This is a Devil AU, and I wrote it for this awesome Tumblr admin who ran an 'Ask Demon England' blog. It's his birthday today :3
Anyway, I thought i would share it here with you guys as well. If you know who the admin I am talking about is, go and wish him a happy birthday if you haven't yet.
I think i found my Tumblr crush X3 /blush blush (ok ignore this I am high)
Arthur sat in front of a table in the café, absentmindedly stirring his tea as he looked out of the building's glass door, observing the human world. It didn't change much after so long. Sure there were more buildings here and there and the traffic was a lot busier than he had remembered, but it's more or less the same to him.
He remembered coming to this café when he was human too, the Earl grey here was just so much better than the ones in other cafes. The cake shop across the road was also a personal favourite of his. The shop owner was a very kind old lady who he enjoyed chatting with. The pastries sold there were all really tasty and affordable as well.
Of course, there were also things that Arthur could not remember.
Watching a little girl hopped out of the cake shop with her mum, happily looking at the box of cake she was carrying, Arthur sighed and looked down at his cup of tea. Ever since he became a demon, he could no longer remember his human birthday.
Not that it actually mattered, though.
There's no use in remembering a birthday that he never celebrated.
Arthur finished his tea in one gulp and placing the money beside the empty cup, strolled out of the café and into the rain. As he roamed the city that he once lived in under a black umbrella, he found himself subconsciously comparing hell with this world. Really, hell was so much more plain and boring.
"No wonder those devils like to come up here so much." Muttering to himself, he turned to walk down a deserted and quiet path that led to the park.
Arthur himself loved coming up here too. But his reason was slightly different from the others. Walking among humans in a place he was familiar with gave him the sense of belonging; something that he could never ever find in hell.
After all, he never did belong down there.
"Yes Arthur, become a demon. It would be great. You would be rid of all the pains!" Arthur muttered in a sarcastic tone as he rolled his eyes at his own naïve thoughts. "Rid of the pain my arse. What in the bloody hell was I thinking?"
Entering hell and becoming a part of the 'family' meant nothing but trouble. After all, he wasn't a devil, but a demon. And a demon with a human past wasn't exactly liked by the other 'family members'.
In fact, Arthur lost count of the number of times the others had tried in getting rid of him.
Well Arthur wasn't there to stir up trouble. So he did the measures and reframed from interacting with the others. Instead, he spent his time collecting human souls and coming up to the surface to reminisce about the past.
However, there's one particular devil that Arthur couldn't tolerate.
Alfred, the pure devil that stood at the very top of the social hierarchy in that 'family', was also their father's favourite. Arthur could easily see why. Alfred was a perfect devil, what with the sadistic personality and cunning mind. That guy's perfect no matter how you look at it.
Everyone else in the family paid him the respect that he deserved, and Arthur. Well. He would do the same, if only that git wasn't such an arsehole.
Arthur was convinced that Alfred was probably too free for his own good, because the moron's favourite past time was to annoy the hell out of him. To make things worse, he had absolutely no idea why Alfred was doing it. But he took it as just another way to mock him, something he could live without.
It's not like he hated Alfred though.
He may not be able to stand the guy, but he had to admit that he appreciated Alfred's presence. After all, with everyone else in the family giving him the glares, Alfred was the only one who bothered to talk to him and even smiled at him.
Now if only that git could learn to shut up.
"Found ya!"
As Arthur was still complaining about everything in his head, a voice caught him by surprise as a hand tapped on in the shoulder, causing him to jump a little.
Quickly turning around, he heaved a sigh of relief to find Alfred stand in front of him, smiling. But his relief was soon gone and replacing it was a scowl as he demanded for why Alfred was here.
"Looking for you of course. Come on, the candle's going to burn out of you don't hurry." Ignoring Arthur's objections, Alfred grabbed that latter's arm and dragged him to a pavilion in the park.
"Will you bleeding let go?! What's the big idea?" Arthur growled as he struggled to free his arm. But when he saw what else was in the pavilion, he seized the fighting and simply stood there, speechless.
"They don't have this in hell so I had to come up here and go through the troubles of finding it, so you better be grateful." Alfred grinned contently at Arthur's reaction and moved to stand beside the stone table in the middle of the pavilion.
On the table sat a simple round chocolate cake, protected from the rain by an invisible box; courtesy of the devil. The cake was decorated with patterned swirls of icing. A sparkling perfect strawberry sat on each swirl, sprinkled with chocolate chips. At the very center of the cake was a single candle of a weird color.
Emerald green.
"…What's this supposed to be?" Arthur asked, his mind was more than a little lost to process the situation properly.
"A cake of course. Haven't you eaten one before when you were human?" Alfred asked, gesturing for Arthur to come closer to the table.
"Of course I did. What I'm trying to ask is, why do you have a cake here?" he rolled his eyes again.
"Oh. About that." Alfred looked away, smiling. "I was just walking about when I saw a cake shop and remembered that today's officially one year after you joined us. Knowing that you're too pathetic to have friends to celebrate today with, I figured that I'll be nice and buy you a cake."
"That's the best lie you can come up with?" Arthur raised an eyebrow, failing to notice when his frown had turned into a slight smile. "Why do you even remember something like that in the first place?"
"Because it would take forever to find out when your human birthday is, so there, you'll just have to live with your demon birthday." Alfred replied with a big grin, as if the answer was obvious. "Speaking of which, when is it?"
"Honestly, I don't know either. But whatever, I'm no longer human." He smiled and blew the candle out.
"That's even better." Alfred nodded. "I won't be able to bother you forever if you're human."
"Don't you seriously have something else better to do?"
"Nope, not until a certain demon learns to smile from his heart all the time."
"Well then. Suit yourself. That certain demon won't give in so easily."
"No worries. I have all the time in the world." Alfred grinned.