Zeplerfer A/N: Hi, everyone! Zeplerfer here. About a month ago, Iggycat contacted me about helping to finish this story. Since Fakiagirl has moved on from the hetalia fandom, I agreed to take over the Alfred (even) chapters. I've enjoyed this fic from the very beginning and with the help of Iggycat and Fakiagirl's notes, I'm doing my best to continue the story you already know and love. I'm not sure how quickly you'll get your updates, but I promise you, this fic will have an ending!
Iggycat A/N: I've added a link to Zeplerfer's writing page on my profile. Please check out her lovely work!
Up until six weeks ago, I would have told you that Mondays were the worst day of the week, no questions asked. But ever since I started sharing my office with Arthur, I found myself eager to drive to work and take my place across from him at our messy desk. Well—half messy desk. My side was cluttered with pens and papers. Arthur kept his side immaculate.
"Have a nice weekend?" I asked him as I settled into my comfy roller chair. I reached over to boot up my laptop, but kept my eyes focused on Arthur. It was hard to pay attention to anything else in the room when he had that coy smile on his face, the one that gave him adorable dimples.
I'd started categorizing his smiles. Yeah, I had it bad.
"Nothing too exciting," Arthur replied, ducking his head beneath the desk as he pulled something out of his black messenger bag. "But I do have a little surprise for you."
He slid a red bag of candy across the desk and I caught it easily before it fell off the edge of the table.
"Sweet!" I cried, examining the package with excitement. Above a picture of chocolate-covered balls, was the label 'Maltesers.' It sounded vaguely familiar, but it took me a moment to remember where I had heard the word before. I gave Arthur a teasing grin as soon as I made the connection. "Should I tell the folks at Alcatraz that you've been stealing again?"
He snorted, but looked pleased that I had remembered. "These aren't stolen. They were in a care package from my brothers."
"Wow. They send you candy?" I asked. I was kinda surprised because I remembered Arthur calling his brothers 'twats' during our first Skype conversation. Maybe 'twat' had a different meaning in Manchester.
Arthur grinned at my look of surprise. "They thought I'd be a bit homesick. And they said that the sweets over here are rubbish."
"Hey, America has awesome candy!" I protested.
He chuckled and shook his head. "Don't take it personally. My brothers insult everything and everyone. I think it's how they show they care."
Somewhat mollified, I tore open the bag and popped one of the malted milk balls into my mouth. It was softer than I expected, and the chocolate coating felt silky as it melted on my tongue. I wasn't going to admit that I liked them better than Whoppers, but I sorta did.
I gave Arthur a chocolatey grin. "You know, the first time you said you'd stolen 'Maltesers,' I thought they were cigarettes or something," I admitted.
Arthur looked a little embarrassed. "No, that wasn't until later."
"You smoke?" I blinked in surprise.
"I did. Still do on occasion, when life is too stressful."
That wasn't something I had expected from the introverted bibliophile, but growing up in Berkeley, I was used to folks who smoked to relieve stress. It just usually wasn't cigarettes. I tried a few more Maltesers and they tasted just as good as the first one.
Arthur leaned forward eagerly as he watched me eat. "Do you like them?" he asked.
"Yeah, they're pretty good."
He arched an eyebrow. "Just 'pretty good'? And yet you've already devoured a dozen malted milk balls in less than a minute."
"Guess I just love balls," I teased back.
As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I realized that I was probably taking our workplace flirting too far. But Arthur didn't look upset with me, so I stuffed the candy bag into my overflowing desk drawer and pretended that everything was normal. Everyone dealt with workplace crushes, right? I wasn't being a creepy boss; we were just being friendly.
Arthur quietly returned to his latest pile of manuscripts as I distractedly scanned my emails. Thoughts and rationalizations flew through my head at a furious speed. Lots of people hung out with their interns on weekends, I told myself. And gave them flowers… and brought each other candy… and teased each other about liking balls…
My mouth went dry as the realization hit me. I knew I had it bad for Arthur, but I hadn't realized how far I had let my crush bleed into our working relationship. This was supposed to be an internship, not a dating service!
There was an urgent email from one of my writers, but it was too hard to focus on the words when I was thinking about the man sitting across from me. I took a deep breath and read the email again. Everything would be fine so long as I focused on my job instead of admiring the way Arthur's eyes sparkled when he read a beautifully written passage.
The email informed me that Bella, one of our most successful authors, had accidentally deleted her backup and latest draft, and she wanted me to come down and fix the problem. I groaned in frustration. There were downsides to being the most tech-savvy person in a den of writers and editors.
"Everything okay?" Arthur asked me, a tone of concern in his voice.
"Dunno. One of our authors deleted her draft and she wants me to see if I can restore it."
Arthur tilted his head to the side. "Why doesn't she bring it up here to the IT department?"
"I am the IT department," I replied with a laugh. "I fix what I can, and if I can't fix it, she'll have to take her computer to the shop. For now, I'll go to her. It's four hours round-trip and she doesn't like dealing with SF traffic." I couldn't blame her. California drivers were generally pretty nice, but I understood wanting to avoid the crowded streets (and expensive parking) of San Francisco. "Looks like I'm taking a road trip down to Monterey this afternoon."
"Mind if I join you?" Arthur asked. "I'd be interested in seeing how you work directly with the authors."
Despite my concerns about our workplace relationship, I couldn't say no to such a reasonable request. Plus, spending the time chatting with Arthur would save me from the monotony of driving down by myself. I grinned and nodded. "Sure! You're not allergic to cats, are you?"
My reason for asking Arthur about cat allergies was obvious as soon as we stepped into Bella's cottage that afternoon. Several cats stared at us from the bookshelves, while others lounged on the cushions in the front bay window. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Arthur trying to hide a smile as he watched a kitten playfully knock a pencil off a nearby table. The felines kept a watchful eye on us as we followed Bella to her writer's alcove, but they lost interest once they realized that we didn't have any food.
As we neared the laptop, Bella explained her problem. "I was trying to transfer the story to my backup this morning, but I accidentally moved the old copy to the hard drive and it replaced my newest version." A slight look of dread took over her face. "I'd been on a roll too. I was already halfway through Victor's chapter!"
I sat down in front of her computer. "Don't worry," I reassured her. "Most files stay somewhere on a hard drive unless you overwrite them with something new or wipe the drive."
She stared at me blankly. "What, like with a cloth?"
I shook my head and resisted the urge to chuckle. Back at Stanford we had referred to this as the techie/fuzzy divide. Fortunately for me, I had found time for both my history major and a few of the introductory computer science classes.
"I'm going to start off with a… cat." I turned back to look at the screen and was surprised to find that a cat had sprawled across the laptop in the short amount of time I had been talking with Bella. "Mind moving the furry keyboard?"
"Oh, of course!" Bella said, slightly flustered as she gently lifted the orange tabby off the keyboard. "Come on, Tabitha, you can't sleep there right now."
I plugged in a USB port and quickly installed the data recovery software. I had helped set up Bella's backup drive, so I had no trouble finding the location on her computer. With a few clicks, I started the program and picked the directory I was trying to recover. As I waited for the code to work its magic, I turned my head to the side and listened to Bella and Arthur's polite chatter.
"What a quaint name," Arthur said thoughtfully, eyeing the cat. "Did you by chance name her after Tabitha Twitchit?" he asked. His fingers moved at his side, like he wanted to reach out and pet the cat, but was afraid it wasn't professional behavior.
"You recognize the name!" Bella cried excitedly, eyes sparkling with delight.
"Of course," Arthur smiled, perhaps musing about the anthropomorphic cat from the tales of his childhood. "I think my Mum read me all the books as a young boy."
"I loved them too," Bella agreed. "Want to meet Moppet, Mittens, and Tom Kitten?"
"Kittens?" Arthur asked excitedly. I smiled to myself, pleased that Arthur had thrown professional caution to the wind in favor of adorable fluffballs.
Their voices grew softer as they went looking for three kittens that apparently didn't want to be found. As much as I wanted to watch Arthur try to out cat lady an actual cat lady, I returned to my software recovery program. The files were playing hard to get. I was going to need to use a stronger algorithm, which meant more processing time.
As I waited, I logged into my email and responded to a few less urgent requests. This time the recovery was successful and I sighed in relief as the files popped up on the screen. I still had Bella's initial draft from a month earlier, but redoing several weeks' worth of edits would have been sheer misery.
I restored the files and copied them over to my USB drive just in case Bella had another problem with her laptop in the near future. She claimed that the machine hated her. Personally, I thought it was just annoyed about being treated like a cat bed.
"And this is Matilda!" Bella cried from the living room as she and Arthur finished the last of her cat tour. I turned around to see her lift up a cat so large and fluffy that if attached to the end of a stick, it would make an excellent mop.
"Roald Dahl," Arthur guessed correctly, earning another pleased smile from Bella.
As amusing as it would be to spend the next hour listening to them talk about cats and children's books and children's books featuring cats, I had a few other plans for Monterey floating around in my head. I cleared my throat and gave Bella a thumbs-up when I caught her attention.
"Got your files back," I told her.
"Wonderful!" She rushed over with the cat still in her arms. "Now if I could just figure out how to kill Victor," she said, still beaming at me.
I laughed and relinquished the desk chair. "Better leave you to it," I replied. It wasn't smart to get between an author and her novel, especially when she had murder on the mind. By the time Arthur and I reached the door, she was already bent over her keyboard, typing intently as a cat's tail swished back and forth over the mouse.
We walked to where my car was parked on the other side of the street. After a quick glance at my watch, I proposed spending the rest of the afternoon in Monterey. "The aquarium is hella awesome and we're not gonna get back before five anyway," I pointed out logically as Arthur wrinkled his nose at my choice of adjective. Plus, I had the perfect place in mind to show Arthur how delicious American sweets could taste, but I was gonna surprise him with that part of my plan later.
"Are you sure it's okay?" Arthur asked, looking a little dubious as I already started driving the short distance to downtown Monterey, known also as Cannery Row.
I beamed, eager to show him the world's best aquarium. "Of course! You're still editing that zookeeper romance novel, right? You can do some research for that."
"Well, I do have a few questions about the aquarium's back rooms…" Arthur admitted, still doing his best to maintain a professional façade. I wished he would loosen up more, but I could see why he didn't want to appear too eager to goof off in front of his boss.
Since Arthur insisted, we started our aquatic adventure with the African blackfooted penguins. A few waddled around on the rocks in their enclosure, while others swam up against the edge of the glass, watching the visitors with evident delight. We had just missed the penguin feeding for the day, but that meant that the penguin zookeeper was still standing around and eager to answer all of Arthur's questions. He asked her about what the penguins did after hours and after a joke about the penguins hitting up the club that had Arthur looking looking mildly uncomfortably as I nearly doubled over with laughter, she told him some more serious stories about leading penguin parades to visit the veterinarian and letting fluffy gray penguin chicks chase some of the employees around the warehouse. The penguins didn't like being picked up or put in cages, but they were happy to follow humans around. Especially if those humans had given them fish before.
"Can you blame them? Who doesn't love fish?" she asked rhetorically, grinning and tossing her long, brown ponytails behind her shoulders.
"True enough, though I prefer mine cooked," Arthur replied.
She laughed. "I should get back to cleaning up the fish buckets, but it was great talking to you!"
"Likewise," he replied with a gentlemanly nod.
I wanted to tease him about starting up his own penguin romance, but I thought the better of it as we wandered to an outdoor section of the aquarium that featured a balcony overlooking the ocean as well as an open-air animal display just below us. He hadn't shown any actual interest in her and I had promised myself that I would cut back on the whole workplace flirting thing.
The view of Monterey Bay was gorgeous as always. The water was a bright teal in the tidal pool, shifting to a true blue out near the craggy coastal rocks. I took in a deep breath of the salty ocean air and listened to the sound of waves crashing against the rock outcroppings.
"It's beautiful," Arthur murmured.
"Yeah," I agreed. We stood outside for several minutes, simply basking in the bay's relaxing beauty. I watched fluffy white clouds roll across the horizon and enjoyed the sea breeze as I leaned against the railing.
"Oh, look!" Arthur cried excitedly. He pointed to two sea otters floating amidst the kelp forest spread out below us. They lay with their bellies facing the sky, paws curled inward as they drifted on the water. "It looks like they're holding hands," Arthur said in surprise.
"They do that so they don't lose each other while sleeping," I explained. "You otter know that!"
He rolled his eyes at my pun and we walked back inside. Seeing how fond Arthur was of the outside otters, I guided him to the more elaborate indoor sea otter enclosure near the main entrance. These otters were much livelier than the ones outside. They swam up and down and back and around in continuous loops, playing with floating toys and balls as the other aquarium visitors laughed in delight and tried to snap pictures of the speedy mammals.
We found a spot close to the glass and watched as three otters played a game of tag and another rolled around on the rocks near the back of the exhibit. I loved seeing otters play. They all seemed so cheerful and energetic. Like water puppies!
"You know why they don't give the otters caffeine?" I asked Arthur, leaning in so that I didn't bother the other folks with my terrible jokes.
He shook his head and gave me a perplexed look. "Is that a thing?"
"Of course not. Could you imagine these little buggers even more hyped up? It would lead to… otter devastation."
This time Arthur swatted me lightly on the upper arm as punishment. We continued exploring the rest of the aquarium and I made sure to point out the Ocean Sunfish in the next tank. It was 300 pounds of big and ugly.
"It looks like it was created by a mad scientist," Arthur remarked. He watched the fish swim in circles in the gigantic, two-story tank.
I nodded my head in agreement. "Seriously. They used to have an even bigger one, but he died a few years back."
"This really is a remarkable place," Arthur said as we moved over to the kelp forest exist. The green vines gently moved back and forth in the water.
"I told you Monterey was the best. There's no otter aquarium like it!"
Arthur groaned. "Please, I can't take an otter pun!"
I broke down laughing, drawing a few stares from some of the other people standing nearby. When I was finally finished, I wiped my eyes and sighed happily.
By the time we had finished with the rest of the exhibits, it was nearing closing time and I was getting hungry. Fortunately for me, the best chocolate and ice cream in Monterey was only a few blocks away. I piqued Arthur's interest with the promise of "the best desserts in America" and led him down Cannery Row.
The high street was named for the old sardine canneries that used to fill the area. Even the aquarium was in a building that had once been a cannery. Most of them had shut down in the mid 50s before becoming shops, restaurants, and hotels for all of the tourists that now visited Monterey.
"It's not the way I pictured it from the novel," Arthur remarked, turning his head from side to side as he took in the old industrial buildings.
"Just imagine it with more nostalgia," I suggested. "I don't think it looked the way the book described even when Steinbeck was writing about it."
"Well, isn't that the heart of fiction? Maybe the place you're writing about isn't entirely real, but the themes and concepts you want to convey are."
I was struck by Arthur's comment. "It sounds like you've tried your hand at writing."
Arthur turned his head and smiled at me. "Haven't we all? Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen."
"Yeah, I know what you mean," I replied, thinking about the many books I had started writing. Finishing them was always a tougher story.
"Oh? What do you write about?"
I had never really discussed my story ideas with other people because each story felt like it was a part of me, but I didn't mind sharing one with Arthur. "Well… the one I'm trying to finish at the moment is about two brothers during the Revolutionary War. They end up fighting on different sides. It's supposed to be about them coming to terms with a break in the family. I'm not happy with the ending though," I admitted.
"Well, it sounds fascinating. I'd be happy to offer suggestions if you'd care for them."
"I'll think about it," I replied. My very English intern would probably have an interesting perspective on the forlorn manuscript sitting in the messy pile on my desk. I just wasn't sure I wanted to share something that still felt so raw and unpolished.
We reached a sign that declared we'd arrived at the Ghirardelli Chocolate Company and I led Arthur inside the bustling shop. It looked like a typical seaside ice cream parlor—bright and cheerful with loads of tourists. A smiling employee gave us free samples of caramel-filled chocolate bites near the entrance. I ate mine happily and we joined the line to order ice cream. I already knew that I wanted the butterscotch hot fudge sundae, so I spent the next few minutes in line discussing the choices with Arthur and offering my suggestions.
He decided to go for a waffle bowl filled with butter pecan and mint chocolate chip. I paid for both of us over his objection and led him to the outside deck overlooking the bay. We found a table for two and took a moment to enjoy our ice cream in silence.
The cold vanilla ice cream and hot fudge mingled happily in my mouth. It was sweet and silky smooth, just the way I remembered. Trying not to be too obvious about it, I watched eagerly as Arthur took a few dainty bites of each ice cream flavor. He smiled to himself, and I felt victory at hand. "Admit it, it's pretty good."
"It's not bad, but I'm not sure it's really American."
"Of course it's American!"
He arched an eyebrow. "With a name like Ghirardelli it sounds like you need to import Italian styles if you want good chocolate."
"Just because Ghirardelli moved from Italy doesn't mean he's not American. That's like saying I'm not American because of my Italian nonna," I huffed.
"I didn't mean to hit a sore spot," Arthur replied. He lifted up his hands and I realized I'd been a little quick to jump down his throat. "Let's agree it's better than that sandy tasteless rubbish that Hershey calls chocolate and move on to a different topic," he suggested.
Not wanting to get into a big fight with my intern over nationality and chocolate, I nodded my head in agreement. "Okay. Wanna guess what sort of books Bella writes?"
"Cat murder mysteries?"
I grinned. In all the time I'd been asking the question, no one had ever gotten the answer right. "You'd think so, but no. She mostly does some pretty dark historical novels set between World War I and World War II."
"Huh. I suppose she needs something to balance out all that fluff." Arthur brushed off some cat fur that was still clinging to his trousers and smiled. "I have to say, that meeting wasn't what I expected. She seemed less like a client and more like…"
"…a friend? Yeah, one of the advantages of being a small publishing house is that we really get to know our writers as individuals."
Arthur nodded thoughtfully. "I'm sure providing a personal touch also decreases the likelihood of them being poached by a larger firm," he added slyly in response.
"There's that," I agreed with a grin. "But Golden Gateway goes out of its way to make our entire staff including writers feel like they're part of a tight-knit community."
Arthur raised a brow as if he was prompting me to elaborate so I dug around in my mind for something to help me explain.
"Like, for example, every year we hold an ugly Christmas sweater party where everybody shows up and we give out prizes for best, or I guess worst, sweater." A lopsided grin spread over my face as I recalled the events of last year. "Bella's 'Meowy Catmas' sweater won last year. You could probably hear our whole office cackling about it from the next building over."
"Someone had a more ridiculous jumper than you? I'd be hard pressed to believe that." He chewed thoughtfully on the maraschino cherry that had topped his sundae, continuing after he swallowed. "You seem like the type of person to have an obnoxious assortment of tacky Christmas jumpers in your holiday arsenal."
"Oh, I do. Every day in December is ugly Christmas sweater day for me. But don't worry, I keep it classy. I still wear my tie underneath them," I added with a wink.
"Still, I'm not quite sure that ugly Christmas jumpers are my idea of a selling point," Arthur replied, sending me a pensive look. For a second I thought that he was talking about me, before I realized that he was still going on about the relative merits of small publishing houses versus big ones.
As our ice cream slowly disappeared, we continued chatting about different publishing houses. I explained that I liked working for a boutique publisher because we could be selective. I also enjoyed the close-knit community and our workplace flexibility. Would we be able to spend an afternoon in Monterey if we worked for a big bureaucratic firm? I don't think so.
For his part, Arthur wished that we had more resources to help struggling authors tell their stories. He had found diamonds in the rough while reviewing manuscripts over the weekend, but Golden Gateway Publishing just didn't have the time or manpower to polish them all.
"Of course, the big publishers also expect you to specialize in a narrow area. I prefer…" Arthur trailed off as his buzzing phone interrupted him. He glanced down, fiddling with his cell for a moment.
"Anything important?" I asked.
He shook his head. "Just my brother. Probably wants to know if the care package arrived."
"Tell him Ghirardelli is better than Cadburys."
Arthur snorted. "I will do nothing of the sort."
While he put away his phone, I ate a few more bites of my sundae. My spoon clinked against the bowl and I realized I had almost finished it off without offering any to Arthur. "You wanna try some of this?" I asked, pushing the bowl closer to him. He took a few bites and then returned the favor, letting me sample from his tasty waffle cone. The ice cream flavors were pretty good, although I still preferred my sundae. "So what were you gonna say? Something about editors getting to try their hand at lots of topics?"
"Oh, yes. I enjoy that we're not pigeonholed into one genre here."
"Yeah, it's a real advantage," I agreed. As I finished off the last of my ice cream, a potential solution to my workplace crush problem wormed its way into my head. If Arthur wanted to explore different genres, then it would make sense to pass him along to the other senior editors at the firm for the rest of his internship. We would still maintain close contact with one another but there would be no more of the complicated boss/employee vibes that currently plagued our relationship. Once he became either Elizabeta's or Roderich's intern, I would stop being his boss and start being just a coworker, and if that happened I would be free to ask him out on an actual date. I smiled to myself. What could possibly go wrong?
