Al and Artie do Blackpool - Chapter 7 8.22am to 3.45pm, Friday
8.22am, B&B
"You awake?"
"Mm. Mornin'."
The American waited expectantly for Arthur to move his sleep mussed head off his shoulder, where he had managed to wind up twined about him in the night. The man spoke, however, before he moved.
"Don't feel like getting up. Not yet."
Alfred couldn't help but think to himself how closely Arthur's position mirrored that of their ride home on the tram. It was relief, though, that he smelt Arthur's breath, not tinged with alcohol but rather just musky from sleep. He let his chin rest lazily on the top of the man's head.
"Me neither. I've worn a groove into this bed. It's me-shaped now, I like it."
"S'nice and warm," Arthur prodded Alfred's t-shirt clad chest with one finger, "Get the tiger to go and fetch us some breakfast, I don't think he's pulling his weight around here."
9.43am, B&B
"I should get up now," Arthur told his pillow in a solemn mumble.
"You've been saying that for a half hour," Alfred licked the remnants of some scrambled egg from his fingers, "So do it already."
"Requires movement though, doesn't it?"
"Do it or I'll-" Arthur turned over so that he was looking up, albeit from an awkward angle, into Alfred's face.
"Or you'll what?" his elbows were evidently attempting to gain purchase on the mattress, ready to hitch himself up and square off to the man.
"I'll... iron your slacks so they get a double crease down the front."
"Pah, I doubt you'd even know how to operate a trouser press."
"Then I'll hide that HP sauce you like when you order breakfast."
"Cruel and unusual, but I'd get by. Not exactly the same as me hiding your jar of instant from you," Arthur said, his smirk yet more assured.
There was one definite bonus to having known a man for a few centuries: you got to understand their quirks. Even now, Alfred could vividly remember how surprised he had been when they had first gone to bed together, not of the revelation of Arthur's feelings for him (he'd begun to wonder), nor of how good it had felt (he'd imagined it too often not to have had high hopes). One thing in particular always stood out vividly about that night.
"Alright: I'll tickle you until you surrender and shower."
Arthur's brow furrowed, "You wouldn't dare."
"Oh, wouldn't I?"
There was a long, tense moment as the pair stared intently at each other.
Alfred was the first to act: he reached down and caught Arthur under the arms. The noises ripped from the man as he proceeded to tickle him were not, he thought, fitting for a former Empire. They sounded rather like squawks, squeaks, as though they were the combined sounds of an over-excited child in a petting zoo. The man attempted to wriggle away, panting "Okay! Okay!" and "White flag!" when he could get enough breath. Alfred feigned deafness.
With a pseudo-wrestling move, he flipped them both so that he was on top of Arthur, pinning the man in place with his knees, hands still roving about on the man's hideous plain blue pyjamas, one working its way under the fabric to bare skin.
"What did you say?" Alfred asked innocently, "Did you I'm the greatest guy you've ever met?"
"Ah! Please-!" Arthur hiccupped for breath, legs thrashing about against Alfred's pincer hold, "Ahhh! Never! Britannia will not be defeated by-ah God stopstopstop!"
Alfred couldn't help laughing at the sight of Arthur, squirming, red in the face, but evidently enjoying himself. He blew upward into his fringe to try and get it out of his face and leant down a little toward the man, mock-scowling.
"That didn't sound like "Yes, Alfred, you're the greatest guy I've ever met" to me."
"Because. It. Wasn't!"
Time for the big guns. "Do it or I tickle the backs of your knees."
"Alfredyou'rethegreatestguyI'veevermet!" Arthur near enough collapsed after the garbled surrender. He closed his eyes, chest still shaking with laughter even though the tickling had ceased, "Oh good God."
Alfred gave a laugh too, sitting back on his haunches victoriously, a task made much easier by Arthur having ceased to thrash about, "Cool. I claim you as my 51st state."
"You bloody well don't, you little git," Arthur smiled. Alfred found himself compelled to jump off the man at the unexpectedly handsome nature of his expression.
He gave the Englishman a push, near enough rolling him off the bed. "Go and get ready. We're going home tonight, right? You're wasting the day and you gave me hell for that on Thursday."
"Very well. Be warned, I'll be plotting my revenge for what you've just done."
1.09pm, BlackpoolTower Aquarium
The firm, impressively sloping smirk Arthur wore when he "sought his revenge" made it easier to guess what was coming. Alfred recognised the look as the one he wore at someone else's expense.
"Go on," the man said after they left the big top, "Say it."
"Huh? Say what exactly?"
"I know you're thinking it, so you might as well just say it."
Alfred was silently impressed with how well he hid his own horror at the words. Sucking the remains of his slushie up through his straw helped, numbing his brain enough that he was able to keep looking blankly at the Englishman.
He was also helped immensely by the rather unthreatening sight of Arthur stood before him, wielding a flashing magic wand that they had purchased from one of the vendors in the Circus. Arthur attempted to look triumphant, tapping Alfred's chest with the toy as he did so.
"You liked that circus."
"Sure I did. I admit it."
"So," Arthur's smirk reached gargantuan proportions, "My tower's better than Francis'. Say the words."
Alfred couldn't help but wonder if Madame Flora would have been a little sympathetic if she had known precisely who the "special person" in his life was.
"Fine. Your seaside forgery is way better than Francis' crowning glory. That's perfectly fair to say."
Arthur looked pleased at the words, "Shame I haven't got it on record, but that'll still do nicely. You may have won the tickling battle this morning but my Franco-English Tower battle triumph won me the war."
Alfred gave him a sad shake of the head.
"You drank your slushie way too fast. You've definitely got brain freeze."
The Englishman looked ready to open his mouth in protest, but gave a sigh instead and closed his eyes in a mild wince, "Maybe. I do seem to be talking more cobblers than usual - but it's still true and I'm holding you to those words!"
"So now what?" Alfred looked about them at the teeming corridor. Crowds were walking up and down staircases leading off, arrows proclaimed, to cafes and the aquarium or else to "the top of the tower" and a museum.
"Well that's obvious, isn't it?" The Englishman hooked his arm through Alfred's and gesticulated with his wand, "To the gift-shop!"
3.45pm, BlackpoolTower
"There's just one last thing that we haven't done," Arthur said in a much more sober tone after the flush of his victory and the sugar rush began to fade, his wand now firmly tucked in a pocket of his jacket. They both watched as a turtle performed lazy acrobatics in one aquarium tank, "It would really be criminal if we left without visiting."
"Oh? What's that?" Alfred looked across at Arthur, the man's face a curious, flickering shade of blue in the lighting of the aquarium, expression impossible to read.
"Come on, it's this way," Arthur led the way up a few plush carpeted staircases and stopped before a doorway from which soft music emanated. Above the door was a large oval-shaped white sign encircled by golden scrolling.
In sloping script, the sign read "Ballroom". Alfred stared at it in horror.
"Oh, hell no."
To Alfred's eyes it looked as though Arthur quickly veiled a look of dejection, "Hear me out."
"No. No way, Arthur," Alfred said, pulling a face, "I'll do a lot of stuff. I'll drink with you, I'll watch you punch people and then run from the crime scene, but I can't do this," he studied the sign with a pained frown, "It reminds of back then."
Arthur, curiously, was wearing a smile, albeit indecipherable as he too considered the signage, "Before your independence, you mean?"
"Yeah. When you bought me those fancy clothes and all I wanted was to go out in the fields and ride and work. I saw all those damn clothes and I knew I was going to rip holes in the pants and get grass stains on the jackets."
"And I taught you to dance," Arthur nodded.
"Yeah," Alfred hadn't thought about that in decades, near enough a century. The whole affair had been disastrous and vicious. Dancing, he had assumed, was something you did for enjoyment, for fun with someone you liked. And yet there they had been, in that spotless music room with the gleaming hardwood floor with Arthur gripping his hand too tight and cuffing his arm every time he took an incorrect step.
"You refuse to be educated," the man had said with displeasure, whilst that slow, droning music had played on behind them, "It is absurd that you refuse to acquiesce when this instruction is only for your own benefit."
Every correction, every fresh start, every new step had only made him worse and made him stumble even more over his own feet or Arthur's.
"I hate dancing," Alfred said, still addressing the ballroom sign itself, "My idea of dancing is just standing on one spot, nodding your head to the music. So, why don't you go on in and I'll just wait here until you're finished?"
Arthur held out his hand to him.
"Are you even listening?"
"Yes; but you're not. I said to hear me out," he said gently, "Just step inside, alright?"
Alfred let himself be almost literally dragged in. He began to formulate several escape routes (going to the bathroom, wanting to visit the gift-shop again) but stopped once inside.
The large ballroom was one of the most attractive interiors he had seen since arriving in Blackpool: it ended in a dramatic, high ceilinged stage with two balconies overlooking the dance floor. It was ornate, but had an excessive amount of gilt and coving that put him in mind of a woman past her prime wearing too much make-up. Still, the excessive decoration only seemed to make the room feel warm and, somehow, familiar.
Framed by two drawn red velvet curtains on the stage was an organist, facing away from the dance floor and playing what Alfred recognised as a waltz on the organ.
"A Wurlitzer," Arthur whispered, nodding towards the organ, "One of yours."
The real interest about the room was the people in it, though, Alfred realised. There were several couples dancing at that moment, though for the most part the floor was relatively quiet. Others watched from tables around the sides of the room, eating cake and sandwiches and drinking cups of tea. Some of the couples, he saw, were dressed for dancing and were clearly professional or at least highly capable, moving about the floor effortlessly, the skirts of the women flaring out behind them like sails buffeted by a breeze. These couples predicted their partner's steps without any visible effort. Others, indeed the majority, however, were dressed like themselves, having stepped straight off the street. A few just about knew the steps and a little clumsily were managing to keep pace with the music; a younger couple were not even managing that much, and kept stopping and laughing at each other, the woman ducking her head every so often in a delighted kind of embarrassment, her features aglow with a grin.
"Ask me how my dancing is these days," Arthur asked quietly at his side.
"How's your dancing?"
"Shocking," The Englishman took a step in front of him and held his hand out to Alfred, "How about it?"
The way he offered his hand was different to then, too. Rather than forceful and stiffly held, as though ready to strike him, the fingers were spread, the palm slightly cupped, ready to wrap about his own hand.
It was like when they had first met. Like when Alfred had stopped peering out from between the tall grasses and crops and dared to trust the rather lonely and awkward looking man roaming his lands with a perspiring face, a faulty compass and a sunburn on the bridge of his nose. He saw, both in the gesture and in Arthur's eyes, which he shot a fleeting look at, that same tender look. As he took Arthur's hand in his own, he remembered how carefully the man had held his hand then, and how he had considered in simple wonderment whether the stranger was being so very careful with him because he was capable of shattering.
Arthur dared to grip his hand tighter now, and Alfred smiled at that, looking at the intricate pattern on the floor before he stepped up to the plate, as it were, and grabbed a hold of Arthur's other hand, ready to dance.
"Um, what the hell are we meant to be doing?" Arthur said, letting Alfred guided one of his hands onto his shoulder. The American couldn't help a snort of laughter. He looked around them and spotted a skilful pair.
"Oh, okay. I think I have it. Follow me."
"Alright-whoops, sorry."
"It's okay. There-wait, no, the other foot-"
"This way?"
"Sort of. Ah hell," Alfred began to sway from side to side, keeping a hold of Arthur where his hands had eventually fallen, one hand on the man's waist, the other lacing fingers with Arthur's, "I give up doing it right. You?"
"This works for me," Arthur said genially.
They altered the speed of their shuffle and sway about the dance floor when the first song ended and another began, falling over each other a little bit more as they adjusted to the new tempo.
It brought a smile to Alfred's face as they slowly made their way about the dance floor, one that Arthur's treading on his toes couldn't shift. With the golden drag of the chandeliers' light catching on the lens of his glasses, he looked about himself, caught sight of the other couples and saw them smiling back, some looking surprised, others just glad to see another sharing in the moment. It was a smile of victory that was making his cheeks ache in a delicious way. It was a victorious smile because he realised now that he had been right all those years ago: dancing was something you did, for fun, with someone you liked.
"So you know," he almost didn't catch Arthur's softly spoken words when they came, half way through the second song, "This is me pulling out all the stops for you."
Alfred looked up, taking his eyes off the Wurlitzer to look into Arthur's face, which the man quickly averted.
"What?"
"This is me," Arthur said, just as softly, but with conviction, "Pulling out all the stops for you. I kept meaning to say something this week, but I've done a very good job of convincing myself to keep quiet. I don't much feel like seeing you off at the airport tomorrow, going home, locking the door and cursing myself up and down for a month, so, here it is," here his customary humour seemed to leave him, and Alfred found himself staring harder still at the man, in surprise more than anything, "This is me giving you the go-ahead; if you're bothered, that is. If you want... if you want to," uncertainly, it appeared, Arthur looked back at Alfred, his eyes holding an expression that seemed almost pained. A second later and the look was gone, replaced by an easy sort of smile, "Look – it doesn't matter," he tapped Alfred on the arm with one hand, "Come on, some OAPs just overtook us, put your mind back into the task man."
With an effort, Alfred pulled himself out of his own quagmire of thoughts, spurred on by his knowledge that while his own mind may have felt like molasses he was desperately trying to wade through, Arthur's emotions were more like a startled animal, already turning to slip away. The American forced himself to really study Arthur and then, no doubt shocking someone's dear old Gran, to lean forward and kiss him.
It wasn't like this was the first time they had kissed, so his knees didn't give way, nor did his heart give out or burst from joy. But there was no denying that the kiss was different: before, there had always been some reason. When they had both sensed his growing desire for independence, its overwhelming march of certainty toward them, there had been hard, furious, possessive kisses that had felt like they bruised. In the wars, there had been delicate, fearful kisses to bloodied brows and tear-and-sweat stained cheeks and lips, as the sky above them turned smoky and the world looked like it would surely end. And, of course, there had been plenty of drunken, sloppy kisses, excused and dismissed the next morning with a laugh or a gesture.
This kiss was different because it was just them, just stood there. Arthur, in the hazy light of the ballroom, was just a guy a little bit uncomfortable about the public display of affection but earnest as he reached out to cup Alfred's head in one hand and hold him as he kissed him, firmly.
The Englishman didn't taste of alcohol or tea or blood, Alfred realised as well. He tasted like he had brushed his teeth a little harder, a little longer, with a bit more toothpaste than usual, just in case.
As the song ended with one last faltering note on the organ, they stopped kissing and stepped apart. Arthur, to his surprise, remained silent, looking content and unflustered.
"Well. Quite," he said, unhelpfully.
"Truth?"
"What?"
"As in "Want to know the truth?"." Alfred explained, walking over to an empty tea table at the edge of the dance floor as the organ struck up another number.
Arthur began to look nervous.
"I'm really not sure I do, but go on."
"I saw a palm reader on the Mile yesterday. She told me there was someone special in my life, someone with dark eyes, eyes you have to look at."
Arthur continued to look at him expectantly then blinked, "Oh. Is that it?"
"Well yeah. Isn't it kind of, uncanny? With your eyebrows, I mean."
"It's kind of vague and could apply to just about anyone."
"It does apply to you though. I thought you believed in magic, anyway."
It was clear Arthur was weighing his options; a moment later, smiling, he went on, "I suppose I do. So I guess the woman's a marvel."
Alfred looked about at their surroundings, and, in particular, the attention they had gathered; there was a considerable amount of whispering in ears and uncertain looks being exchanged between couples, along with the occasional furtive glance at them both over the rims of tea cups.
"This isn't the place for this, is it?"
"Not really, no," Arthur agreed, "But we already gave the key back for the flat."
"We are not making out in your car. It hasn't got air-con."
To his amusement, Arthur turned a shade of red at the words "making out". Still, the Englishman smacked the table lightly with his fist in a decisive, military fashion, "Guess I'll have to use some cunning then."
"And by cunning you mean-"
"I'll pay Sue another fifty quid and get the room back for the afternoon. But not before I show you a little magic of my own."
A/N for the confused or curious
"HP Sauce" – A "legendary" condiment by its own admission. Particularly suited to breakfast fry ups but goes with just about everything (well, perhaps not with non-savoury foods but still). Rather bizarrely, "HP" stands for "Houses of Parliament".
"Blackpool Tower Ballroom" - To this day I'm really not sure whether the public are supposed to get up and dance in the ballroom, but that's certainly what always seems to happen.
"Wurlitzer... One of yours" - the traditional manufacture of the Ballroom organ. Arthur is referring to the fact that Wurlitzers are American.
English/Arthur!Slang:
"Talking cobblers" – Talking nonsense
