With You

Chapter 1: We

Alfred stood outside his best friend's home waiting to be let in. He tapped his purple Converse clad foot on the porch impatiently until the door finally opened.

"Finally, thought yall died in there," Alfred said as he looked at the short wiry frame of Natalia.

"We have to get ready for school too," she said flatly as Alfred moved around her to get into the house.

"So true," he replied then headed for the stairs.

"He's still asleep!" Natalia shouted after him, to which Alfred just gave a "I know!" in return.

Once on the second floor of the home, he walked down the left side of the hallway to get to his friend's room. He opened the cream colored door to find a clean room and the smell of the summer air pouring in from an open window. He grazed his eyes over the desk, TV, bookcases, and closet, before settling on the bed.

"Ivan, get yer ass up!" he shouted into the room, but the teen in the bed didn't so much as flinch.

Alfred smacked his lips and went over to the bed to see ash blond hair stick up from under the covers. He pulled back the bedding to see an earbud in place and gave a knowing hum before pulling it out. He carefully managed to get the other one that was pinned between Ivan's head and the pillow then set them on the nightstand. He then took off his backpack and stretched his back before spreading his arms out and falling over onto Ivan. Alfred put all his weight into it and the moment he collapsed on Ivan the teen awoke startled and in pain.

"Well good morning sleeping beauty!" Alfred said happily as Ivan looked down at him.

"Chto delayesh'?" he asked after a moment of staring at Alfred.

"You're lucky I know what that means," Alfred huffed having wrangled Russian lessons from Ivan in the past and somewhat retaining all of it. "And what I'm doing is waking your ass up! Senior Skip Day is tomorrow, not today!" Alfred demanded and began to bounce and wiggle on top of Ivan.

Ivan groaned in exhaustion and laid still as Alfred moved about, not wanting to fight the other just yet. He didn't realize he had even closed his eyes until he felt Alfred's fingers pry them open.

"If you don't get up I'll never let you borrow my video games again."

"Oh, how horrible," Ivan said sarcastically and Alfred just rolled his eyes and slapped Ivan's face before climbing off of him.

"You say that now, but I know you get your ass beat in Mario Kart by your older sister."

Ivan glared at Alfred for that comment, and flipped him off for good measure before getting up.

"Aw, I love you too."

Ivan rolled his eyes then got out of bed and took note of the time.

"Alfred, it's 7 a.m. School starts at 9!"

"It's not a late day," Alfred corrected and took out his phone to show Ivan the date.

The instant his violet eyes saw it he quickly started to move, cursing the whole time he scrambled to get ready. Alfred just laughed at his expense and sat down on his bed.

"You really thought it was Wednesday! That's fuckin' priceless!"

"Shut up and get my shoes!" Ivan shouted as he stripped out of his clothes with no shame in front of Alfred.

Alfred just kept laughing as he did as he was told and grabbed a set of grey converse. The moment he showed them to Ivan the other was already shoving his pants on. Alfred looked at the clock to see it reading 7:15 then looked back at Ivan just as he snatched the shoes from Alfred.

Once Ivan was dressed he grabbed his backpack and booked it out of the room with Alfred trailing behind him. The moment they got downstairs Alfred spotted Ivan's older sister standing next to the open front door.

"I take it you need a ride this time?" she asked as she looked at the two.

"Yeah," Alfred said with a smile. "This fool went to sleep with his headphones in again."

Katyusha shook her head at her brother who popped out from the kitchen with two packages of pop tarts.

"Come on, I got to get back to campus after dropping you guys off. Natalia already went with Dad since she had to be there early."

Both of the teens nodded and rushed to the car to eat their pop tarts on the way. When Katyusha dropped them off they had ten minutes to spare and ran through the high school to get to their lockers then to class. The instant they stepped through the doorway of their first period the bell rang, but lucky for them the teacher wasn't present to give them a lecture on punctuality. They managed to slip into their seats just as the teacher walked in and believed to be scot free until attendance was taken.

"Ivan and Alfred. Don't think for a minute that I didn't see you two bolt in here," Mrs. Wu said as she looked at the two pointedly, "but I will overlook it this once since the year is almost over."

Alfred and Ivan shared a look then nodded their heads in thanks. After that Mrs. Wu went on with class and Ivan and Alfred did their best to focus in case Mrs. Wu changed her mind.

The school day for them was as average as always—Class after class, getting lectures on proper studying for finals and how they can't fuck up since they're seniors, how SATs and other test need to be scheduled in for the summer before applying to colleges, goofing off in most of those classes and in passing periods, though when lunch came around it was always a bit different each day.

Their table rested against the back wall of glass that looked out into the courtyard where other kids sat outside to eat. Alfred and Ivan had just left their science classes and headed for their table with their food in hand.

"I still can't believe that Mr. Keita set a 50 on fire," Alfred brought up as they walked.

"What was he trying to do with that anyways?" Ivan asked.

"I don't know, but the look on his face was priceless! I should have recorded it for you!" Alfred declared as they reached their already packed table.

Ivan just shrugged his shoulders as he sat down with his tray, which instantly alerted the others at the table.

"Sup you guys," Eliza said as she leaned over to steal some of Roderich's fries. "Together as always, I see."

"Don't you know it," Alfred said in a joking tone and wrapped his arms around Ivan. "We're gonna get married someday."

Ivan rolled his eyes, but a part of him felt oddly happy about the joke.

"You guys would have some ugly babies," Gilbert said as he looked over their friend Kiku's shoulder. The shorter teen was playing a game on his 3DS and he wanted to see how it was going.

"What?! Our kids would look great! My jaw line, his hair, a combination of our eye color— They could be models for Gerber!"

Gilbert cracked a laugh at hearing this and Alfred just tried to act mad, but gave in. They ended up cackling and Ivan just shook his head and went about eating.

"What's this, Ivan has no faith in your kids?" Matthew asked wanting to get in on the conversation.

Ivan looked up at Alfred's twin then set down his sandwich.

"I do, but they could do better than be Gerber models."

"Oh, Gerber's too lame for them, huh?" Alfred inquired then tried to think of other baby companies that their kids would be worthy of.

"As much as I'd love to sit here and talk about your nonexistent kids, we got Skip Day plans to make!" Eliza stated.

"You do know that Senior Skip Day isn't excused here. So we will be counted absent," Roderich informed.

"That's true, but that won't stop us," Gilbert pointed out.

"Do you have anything in mind?" Kiku asked without looking up from his game.

"The beach!"

Everyone looked at Gilbert blankly for a moment then started to nod their heads as they could see the idea working out.

"Yeah, but that's an hour drive from here," Matthew said.

"And only one of us has a car," Gilbert said then looked pointedly at Kiku, who didn't say anything in return.

"True, but Ivan's older sister has a car, and she'll totally take the rest of us if we let her come along!" Alfred said. "Plus if she doesn't, which I doubt, me and Mattie got our licenses so we can probably get the car from our Dad."

Everyone gave a hum to this but Mattie gave a skeptical look.

"Al, you know it's gonna take a lot of begging to get that car after you nearly wrecked the last time."

Alfred shook his finger at his brother while making a tut noise. He remembered that incident differently and thought his Dad and Papa had overreacted.

"Nearly, dear brother, doesn't mean I did, so we're in the clear."

Matthew rolled his eyes but let it go.

"Alright then it's settled right?" Gilbert asked.

"Right, Ivan?" Alfred asked as he looked pointedly at the quiet teen.

"Da."

"That's a yes!" Alfred shouted then tackled Ivan in a hug and shook him.

Ivan just waited out the hyper teen's actions, and once he was freed, continued to eat. The rest of lunch was spent talking about their beach plans and how Alfred was going to get revenge on the seagulls that stole his food on his last visit.

After lunch the remaining four classes went by in a flash and school was out for the day. Ivan met up with Alfred at his locker before they headed out. Alfred waved goodbye to his brother who was staying after with Roderich for band as they left. Once out on the sidewalk towards home Alfred let out a sigh and leaned into Ivan.

"School is almost over, dude. Can you believe it?"

Ivan looked down at the blonde head on his arm then back to the sidewalk.

"Yes, and I'll be thankful for it."

"What?!" Alfred asked as he pushed off of Ivan to look at him. "Dude, things are gonna change! We're going to graduate, then go to college, and then become adults! You're gonna get fat and I'm gonna go bald and it's gonna be horrible!"

"Why am I the one to get fat?" Ivan asked, arching a brow and looking at Alfred, who appeared to be drowning in despair. "You eat more than me in a day."

"Hey! Them's fightin' words!"

Ivan let out a laugh at that and shook his head.

"It'll be fine, Fredya. We're going to the same college, we'll always be friends, and we'll stay in touch with the others, too."

Alfred gave a hum to this and nodded his head.

"That is true, though you're going to be in different classes than me. You'll be dying in engineering and I'll be living it up in programing."

"It's architecture mostly, besides, there are general classes we'll have to take."

"Oh yeeeeaaahhhh…. And we'll be sharing a dorm," Alfred added in.

"Yup."

A beat of silence passed over them as they walked.

"So, you think our kids would be better than Gerber huh?"

Ivan let out a laugh to that and Alfred tried his damndest to carrying on their conversation from lunch. Ivan eventually steered the topic to their Senior Skip Day as they got near their homes. Alfred easily took to it and rambled on about what he wanted to do, which included burying Ivan in the sand, again.

"Nyet, the last time you did that I almost died."

"Oh come on! How was I supposed to know that it was low tide when I buried you!?"

Ivan still disagreed and Alfred only pouted as they got up to Ivan's house first.

"Oh, I'm gonna be spending the night with you by the way," Alfred said as Ivan opened his door. "It'll make it easier for us tomorrow."

"When was that decided?"

"Just now." Alfred said with a brilliant smile on his face.

"You are a cancer," Ivan said with a smile of his own.

"Yeah, but I'm your cancer," Alfred retorted with a wink. "I'll be over later after I pack some stuff!"

With that Alfred took off down the street, and crossed over to get to his home on the corner. Ivan just sighed as Alfred left and went into the house to be greeted by his Dad.

"Hello Father," he said simply upon seeing Aleksis sitting in the front room watching TV.

The man had full white hair and a low cut beard, he was tall and intimidating.

"Ivan," he said. "I take it Alfred is spending the night."

Ivan nodded his head and Aleksis just let out breathy laugh.

"That kid should just move in as much as he's over here," Aleksis commented.

Ivan felt his stomach flutter at the idea of Alfred living with him and tried to calm it.

"It would be pointless now since we'll be going to college soon," Ivan replied.

Aleksis gave a hum to that then let out a loud "Oh!" and leaned forward to grab something off the coffee table.

"This letter came from NU today," he said as he handed it over the arm couch to Ivan.

The teen walked over to take it and stared at the logo of his and Alfred's college.

"Are you going to open it, or wait until Alfred gets back?" Aleksis asked knowingly.

Ivan felt his face heat up at hearing this and as much as he'd like to go ahead and open it, he knew Alfred would like to be there for when he did.

"I'll wait."

Aleksis smiled at Ivan in a way that made him feel embarrassed.

"I'm gonna go now…"

Aleksis laughed lightly and shooed his son off, but before he got too far he said:

"I'll be going in early tomorrow so in case I don't see you, don't do anything stupid."

Ivan nodded as heeded Aleksis's words then headed up to his room quickly. He shut the door to his room, took off his backpack, and then collapsed into his bed. He sighed into the material then rolled over to look up at his ceiling. He found himself thinking about Alfred and how things really would change, even if they stayed together as friends.

'We'd be ourselves wouldn't we? Just older… Eventually Alfred will get married and I…' Ivan trailed off as he became unsure if he would ever get married. He could only see himself with Alfred, be by his side no matter what. A life without the blonde would be…

"Unbearable?"

Ivan felt something in his heart flutter and twist in a way that made him feel nervous. He didn't understand it, and frankly he didn't want to. He just wanted to clear his mind and enjoy the silence before Alfred came over.

Translations:

Chto delayesh'? – What are you doing?