Chapter Nine

Synopsis: Alfred overhears a conversation between Elizabeta and Katyusha, a genie. Elizabeta is expressing her frustration about two 'complete losers' who are presumably trying to woo her. Alfred and Vladimir decide that they're going to secretly and discretely stop anyone trying to make a licentious move towards her, but are they missing a part of the story...?

Alfred's POV

"... They're so annoying!" I paused outside the girl's bathroom, wiping my hands on the trousers of my uniform. Don't get me wrong! I wasn't being a creep!

"I understand Eliza," came the soothing voice. Katyusha. I flinched back into the wall at the sound of the genie's voice, staring at the wall opposite. The next part of their conversation was muffled, but I could hear two parts. The first part was Eliza complaining about a 'pair of losers' and the second part was about love. I formed my own conclusions.

"Hey Vladimir!" Vlad was the only person who sat at Eliza's table that I really spoke to besides her, and he was still collecting my puddings from me. Well, technically there were only three more days of that.

"Hey Al!" Vladimir shot me a toothy grin as he ticked something off a list.

"Whatcha got there?" I asked, leaning over to look, but Vlad snatched it away and hid it in his pocket.

"Christmas present list. Don't forget, we're drawing Secret Santa names at six in the common room." He was about to turn and leave, when I remembered what I was planning to say to him.

"Hey wait! I wanted to ask you something!"

"Oh? Hurry up then Yankee Doodle Dandy, I don't have all day!" He said with a wicked grin.

"THAT WAS ONE TIME! Plus, you're friends with Eliza, right?" He paused, mulling that over.

"Yes, she's one of my closest friends." He smirked.

"Great! See, I heard her talking to Katyusha about a pair of losers and something about love, so I was wondering if-"

"You plan to beat up any admirers because clearly she doesn't want them?" He shrugged, "I'm in." With that, he swept off in a blur of red cloak which really wasn't uniform.

Vladimir's POV

From: FUCKTWILIGHT

To: FryingPanFury

I am not left-handed.

Technically, that was a lie. I am left handed, but 'The Princess Bride' was definitely my favourite movie. It wasn't long before I got a reply.

From: FryingPanFury

To: FUCKTWILIGHT

What the hell do you want? I'm busy so fuck you.

While attempting to put my Nokia away like a badass villain or something, I ended up dropping it. With a sigh, as I went to pick it up, a booted foot stomped down on my hand and the phone. One unholy shriek later and I was crouched on the floor, glaring up at... Elizabeta.

"What do you want you goddamn psycho?" She growled. I was about to reply, when I heard a certain... Familiar voice, coming from the common room.

"Hey, who wants to see me chug this entire fucking bottle of tonic water?"

"Gilbert, mon dieu, MERDE, NON!" There was silence as Eliza and I sat outside in slight horror, until Antonio and Francis dragged Gilbert out, who appeared to be choking.

"Why the fuck did you guys let me do that?" He was wailing. They hauled him off in the direction of the bathroom. They were good friends, I decided. After all, taking him to the medical room was certainly the wise thing to do, if it were anyone but Gilbert, seeing as his dad would know straight away that he'd been doing stupid shit.

"So what did you want?" Eliza asked again, still slowly crushing my hand between her foot, an unstoppable force, and the Nokia, an indestructible and immovable object.

"I was just going to warn you about something." I wheezed. She'd definitely broken at least two of my fingers. At least I could keep Gilbert company, seeing as he'd probably take a frying pan to the face after she was through with me. Despite their best efforts, Francis and Antonio couldn't stop her breaking his nose.

"Go on." She said. The pressure on my hand hadn't lessened, but she'd stopped pressing down on it now. I allowed myself a small sigh of relief.

"Your love life might get a little bit... Rocky. Take some advice from your old pal and take care." Reverse psychology? Check. She glared once more, before removing her foot and stomping off, texting furiously. I would have given her a sarcastic wave goodbye, but I had a medical room to get to...

After a few glares from Gilbert's Vati and some snickers from aforementioned werewolf at my supposed crying (honestly, there were just some really strong chemicals.), I was finally released with the index and middle finger of my right hand taped together. I dragged myself back to the common room, grateful that I only had one more lesson left of the year. Upon arriving, I noticed a very... Angry seeming corner. Arthur and Lukas. Grimacing to myself, I made my way over to them.

"What's wrong with you two?"

"We broke up."

"Too bloody close." I blinked in confusion. I understood Lukas' predicament almost immediately, but it wasn't until I followed Arthur's glares that I realised something. Alfred. Ivan. Very close.

"Oh." I plopped down beside Lukas and wrapped an arm around him, pulling him into my chest for a hug. "Well, my platonic husband, you need to cheer up. If it wasn't meant to be then there's always the future." And a hot Dane who was very into him, but that wasn't important right now. "And you, Captain, need to stop glaring and get laid to be honest." Lukas was glaring emotionlessly at the ceiling, head resting in my lap. That wasn't a bad thing, I decided, after gauging his expression. Arthur looked as though he was half embarrassed, half murderous. Just as he was about to say something in his defence slash murder me, Francis clapped his hands and rose, causing the room to quieten down.

"Well mes Chers, mes Cheries, it's that time of the year again when we'll be celebrating commercialisation and tinsel!" He produced a Santa hat, filled to the brim with slips of paper. "You should all know how this works. You all pick a name out of the hat and have a spending limit of a hundred kroner to buy a present for them. This is meant to be secret Santa, might I add." He smirked as he waltzed around with the garish hat, offering everyone a slip of paper, before taking one himself and putting the hat on Antonio. I kept mine in my hand, willing myself to have picked someone easy, before opening it.

Roderich Edelstein

Things just got interesting.

Alfred's POV

I had no idea what to get him. At all. What does one buy a fake boyfriend for Christmas? I tried to ask Arthur but quickly changed my mind after he got into a fight with Francis. Lukas and Vlad were asleep sort of on each other, and Kiku was nowhere to be seen.

"Hey Elizabeta?" She turned around from where she was braiding Natalya's hair. "I need your help. With something. Personal." Hoping she got the hint, I plopped myself down on one of the sofas by the Christmas tree and waited for her to finish.

"So what's up?" She asked, kicking her steel toe-capped boots up onto the chair - was that blood?

"I don't know what to get Ivan for Christmas." I muttered, trying to pretend that the blood wasn't there. She squealed a little, before patting my hands.

"That has to come from the heart! I can't tell you what to get!" She seemed much too excited as she bounded off, presumably to find Kiku.

At breakfast the next day, I was morosely poking the cereal around my bowl. Cookie Crisp was usually one of my favourites, but today I wasn't feeling it; worry was taking up most of the space in my gut.

"Mes Amis," Francis said, slapping Arthur and I on the backs, "you both need to eat. You," he said, pointing to me, "need to do hero things, oui? You need energy. And you," he turned to Arthur, "need to sustain those parasitic eyebrows of yours." Several punches later, we were both eating, to Francis' delight. Well, until Vlad descended on us like a crimson bat.

"Artie, I think Lulu wanted to talk to you. Alfred, come hither." With that, he swept off in a clear violation of the school dress code. I followed suit, in my mildly violating bomber jacket, to where he'd summoned me.

"What's up dude?"

"Loads of things! First, Lukas is like, pretty upset. If you'd remembered that you have a brother, you'd have seen that he's upset too. Talk to Mattie, will you? Then, Feliks told me that Toris said that Mathias told him and Berwald that Gilbert is going to ask Elizabeta out again tonight!" He said the last sentence in one whole exhalation of breath, looking a little red in the face.

"Okay, we need a plan. Your ideas will suck so listen to me..."

Gilbert's POV

Being made fun of by your best friends is totally unawesome. I ran a gelled hand through my hair, making it stick up a little. Just right, I decided with a grin.

"Bruder, what are you doing?" Ludwig asked with a sigh from his bed, where he was sat with a pair of scissors trying to figure out how to curl the ribbon on Feliciano's present. Presumably.

"Making myself look as awesome as I feel." I explained, running a hand over my cleanly shaven chin.

"That's klasse Bruder, now will you tell me how to curl ribbons?" I bit back a quip about his boyfriend and bounded over to his bed, sitting cross legged and, with the left handed safety scissors that I'd grabbed of the sideboard, I showed him how to curl them, watching as one fell off the plastic.

"See?" He said triumphantly. "Ich bin die beste!"

"We're you going to go and ask out Elizabeta again?" He asked, gesturing in confusion at my suit.

"Nein." I said, fidgeting a little. "Roderich and I were going to go to the opera or some shit. He wanted to." Ludwig didn't say anything, but I felt the silent approval radiating from him. He (totally unawesomely) thought that Eliza wasn't worth it, and that I should date someone that I'll actually stay with. Easy for him to say, considering he and Feliciano had been dating since at least two years ago.

"Were the flowers for him too?" He asked, nodding towards the bouquet. I went a little red, trying not to stutter as I replied.

"Blue cornflowers are his favourite." I said by means of explanation. Ludwig didn't reply, not that I expected him to, and half scowled down at the ribbon he was curling, eyebrows furrowed. Clearly, being a vampire didn't make him any less my younger brother, or any more patient. Personally, I'd only ever seen him be patient with Kiku and, to an extent, Feliciano.

"Have fun." He said with a glance up and a smile. I grinned back and gave him a thumbs up. After double checking that I looked totally awesome (and grabbed my glasses) I carefully too, the bouquet and hip bumped the door open.

Alfred's POV

"Why do we have to sneak about?" I grumbled, along with my stomach. Vlad had made me miss dinner, just so we could stalk Gilbert and Eliza. I could really be doing better things with my life.

"Shh, look! There he is!" I blinked in surprise. I don't think I'd ever seen Gilbert actually make an effort with his appearance, and this was unfamiliar. Black suit, black tie, flowers?

"Does he usually try this hard? I thought he was asking her out, like, dating. Not for dinner!"

"He usually makes an effort." Vlad insisted quickly. "Eliza doesn't take him back if he doesn't try to win her back." We sat in silence or, well, as near to silence as my empty, protesting stomach would allow us.

"Where's he going? Eliza's dorm is that way." I said, pointing in the opposite direction.

"Trust me, Alfred. He goes for a walk to calm his nerves and to wait for her to arrive. Follow me." He dashed off in the direction of Eliza's dorm and produced a spare key which, personally, I didn't want to know the source of. "You be the lookout. We want to make sure Eliza doesn't want to date him, yeah? Leave this to me." I was left standing outside her dorm room with the door ajar, as he did... Whatever it is that he does.

Ten minutes later, I was still standing outside her room when she came up the stairs. Her playful expression quickly become one of exasperation and confusion as she saw me.

"Alfred? What're you doing here?" She asked. "Why is my door open?" She stormed in, before an angry sort of a scream emerged from within. Being a hero, I ran straight in to see if she was okay, when I realised what was going on.

"Uh, do you usually have silly string and Justin Bieber posters as decorations?" I asked, not even noticing the window, opened a little. After all, they were four floors up. It wasn't like Vlad could have gone far, right?

Vlad's POV

It was finally Christmas Eve. Every student in the boarding school, all fifty or so of us, had a stocking up in one of the two common rooms, depending on which their age belonged to. The lights were out in the older kid's common room, with the exception of the fire crackling in its mantle and the twinkling fairy lights on the mismatched trees. Of the two of them, only one really looked presentable, the second having been commissioned by the Bad Touch pack and was finally the result of a heated argument, was covered in garish orange and red and silver tinsel and rainbow lights. It was... Quite a sight.

At around one in the morning, Gilbert and Roderich stumbled in, a little drunk, with their hands all over each other. Vlad snickered a little as they passed and fell up the stairs to one of their rooms, he didn't care to know which.

"Hey Lulu?" He called over to the bundle by the fireplace. "Do you think that Roderich will like the present I got him?"

"Probably."

"Did you hear about what... Happened, to Eliza?" I asked, grinning to myself as I took his empty mug from him and took it to the sink.

"Yes." I thought I could see a smile on his face now. I sat down beside him, throwing my own blanket over our laps as I stared into the fire, which was dying down by now. As the clock struck midnight, I could've sworn that I heard someone padding down the wooden stairs.

"What're you two doing?" Arthur asked, rubbing his eyes tiredly. "Do you even know what the time is?" Arthur was barefoot, dressed only in his mint green pyjamas, with an empty glass in one hand, which he eventually decided to leave in the sink.

"Celebrating Christmas the right way." I told him. "At least, the second best way. There isn't any beer." Arthur shrugged, nudging Lukas over so he could fit under the blankets we were draped in now.

"Merry Christmas, you two."