Perfection is important to Roderich Edelstein. His dark brown hair is always sculpted and curled to perfection; his clothes are always classy; his glasses are never askew and practically glowing with cleanliness. At best, he is obsessive-compulsive.

At worst, he is a half-crazed maniac bent on perfection.

Not only is he a world renowned director, but he is also an award winning composer (a fact he takes joy in constantly reminding other people of). As a result of this, he has refused to entrust the soundtrack of the film to anyone else but himself.

That is why he is currently holed up in his and Elizaveta's hotel room, scribbling sheet music furiously, instead of directing his film.

"Why couldn't he just have someone else compose?" Arthur sighs, trying to warm his hands on his small thermos of white-wine-in-an-opaque-container-to-keep-up-appearances. "He's already the director. Have him leave it to someone else."

Elizaveta rolls her eyes. "Arthur, do you even know Roderich?"

"I know him well enough that he will be a ticking time bomb of stress in at least a week."

"He isn't already?" sighs Francis, acting put-upon.

Liz grins, green eyes twinkling. "It is pretty much his constant state of being." She may love Roderich with all her heart, but she isn't above taunting him mercilessly.

They should have been filming today, but according to Liz, Roderich is probably still hunched over his piano, scribbling out the film's score. "When he gets on a kick," she complains, "there is absolutely no stopping him."

"It is very difficult to complete a film with no director, however." Francis fiddles with the lid of his Starbucks cup, which contains what he likes to call "the filthy American swill." He drinks it anyway, of course, but that doesn't matter.

A whole chunk of Boston Common had been set apart for the day, too; it was a waste of money and time if Roderich never showed. Which looked like a distinct possibility, as Francis, Elizaveta, and Arthur had been sitting on this bench for an hour already, trying to ignore gawkers.

The crew members wander around, stopping sometimes to chat with the three actors; the makeup team had gone for breakfast and never came back. They had already been in Boston for a month and they had barely even begun shooting.

As good as this film was bound to be, they would be here much too long if their director kept skipping filming like a high school stoner cutting algebra. Arthur says so, and Elizaveta laughs again.

"I wouldn't peg him as the stoner type," she laughs, loud and bright, "but the analogy works."

The three fall back into a friendly silence. Arthur is feeling nice and warm, sandwiched between his two friends (rather, one friend and whatever he can call Francis), despite what is bound to be a horrid winter. It's only September, and already the temperature is dipping into levels below freezing. From what he's learned from locals, this isn't even normal in New England.

In London, it's mostly a wet chill, not an early frost bites at your face like a hungry animal.

Arthur misses London.

Plus, he still hasn't quite recovered from his half-forgotten midnight stumbling to a certain American paparazzo's flat. A day later and his body is still holding on to the remnants of a sick, sick hangover.

Arthur had gotten home (well, back to the ritzy hotel downtown he got stuck in during filming) with the help of a suddenly very friendly Matthew, who had been off to work anyway and drove him in his cab. Plus, he had only overcharged Arthur a little.

Then it was a day of vomiting and a sensation reminiscent of having one's head being pried open with a rusty crowbar.

When he had woken up the next morning, he could open his eyes into the light without the feeling of being stabbed through the eye with a penknife. He dressed in something simple and stylish, which is, today, an annoyingly (but purposefully) disheveled white button-down shirt beneath a slim, pale green sweater vest.

All of his clothes are like that nowadays; Arthur hates how rumpled he looks, but his stylist Feliks is always telling him that he needs to, like, keep up with the fashion!

But Arthur constantly has to fight the urge to button his cuffs, to smooth out the wrinkles in the vest. I looks like a homeless man.

Then again, if he really did look like a homeless man, he would be one wearing an extremely expensive one-of-a-kind outfit straight from the designer.

But that is very much beside the point.

He's getting a nice buzz from the wine, at least. He tries not to feel too bad about the fact that it's nine in the morning.

A girl who has been lurking around behind the cameras for while glances at Arthur hopefully. He throws her a wink; she blushes furiously and scurries away, squealing to a girlfriend a few feet away, who had obviously captured a picture of the wink and is now squealing as well.

"Women? Hardly your area, Arthur," Francis snorts.

Arthur punches him in the shoulder, not even trying to be gentle. "No, Francis, I'm just like you. Remember what you said to me once?" He straightens up, leans forward plaintively, gestures with a wide seep of one hand (careful not to smack Elizaveta with his thermos) and clutches at his heart with the other, while exclaiming in his best bad French accent: "Ah love not for ze body, mon cher, but ze 'eart!"

Elizaveta cackles wildly; Francis gives his fellow actor a filthy look. "Yes, you are very like me, Arthur." He seems to debate with himself for a moment before he adds, "Your love of wine, however, seems to have surpassed my own."

Arthur's laughter is cut short, and he draws his arms back in, slouching back against the bench. "Shut up."

Francis rolls his eyes and sips daintily at his coffee, refusing to meet Arthur's glare.

Elizaveta, however, pleads for contact. "Arthur, it is nine AM."

Arthur gives her the most overly sincere smile he can manage. "I am well aware," he bites, but doesn't drink any more. Not while these two are around, anyway.

Nothing more is said, but awkwardness has dripped into the companionable silence, diluting it, making it thicker than it should be. Elizaveta stands, making her excuses, and gives a meaningful look to Francis (a bit too meaningful for Arthur's tastes) before taking off. She's holding her mobile with a look of purpose— probably to call Roderich and to try and get his sorry arse over here.

Francis immediately turns to Arthur and raises an eyebrow. Arthur shimmies away, even though he knows he can't escape an interrogation.

"I have known you for each and every year of your sorry little life," Francis states. It's not even an insult, coming from him.

"You have," Arthur agrees, warily.

"Where were you yesterday, Arthur?"

Arthur raises his hands to smooth his eyebrows, but then realizes that Francis is smirking at him and lowers them. "Home."

"Not likely. You, mon ami, are a terrible liar."

Arthur glowers at him.

"Are you going to answer my question?"

"Not likely," echoes Arthur, picking at his fingernails.

"You stumbled out of the bar and then disappeared. I was fraught with worry, of course," Francis says haughtily, sweeping his long blonde hair away from him face with one practiced flick. "You worried all of us."

"Roderich wasn't worried."

Francis represses a smile. "He was worried about the film, and was in turn worried about you."

Arthur huffs, "I figured as much."

"So where did you end up?"

"You're not going to stop pestering me about it until I tell you?"

"Well, to put it simply…" Francis smiles. "No."

Arthur rubs his eyes tiredly. He feels like he should be better at sleeping. Isn't that supposed to be an instinct, an intrinsic human value? Sleep, the need for rest, something that every human experiences… and Arthur is bad at it.

"I was dragged to a strange flat by an obnoxious paparazzo with a hero complex and his evil Canadian brother. Then, the aforementioned obnoxious paparazzo snapped a rather unflattering picture of me while I was drunk out of my mind and now I have to go back there for two months just so he can take pictures of me for some gallery shit he wants to do. If I do that, then he won't release the picture he took of my smashed self."

Francis blinks at him.

Again.

And again.

One more time, before he hisses, "What?"

"Mm."

"…what?"

"You heard me."

"He blackmailed you!"

"No, I offered," Arthur groans."What else was I supposed to do?"

"I… I don't know, Arthur." Francis releases the breath he had been holding and slumps backwards and laughs without humor. "You, my friend, are screwed."

"Piss off," mumbles Arthur, but halfheartedly.

"What is his name?"

"Alfred Franklin Jones." He spits out the second name like poison.

"You even learnt his middle name?"

"I didn't ask for it, pervert."

"Why are you calling me a pervert? I have not said anything." An awful little smile is dancing on his lips, against the rim of his cup.

"Oh, but you insinuated."

"I have done no such thing." Francis pretends to be offended, and throws his now-empty paper cup into the trash bin beside the bench.

One of the cameramen is lounging around, smoking, and Arthur is a bit jealous. Why does he feel like he needs a cigarette so much lately? He had quit almost five years ago, when he realized that the whole practice was just probably giving him cancer instead of making him look cool.

Arthur supposes that it would be a better addiction than the one to the wine still sitting in his hand, but it would be much less effective.

There is the click, click of heels pounding on the pavement. The owner of those heels is Elizaveta Héderváry, who is striding with such fury that Arthur is surprised that the force of her step hasn't torn holes in the ground; she's wringing in her hands the white kerchief she had been wearing over her hair. Her screamed obscenities draw the attention of the crew and tourists alike. She's screaming something about how if only she could get my hands on say, a frying pan, and whack a son of a bitch over the head with it!

Upon her sudden return, Elizaveta rips Arthur's thermos out of his hand, pulls off the lid, and splashes its contents into his face.

"What the—" Arthur splutters, wine dripping down his front, but then sees the look on Liz's face and thinks better of continuing.

She's angry. Enraged. Livid. So frightening that Arthur's mind fails to come up with any more synonyms. Her shoulders are tense, shaking, her long chestnut-brown hair puckering out of its ponytail holder like she's been pulling at it.

"Elizaveta," Francis begins carefully. "Are you… well?"

"N o," she growls. "No, no, no, no, I am not well!" She throws her hands ito the air, scaring away the usually unfazed pigeons nearby. "You can't deal with him. You absolutely cannot deal with him!"

"Eliz—"

"I called him. He said he's not coming. He said that he'll need at least three more days to finish the piece for the first scene. I will murder him. Violently. I will murder him and then hire a necromancer to bring him back to life so I can do it again!"

Francis stands and grips her shoulders and whispers little comforts; Arthur licks at his lips petulantly, which are still dripping with the wasted wine. He can at least prevent some from being wasted. "What Roderich is doing is heinous, Liz, but you didn't have to take it out on me."

"Yes I did!" she rages. "You shouldn't be drinking at nine in the morning. It is ridiculous. It is so fucking ridiculous! You are, somehow, even more ridiculous than goddamn Roderich because—"

"OH MY GOD THERE HE IS!"

Arthur's eyes widen, but then wine drips in them, so he closes them again. "Fuck."

Elizaveta and Francis ask at the same time: "What?"

"Just go. You don't want to get caught in this."

"In what?" Elizaveta cries.

Arthur sighs, resigned. It's too late.

"ARTHUR, WE LOVE YOU!"

Not even security can hold the horde back. The horrible, devoted horde, with their uniforms declaring their undying love for Arthur Kirkland, a man they don't even know…

Francis and Liz too have been caught. The bench is circled, girls squeal, gasp, what's wrong are you okay why are you all wet but will you sign whatever I'm shoving in your face? Digital cameras snap, blinding as well as deafening Arthur, and he grabs Sharpies indiscriminately. He had learned long ago that the only way to stave them off is to give in.

His two companions do not have such experience; as famous as they may be, they are not Arthur Kirkland, Gentleman of Hollywood. They are not followed by a group of crazed women that seem to materialize out of nowhere wherever he goes. So he signs and signs and signs until they are sated or until security catches up with them, with Elizaveta and Francis cowering behind him.

When the whole thing is over, they both look a bit pale.

Arthur just dusts himself off and runs a hand through his hair; it's sticky and almost dry from Liz's attack. He could use a good shower.

Francis has reverted to swearing vehemently in French. "I knew it was bad," he chuckles, but doesn't continue, and scratches his stubble absently.

Liz finishes the thought for him. "But not that bad."

Arthur shrugs. "You get used to it."

Francis snorts; he doesn't believe Arthur, but that's no surprise. "A certain level of fame is fatal, you know."

"Why do you think I drink?"

The three tell everyone to go home, that Roderich can't get his sorry arse out of his hotel for one day to direct a fucking film, so they groan and whine but pack up anyway.

Arthur says goodbye to Francis and Elizaveta and heads back to his hotel. He has to be at Jones's flat at five, and he needs some moral support in the form of Shakespeare. And maybe another drink.

x.

"What do you know?"

Elizaveta and Francis sit in a little, nondescript, Bohemian-ish café; Elizaveta has a hunk of chocolate cake (which she is busy devouring) and Francis has a croissant (uneaten).

Francis blinks at her languidly. "That is a good question."

Liz rolls her eyes. "What did Arthur tell you?"

"I am afraid it is not my secret to tell." He picks at his hair (dyed blonde, but don't tell anyone), frowning distastefully at whatever he finds. Afternoon sunlight filters drowsily through the windows surrounding them; the café is completely deserted except for the two actors. The baristas didn't recognize them, which was both a relief and a source of jealousy, after they had experienced Arthur's horde that morning.

"Oh, come on. You never intended on keeping it a secret."

Francis smiles a little and pokes at the croissant with a knife. It does not look very good, and he is not even sure why he bought it; perhaps it is because he misses France, but really, he cannot allow himself to be so sentimental. He has never liked America, and he spends altogether too much time there, but he supposes that Paris will be there when he goes back.

"Have you become mute, froggy?"

Elizaveta is lovely, Francis thinks. That long hair, sparkling green eyes. If only she wasn't Roderich's. Though he has never been sure of the reason why she and Roderich are still together. Even after the divorce! And because Elizaveta's rage this morning, he is even less sure.

"I am mute. Extremely so."

"You've just proved yourself wrong." She finally notices the lump of chocolate frosting on her face, and she wipes it off hurriedly with a napkin.

"Mm."

Elizaveta gives him a disgusted noise. "Stop acting like a child. Arthur's been getting worse lately, okay? I just want to know if he's… alright."

Francis sighs, "Yes, he has been… ah, starting very early lately."

"So what did he tell you?"

"It has nothing to do with his drinking." He stops but thinks better of it, and adds, "As of yet."

"Spit it out, surrender monkey."

"What insults you are throwing! You are starting to sound like Arthur!"

"Spit it out."

Francis chuckles, "You won't believe me."

"How do you know that until you tell me?"

"Fine."

So he tells her. He tells her, word for word, what Arthur had told him that morning on the bench.

She doesn't believe him. Francis bites back an "I told you so" as her eyes widen and her fork stops halfway to her face. The last chunk of cake slides off and hits the paper plate with a sick, wet slap.

"So he's being blackmailed into a photo shoot," she says slowly.

Francis almost laughs. He had asked the same thing. "Not blackmailed. He offered."

"He's that desperate to keep the secret?"

Francis tries to think of something clever to say, but cannot, so he just says, "Yes, he is."

Elizaveta is silent. She pushes her plate away and stares at some point over Francis's head, eyes distant.

He lets her think.

When she finally resurfaces, she says, "Is he at least cute?"

"Who?"

"Our new friend—" Elizaveta's perfect little mouth curls into a smile— "Alfred Franklin Jones."

Francis blinks, taken aback.

Then he laughs.

He laughs until his stomach hurts and tears form in the corners of his eyes. "I do hope so," he gasps.

x.

The hotel room is beautiful, but the view is ugly.

Out of the window that takes up an entire wall of the suite, Arthur can see nothing but highways and big, ugly buildings. The biggest, ugliest building is, of course, the sports stadium, badly dubbed the Garden; it's a massive hulk of concrete and bad architecture during the day, and a disgustingly gaudy eyesore at night. The colored lights projected onto it do nothing to assuage its repulsiveness.

At least Arthur can see the suspension bridge, though, which he rather likes the look of. As they had flown into the city, Francis had been rattling off touristy facts from a brochure the flight attendant had given him. The Leonard P. Zakim Bridge, the widest cable-stayed bridge in the world, he had sighed. Why does America get all the world records?

Arthur had replied that it is because America has people who actually care about world records, and Francis had laughed and said, You hate America as much as I do, don't you?

Francis was wrong. Arthur doesn't hate America. He thinks it is rather lovely place, really, with a very interesting history and legacy.

He just hates being there.

He would rather enjoy America from afar, preferably while drinking a cup of tea in his London penthouse and watching the news.

He barely has time for reading these days, so he takes advantage of all the time he gets. There's a glass of some good bourbon beside him, untouched (for once), as he reads Hamlet for the umpteenth time. He prefers it performed (that is how the Bard would have wanted it), but that is no issue, as he has memorized most of it by now and recites aloud as he progresses, for no one's amusement except his own.

"I am but mad north-north-west," Arthur sighs during Act 2, and he flips the page.

Arthur is very aware that the time is steadily creeping towards five PM. He is very aware that soon he will have to leave the quiet comfort of his gorgeous hotel suite to the freezing confines of Alfred Jones's tiny flat, where he will be subjected to…

What, exactly?

Arthur knows what constitutes a photo shoot; he's done enough of them. People put you in nice clothes (or take you out of your clothes, more likely) and then have you stare at the camera or some hidden point in the distance, looking sultry. He has a feeling, though, that that may not be Jones's style.

A flash of blue eyes and smudged glasses runs through Arthur's head, and he reluctantly abandons Hamlet. He's read the first three lines of a soliloquy at least ten times by now, unable to concentrate.

Sighing, he stands and decides that maybe he should probably get changed if he has any intention of going out in public. Though he had long since washed out the remnants of Liz's merciless wine attack, he is currently wearing a bathrobe, and that is no way for an international movie star to dress in public.

He stands and heads to the bedroom and is about to choose something classy to wear when he remembers the Fan Incident that morning, the one Elizaveta and Francis were caught in.

By now, the fangirls might have learned where Arthur is staying. He had learned long ago that those women are capable of anything.

Smiling a little, Arthur reaches into the very back of the closet; when he finds what he had been looking for, he's full on grinning.

Going for a night on the town, in disguise, every once and a while, is a very healthy practice.

A/N: And there's chapter three! A barely-proofread one, so don't hate me too much for typos. I'll go back through and fix them soon! Anyway, tell me what you think of the story so far. The review button doesn't bite!

Can I just take a minute to thank you guys? Seriously, I never expected this story to get such a wonderful reaction. The reviews are so incredibly kind, and all these story alerts are unprecedented! I give you all one free Internet.

You guys are SO awesome, in fact, that I'm writing the next chapter from Al's POV (even though I was going to anyway just go along with it guys).

Note: "I am mad but north-north-west" is one of Hamlet's lines from Act 2, Scene 2, when he is assuring Rosencrantz and Guildenstern that he's only crazy sometimes, and he's still sane enough to tell his friends from his enemies.

Edit: Finally re-proofread this chapter. Most typos/general errors should be all tidied up by now.