't hit you real bad or anything?"
"No!" Arthur snapped and started to stand. "And I'm calling the police the next time you put that thing on this late!"
The man stared at him, before getting up slowly himself. "Listen, I am really sorry. It's not me-"
Arthur scoffed.
"...I sleepwalk.'' Arthur froze a little bit, staring at him in surprise, the stranger rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. "Y-Yeah, er, well I used to as a kid, and it came back now for some reason. Either way, apparently I like to mow my lawn in my sleep...Listen, I am really really sorry. Can i make it up to you? Coffee or something, I can make it for you inside?"
"...Coffee is a horribly-"
"Ah. Tea person, huh?"
"..."
"I have tea. I'll make you tea. And give ya some tea cookies or something, come on. Please, I really feel like shit, I didn't mean to bother you this bad. Let me make it up."
Being the idiot and almost broke college student he is, Arthur stared at him for the longest time. There was a little pang of guilt, since it technically hadn't been the other's fault for the constant noise. Technically. "...Fine."
The American grinned brightly, and held out his hand. "Awesome! I'm Alfred by the way, Alfred F. Jones."
Arthur brought on the stoic expression again, and connected his hands with Alfred's in a handshake. "...Arthur. Kirkland."
Alfred bowed his hand. "Good to meet you, Arthur, like this." he chuckled lightly.
"...I wouldn't be too honest if I were to say the same."
Alfred laughed brightly, and invited Arthur in as he brought the mower back to it's original spot in the garage, before going back in to make Arthur some tea and give him some kind of food before pulling up a conversion that lasted all the way till midnight.
The next night Arthur flopped down onto his bed with a loud groan, glancing at the clock.
10:12 PM
He sighed again, but smiled the slightest bit. Sweet silence. And Alfred wasn't too much of a bad guy, had his interests. Was actually in college too, and his brother was out of the country for another week before returning to their shared-for-college home.
He closed his eyes and rolled over, pulling the covers up to the tips of his shoulders. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad here-
Bzzrzt.
"ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME ALFRED?!"