I'm super happy right now for some reason. :3 Maybe it's because the 'stock market' (Al and his gang) is starting to crash again. Lol, I love referring to them as the stock market…
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Matthew looked up when someone rested their hand on the edge of the table he and Marco were seated at. "Hey Mattie—what's up?" Alfred asked, a grin stretching at his lips, though it was obvious that he was masking irritation that was flashing vividly in his blue eyes. Matthew furrowed his eyebrows and leant an elbow on the table so he could look up at his cousin in a more comfortable position.
"Get lost," Marco grunted before Matthew could reply to Alfred's rude greeting. The American's eyebrows furrowed and his grin immediately dissolved—he was probably frowning and forced on a grin.
"Make me," he retorted sourly and Marco stood up quickly, eye narrowing.
"Come on Matthew—it's warm enough to eat outside," he muttered darkly, still glaring at Alfred who was glaring back just as heatedly. "Don't want some American filth contaminating out lunch."
"Marco—"
"Oh, like Cubans are any more sanitary?" Alfred cocked an eyebrow smugly, crossing his arms and holding his head high.
"Alfred! Stop picking fights!" he snapped, going as far as shoving Alfred away. His cousin adopted the look of pure confusion at Matthew's slight outburst as he let himself stumble a bit. "It's only going to make things worse—as you can see!" he continued, motioning to Ivan who was sitting somewhere in the background, likely mulling over why Yao had suddenly stopped hanging around him.
"What do you mean?"
"You just fight everyone that doesn't appeal to you!" Matthew tried to clarify. "…Okay, David's an exception, but still!" he shook his hand to point out Ivan even further if Alfred hadn't seen the Russian yet. "You just—!"
"Okay—who are you picking fights with now?" Arthur asked as he approached the scene, large eyebrows furrowed. Alfred stuttered at Arthur's question, mostly at the 'picking fights with' part. The Briton glanced at the large Cuban and recognized him as the guy he had wondered about one day and the guy that was sitting with Matthew at the Caribou Coffee about a week or two ago. "Who're you?" he asked, pointing at Marco.
"He's Marco, the disease carrier."
"Better than a wannabe jock—STD's and all."
"Okay, okay you two—enough with the horribly offensive insults!" Arthur cut in, smacking Alfred on the head, making sure that it hurt the other. "Cool it."
"But—!"
"Alfred, picking fights only lead to bad things as far as I'm concerned," Yao remarked, placing a hand on the American's shoulder. "So back off," he continued and Alfred pressed his lips into a thin line. He clenched and unclenched his fists before stepping back, giving Marco a look that clearly read 'this doesn't mean I'm giving in' before turning his back on the two and walking away with Yao. Arthur glanced down at Matthew and Marco, the two now standing from the small incident that had just occurred. Shaking his head, he turned and walked away.
Matthew was still getting used to seeing Arthur out of his wheelchair, having gotten slightly used to either looking level when he was sitting or looking down whenever he was standing. He and Alfred were almost the same height according to Yao. Looking at a now sour Marco, Matthew smiled the best he could before frowning. "Please…I know you two have a…rather turbulent past, but I don't want all of my friends to be in some sort of war with each other."
"I'm not 'warring' with him," Marco muttered, glaring down at his food before sighing heavily. "Yeah—sorry about that."
"What in bloody hell was all of that about?" Arthur hissed as he forced Alfred down into his seat.
Alfred crossed his arms moodily and furrowed his eyebrows. "I was just trying to protect Mattie away from bad people," Alfred muttered childishly and Arthur cocked an eyebrow at Alfred's slightly strange answer.
"No Al—you can't do that. You can't monitor everything Matthew does and everyone he befriends," Arthur remarked sternly. "You're sounding like an overprotective parent—you can't protect someone from everything."
Alfred simply crossed his arms rather stubbornly and glanced off to the side. "I can try."
"Don't."
III
Arthur strolled into the hangar, slightly expecting something. It was Saturday and the weather was extremely nice for flying—just warm enough to make the breeze pleasant. "Artie~!" what he was expecting was coming soon. "Artie~! Guess what day it is~?" Alfred happily chimed, spinning Arthur in happy circles after swooping him into his arms.
Smiling, he pressed his cheek into Alfred's chest contently. "Alfred, stop spinning me," he requested. That was one habit Alfred had yet to drop—spinning hugs. When Alfred set Arthur down, he began playing with Arthur's choppy blond hair, grinning dumbly down at Arthur. "And yes Al—I know it's my birthday."
"Happy birthday Artie~!" Alfred borderline squealed. "I've been working on this card for such a long time too!" he continued, handing Arthur a simple piece of multipurpose paper that had writing in multiple colors all over it. On the front was a plethora of words—Arthur only understood 'Te amo' and 'Je T'aime', so he assumed that they all said 'I love you'. Alas, when he opened it, I love you was on the inside along with 'Happy Birthday!' written in Alfred's sloppy handwriting.
Arthur couldn't stop smiling when he flipped it closed once more to inspect the cover. "You even went as far as putting French on it…"
"Well yeah! Bonerfoy was really confused when I told him to tell me what it was but all's well as you can see! I had to ask all of my friends because I wanted it all to be legit—ya know? I'm obviously lacking a few as you can see, but there's a lot right? I've got Spanish, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Italian—all of that good stuff!"
"How did you get a hold of so many people?" Arthur asked still smiling at the card in his hands.
"Oh, well I know a Korean guy—he's one of my acting buddies and he's super hyper. I obviously got the Chinese from Yao and the Japanese from my super amazing friend Kiku. Oh! I got the Lithuanian from Toris and Polish from his boyfriend Feliks. Obviously Russian isn't on there for a very good reason and another acting buddy of mine did the Hungarian and—oh there's just a lot on there—it's a very long story," he waved a hand in the air in a dismissing gesture.
"You know so many people Alfred…" Arthur smiled up at his boyfriend. "I don't know anyone."
"What? Oh come on! Okay, so before me, you had Bonerfoy and Antonio—but look at you now! You've got Yao, David, me, Mattie—and you can make even more with all of the connections we have! Plus, we're like, super good friends—all four of us. I don't think you'll ever lose us, that's the cool part—we're like, the friends forever group or something—I don't know how to explain it."
"Yeah but…I like being a bit of a loner," Arthur approached one of the crates and placed the card atop it.
"Come on! There's still some more to come!" Alfred grinned, grabbing Arthur's hand and guiding him excitedly to his plane which was parked next to Yao's, Francis's and David's. Arthur entwined their fingers and he thought about it all. If it hadn't been for Alfred approaching him in the first place, he wouldn't be getting all of this. His father could care less about him obviously. Normally on his birthday, his father would've already been out early in the morning to get smashed. Then, later at night, he'd get smashed again. Francis was nice—he'd get something interesting for him every year for his birthday. One day, back when it was Arthur's first year in America, Francis had gotten him a RC helicopter. It was obviously a bit expensive, but he lied about it not being much money—Arthur didn't know he was partially rich back then. The thing stayed at Francis's place though since his father would flip if he saw it (mainly because of how expensive it looked).
Antonio would just say happy birthday and give him a warm hug and that was it. Ludwig would just nod in his direction and back when he was still crushing on the German, he was extremely disappointed with the lack of communication in between the two of them.
"Check. It. Out," Alfred grinned, motioning to Arthur's plane. Even though there weren't huge changes, Arthur recognized the lasers on the wings of his biplane. Smiling, he jumped up onto one of them and peeked into the cockpit, spotting the small piece of software Matthew had somehow gotten wired into his plane. Alfred got up on the opposite wing, grinning at Arthur. "We kinda had to pull it apart a bit with Ludwig's help and all of that," Alfred mentioned to the receiver above their heads. "But all's well—it looks perfect! Look, we even got everyone else's planes done!" he motioned to the other three planes, David inspecting one of the lasers at the moment.
Jumping into the seat, Arthur turned on the software in the plane and pressed the trigger to the 'gun' on his plane. Immediately, the four lasers attached to the wings began flashing one at a time, imitating real guns on a plane. "Oh, this is so cool," Arthur grinned.
"Yeah, Mattie still wants to put some receivers on the wings to make it a bit more realistic you know? Like, they'll just be smaller, small point givers or something—this is point based like a real laser game so the wings would be less point, you know what I mean?"
"Yeah, I know what you mean Alfred—come on, I think we should try it out."
"Oh God, I've been waiting for you to say that!" Yao sighed dramatically, jumping into the cockpit to his plane and pulling his goggles over his head along with a headset. "ROCAF's totally going to shoot you all out of the sky!"
"No way! We're going to win!" Alfred grinned, taking the headset Arthur was handing to him and placed it over his head. "Hurry up David! Let's get this party started!"
Ludwig glanced up at the sky, spotting three planes chasing after each other. He was barely able to register the lasers being shot from the rigs Matthew had created along with Francis and Alfred as the planes corkscrewed after each other. "Ugh…they better not wreck those…" he muttered.
"We're gonna get you David!" Alfred called excitedly as Arthur was currently chasing after David who was surprisingly able to avoid getting hit. It was a bit of a shock obviously because David couldn't really do any fantastic aerobatics, Arthur's plane was designed for aerobatics and Arthur was just downright a phenomenal pilot. "Go Artie, go, go!"
"Don't let your guard down!" came Yao's voice.
"Oh! Artie, quick be—GYAH!" Alfred wailed when the plane went into a ninety degree nosedive, going straight down, Yao following after him in tight corkscrews. Alfred began laughing euphorically before looking up when the receiver began blinking. "Artie—we've been hit!"
"I've got you now! England stands no chance against China and India!" Yao cried triumphantly as Alfred looked over his shoulder, Yao still shooting at them and David not too far behind.
"Damn it Artie—we're being ganged up on! Where are those pussy French pilots? England's in trouble!"
"Don't doubt me Alfred! I can take them all on my own!" Arthur grinned, pulling his plane up so that they were now flying directly up into the sky, their ascent just as steep as their descent. Yao easily followed while David had to fly his plane upright for a bit before following after them. Arthur threw the plane into a horizontal spin, the nose pointed at Yao's plane the whole time.
"Gyah! China will get revenge!"
"Holy hell Artie—that was amazing! Do it again! Do it again!" Alfred laughed gleefully as Arthur flew his plane away from Yao's, David's soon on his tail. Arthur pulled the Jungmann into a loop before they were flying completely upside down. "Gah! Artie, I'm gonna fall out! I'm gonna fall out! I know I'm not, but I feel like I am, so I'M GONNA FALL OUT!" Alfred panicked and Arthur laughed lightly to himself.
David tried to follow, but the loop was a bit confusing so he settled with turning around, the maneuver requiring quite a bit of space and sapped quite a bit of precious 'shooting' time. Arthur was already headed after Yao.
"Ha, ha! I'll never doubt you Artie! Not ever again—promise!"
Ludwig approached the side of the runway as Arthur landed his plane, being the last one to do so. Alfred grinned toothily and waved excitedly at the German. "Sup Luddy!" he was super pumped with energy at the moment. He followed Arthur's plane into the hangar and approached them once Arthur had turned off the engine.
"Ah, hello Ludwig," Arthur smiled, waving a hand before jumping out of the biplane, Alfred following. "What are you doing here?"
"Oh, I'm just here to talk a bit with you. Uh…has anything happened with Francis or anything? He hasn't gotten out of bed yet…" Ludwig awkwardly jabbed a thumb over his shoulder for no specific reason. Arthur checked the time on his phone, it being ten in the morning. "He normally is up at seven thirty, whether he has a hangover or not—so I was just wondering."
Frowning a bit, Arthur took the headset off of his head. "I'll text him—hopefully he'll respond," he said, opening a new text.
"Yeah, that sounds like a good idea," Ludwig agreed, sighing a bit stressfully.
[Angleterre]
Hey, Ludwig's worried about you, what's wrong?
He stared down at his phone before closing it with a sigh when he didn't get an instant reply. Alfred and Francis were both quick to reply, that's one thing he had picked up early in their conversations over texts. "Is he asleep or what?"
"Well…he's obviously awake, but is just staring up at the ceiling. I came back in a bit after the first time I checked and he had wrapped the blankets around himself," Ludwig explained and Arthur nodded his head, pulling his phone out when it began vibrating in his pocket.
[French Frog]
Nothing.
Okay, that meant something was wrong.
[Angleterre]
What's wrong?
[French Frog]
I told you it's nothing.
[French Frog]
I'm sick.
[Angleterre]
No you're not. What's wrong?
[French Frog]
I feel sick, but thermometer says I'm not.
[Angleterre]
That's a load of bollocks. What's wrong? You know I hate having to repeat myself.
Arthur stared down at his phone, enduring the long pause that followed. It was so long that Alfred began talking with Yao and Arthur considered leaving to confront Francis personally.
[French Frog]
Matthew.
Did it seriously take him that long to type those seven letters (eight if you included the period)?
[French Frog]
Now leave me alone.
[Angleterre]
What happened?
[French Frog]
I'm sick. Leave me alone (1).
Arthur threw his phone on the ground in frustration and stormed off. Alfred stopped talking with Yao at the abrupt display of irritation Arthur was now showing as he left the hangar. Grinning sheepishly at Yao, Alfred excused himself and ran after Arthur.
Arthur, just as he was crossing the rest of the ground the airport owned, realized that he didn't have a car—he rode with Alfred. "Hey Artie!" looking over his shoulder, Arthur stopped and let Alfred approach him. "What's wrong?" he asked a slight hint of concern crossing over his expression.
"He is sick," Arthur ground out. "Give me your keys," he then demanded, holding out a hand. Blinking in a bit of confusion, Alfred absentmindedly reached into his pocket and pulled out the keys to his rusty truck and dropped them in Arthur's open palm. He watched Arthur turn and storm off to his truck, seating himself into it heavily, slamming the door shut and flooring the gas pedal from the loud screech the tires let out before driving off at a high speed.
"Ugh…Bonerfoy—what'd you do now?"
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(1) I'm sick. Leave me alone – Lol, when I typed that, it reminded me of the "'e is sick. 'E 'as a terrible cold…" the voice actor for Francis did in the outtakes for season three. Oh, that's one of my favorite ones mainly because of the way he says it –w- Oh, but I really love the one where he's whistling and they can't stop laughing…Oh God, that's hard to do, I know what it's like. XD It kind of makes me want to be a voice actor, but alas, it's not my major…
Oh man, my updating schedule's super messed up as you can see…bleargh. Okay, I don't have anything else to say so please review, love to hear what you have to say and peace out my friends.
Fun Fact: Ursalia and Efisga were two of the many names suggested for the country that it now Canada.