Arthur woke up to the smell of blueberry pancakes. It shouldn't have alerted him, but something seemed off about the smell. They smelled delicious, of course, but also sort of… different?
"Good morning, sunshine. It seems your mother is making your favourite pancakes for breakfast."
Ah, mystery revealed. They weren't Francis' pancakes. The Brit turned around to face his husband, who was laying next to him on the much too small bed.
It felt slightly weird to sleep in his sisters bed with Francis, but as it was the only free room (Erin, the lucky bastard, was currently on a business trip in America) he didn't complain. The boys were put in his old room, after it was equipped with an extra mattress, which Alfred heroically took, letting Matthew sleep on the bed. They were both pretty excited about sleeping in "dad's old room", which Arthur found strangely flattering.
"Hey, you. How long have you been creepily watching me sleep?" he heard a familiar chuckle in response and opened his eyes to see Francis leaning on his elbow, smiling at him. "Some time." Arthur smiled as well while trying to rub some sleep off his face. "What time is it?"
"Ten."
His eyes instantly snapped open.
"Ten!? Did Alfred and Matthew die in their sleep? They always come to our bed around seven and torment us until we get up!"
"I assume their grandma found them something to do. Although I did not check, so it is entirely possible that they are dead."
"Well, in that case their bodies are going to have to wait until I've taken a shower. Do you need the bathroom?"
"Non, I'm just going to get dressed and go downstairs, maybe help your mum."
"Very well. If you see our children, check their pulses."
"I will keep that in mind." Francis gave him a quick kiss and disappeared inside the mountain of clothes he had decided to bring with him. Arthur just shook his head at that, grabbed the first thing he found in the suitcase, and went to the bathroom.
After a very relaxing and very undisturbed shower, Arthur Kirkland was walking down the stairs, wondering if his brothers were even in the house. Being awake for this long and not noticing any trace of their existence was highly unusual.
When he made it to the kitchen, he couldn't help but smile. There was a plate of steaming blueberry pancakes on the table and Francis was making french toast, wearing his mothers pink frilly apron while she was sat at the table laughing, presumably at a joke he had barely missed.
"Hello there, wife" he walked up to Francis and kissed the nape of his neck, making him shiver slightly. "Hi, mum. What's so funny?" he finally sat next to her.
"I was just telling Rose the story of how Alfred and Matthew decided to make us cards for both Father's and Mother's Day, because they couldn't decide which was more appropriate."
"Oh, about that - did you find out what horrible disease took their lives?"
"Weed."
Arthur raised his eyebrows. "Excuse me?"
"They are de-weeding the garden. Arthur, eat your pancakes s'il vous plaît, the toast are almost ready, and there is nothing worse than cold french toast."
At that moment a loud swear could be heard at the door and an orange-haired short man walked into the kitchen and loudly sat down.
"For Christs sake, Arthur, I thought you moved out already!"
Arthur gave him a long look, obviously not amused. "Good morning, Connor. Yes, actually, I did. This is just called a family holiday. You might not be familiar with the concept, because it actually requires people to spend quality time together without being twits towards each other."
"Oi, I'm all about quality time! Remember how I used to drive you to school when I got a license?"
"Yes, and stick post-it notes that said "gobdaw" on my back! Did you know it actually took me a full month to realise?"
"Yeah, I was hoping it would…. How long did it take your mates to figure out what it meant?"
The Brit frowned. "They didn't. They just started calling me that, because they claimed it sounded fun." He shoved a pancake into his mouth a little more violently than necessary. "Anyway, I assume that the reason you didn't grace us with your presence yesterday was because you were drinking? Presumably with Andrew?"
"Good guess,Artie, who knew you could be so sharp? I guess Drew is still asleep, though."
The almost-but -clearly-not-pleasant conversation was suddenly interrupted by Francis putting a plate in the middle of the table. "Bon appétit! I made some extra for you as well, Connor."
"Oh, hello, Franny! You're actually still with that wanker?"
"Astonishingly, yes. We're married, we have two kids, and we just bought a house in Brighton. I think you can stop asking me that every time you see me, It's pretty safe to assume neither of us is planning any changes as to our relationship status." Francis was smiling, but it was obvious he was slightly annoyed at his brother-in-law. He knew perfectly well those remarks were ridiculous, and he didn't care much about them himself. What worried him was that Arthur might take them to heart. He knew his husband wasn't overly fond of showing emotions, but for the same reason he often took things personally, and rarely let anyone know he did. Francis sighed and put a hand on Arthur's shoulder. "I'm going to go see how the boys are doing, lapin. Come find me in the garden when you're done, okay?"
He was vaguely aware of Connor rolling his eyes at the pet name he used, but he was already halfway out the door, so he decided to let it slide.
Alfred and Matthew were taking a lemonade break from the de-weeding, and were currently sat on a blanket they brought with them, each with a glass and a cookie in hand.
"Y'know what, Matt? De-weeding a garden is kind of a heroic work, too. Because we're, like, saving the lives of the flowers." Matthew didn't look convinced.
"Yeah, but aren't we killing the weeds? Why are the flowers better than the weeds?"
Alfred furrowed his eyebrows, obviously thinking. "I dunno. But if grandma told us to get rid of them, then they have to be worse. Maybe they're like the bad guys in my comic books?"
"I'm not sure, Alfred. Let's just finish this, and maybe then dad or papa will play with us, okay?"
"Yeah, good idea."
At that moment they saw a tall, mysterious figure emerge from the house, mutter something inaudible and light a cigarette. Matthew looked at Alfred, obviously scared. "Do you think it's that other uncle?" he whispered. "I don't know." Alfred whispered back and then stood up; wether to show his brother he wasn't scared, or to actually talk to the man - he wasn't sure. Unfortunately, it turned out he didn't really get the chance to do any of those things, because the second he started getting up, the man noticed him and sort of shout-muttered, making him cower back again.
"Oi, you two! What do you think you're doing here?"
"Um… De-weeding..?" Matthew answered hesitantly.
"What!? Did mom send you here?"
"Grandma did" Alfred tried to sound as sure of himself as we possibly could, but he wasn't sure how well it went.
The man looked confused for a while, but suddenly he seemed to have understood the situation.
"Mmm, you're Arthur's kid's, aren't ya?" he took a drag of his cigarette. "Ya don't look like him at all."
None of them said anything for a long while after that. Finally Matthew couldn't hold back any longer.
"Dad and papa say it's very bad to smoke. And that we should never ever smoke anything. Ever."
The weird man chuckled at that. "Well, I don't know about the other one, but Artie's definitely being a hypocrite with this one."
"What's a hippo-crypt?" Alfred asked curiously, now less scared of the man, as he apparently didn't want to kill either of them. The smoking man smiled at him a little weirdly and said "Ask your dad. Ask him what a hypocrite is, and what it has to do with him forbidding you from ever smoking anything."
The man extinguished the cigarette in a cup and turned to head back inside the house, but the door opened before he could even touch the doorknob.
"Oh! I'm sorry. You must be Andrew, right?"
The man nodded his head.
"Nice to meet you, I'm Francis."
No reply.
"Arthur's husband."
Still nothing.
"Their father" he added, pointing at his children.
"Good luck, mate. You're going to have a fun conversation with them today. I wouldn't worry too much, though, Arthur's going to have it much worse than you." And with that he was gone. Francis gave his kids a questioning look, but they were already running up to him, Alfred evidently excited.
"Papa, where's dad? I need to ask him what a hippo-crypt is! The smoking guy said he was one!"
Oh.
Well, at this rate, someone was definitely going to get hurt during the next seven days.
A/N:
And here you go - Connor and Andrew are actually alive. Connor is the youngest of the three, so I made him kind of a joker, who talks a lot and just generally thinks he's amazing. Andrew is more of a silent, grumpy, mischievous type. He's a smoker, because, you know, Wales, dragons, all that… And, yeah, I think it's pretty obvious I don't know anything about welsh accent. And not much more about the irish one. Sorry.
Oh, and Erin is Ireland (as in the Republic of Ireland). I was wondering whether to put her in or not, but I figured all the British Isles should be related, it would've been weird if they weren't.
Please, tell me what you think of the story so far! Reviews make ma happy inside, and also make want to write more!
