"Artie! Sorry I'm late coach kept me behind after school!" Alfred apologised profusely nearly tripping over the straps of his school bag as he tried to place it down and stumble over to greet Arthur at the same time.

Arthur watched in amusement as the American managed to unhook his foot and sit down. "It's not much of a problem, probably good in fact it gave me time to reach the end of the chapter," Arthur said trailing his fingers down the worn spine of his latest book. It was a good book, if Alfred hadn't ranked highly on Arthur's mental list of important things than he likely would have carried on reading it.

"Cool," Alfred said grinning but trying to hide his panic at the same time, his English friend Arthur was a bookworm and while Alfred had quite a few books he did like he couldn't compare to Arthur's league in a million years. If they had to get into a conversation about it Alfred knew that he'd get caught behind within the first two minutes. "Whatcha reading?"

Arthur rolled his eyes watching Alfred betray everything in small little signs of body language, Arthur had a keen eye and he could spot the unnatural tenseness in Alfred shoulders and the fumbling fingers from a mile away.

Or in this case 5000 miles away.

"Just a classic," Arthur says dismissing the book. He wouldn't do that for anyone else. If it had been anyone else he could have talked for hours about the wonders of the classic Black Beauty. If it had been any of the ladies in his Literature class they would have had long and intellectual conversations about the pragmatic implications and the interesting perspective of the horse and the impact that had on the storytelling. Anybody else Arthur would have likely have taken great pleasure in boring to death with some more mundane and technical details. He'd learnt that it was the best way to stop his family from interrupting him when he was reading.

For Alfred though… well, Alfred had different hobbies and Arthur didn't want to bore him off, he felt nice in knowing that if he wanted to wax lyrical about literature than Alfred would without a doubt listen to him, and he took enough pleasure from that knowledge to not actually subject him to it.

"That's cool dude," Alfred says nodding his head and inwardly relieved. Even through the pixels of his camera screen he loved to watch Arthur talk and the way his eyes lit up whenever he talked about something he really loved. It left Alfred happy to sit in front of his computer for hours, ignoring the homework, ignoring his family's mysterious questions as to why he was so quiet, ignoring that he didn't even quite understand all of Arthur's technical terms. (The time Arthur had explained that a pre-modifier was pretty much just an adjective left Alfred confused – why not just call it an adjective?)

But often he just felt relived that they could talk happily on common ground, well metaphorically at least and even then their conversations could drag long into the night. Which well they did especially for Arthur…

Alfred glanced over at the clock he had set for UTC time (Arthur insisted it was GMT but they were much the same thing.) Arthur was seven hours ahead and that meant that it was 12:30 currently for Arthur, as in half past midnight. Alfred felt really guilty for keeping Arthur up so late almost every day but the time he got back from school was his first opportunity to contact Arthur.

"You're not too tired?" He checked quickly, watching Arthur give the same old smile he always did from where he was, tucked into his bed in his pyjamas with his laptop resting on his knees.

"I'm fine Alfred, I took a nap earlier, we can talk for as long as you like." Arthur answered. It was sweet Arthur thought, there was nothing they could do about the large time gap between them but every single day Alfred always asked to make sure he was okay about it. There had been a few times when Arthur had had to leave him a message telling him he couldn't make because of tests and family and just general life getting in the way but nearly always Arthur could turn up and he didn't mind the late nights in the slightest if it meant he could talk to Alfred.

"Ha, a nap you sound like an old man Artie." Alfred scoffed.

Arthur took it all back, Alfred could be an irritating, obnoxious, arrogant foo-

Alfred smiled softly, "I'm glad you're okay Arthur."

Damn, he loved the guy. He couldn't even hold a grudge against him for a minute could he? Arthur sighed and tried not to make it too noticeable for fear of looking like a love-struck teenager. Which well, he was but that didn't mean that he had to look it.

"How'd your trials go anyway?" Arthur asked and watched as in turn Alfred eyes lit up as he sat up a little bit straighter and started to talk with plenty of gesticulating.

And so it would continue, on and on, as the two lost track of time entirely. As always they'd sign off with a chorus of 'I love yous' and 'I love you mores' and they'd head off back to their separate lives; Arthur to sleep and sweet dreams of impossible meetings with Alfred and Alfred would slip off to work to earn money to make a dream he wasn't even aware of a reality.

And both would be so immensely thankful for a chance encounter when Arthur was on holiday that had all led to so much more.

The Long Distance AU was requested by Rainy1 as well :) And I made some effort to try and work out the distance they would be from each over as well as the time zone difference so 5000 miles and a 7 hour difference should be alright... Arthur is in England of course and Alfred lives on the west coast because I was trying to emphasize the time zone difference.

I did debate over the last sentence because I think I could have left it at the line before but oh well... basically they met on holiday, had a holiday romance and kept in touch afterwards. Theoretically this could even be a continuation of the Summer Camp AU although I didn't write it like that.

Thanks for reading though, I'll be trying to make up for my absence! - Sekaira