AN: Well, a couple of reviewers asked me to continue and how could I possibly refuse? I hope you enjoy reading this, my lovelies!
This fic is AU and uses human names.
Safe and Sound - Part II
Kiku had arrived at Alfred's flat to find his close friend stressing himself out endlessly about some guy who had collapsed in his hallway. Kiku wasn't quite sure on the exact details, because when Alfred spoke too fast he had a very hard time comprehending what he was saying even on good days, and on this particular occasion the usually boisterous American was chatting away at a mile a minute. In the end he picked up on the general gist of the situation; namely, that the 'guy' was some homeless man Alfred had picked up and that his name was Arthur and also that he was, to quote Alfred, 'a totally awesome Brit dude who totally isn't very well so please fix him?'
Alfred was the sort of person who'd pick up cats and dogs off the streets and then hide them in his room until they were better as a child, so this didn't actually surprise the reserved Japanese man very much. With barely a minute to pause for breath, he was ushered into Alfred's own bedroom and presented with his patient.
It was clear immediately that this Arthur wasn't in very good health, and to be honest Kiku would have rather the young man had been taken to a hospital instead. Unfortunately, this wasn't really financially viable, so instead he put his training to use instead. Examining the Brit, it was apparent that he'd been living rough for at least a few weeks; he was severely underweight and clearly malnourished. Alfred had dressed him in a thin cotton t-shirt, which he removed whilst checking him over, and his ribs and hip bones were distinctly protruding, a sign that he had very little body fat. He was also pale, more so than one would be if they were healthy, even if they were naturally fair-skinned.
The soles of his feet and his hands were dirty and from the smell of it he hadn't showered or bathed in some time. Kiku overlooked this for now. It was something that could be sorted easily enough once the young man could move of his own accord.
His face was flushed and he was slightly sweaty, and Kiku could hear a rattling whenever he inhaled or exhaled. The fever, his rapid heartbeat and his general state were symptoms of pneumonia. Kiku realised just how lucky it was that Alfred had dragged the poor man into his life when he had, because otherwise he doubted that he would have survived long without treatment. Not in his physical state, and not on the streets at this time of the year.
Fortunately, despite how bad the young Brit looked, Kiku was sure that he'd be able to recover without hospitalisation. He looked towards his friend, hovering anxiously on the other side of the bed, eyebrows furrowed in concern.
"He's in a fairly bad way, but not so dangerous yet that he can't stay here, Alfred. He just needs bed rest and plenty of fluids. I'll go by the hospital and see if I can get some antibiotics to try and clear up the infection in his lungs. Can you manage all right when I'm gone?"
"Sure, of course I can." Kiku was relieved to see that the harried and stressed look that had been on his face previously had been replaced with a somewhat relieved smile. Not one to hang around, Kiku bid Alfred farewell and left. The American followed him to the front door and thanked him with a back-breaking hug, before heading back to the frail man in his bedroom.
Arthur slept through the rest of the day and night. This worried Alfred slightly because Kiku had told him to make sure he drank plenty of fluids, which was fairly hard to enforce when he wasn't awake to drink, but he finally began to stir early the next morning. Alfred waited by the bed with a glass of water and some pills that Kiku had dropped by later the night before. He was a bit stiff from sleeping on the sofa, but he was a morning person and once he'd had his cup of coffee he was pretty content regardless. He was anxious for Arthur to wake up so that he could start recovering, but held back from waking him up. He didn't want to scare or upset him any more than he'd already be.
Arthur felt himself being dragged into consciousness. He felt absolutely rotten; his chest was heavier than ever, and all his muscles and bones had a deep ache residing in them. It was still fairly hard for him to breathe too, and he found himself taking painful short breaths to try and compensate for his lungs' inability to draw complete breaths. He realised that, for the first time in months, he was waking up somewhere warm and comfortable. Faintly, he could recall the boy and what had happened in the park. Panicking slightly, he forced himself awake at a less sedate pace; he needed to know where he was and what was happening. The boy hadn't seemed like too much of a creeper, but he'd already broken the key rule that every child is taught from the ridiculously young age; don't go home with strangers.
The first thing he noticed upon opening his eyes was that he was clutching tightly onto the plush unicorn that he could have sworn he'd tucked away safely in his backpack. Without even thinking, he drew it tightly into his chest, like he'd done so many times as a young child.
The second thing he noticed was the handsome American - whose name he'd never been told, he recalled as his memory caught up with him - standing next to the bed he was lying in with a glass of water in one hand and a packet of pills in the other. He was smiling, although Arthur noted that he looked a bit tired. Glancing around the room, he realised from the décor and contents that it must have been his, and felt a shred of guilt for kicking the young man out of his own bed.
"You okay?" Arthur went to reply, but found that he couldn't force any words out of his throat. The man noticed the distressed look. "Here, drink this." Arthur reached forward clumsily and wriggled himself upright, much to the protest of his body. A large gulp of the cool water helped ease the fire in his throat. He tried again.
"Where am I?"
"You're at my flat." He paused, face scanning the sickly man before him. "You do remember what happened yesterday, right?"
"We were on the bench…"
"Yeah. I brought you back 'cause you didn't look so good, remember? I'm Alfred, by the way." Arthur held his hand out without even thinking. The American, Alfred as he'd just been informed, grinned and shook it. "Nice to meetcha, Arthur Kirkland!" He saw the frown. "Sorry, I nosed through your backpack and found your passport. Needed to know who you were. I gave you your unicorn, too."
"He's called Reginald." There was a suffocating pause, before Alfred burst into peals of laughter. Arthur scowled and pulled the unicorn in close again. After a minute or so the laughter died down, but Alfred still wore a massive grin. The awkwardness from before had been well and truly broken.
"Sorry… that's an interesting name for a unicorn." Arthur pouted, but didn't say anything else. He didn't really have to, because Alfred seemed fairly good at carrying the conversation on by himself.
"You hungry?" Arthur didn't have to reply, as a grumbling stomach did that for him. Alfred chuckled. "Want anything in particular?" Arthur shrugged.
"Something edible? After the last few months I'm not really very picky." His voice still felt a bit hoarse, but it was louder than it had been in weeks.
"That's fair enough, I guess," he laughed again. Arthur gave a half-hearted scowl, but felt his own lips quirk upwards slightly. "I don't actually have much food in the house. You okay for McDonald's?"
"You gave me that crap that day you pushed me in the streets and I know for a fact you had some yesterday. Do you ever eat anything else?"
"... sometimes?"
"You're a walking heart attack... but sure, I'll have some. I'll have anything. I'm famished." Another pause, once again quickly broken by Alfred. He didn't seem to like the silence.
"Yeah, Kiku sa-"
"-Kiku?"
"Oh yeah! He's my cool Japanese friend. He works in a hospital so I got him to check you over last night. He was the one who gave me the pills for your pneumonia."
"Oh, okay… wait, pneumonia?"
"Yeah. Anyways, Kiku said you have to rest a lot and drink a lot and that we really need to fatten you up."
"Can you 'fatten me up' without clogging my arteries full of crap at the same time?" Alfred let out a booming laugh.
"I can try!" And at that he left the room. A couple of minutes later Arthur heard the front door swing shut and the flat was silent. He absently wondered how long it would take for the American to come back with food. It seemed like there were fast food restaurants on every corner, so he didn't think it should be very long. With nothing else to do, he lay propped up against the pillows and thought about the circumstances he'd found himself in.
Arthur found himself irresistibly drawn the Alfred, against his better judgement. Everything about the last half a year made him want to hate America and anything associated with it, yet he just couldn't bring himself to feel anything other than bubbling adoration for the younger man. It was an uncomfortable sensation in his chest, and he was sure that it had nothing to do with the pneumonia that Alfred said he was suffering from. It was a lot more pleasant and made his heart flutter and his chest feel warm.
Arthur hadn't realised that he'd dozed off to sleep until Alfred gently shook him awake. The smell of fast food permeated the room, and he saw that Alfred had placed some on a tray for him. Forgoing all dignity and pride, he launched into the meal. It felt like cardboard on his tongue and dripped in worrying ways, but it was the most amazing thing he'd tasted in months.
Once he had somewhat satiated his hunger, he decided to get to know his saviour a bit better.
"So what do you do, Alfred?"
"Huh?" The American paused halfway through biting a chunk out of his hamburger. He'd dragged a kitchen chair into the room and was slouched on it to the one side of the bed.
"I said, what do you do? Are you in school? Do you work? I don't even know how old you are."
"Oh. Well I'm 17 and I'm at college studying physics."
"17?" Arthur asked, in surprise. "That's a bit young for university, isn't it?"
"Dude, I'm totally a genius!" Arthur deadpanned. "Well, not like Einstein or anything, but I did really well in high school so I graduated a little earlier than most people my age. I didn't even stop to think about what I wanted to do, cause I always knew. So I applied and got into the university near here. I was born in Texas, so it was a bit of a way to go! But I love it here." He grinned. "What about you?"
Arthur looked away, suddenly feeling self conscious and ashamed. Alfred was young and smart and had managed to do everything Arthur had failed at. He'd probably think he was absolutely pathetic.
"I don't want to talk about it." He looked down at his food and pretended to focus intently on eating it. Alfred wasn't fooled.
"Well tough, 'cause I'm gonna get it outta you one way or another." He reached out a held Arthur's wrist. Skinny as he was, it was absolutely dwarfed in the American's hand. Arthur scowled and sighed, but relented. For some reason he didn't feel like fighting against the younger boy. It just seemed implicitly wrong to even try.
"Fine. I had a falling out with my family back in England and they disowned me. They shipped me off here to do a course that I didn't want to do and I ended up dropping out. I had nowhere to go and no friends so I ended up homeless. Then you found me. End of story." He bit a massive chunk out of his own burger so he wouldn't be forced to say anything else, but Alfred didn't press for any more information and instead gave him a look and went back to eating his own food. The silence was more comfortable than Arthur thought silence ever had a right to be.
Both of them were in deep thought as they finished their meal.
Alfred felt bad for the smaller man. When he'd been accepted to the university of his choice he and his parents had been ecstatic. As a well off family, they'd found a flat local to his college and paid the rent for him each month so that he didn't have to worry about anything other than studying. He did actually have a part-time job to supplement his income, but his parents footed the rest of the bill for pretty much everything. Not to mention that he took for granted the fact that if ever he had trouble with university life, his family was always there to support him. Arthur must have felt absolutely out of his depth when his own family had disowned him and left him to fend for himself.
Not to mention the culture shock he must have suffered. Alfred knew from friends and the internet that, although they shared a language, England and America had drastically different cultures. It must have been incredibly difficult to accept not only that he no longer had a family, but that he was alone in a foreign country without anyone to help him. Hell, if it had been the opposite and Alfred had found himself in that situation in England, he couldn't say that he wouldn't have ended up in exactly the same position.
But that was okay, because Alfred F Jones never abandoned a friend, and Arthur was sure as hell one of his now.
~SR~
Weeks passed and Arthur settled in with relative ease. Alfred had threatened to tie him down with rope if he so much as thought about getting up to do anything other than use the toilet, so he spent most of the time sleeping and then eating whenever Alfred barged in with a platter of whatever American food he decided Arthur desperately needed to sample. Whilst still on the small side, Arthur started putting on weight and the infection in his lungs started to clear up.
Christmas had been a quiet affair. Alfred told Arthur that he normally took a flight back to Texas to spend it with his family, but on this particular year his folks had been helping his brother settle into a college up north and instead the pair of them spent the day in Alfred's room, chatting and watching television. Alfred had even made a passable roast dinner, to Arthur's amazement. He hadn't thought his capable of doing anything other than buying takeout. Arthur had still been confined to his bed, so he'd lay down quietly whilst Alfred was in the kitchen and had read one of the handful of books he'd been supplied with to pass the time.
He couldn't quite bring himself to say it out loud, but as quiet and low key as it was, it was probably the best Christmas Arthur had celebrated in a long time. The last few years had been loud and full of argumentative siblings. Because he was the smallest and youngest, he'd usually got the brunt of it, and his parents had never cared enough to put their foot down on the rough behaviour. Alfred, on the other hand, was always smiling and always happy to see and talk to him. It was a wonderful feeling.
It was a sunny but chilly day in February that found the pair of them sitting around the table in Alfred's kitchen. Alfred had deemed Arthur well enough a few days previous to finally get out and about, so there had been an excursion to buy some properly fitting clothes and a couple of trips out for food. For most of the part, Arthur was happy to stay in the warm confines of the flat. Now the pair of them sat, relaxed, with cups of hot chocolate in a comfortable silence. Alfred, as usual, was the one to break it.
"So what ya gonna do now?" Arthur looked up, a marshmallow in his mouth. He swallowed.
"What do you mean?"
"Well, since you're staying here - no arguments, Artie." He cut off the Brit before he could protest. "What next?"
"Artie?" He spluttered, accidentally spitting out some of his drink in his irritation. "It's Arthur, you tosser!" He took a deep breath, eyebrow twitching (Alfred just chuckled at the outburst) and calmed himself. "I'm not sure. I have to do something. I can't keep freeloading off your hospitality." Alfred hmmed, but didn't say anything. He honestly didn't mind the smaller man hanging around; he was fun to talk to and he felt the stirrings of a deeper affection towards him than he was willing to admit right now. But even he could see that Arthur wasn't the sort of person who liked to feel reliant on other people.
"A job?" He suggested. "Wait! How about you go back to uni?" Arthur shook his head violently.
"I couldn't do that. Not after failing the first time around… not to mention that I have no funds whatsoever."
"Hear me out - no," he held his hand up before Arthur could interrupt, "get a job, save some stuff up and then go back and do what you want to do, not what your parents lay out for you. If you got a scholarship the first time around you're clearly smart enough."
"Do you really think so?"
"Absolutely!" Alfred was gifted with one of Arthur's small smiles. The butterflies in his chest kicked up a storm. "What do ya think?"
"Hmm." He took another sip. Then gave an incredibly rare big smile. "Sounds like a plan."
Alfred could only grin in response.
AN: Fanfiction's spell-check is pretty sucky. 'Hoarse' is a word, thank you very much! And the English spelling of 'hospitalisation' is quite alright, too.
Thank you so much to 'mapleandmintbunnyz', 'alchemisthetaliapirates' and the guest reviewer for reviewing the last chapter. It always make me incredibly happy to get feedback! And if you enjoyed this chapter, please do review too! :)
