Starstruck
December 23, 2008
By the time the four semi-permanent tourists worked their way down to Frankfurt where Matt's exhibition game was going to be held, Gil, Matt, and Matt's father had been there for a few days – long enough that Matt had spent several full days of practice with his temporary teammates, and Gil had gotten bored of watching a sport he didn't really care about. When Matt's dad got a call from an unknown number in the middle of one of those days of intensive workouts, he'd been ecstatic at the distraction from watching hours of suicides and scrimmages and gleefully stolen the phone before Mr. Williams could finish saying, "Oh, hey, Al! Where are you?"
"Al! Listen, buddy, you gotta get me outta here, all of this hockey's driving me fucking insane-"
"Gil, shut the fuck up and give the phone back to Uncle Parker. We're lost in this God forsaken city and I need directions."
"Is that all? I can help you with that!" He made his excuses to Mr. Williams, who waved him off and went back to watching his son practice with the smattering of other visiting parents and friends that had joined their under twenty relatives in the trip to Germany, and headed outside. "Okay, you have a GPS?"
"No shit, but it just keeps leading us in fucking circles."
"Calm your tits, man! Roads around the arena are confusing, it's okay. Now, where are you?"
"If I knew we wouldn't be in this mess, would we?"
Gil sighed and pushed open the front doors of the arena, standing under the awning and looking out over the scattering of melting snow drifts in front of the expansive parking lot. "Just tell me what's nearby, dude."
"Okay… we're going over a river… now."
"Is it a main road?"
"If you mean crowded as fuck, then yes."
"You goin' north or south?"
"How the fuck should I know?"
"Ugh, fuck you too. Is there another bridge on the left or the right?"
A second's pause. "Left."
"Okay, you're going the right way. Just take the first exit after the bridge, and it's the big parking lot on the right. I'm waiting outside the front door whenever you get here."
"Mkay. Thanks, I guess." He hung up before Gil could tease him with 'You're welcome, asshole,' which made him huff into the phone and stuff it in his pocket. Still the same old dick Alfred.
He bounced on his feet to stay warm, moving from under the entrance eaves to sit on the raised concrete landscape holder, watching the road beyond the parking lot for any suspiciously English-looking car.
Finally, just when his butt was becoming numb instead of frozen, a dirty blue car turned off the main road and circled around to the lane in front of the arena. He grinned and hopped off the ledge, flicking a two fingered salute from his forehead as it stopped in front of him. He recognized Alfred's manager in the driver's seat, although the passenger side blond was a mystery. In the back, Alfred was pulling a playground face, hands waving like moose antlers and tongue sticking out, and the guy hidden behind Al's manager's head had to be that Arthur kid.
He pushed his nose up at Al with his finger in a pig face as he walked to where they were coasting to a stop, waiting for them to get out. The two in the back gladly climbed out, and Gil heard something about going to park before the other two left, circling around to the mostly empty lot.
"'Sup, wonder boy?" He punched Al in the arm lightly; Al scowled at him and punched back harder.
"How many times do I have to tell you not to call me that?"
"As many as you want, but it won't do a thing." He glanced over at Arthur, who couldn't seem to quite be able to figure out how to react to him. Fans; always so adorably awkward. He grinned and stepped into his personal bubble, putting his hand flat on top of his head and moving it straight back to hit his hairline. Arthur pushed him away reflexively, but Gil cheered and did a spin of celebration.
"Finally, a guy that's shorter than me!" He slung his arm around Arthur's neck and swayed as he said, "If you weren't already my favorite person, you'd totally be that now. Well, 'cept for Mattie." Arthur squirmed out of his hold with a lot of blustering and cursing, putting a good distance between them this time as he shook out his hair to resettle it.
"Speaking of Matt, where is he?" Al asked, not looking happy that Gil had touched his boy toy – but then again, everything Gil did made him look upset. Gil thought it was hilarious when he wasn't busy reciprocating the emotion.
He jerked his thumb at the arena. "Practicin'. Been there for weeks, it feels like, not just a few days. Mr. Williams won't let me go off on my own even though I could totally handle it, and all he wants to do's watch the practices, so I've been stuck in there forever, and you gotta help me!" he pleaded, hanging off of Al's jacket by the final drawn-out word. Al shook him off and rolled his eyes.
"Well, first I need to go in and at least say hi to Uncle Parker, and I might as well introduce him to everyone else while I'm at it. Then we'll talk."
"Fine, whatever." The manager and the unknown approached from the parking lot, and Gil nodded a greeting at them. "Hey."
The manager smiled politely. "Hello, Gilbert. It's been a while." Shit, he didn't remember the manager's name at all. Oh well, better to admit defeat than fake knowledge.
He shook the hand offered and grinned. "Sorry, man, but what's your name again?"
Gil had to give it to him, he had a way with the polite but empty smile. "It's Toris."
"Oh, right, I knew it was kinda funny." The unknown pursed his lips in a frown, which he ignored with the ease of practice as he switched handshakes.
"Feliks."
Something clicked in his head. "Oh, so that's who you are! I should've guessed that." He stepped back and grinned at the two. "Hey, congrats, you guys. Matt told me about the whole engagement thing."
They both smiled, although not as much as he'd hoped. He felt his face grow hot and cursed his albinism for the millionth time in his life as he turned to go back in the arena. "Well, come on, let's get inside, it's freezing out here." He wormed his hands into his pants pockets, not looking to see if they were following.
So much for a good first impression.
When they got to the arena and sat down by Matt's father, the team was starting their cool down for the morning's practice, so they decided to wait until Matt was out so they could break for lunch with him. Al immediately launched into a loud, fast-paced conversation with Mr. Williams, dragging more complete sentences from him than Gil had heard since meeting him in the Toronto airport three days ago. He almost sulked, but now he had Arthur to entertain him and that made life better.
"I hate winter sports," Arthur grumbled, pulling his coat closer around him and sulking enough for both of them. Gil grinned from where he was sitting backwards on the bleachers the row in front of him and shrugged.
"Eh, when the place is crowded for the game, it won't be as cold." He leaned his hand on his chin. "So how you been, dude?"
Arthur shrugged. "Good enough as you can when you've been living out of a suitcase and a car for half a year."
Gil nodded in understanding. "Al been treatin' ya well?"
Arthur raised his eyebrows at him. "Why do you ask?"
He shrugged. "I like you, I don't like or trust him. Pretty obvious to me." Arthur snorted and sat back, keeping his balance by lacing his fingers over his bent knee.
"He's paying for most of everything, so I can't slander his name, sadly." Gil laughed. He'd totally forgotten that Arthur was a riot to have a conversation with.
Behind him the final whistle blew, and the players started skating towards the exit to the locker rooms. Al looked up from his chat with Mr. Williams to wave enthusiastically at Matt; he was the only distinguishable padded-up player on the ice, although Gil couldn't tell if he was smiling or not as he waved slightly back. The best thing about Matt's hippie hair was that, even with a helmet and prescription goggles on, anyone could still pick him from a line-up a mile away.
The scattered onlookers started collecting their stuff and leaving, so Mr. Williams stood as if he was unfolding himself and jammed his baseball cap over his shorter and darker than Matt's but still hippie hair.
"C'mon, boys, let's go feed the bear." Al and Gil snorted simultaneously, glared at each other over it, and followed him towards the exit by the locker rooms to wait on Matt to get out.
Gil thought it was hilarious how hungry all day hockey made Matt, laughing through his nose as he tried to shovel pasta in his mouth while talking to Al either about a devil or a dog – it was hard to tell which.
"Animals, the both of them," Arthur commented next to him, sending a sidelong look at the cousins. The three adults were talking jobs and careers, leaving Arthur alone, to Gil's glee.
"Must be a family thing." He jerked his head at Mr. Williams, who, while not as wolfish in pace, was eating just as sloppily as the boys. Arthur snorted.
"A learned characteristic, maybe. Al's parents are perfectly acceptable and proper."
"I'd wait until you got on Mrs. Jones's bad side a few times before you said that," Gil corrected after another bite of his layered sandwich. "She's, like, the definition of a scary as fuck housewife."
"I heard stories back when Al was in high school," Arthur said with a grin. "Hopefully, I'll never have to experience that first hand."
"What're you two talking about?" Al asked with a little too much directed energy as Matthew stood and left to go get seconds from the buffet. Man, that kid had issues.
"Your mom," he bit back. Al sneered at him and looked at Arthur for the real answer.
Arthur couldn't hold in his smirky grin. "We were talking about your mother, actually." Al blinked, and the other two laughed as Matt sat back down with his second heap of pasta.
"I don't want to know," he said with a wave of his fork before dragging Al back into a their pet-oriented conversation, and Arthur and Gil went back to talking about parents.
They returned to the arena after not too long, Matt replenished for now and Gil and Arthur happily talking like old friends. Al pulled a hissy fit and bugged the three adults incessantly, for which Gil couldn't be happier.
"So, why do you call Alfred 'wonder boy', anyway?" Arthur asked after a story from the 'Split Log' set. Gil cackled and leaned in closer so that Al wouldn't overhear and interrupt.
"Have you ever seen Hercules? The Disney version?"
Arthur shrugged. "A long time ago. It's been a while, at any rate. Why?"
Gil sat back and laced his hands behind his head. "Well, back before Al and I decided we didn't like each other, the main cast kids got together in someone's trailer after shooting one day for a Disney marathon. We were all, like, thirteen, stuck in the middle of the Texas desert, so we had shit to do otherwise."
"I can understand that, I believe." Gil smiled and shifted to lean on his knees.
"Well, anyway, somewhere in Beauty and the Beast one of the cast girls told us how she'd always been the Belle of her elementary school friends, and before long we were all picking the Disney character that we thought we fit the best."
Arthur tilted his head in question. "And what were you, then?"
Gil grinned. "I was Hades."
Arthur rolled his eyes. "And let me guess - Al was Hercules?"
"You got it." He leaned back on his hands, ignoring how the concrete floor dug into his palms. "Anyway, one of the rather many nicknames for Hercules in the movie is 'wonder boy', and we all started teasing him with it and stuff, and I guess it just got to him or something." He shrugged. "Never really asked why, to be honest. It's just funny to ruffle him up, and that's the fastest way to do it."
"I'll remember that." They watched the hockey players for a few moments in silence, then Gil gave a heavy sigh to break it.
"Wanna get out of here?"
"Absolutely."
Of course, Al wouldn't let Gil take his boy toy away alone, and Toris and Feliks didn't care about hockey at all, so all five of them ended up cramming into their small car, Arthur in the middle as the neutral ground between Al and Gil. They wandered around the metropolitan area of the city aimlessly, since they had just eaten and just gotten into the city and didn't quite know what to do with themselves. After a while, they found a parking spot somewhere and wandered on foot instead and found a zoo. Even though it was cold as hell outside, they paid their way in and joined the meager crowd at the enclosures.
Al was irritating as all get out, and even Arthur could feel it. He was clingy, sulky, and overly emotional, snapping at everyone and trying to ignore Gil as much as possible. However, Gil happened to be a lot more perceptive than people though he was. Over the long, long years of knowing Al, he'd come to understand that he really only acted this overly obnoxious around him.
Just because he knew this, though, didn't mean he had to do anything about it.
Al had gone ahead to the lion exhibit and was leaning on the fence texting - God only knew who - as Gil took a few step's detour to scoop up a handful of snow from a dirty pile on the edge of the sidewalk.
"What are you doing?" Arthur asked. Gil held up a finger over his grin that probably looked a little manic, then packed the snow together some as he snuck up behind Al, then shoved it down the back of his shirt and danced away as Al cried out in unpleasant surprise and flailed, almost dropping his phone into the exhibit in his panic. Gil cackled gleefully as Al rounded on him, shaking out the cold and melting snow from his shirt. "What the hell was that for?"
"Just thought you needed to chill out, man! Don't be so touchy!" Al pulled a face at his bad pun, then bent down to get his own snowball. Gil crossed his arms and stood his ground. "Go on, try and hit me. See what it gets you."
Al advanced, bloodthirst in his eyes, but before Gil's bravery could truly be tested, Arthur stepped in between them.
"Enough!"
Al stopped where he was, pinned by Arthur's glare and the hand on his chest. "I'm sick and tired of having to babysit you brats, and I'm not going to do it all day!" He switched to glaring at Gil, and Jesus in heaven, he thought he had a deadly stare with his red eye thing. This kid could instill fear in the manliest of men. "If you two don't stop fighting like God damned preschoolers, so help me God, I'll tie you two together until you learn to behave or kill each other - and right now, I don't give a fuck what happens either way." Back to Al; Gil didn't dare breathe any easier, though. "Are we clear?"
"Yessir." They glowered at each other over the simultaneous agreement again. Arthur sighed and slapped them both upside the head.
"Quit that. Morons." He marched off to complain to Toris and Feliks, leaving Gil with Al. Gil scratched his head awkwardly while Al frowned at his shoes.
"Well, he sure is somethin'."
"Yeah. He is."
Gil grinned sheepishly at him. "Truce for today?"
Al shrugged. "Guess we got no choice." They didn't shake on it, but followed the others together in a mutual understanding of tolerance.
Arthur never had to follow through with his ultimatum, although he did occasionally have to exhibit a physical reminder of his earlier scolding to whichever of them was nearest at the time. The rest of the day came and went, Matt getting out late from practice and crashing in the rental car while riding back to their hotel. The two groups decided to split then and meet the next day for Christmas Eve at the other's hotel, since it was nicer.
A day of forced getting along did good for him and Al, Gil guessed. Maybe he might actually deserve that cheap present his mom had made him buy after all. After all, he was a dick, but when they had the fear of God instilled in them by a short and surly Englishman, he wasn't so bad.
Mostly.
{A/N: This chapter and my life fought me. In other words, though, I started two new AUs in the down time! Look for them coming up in future weeks.
One of them is even -gasp!- not focused on USUK!
Although it's still there, of course.}