"Al, he's an actor, not a foreign dignitary."

"A what?"

"Never mind."

Matthew throws his mug at his brother's head, which Alfred dodges artfully. Thankfully, it's made of plastic, so it doesn't shatter; it does, however, dent the wall.

"That's gonna come out of the rent, Matt," Alfred whines, leaning on his broom and planting his unoccupied hand on his hip. He had found a bubblegum pink apron under the sink and was now utilizing it in his quest to Clean Every Inch of the Apartment, his manhood be damned.

He also realized that the hand on his hip wasn't making him look any manlier, so he lets that one rest on the broom handle, too.

Matt says, "Oh, come on. Natalia hasn't come by for the rent in ages."

"Doesn't mean she never will!"

"Al," Matt says pointedly, "if you're so worried about the rent, then get a job." He flips a page in his book; The Master and Margarita. Some Russian thing. Matt had tried to explain to his brother what it was about, but when he started on religious theories and Faust and Pontius Pilate, Al's head started to hurt and he watched Saturday Night Live instead.

Alfred beams at his brother; Matthew is laying on the couch, all peaceful and happy, so, naturally, Alfred wants to ruin it. He throws his broom javelin-style into his brother's stomach.

"MOTHERFUCKER!" Matt hollers, toppling off the couch. The broom falls to the floor, and so does Alfred, sliding down the wall and laughing himself to pieces.

"I hate you so much," Matt gasps, pitifully rubbing his belly through his sweatshirt.

Alfred is still cackling too hard to even speak, much less come up with a clever retort.

"I hate you," Matthew sighs, "and stop cleaning." Throwing the broom to the side, he climbs back onto the couch, huddling under his mound of blankets and picking up his book.

"Why?"

"We're sort of past the point of trying to amaze him."

"I'm not trying to amaze anybody," huffs Alfred, picking himself up off the floor. "I'm just… tidying up."

"He's a dick, Al."

"He passed your stupid little tests!"

"Yeah, but that's because he's a dick. Us dicks have to stick together."

Alfred gives his brother a look, the one he adopts when something Matt says has been completely and utterly misconstrued.

"Okay," he says slowly, "I did not need that image."

Matthew blushes so fast and so brightly that he probably doesn't have any blood left in his feet. "You sick fuck! You know what I meant!"

Alfred flips him off cheerily, and grabs the plastic mug (the one that had started this whole tirade) off of the floor and tosses it into the sink from a few feet away. "Two points!" he bellows, hands in the air.

Alfred doesn't see it, but he can feel Matt roll his eyes. "Hockey is forever superior to basketball."

"Says the kid who wasn't two-time varsity MVP in high school."

"Says the kid who was dating Lauren Krauss while secretly harboring a crush on the point guard."

There is a fragile quiet that Alfred breaks with, "Low blow, Mattie."

"Not my fault you're an incorrigible fag, Al."

Adopting his best lisp and raising his voice at least an octave, Alfred sighs, "You make it sound like a bad thing, darling."

Alfred wins that round, since Matthew is the first to laugh. (Their insults hold no weight, but these arguments are competitions if there ever were any.)

Walking over to the sink and turning on the tap, Alfred begins working on the dishes, which have piled up into quite the mountain, ever since Matt stopped doing them in an effort to get Alfred to help out around the house more.

It had been in vain, of course, since Alfred is so lazy that he eventually just stopped using plates.

But now they're having company. Company that is carrying Alfred's hopes and dreams on a silver platter.

The cracked white tile is cold under his bare feet, and it would feel nice if the rest of Alfred wasn't so cold, too. Matthew has stolen all of the blankets and mercilessly left none for his twin.

"You know, Matt," Alfred calls, looking up from a particularly stubborn piece of two-week-old grime on a spoon, "some people say that twins have weird connections."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. Like, if I got hurt, you would feel ghost-pain in the same place."

There's a sound of a book's pages flapping as it is knocked mercilessly against an exasperated Canadian's knees. "Where the hell are you going with this?"

"If I'm freezing cold…"

Alfred hears his brother give a skeptical snort. "Al, we are twenty-three years old. If we haven't felt the connection by now, I doubt we ever will."

"You never know!"

"You could just ask me for a blanket. Instead of, you know, being so fucking roundabout."

"Yeah, but would you give me one?"

There is a moment of quiet in which Matthew thinks of something clever to say. He gives up and decides on "No fucking way."

"Fine then. I'll grab my jacket once I'm done with these dishes."

"You do that."

"You're a prick."

"Love you too, Alfie."

I'm gonna throw his stupid Russian book out the window, Alfred thinks cheerily. And take all his blankets and throw them out, too, and make him go out into the cold to get 'em.

The water isn't totally frigid today, so it feels pretty awesome on Alfred's ice-cube hands, and his dastardly plan is forming so brilliantly that he doesn't notice the sink beginning to overflow.

Matt pads over to the kitchen, the worn rubber soles of his slippers making a slap, slap on the equally worn wood. The mass of blankets over his shoulders make him look like some kind of patchwork Gandalf.

"Al," he says slowly.

Alfred hums at him, not really hearing.

"Al."

"Mm."

"Alfred Franklin Jones."

No answer.

"Al, Pegasus has just flown through our window and has begun to make love to the kitchen table!"

Alfred's head shoots up. "What?"

Alfred's head shoots down. "Oh." A large puddle is beginning to grow around his feet.

"That is not Pegasus," he decides.

Matthew reaches over and slams down on the faucet's handle, cutting off the flow of water. "You are the biggest space case on the planet," he says matter-of-factly.

Alfred gives him a crooked little smile. "I can't help it, Matt. The water was almost warm, and I'm j-just… so… c-c-cold!" He exaggerates his shivering, knocking his knees together and rubbing his arms.

A blanket is promptly thrown into his face.

"Thank you, Mattie!" he sings, his speech muffled.

"Go fuck yourself."

"Can do, brother. Just gotta finish these dishes first."

Matt gives a noise of disgust, tells him to dry off the floor, and stalks back over to the couch.

Smiling, Alfred wraps the blanket around himself (sweet, it's the super warn Captain America one) grabs a dishtowel and throws it on the floor, swiping it around with his foot until the tiles are at least sort-of dry.

"Matt, when does your shift start?"

"Half an hour. Why?"

Alfred glances at the clock hanging on the wall and does a quick calculation in his head (the stupid thing is always exactly sixteen minutes behind).

It's 4:00 PM, and Kirkland is supposed to be there at 5:00;a little ball of anxiety bursts in his stomach.

"Just wondering."

Alfred hears Matthew try and fail to stifle a snigger. "I don't know why you're putting on such a show for him. You're the one who's got the upper hand."

"Stop saying that!" Alfred groans. "And… and it isn't blackmail or anything. I didn't take the picture because I wanted to sell it."

"But you agreed to his self-proposed blackmail. Is that even a thing? Did I just invent that? Aw, man, I am such a genius."

Alfred sighs, leaves the rest of the dishes to soak and steps bout of the kitchen. His bare feet are grateful for the relative warmth of the wood. "Of course I agreed. Why wouldn't I? Dude, I will never ever get this opportunity again."

Matthew shrugs. He's abandoned his dumb Russian book and is now flipping through the channels before settling on a rerun of Jeopardy!. The conversation is officially over, becoming too personal to progress with (Al and Matt don't do personal). Alfred flops down next to him and they scream wrong answers at the TV until Matthew "needs to go make money, unlike a certain ungrateful twin brother."

He bids Alfred farewell with an affectionate, "See ya, dickface." Alfred replies with a loving, "Farewell, Canadian."

"Still not an insult!" Matthew cries, already out the door.

"Keep telling yourself that." And Alfred slams it.

The sound rings out and fades, slowly.

It's really quiet.

He glances at the clock; forty-five minutes left.

Huh.

Forty-five whole minutes.

Well, forty-four.

Alfred moans pitifully and grabs the remote, switching off the TV. The picture is so bad, he can barely make out Trebek's face.

He's already cleaned everything. Twice. The entire place smells like Lysol and hard work.

His camera sits on the coffee table.

Shucking the Captain America blanket (it's suddenly too warm), Alfred tosses it on top of the mound Matthew had left behind, and then pulls off the ridiculous apron. (It even has frills. Where the hell did it even come from?) He throws that on the pile, too, and then stows the whole mess away in a corner.

Alfred wonders if it's worth visiting Gilbert, with almost an hour left…

…But hen he kills that thought as quickly as possible, because any visit to Gilbert Beilschmidt's apartment is bound to turn into some sort of unwarranted adventure. The guy has at least five weirdo psychological complexes— all of them probably involving symptoms like illusions of grandeur or Napoleon or thinks he is the coolest thing since sliced bread. Alfred has never seen him leave his apartment; he's so pale it's scary, and Alfred knows that it's a genetic thing, but Gilbert may be the first person in the world to ever turn albino.

Plus, the guy has never worked an hour in his life. His "little" brother (Al has seen pictures, Ludwig sure as hell isn't little) is some a rich war historian in Germany and he pays for the apartment. Alfred never understood why Gilbert chooses to stay in the shitty little place, if his brother would pay for anything to keep Gil out of trouble. Why wouldn't he move to a nicer place? But Beilschmidt really doesn't need more than his video games and a good couch to be happy.

Well, maybe he needs a bit more than that ( like mental help, maybe). When he's not in love with himself, he's in love with the actress Elizaveta Héderváry. A big, sloppy, disgusting middle-school crush times one thousand. There are posters, cardboard cutouts, framed movie tickets from every single one of her films since 1992, cluttering his apartment, every wall a desperate shrine to a woman he will never meet.

Alfred suddenly realizes what a loser he is.

All I can do now, he supposes, is sit and wait.

Sit.

And wait.

Which he does successfully for nine and a half seconds.

Grabbing his camera from the coffee table and throwing the strap over his neck, he shoves the table out of the way so it stands at the end of his mattress.

Now it's just the couch, facing the TV. Then he grabs a chair, rickety and old and wooden, from the kitchen and places it so it stands across from the couch, too.

Alfred can't hold back a smile. He's missed this— the feeling of making something.

There's half an hour to go and a knock at the door.

Stupid Gilbert, coming by now! Alfred rages. Of all times!

(Of course, Gilbert isn't really aware of what Matt would call "the gravity of the situation." So he really shouldn't be blamed, but by God Alfred is going to blame him anyway.)

He stomps over to the door, wrenches it open, and is about to shout something nasty involving the words "stupid fucking Kraut," when he rather abruptly realizes that the man in the hall is not, in fact, Gilbert Beilschmidt.

He's got a swaying, lazy, punk-y kind of look about him; shaggy hair that hangs a bit too much in his face, a backpack swung over one shoulder, sort-of-tight but well-ironed slacks and a blazer that was probably black once. Underneath it, an ancient-looking T-shirt with a target on it— but no, it isn't a target, is it? It's that that circle thing England put on their planes during World War II. The black type over it screams THE WHO.

A fucking mod rocker is standing at his door.

Swallowing his shout, his voice cracking (goddamn, he's not fifteen years old anymore, why does this keep happening?), Alfred asks, "Can I help you?"

The man draws his hand roughly through his hair, drawing the curls back from his face, and suddenly it's all green eyes and thick eyebrows. He huffs, "I thought I was helping you."

It is, of course, Arthur Kirkland.

He hadn't even recognized him. He knows why, now; suddenly, there's a total change in character. Without his fake slouch, and even in clothes that went out of fashion 50 years ago and hair all over the place, he looks… refined.His shoulders are drawn back, held taut like a crossbow, an angry spark in his eyes and a retort on the tip of his tongue.

And all Alfred can think is that he's a successful actor for a reason, if he can become totally unrecognizable with a change of clothes and demeanor.

"What, a man can't go out in disguise every once and a while without being interrogated?" he spits.

Alfred's brain just keeps making indistinct comments on the absurdity of this situation. He might have said, "Well, no," but he can't quite remember later.

There's a low growl of "Are you going to let me in or not?", and Alfred is drawn back to Earth. He's all Arthur again, English assholery and everything.

Alfred moves aside dumbly. Wow, when Kirkland had been a dick yesterday… he had thought it was just the hangover talking.

Closing the door carefully, Alfred turns to see his guest silently memorizing the apartment. Memorizing, categorizing, allegorizing… lots of other –izings.

"You're early," he says aimlessly.

"I tend to be. Is that a problem?"

"No! No, it's fine. I guess I was ready anyway. Ha."

"Ha, indeed." Kirkland is stony-faced.

"Want a drink or something?"

Arthur lets out a blustery sigh. "No. I just need to get changed." He's still staring at the wall, refusing to look at Alfred.

"Why not?"

He scoffs. "I can't get photographed in this."

"Geez, man. Do you walk around in disguise all the time?"

He turns around to glare. "Only when I don't want to be recognized."

"…Oh." Arthur's glower really leaves no room for comment; well, except that a question pops into Alfred's head a moment later, and he voices it rather timidly: "Is that just part of your disguise?"

Kirkland is an arm's length away from the wrong door. He'll release the owls if he opens it. "What?"

"Do you only wear that when you don't want to be recognized?"

Kirkland blinks for a second, as if he doesn't even believe what he's just been asked. Rather embarrassedly, he says, "Well. I mean! It's not a disguise, really, it's just… my clothes. If I weren't forced to wear atrocious shit by Feliks—" a blank look from Alfred— "my stylist, that is. I would, well. Wear this."

"Don't change, please."

The actor's face contorts, and Alfred wonders if they edit his eyebrows or something in the movies, because they are way bigger in real life.

"I am not going to be photographed for a project that will potentially go public in this, not with my reputation to—"

"It fits you better than, like, a suit or something." He hurriedly adds, "Fits your personality, I mean. Because, after yesterday, let's be honest. I know you're no gentleman."

Alfred knows he's being just as much of a dick as Kirkland but he really doesn't care, because he's got an ARTISITC VISION. He will not let anyone fuck with his ARTISTIC VISION, and if that ARTISITC VISION includes his subject wearing a Who T-shirt then by God his subject will wear a Who T-shirt.

And he will like it.

At Arthur's offended look, Alfred adds some simper-y words like "C'mon!" and "please" and only a slight mention of the fact that he still has the picture he took of Arthur while drunk and, if he doesn't want to cooperate if he doesn't have to, but really…

Alfred tries not to feel too guilty.

I mean. We're really different, but we're just two people, right? Just two guys, talking and taking pictures.

It's just that one of the guys happens to be a movie star that the other resents for his success.

No biggie.

Kirkland, obviously furious and trying not to say anything snide, gives up and throws his bag to the floor. It lands neatly against the back of the couch.

"Where am I posing?" he asks, through gritted teeth.

Alfred surfaces from one of his rare philosophical musings; the train of thought is broken and won't be remembered until later, when he is trying to sleep (they will prevent him from sleeping).

Alfred shakes his head. "You're not." He makes a vague motion towards the couch.

The actor almost says something, his mouth is forming the first syllable of what is most likely an insult, and he's all drawn up like a rope gripped tight on two ends— but then he goes slack again, the rope dropped, and throws himself over the back of the sofa with as little grace as Alfred has come to expect. Where's his reputation for polish, for poise, for clean, light witticisms?

Alfred, unlike his strange guest, walks over slowly and sits carefully in his chair, gingerly putting to hands around his camera. Not enough so Arthur would notice him at the ready, of course; he quietly pushes the ON button and watches Arthur while Arthur watches him in turn.

There is a very terrible silence, and excitement blooms almost unpleasantly in Alfred's chest.

Here we go.

"You like the Who."

"Hm?" Kirkland whips back towards him, as if he's forgotten where he is. He has a sort of scary grimace on his face, the same expression a troll under a bridge in fairy tales would have.

Alfred snaps a picture.

Kirkland, blinking from the flash, sputters, "What the hell?" and Alfred photographs that, too.

Arthur's jaw drops, realizing (snap) and he sighs in utter contempt (snap). The glare that follows is also captured.

"You like the Who," Alfred repeats, and before Kirkland can say something, he continues, "Not really what people would expect you to listen to."

Alfred is rewarded, for his valiant efforts, with a grimace.

"Not just the Who," breathes the actor. "Lots of bands, really. The Sex Pistols are high up on the list. As a rule, though, 'gentlemen' do not usually promote 'Anarchy in the UK.' As it were."

Alfred laughs. "Dude, you even manage to make punk sound classy."

Kirkland doesn't. "And you manage to make the most simple of sentences sound vulgar."

If he really thinks that petty insults will be even a tiny bit offensive, he needs to spend a day with Matthew.

(But still, who corrects somebody's grammar when you've just met them? What an ass.)

"I think of it as a natural talent," Alfred replies airily.

"Mr. Jones—"

"Woah, man. Stop right there." Kirkland tilts his head a little without realizing it, like a confused dog, and there's another snap and now the image is permanent. (Alfred has some mercy and doesn't photograph the scowl that follows.) "You are not calling me Mr. Jones."

"Alfred, then."

"Nobody calls me Alfred except my mother."

"Alfred," the actor says firmly, and it's Alfred's turn to concede.

"As I was saying," Kirkland continues pointedly, "I am not just a punk, though I am sure my image is now solidified in your head as one."

Alfred lets himself relax a bit, and he leans back in his chair, throwing one arm over the back while keeping one hand securely on his camera. "Well, then change my mind." Though he does know the difference between a mod and a punk, thank you very much, he decides not to mention it.

Arthur crosses his legs, resting an ankle on his knee like he does in interviews and sizes Alfred up like a hero in a Western would. "I am not unfamiliar with, oh, let's see…" He counts the groups off with his fingers. "The Stones, the Who, Pink Floyd, Bowie is one of my favorites, can't forget him…"

Alfred hums a few bars from "Changes"— Arthur almost smiles, and Al counts it as progress.

"…And the Beatles, of course, they're legendary even if some of their earlier stuff is nauseatingly… pop-y." He gives a short laugh. "I don't even think that's a word."

Alfred snorts, "I have a hard time believing that you don't have Zeppelin on that list."

"I would have thought that it was a given." He gives a haughty, offended frown.

Alfred smiles. Kirkland's an asshole, and no doubt about it, but good taste in music goes a long way. "I wouldn't have expected it," he repeats in a sigh.

"What, you expected me to listen to shit?" He gives an arrogant sniff and does that eyebrow thing again, smoothing them with the heel of his palm.

Alfred captures it, and Kirkland jumps at the flash, glaring at him.

There is a very long, very bad silence in which they both find something very fascinating to look at through the window.

Alfred asks after a while, "You mind if I smoke?"

"No."

Reaching into the pockets of his loose jeans, Alfred fishes out a pack of cheap cigarettes and his lighter from the other. Shoving it in between his lips, Alfred holds up his little flame, lighting it reverently. "Ah," he breathes, that first delicious wisp of smoke floating from his lungs, tingeing the man in front of him gray.

Too late, Alfred remembers his manners. He asks, "Cigarette?" and holds out the carton, shaking it a little. He hopes he'll say no; cigarettes are damn expensive these days, and God forbid if Alfred has to cut back.

"Yes," Kirkland says, "but don't give me one."

Alfred tries to not look relieved. "You quit?"

"Five years ago."

"Really? Would've thought the cravings would be gone by now."

Arthur snorts and the corner of his mouth twitches, like he's trying not to give away a bitter joke before he tells it. "Me too."

They laugh, and it immediately sounds weird, laughing together in this too-quiet apartment while Alfred smokes and Kirkland clearly wants to join him.

So Alfred takes a picture. It barely seems to bother Arthur anymore, which is good. He's got to loosen up, if this project is going to work.

"How long you been in Boston?" The question flies out of Al's mouth, along with a cloud of acrid smoke.

"A month." Kirkland sighs, and smoothes his eyebrows again. They really are huge. Like, pitiably huge. (They probably called him Caterpillars in grade school or something.) "I hate it."

"Oh, c'mon," Alfred laughs. "How? It's beautiful here." Even if it's too motherfucking cold for me to enjoy it.

"Oh, I agree," he chirps, disgustingly sarcastic. "Your concrete monstrosity of a sports stadium gives me such a lovely, distinctive view every morning and evening."

Alfred rasps incredulously, "You just dissed the Garden?"

"And what if I did?" Arthur raises one of those caterpillars defiantly, crosses his arms and his legs, a nobleman-by-day-rocker-by-night preparing for battle in a Who shirt and blazer.

Click, flash.

"You are in Boston, my friend. You do not diss the motherfuckin' TD Garden." He takes a pointed drag. "Especially if you're from out of town."

"You're a native Bostonian, then?"

"Nah, I just learn fast." Alfred grins past his cigarette, and he gets nothing more than another quirked eyebrow.

"Where are you from, then?"

"Connecticut. Lived in LA more recently. I absolutely loved it there, man."

"Why did you leave?"

"Long story."

"Well, I've got nowhere else to go, have I?"

This man, Alfred thinks, has enough snark in his veins to last him a lifetime and then some. "No, but we're not here to talk about me."

"You've got me interested now, God forbid, so too bad. Start talking."

Alfred grinds the cigarette out on the seat of his wooden chair, leaving a black mark that Matt would most likely throttle him for, and immediately lights another. Arthur gives him a dubious look, about the new cigarette or his refusal, Al isn't sure. "It was a road trip from hell, car broke down in Connecticut, now we're stuck in Boston forever. You are fucking impossible, you know that?"

The actor scowls. "I could say the same for you."

"Over-privileged asswipe."

"Lazy idiot."

"You little bitch!"

"If I'm the little bitch, then are you the massive one?"

Alfred can feel his pulse pounding in his wrists. "Limey cocksucker."

"Yankee slut."

Alfred opens his mouth and closes it again, because all he can think or say is, "That totally sounds like a band name."

Something breaks, and God almighty, Arthur— he doesn't exactly smile, but it's not a scowl, either. "You think Yankee Slut will make it big enough to play your ugly fucking Garden?" he says, a little too loudly.

Alfred laughs and replies, "Who can say?"

And he almost forgets to photograph that first genuine look of non-disgust.

A/N: Here, have some awkward antagonism, just in time for Valentine's Day. How romantic! Remember, don't be shy with that review button; I love feedback, good or bad. If you want to gush, go for it. If you want to write about your wish rip out my eyeballs with a spoon, go for it.

Can I just mention really quick how amazing all of you guys are? You make my day every time I see a new review or story alert. My heart goes all a-flutter and I must call for Jeeves to fetch the smelling salts. Really, it is terrible for my health.

I'm still debating what to do for the next chapter, but sometime in the near future there will be a meeting with Al and Matt's mother, delving a bit more into their background. Because I have been a shameless tease up until now, and you amazing people strongly deserve some backstories.

Thank you so much for reading, my lovelies. Until next time!