Urgh, I don't feel good...I'm just gonna put this up and be done with it. =_=
O_O_o_o_O_O_o
The Library was nearly empty during class times. Only students who's classes had yet to start, or the real bookworms were in there, now. This is what Soren observed from his spot at the checkout counter, arms folded on the table, chin resting on his arms.
Behind him, he could hear Berwald sorting through various returned books, getting ready to put them back on the shelves. Not himself, of course. The Swede would probably send Soren to do it before slipping off to see if Tino was in the library. Not that Soren really cared at the moment. That was actually near the bottom on his list of things to worry about. At the top was the clock. Every so often he'd look up to glare at it as it ticked another minute away.
He needed to get more aspirin before the last dose ran out. Soren buried his face in his arms. He'd had more freaky dreams last night. At least, he was pretty sure he had. He couldn't really remember the dreams, every time he tried to call up a memory of them it was hazy, the sounds muffled. He'd woken up with his adrenaline on over-drive, and a killer headache.
Hearing the squeaking of the book cart's wheels, the Dane raised his head and glanced behind him. Sure enough, there was Berwald, putting one last book on the nearly over-flowing cart. Soren sighed, deciding he might as well get it over-with.
Getting up, he shuffled over. "I've got it..." he grumbled, putting a hand on the cart. Berwald looked a bit surprised, but nodded.
'This job is so boring...' the blond thought glumly. 'Why couldn't I have found something more exciti—oh. Right. 'Cause they thought I was 'high maintenance'.' He snorted at the thought. 'Wonder what they would say if they saw my mood, now?'
As dorky as it sounded, Soren seriously felt like there was a raincloud over his head as he began to put the books back according to author name and genre. The task was so tedious, the blond couldn't help but feel his mind start to wander. Eventually, his thoughts landed on the most complicated, weird, thing in his life right now.
Soren scowled. The guy was like some creepy stalker. He popped up almost everywhere Soren went, never offering a name or explanation. The worst part was; Soren felt like he should know the guy! He knew he didn't. Had never met the guy in his life. Yet, as soon as he spotted the stalker, his instincts started screaming at him, telling him he'd forgotten something important, but he could never remember what it was. It was like an itch on your back that you couldn't quite reach.
Frustrating. Infuriating. Migraine-inducing.
Just as he was about to grab another book he felt...something...get close, nearly touching, and immediately pulled his had back and looked over. Amy blinked, looking a little surprised.
"Um...sorry. Didn't mean to startle you, Soren," she said, looking sheepish. "I just saw a book I've been waiting for, so..."
Blue eyes blinked, and he rubbed the back of his head. "Uh, sure. No problem," he replied, the waved a hand vaguely over the books on the cart. "They're all going back anyways, so take your pick."
The girl smiled at him, and the blond absently wondered if it was humanly possible for someone's teeth to be that weirdly perfect. The girl took a book, then glanced over at him.
"Red shirt with a black tie? Normally people would go for the other way around," she observed. "Don't you think its a bit conspicuous?"
Soren didn't really like the way she was looking at him. Actually, she wasn't even looking at him wrong. It was just...her. Her very gaze gave him goosebumps, and he had no clue why. Unfortunately, the aspirin he'd taken earlier was starting to wear off. He just wanted to get the books finished without her talking to him, and to get home and curl up in bed.
Instead of snapping, he tried for a much milder approach, his headache was sapping the energy he needed to properly tell someone off. "I must not have been paying attention this morning. Besides, I kinda like it," he said, picking up another book.
Amy blinked. "I see...where's Arthur, today?" she asked, much to the Dane's annoyance. He'd hoped she would have stopped talking to him after he'd answered the first time.
"Home sick," he said curtly. 'Where I should be.'
He felt that wrong...something...again, and he instinctively leaned away from it, surprised to find, when he looked, that it was Amy's hand. The girl was frowning, he hand out-stretched like she'd been trying to reach his forehead to check his temperature. Soren gave an involuntary shudder at the thought.
"You look really pale, Soren. Are you alright?" she asked, voice filled with concern. Well, she was a nurse-in-training, after all. Must have been instinctive.
"Yeah. Just a headache," he told her, hoping she'd be satisfied.
Nope.
The student merely frowned. "I just wanna check your temperature, make sure you're not coming down with something, like Arthur," she said, voice soothing as she lifted her hand again, slowly. It was like she was trying to calm a wild animal, though the situation did sort of fit. The closer the hand got, the more it made him want to run, to get away from the wrongness of it.
There was a loud 'SMACK!' and the hand was suddenly at Amy's side again, allowing Soren to breath a sigh of relief. The girl looked furious, but stomped off, taking most of the tension with her. Running a hand through his hair, Soren turned to look at his saviour.
Nope, scratch that. Just the stalker.
The blonde scowled. "Why are you always following me?" he growled. The shorted man just shrugged, looking indifferent. This just made the Dane even more frustrated. "I don't even know your name!" he nearly yelled, throwing his arms up in exasperation.
His stalker looked faintly amused. "You already know my name."
Soren blinked at this. "Huh?"
They were running. Running. Running. But from what? What were they running from? He had no clue. One minute he''d been hanging out, the next every instinct had screamed, 'RUN!'
So, he had, grabbing the other...man? No...there was another word there, right on the tip of his tongue. Couldn't quite remember it, but he didn't have time to try.
He glanced back briefly, tightening his grip on his companion's arm, then his instincts went hay-wire again, and he skidded to a halt, the smaller body behind him slamming into his back.
"What the heck is going on?"
"I don't know..." Soren mumbled, then his eyes widened, instincts screaming.
"Norge, get down!" he yelled, pushing him—Norge?--to the ground.
"Den--"
Soren grabbed his head, headache morphing into a full-blown migraine as he squeezed his eyes shut and grit his teeth. Faintly, above the pounding of his own heartbeat in his head, he heard receding footsteps. Eyes snapped open, and he reached out.
"Nor--!"
But no one was there.
O_O_O_O_o_o_O
"You take your medication for a reason..."
His mother's words from his childhood echoes 'round and 'round in his head as buried his face in his arms. He knew. He'd always listened. Especially when the things he'd seen as a child had gotten scarier and scarier. Not just faeries. Monsters, ghosts. Everything had started to appear to him, and he'd had no clue why.
His mother had freaked out, doctor thought he was schizophrenic. They'd put him on pills, pills that had actually worked. Except for when he ran out and wasn't prepared for it. Then, it all came back full-force until he could get his hands on a new bottle of pills.
Arthur sat in the corner of his dark room, a blanket draped over his shoulders. His head was buried in his arms, his arms resting on his knees which were drawn to his chest. He'd left the hospital early when he'd felt the first effects coming on, even though he'd wanted to stay a bit longer.
He'd been in the corner all night, hadn't even bothered to change. Couldn't sleep, they'd get him in his dreams. Couldn't move since they'd drag him off to 'play'. He just needed to get over it. Adjust to the madness for long enough that he could get new pills.
Slowly, Arthur lifted his head, and looked into the air above him.
They'd bee fluttering around him in a slow, almost dull manner, but immediately sped up when they saw that the blond was looking.
"Arthur..."
"Arthur!"
"We missed you..."
"Missed you, missed you!"
"Come play!"
"Please play with us..."
"Come play!"
"Come play!"
"Why won't you come home...?"
The last question startled him slightly, and send a sharp pain through his head.
"Iggy...come back soon, okay?"
Big blue eyes stared up at him, small hands clutching at the leg of his trousers. Arthur blinked, them smiled, ruffling the boy's hair.
"Okay, Amer--"
Arthur grabbed his head, squeezing his eyes shut, wishing he could block out the voices calling to him. What was that? The boy...had looked...like...
"Arthur!"
"Arthur!"
"Look back up!"
"Up, up!"
Wearily, Arthur looked back up, ready to face the chaotic nightmare once more.
O_o_o_o_O_O_O
Okay. So, it turned out Alfred waking up so soon? Not something the doctor had expected. Apparently, Alfred was supposed to have been out for a few more days at least after the surgery and stuff...the rest was overly complicated medical mumbo-jumbo that the blond didn't care to understand.
The translation for all the mumbo-jumbo was basically: Alfred was healing way too fast.
Alfred couldn't explain why, of course. After all, he was the one who'd been hit by the truck. He was just glad he was healing as fast as he was. Without the painkillers, his body still hurt like hell.
According to his nurse-- her name was Katyusha, or something—Doctor Adnan had decided it would be best to move him to a different floor.
"The same floor as my sister," she added cheerfully as she handed him his glasses. "She's a nurse, too."
So, Alfred had let them move him.
So far, he couldn't see anything to do in the room, and he was already freakin' bored. Katyusha's sister came in briefly to check on him, and the teen couldn't help but notice how pretty she was. He didn't even get the chance to ask her name before she gave him a tight smile and left.
Ohhhhh....the bitter taste of rejection....
"Don't let her have your hands."
Alfred blinked, looking over at the other bed where a pair of tired green eyes peered at him from under the covers. He hadn't realized he had a room-mate, thought now that he looked, he was surprised he hadn't noticed the rather obvious human-sized lump on the other bed.
"Say what?" Alfred asked.
The other person sighed, sitting up and letting the covers fall off, revealing a boy (at least...he was fairly certain it was a boy) close to his age with green eyes and nearly shoulder-length blond hair.
"You're hands," the boy repeated, holding out his own and wiggling his fingers. "Don't, like, let her touch your hands. She'll, like, to totally break your fingers, and you, like, won't even notice."
Alfred stared. "Huh?" he asked intelligently, eyes wide. He was starting to reconsider his earlier assessment. Maybe this kid was a girl after all...
"Just, like, trust me, okay? I'm Feliks," the boy introduced.
The American blinked. "Oh, I'm Alfred. Alfred F. Jones."
"So, like, would you so totally do me a humongous favor?" Feliks' asked suddenly, green eyes lighting up.
Alfred grinned. "Sure! What's up?" he asked, happy to finally have something to do.
"Sweet! See, I have, like, a broken leg and stuff. And there's, like, this totally weird thing in that closet--" he pointed to a door in the room. "--and I was, like, wondering if you could totally go and check it out," he finished.
Alfred's eyes lit up. Adventure! "Sure!" he quickly agreed, slipping out of the bed, wincing only slightly. Between painkillers and his weird healing skills, he could already stand up and walk on his own, though not very far.
Feliks smiled. "Like, seriously? Wow, thanks. That's, like, so totally cool of you. When you find the thing, you just need to, like, touch it, I think. Okay?" he explained, laying back down on his bed, green eyes tracking Alfred's progress.
Alfred took no notice as he managed to shuffle over to the closet door. He glanced back for a moment, his good hand already on the doorknob. "This one, right?" he asked.
"Yeah, like, that one, man. Its, like, absolutely creepy," the green-eyed boy confirmed.
With that, a huge grin spread across Alfred's face, and he immediately stuck his hand out at he opened the door. His fingers came into contact with something he couldn't quite identify, and suddenly the world around him began to spin violently, causing the blond's face to go slightly green.
Just before he passed out, realized that he'd been able to see both of Feliks' legs.
Neither had been broken.
Wow...I wrote that fast. O.o Faster than I thought I would. I expected this to take a lot longer than it did. Maybe my writer's block is receding?
...Or maybe not. XD
Yay! Lotsa Denmark. Poor thing, he has no clue what's going on...and Norway isn't really giving him a break, is he? O.o For those who didn't know, Norge is the cooler way to say Norway. XD Or at least in my opinion. XD (sorry if anyone was offended by that. D: I know its silly to worry...but I do.)
-sigh- Poor, poor Iggy...his own friends are driving him mad. D:
I'd always thought Ukraine's name was Katyushka...but then I looked it up, and there was no 'k', so.....yeah. Belarus is there, too! :D
POLAND! XD Gotta love him. HAD to have him. That coward. He didn't wanna go check it out himself, so he got Alfred to do it. XD
I'll have what happened to Alfred in the next chapter. Cookie for anyone who can give me a good guess! :D
Hope you all liked it!
