Fortune of Our Misfortune
Moment five
Francis chooses Arthur's name from his contact list and presses the call button. He patiently waits the familiar seven seconds that Arthur always makes him wait (really, the Englishman should vary the time – Francis has long since understood what he's doing there), but this time, the cold makes the seconds feel much longer – and Francis more annoyed.
When Arthur answers, it's with his typical eloquence. "What the fuck do you want now?" he practically spits in the phone, and Francis cringes distastefully.
"You are late," he states simply, not bothering to hide his irritation.
"I know I'm fucking late, smartarse! I'd be there sooner if you stopped ringing me." Francis hears sounds of traffic through the phone, hears Arthur's running steps; he's probably trying to catch the bus.
"I'll leave you to it," the Frenchman says derisively and ends the call.
What Gilbert was thinking when he assigned both Francis and Arthur to the preparation group, Francis would like to know. Most likely he thought it a funny joke and considered himself awfully clever. Well, Francis will kill him later. Now, they have a hall to decorate.
No one knows how, but this year, Gilbert actually managed to get himself elected for the student council president of their university. What is even more surprising than that, he handles his responsibilities with real accuracy and seriousness, running everything with strict precision, and yet managing to maintain an easygoing and inspiring air about himself. Gil would make an excellent leader, and Francis can only wonder how he hasn't realised that earlier.
Now the task at hand is to prepare the hall for the celebration of the students graduating in December. It's the council's responsibility to decorate the hall for the ceremony, and Gilbert chose his friends to help also outside the council – hence both Francis and Arthur's presence. It is a simple task that wouldn't take much time, if only a certain someone was so kind as to drag his arse there to let them in.
"We'd be half done already, had you entrusted someone else with those damned keys," Francis grumbles to Gilbert and rubs his arms in desperate attempt to warm himself.
"Chill," the German says and cackles at his own brilliance and the dirty look that Francis sends his way. "What's eating you, Franny? Anyone could be late."
"Anyone could, but Arthur is," Francis retorts.
Gilbert rolls his eyes. "I don't get you two. One moment you get along perfectly well, and the next you are all of the sudden trying to kill one another."
Francis mumbles something illegible to that, as even he is at loss sometimes with that very same question, and Gil shrugs and changes the subject. Francis, however, is unresponsive. He's cold – no, freezing – and all he wants is to get home as soon as possible to curl in his bed with a steaming mug of hot chocolate. But no, thanks to Arthur, he must apparently freeze to death if he wants to have enough sleep.
Then they spot a running figure at the end of the road. "There he is!" Liz exclaims and everyone cheers, everyone but Francis.
"I'm terribly sorry," Arthur splutters when he finally stops to open the door, "I missed the first bus and -"
"What, got your tongue stuck frozen to a street lamp?" Francis inquires, making everyone laugh, but Arthur ignores him and lets them all in.
"All right!" Gilbert calls to have everyone's attention once they are in the hall and have got rid of their coats and scarves and hats. "Lets get to business. Iv, Al, and Luddy, you will arrange the chairs. The rows start from here. You two, Artie and Lovi, will hang the flags across the hall and put the balloons on walls. Franny, you and Liz will take care of the pictures and paintings. I'll be taking care of the rest. All clear? Good – get to work!"
Francis notices a small smile that flickers on Elizaveta's lips when she turns from Gilbert to him, and smiles knowingly; he knows what's going on there.
"He would make a great military leader," he says casually, nodding in the German's direction as they gather the paintings and the pictures that will be hung on the walls.
She quirks her brow questionably, and Francis throws her a smile, just the tiniest bit suggestive beneath the perfect innocence. "He gets people to both obey and love him," he clarifies.
A light – and exceedingly rare! – blush appears on Lizzie's cheeks and Francis smirks; she is sharp and not bad at the matters of romance herself.
"Really now," she utters, but not without a small smile. "He's also rather good at making enemies."
That Francis can't deny.
The decoration proceeds quickly, as arranging chairs or hanging pictures and balloons on the walls doesn't require a lot of time. Ludvig, Gilbert's little brother, manages to keep Ivan and Alfred in control whenever the two get too enthusiastic in their arguments, and Francis and Elizaveta maintain an idle conversation while they work. However, a constant string of curses, coming from Arthur and Lovino's direction, keeps distracting the Frenchman every now and then.
"Oi, I told you to hold the fucking string up while it tie it to the hook!"
"Shut up, bastard, don't let it- great, now look what you did, you sorry fucker!"
Francis glances in their direction and catches a glimpse of an angry Italian and a frustrated Englishman collecting little colourful flags from the floor. "I take back my words," he says to Elizaveta. "A good leader would have had enough sense to assign them to different groups."
"He paired them for the laugh, I'm sure." Then her eyes glimmer dangerously. "You are probably right, though. He should have put you with Arthur instead."
Liz can play the subtle game, too, Francis notes a little exasperatedly; he shouldn't have hinted anything about her and Gil, now she will be getting back at him. However, he knows better than to catch the bait, and deliberately lets her comment pass.
But Lizzie is persistent. "What's your story, anyway? I've never heard it properly, only hints here and there."
"There's no story," Francis informs her calmly.
"Come on! You've known each other since forever, and weren't you together at some point?"
Francis' jaw falls open of sheer shock and he stares at Elizaveta, horrified. "Us, together? Where did you hear that?"
She grins. "Am I right then?"
"Absolutely not!"
"Really? But I thought you slept together that one time after Alfred and Matthew's party, Gilbert told me."
"Well, yes, that one time," Francis grudgingly admits. "And we were both drunk."
"So..?" Lizzie keeps prodding. "If you slept together, it means you've got at least some attraction towards one another."
"No, it doesn't. We were drunk."
She pouts, dissatisfied. "So, how did it happen then? You both just happened to fill your heads with alcohol and had sex all of a sudden, is that what you're saying?"
Well, that isn't the exact truth, either. It started as a normal party of their common acquaintance, which naturally involved loads of cheap booze. It wasn't that either of them was particularly drunk though, just tipsy enough for Francis to suggest and Arthur to accept an invitation to the Frenchman's flat; as it was one of the better periods in their acquaintanceship, the Frenchman decided to be a friend and let Arthur sleep at his place, since the last bus to the Englishman's own neighbourhood had gone. There, they somehow began to talk, and drink wine, and talk some more. Eventually, the conversation led to their childhood and then to their late teen years, to the time when Francis had been leaving for uni in London. Francis brought up a certain memory of those times, namely, a memory of their actual first time together, and that, quite unexpectedly, resulted in them doing it again, with more experience this time.
"Basically, yes," Francis mutters and focuses on straightening a painting on the wall.
"I see," Elizaveta says, unconvinced, but fails to get anything more out of Francis.
"There were no great emotions or strings attached or anything," Francis clarifies, just to make his point clear. "We just did it."
"Hm," says Liz and looks at him funnily, but returns to the task at hand, too.
Their conversation, however, has unsettled Francis. His eyes insist on slipping to Arthur more and more often, catching glimpses of him hovering on a chair, reaching up to tie the balloons to the hook in the wall, his shirt exposing a slice of bare skin when he reaches up. Their first time together was more an experiment than anything else, as, at the time, Arthur was a virgin and Francis had only done it with a woman a couple of times; and their second time was in a drunken state. But how would a third time be, with them both now experienced and completely sober?
Francis doesn't realise that he keeps staring until Elizaveta nudges him, and he quickly turns away, embarrassed to be caught.
Elizaveta looks at him relentlessly. "There is something, though," she says and surprises him with her sympathetic tone. "You must admit that much, at least. There is something there, isn't it?"
Francis involuntarily glances back at Arthur and sighs in frustrated exasperation, directed at himself. He can't even begin to count the times when he's tried to figure out Arthur and his relationship, but he never quite manages to come to any conclusion... or never quite manages to accept the conclusion that has been threateningly hovering upon him. But perhaps there's no sense in denying it any longer, since Elizaveta appears to be seeing it, too. Perhaps he should accept it to finally move on. Like this, it's like he's constantly stuck in something.
"I suppose so," Francis finally admits, slowly. "Something."
"Hm," Elizaveta says again and they get back to work.
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