"…ake…p…red…," Alfred felt someone's hand rest on his shoulder, shaking him in an attempt to wake him up.

"Go away," Alfred mumbled, slapping the hand off of his shoulder. "I aced my mid-term; I'm taking the day off."

Alfred felt the bed dip next to him as whoever was trying to wake him sat down.

"Aced, are you kidding me? Alfred, you passed by the skin of your teeth."

Alfred would recognize that uppity voice anywhere. "It's a pass, that's all that matters."

"Not when you're going to be an aircraft mechanic, Al. That takes hard work and fantastic grades."

Alfred finally sat up at this, staring at Arthur dead in the face. "Do you think that I'm not a hard worker, Arthur? I've been busting my ass for this for the longest time. I'm tired, I've been over-working myself, and I need some time to cool down." Alfred threw his legs over the side of the bed and stood up, "I'm allowed to take a break every now and then."

"I know you're a hard worker."

"Right, you know more than anyone," Alfred walked into him and Arthur's joint bathroom and stood in front of the vanity, curling his cold toes into the carpet. He pulled out his toothbrush and began brushing his teeth, continuing to talk despite the mouthful of toothpaste muffling his words. He had a penchant for trying to talk with his mouth full. "Plus, you're taking some time off, so is Francis; and Matthew takes online courses..."

Alfred spit the toothpaste into the sink.

"We almost have the full shebang here! Why not take advantage of this and party it up, we are a frat house after all!"

Arthur pinched the bridge of his nose between his fingers and closed his eyes in annoyance, but at the same time finding it difficult not to smile because of Alfred's infectious attitude.

Arthur's closed eyes made him unaware of Alfred approaching him, and he almost jumped out of his skin when Alfred pushed him onto the bed and jumped onto him, straddling his stomach.

"Come on man, we can pick up some hot chicks from the Theta Pi sorority house. I hear they're loose, in fact, they may even be loose enough to fuck you!" Alfred started bouncing up and down on the bed.

Arthur's face immediately heated up when he realized what kind of position they were in. If only Alfred wasn't so oblivious to certain things, he would have realized just how obscene their situation would look from an outsider looking in. Arthur was so scandalized that it took him a while to register and respond to the insult Alfred had thrown at him.

Arthur turned his face away from Alfred's increasingly infectious smile, "fuck you, Al."

"Hey, man, I'm only kidding you. If my sloppy seconds like you, then it can't be all that bad!"

"Yes Alfred, we all know you're such a catch," Arthur glowered at the man above him. "Now could you please get the fuck off of me!"

"Those chicks were just…"

"Wild?" Francis suggested.

"Silly?" Matthew shrugged.

"They were all fucking idiots," Arthur said. He was always the one to lay it all out on the table like it was, and when he did, everyone usually agreed with him. "And the fact that Alfred wasn't even interested speaks volumes…"

Alfred sighed, completely ignoring Arthur's snide comment, and laid his head back on the main room's couch. He creaked his eyes open just enough to look around at everyone, "so Theta Pi was a total bust…"

"I told you Beta Chi would have been a better idea," Francis smiled. "The classy looking, uptight type are always the wildest in bed. Look at Arthur!"

Everyone laughed out loud, even Matthew who normally chose to be the neutral party.

"I've seen you dancing, my friend, and it is certainly not the dancing of an English gentleman."

Alfred finally took his cue to join in on the weekly 'laugh at Arthur about his drunk dance moves Friday's.' "You dance like some Latin chick, dude."

Matthew continued laughing behind his beer, but otherwise chose not to join in on the heckling.

"Oh my god, Alfred, do you really have the right to be laughing at me?" Arthur put on a snide grin, "I'm not the one who gave another guy a blow job to impress a girl."

Alfred's smile dropped, "hey, man, I only gave him a hand job!"

"Even so," Matthew said quietly. "why the hell did you admit to that so easily…"

No one heard him.

"Don't lie," Arthur chuckled. "I could smell the semen on your breath for days."

Francis let out a full body laugh at this, slapping his knee as hard as he could. Of course this story wouldn't sound obscene to him. Francis was, after all, the most flamboyantly pansexual being on the face of the Earth.

Francis' lack of negative reaction wasn't what bothered Arthur, though. It was the fact that Alfred began laughing with him, as expected, almost tipping his beer over on the couch in the process. Arthur was peeved that he didn't get the reaction he wanted from him. It was irritating that the only thing that bothered Alfred was dishonesty.

"I've never given a dude a blowjob in my life, and if I did, it would have taken a lot of alc-" Alfred stopped talking when he looked up into Arthur's wide eyes.

Alfred actually had the decency to blush, and promptly directed his gaze away from Arthur.

Arthur himself closed his eyes and turned his head away as well, willing the blood rushing to his face to stop its course.

Francis saw this exchange, and had many times before, but as always chose to keep his mouth shut. Though he and Arthur had their differences, he wouldn't laugh about something so touchy. He was being so nice that he decided to break the awkward tension and start their conversation back up again, "so who would you boys rather fuck: Leonardo DiCaprio, or Morgan Freeman!?"

"I swear to god, dude, you are the worst cook in the world," Alfred took a bite out of the biscuit in his hand experimentally. "Scratch that, worst cook in the whole universe," he spit the food out in his outstretched hand. "Try it."

"You're fucking disgusting, spit in the garbage not in your hand," Arthur shoved Alfred's approaching hand away with his foot.

"Come on, I didn't chew much so it's still edible. You've always been a fan of my sloppy seconds; look at this scone like you looked at Mary Hart."

The comment stung Arthur, but he acted unfazed. "Fuck off, Alfred."

Alfred only laughed at him in response.

Arthur clenched his right hand into a fist, and was a moment away from taking a swing when a loud crash caught his and everyone else's attention. Everyone looked to the door except Alfred, who was still laughing obnoxiously at his own comment.

"Shut up," Arthur hissed.

To his surprise, Alfred did quieten. He dropped the handful of chewed up food into the garbage and walked up to the front window, looking out over the front door to for the source of the loud banging.

"There's no one there," Alfred squinted down at the street. "No one on the street, either," he huffed, "it's awfully quiet considering class is almost over for the week."

As if in answer to that comment, another loud crash caused them all to jump.

"Is that Matthew making that much racket," Alfred questioned in a low whisper.

"I've been sitting here the whole time, jerk."

Alfred looked over his shoulder, then he shrugged, "then where the hell is all that sound coming from?"

"Maybe someone's trying to pull a prank on us," Arthur finally lost interest. "It wouldn't be the first time someone pulled this kind of shit."

Alfred scratched his chin as he pondered the idea, "well, yeah, that's possible. I just find the way they're playing this out is a little weird, wouldn't you agree?"

Francis finally nodded in agreement, "it's weird, but weirder things have happened to us in here."

This time another bang rang through the house, but it wasn't coming from outside anymore. The sound was coming from somewhere inside the house.

"For Christ's sake," Arthur slammed his bottle on the table. "You try to take a break in this neighbourhood but someone always wants to fuck around." He stood up and brushed the crumbs off of his pants, "Why don't you guys come with me so we can find out who the hell's up there this time?"

"It doesn't sound like it's coming from upstairs, actually," Matthew spoke, but his voice was drowned out by Alfred and Francis agreeing with Arthur.

As they began trudging toward the stairs Francis turned around to face Matthew, "hold down the fort, Matt, just in case someone tries to come in from the front."

Matthew, pleased that someone actually realized he was still in the room, nodded his head in agreement despite being wary of where he was sitting.

Before Matthew could utter another word, though, they were completely out of sight.

"It doesn't look like there's anyone up here, Arthur," Alfred said, rummaging through a blank pile of papers. "It looks exactly the same as when we left it."

"Hm," Arthur hummed under his breath, staring out of the window in his bedroom, eyebrows creased.

Francis had long since left to check the attic portion of the house. They could still hear him cursing as he tried to get the ladder to come down.

The silence grew heavy as Alfred pretended like he was busy looking through papers. Arthur himself looked like he wasn't having much luck becoming enthralled with the dusty windows in his bedroom.

Alfred was the first to speak up, as always. "You know, Arthur, someday we need to talk about what happened last month…"

Arthur was silent for a moment, eyes not leaving the window in front of him. "I know."

"So if you know, why do you keep shushing me when I try to bring it up with you? This is something we need to address, Arthur." Alfred felt his voice rising despite his normally calm demeanor. "No matter how drunk two guys get, they can still tell the difference between the body of a man and the body of a woman."

Arthur didn't answer him, but his eyes were no longer focused on the window. Instead he was favoring his hands with a look Alfred could only describe as disappointment.

"I wish you would just talk to me, man. If something's bothering you, you need to spit it out so I can do my best to help."

Arthur finally looked up from his hands, "help me with what, exactly? Do you think there's something wrong with me?"

"Help you come to terms with your feelings."

Despite Arthur's heavily pounding heart, he clenched his fists into two tight balls by his side and stood up, squaring his shoulders. "I wasn't the only who initiated that little act, Alfred, don't forget that. Stop trying to make me the offender here."

Alfred frowned heavily, "don't try to peg this on me, you fucking handsy pervert."

"I wasn't trying to put the blame on you, Alfred; I was trying to say that it wasn't just my fault this happened!"

"Hey, fuck you man, do you take me for some kind of faggot? How was I supposed to react to someone feeling me up in the god damn hallway, in the middle of the night, no less?"

"That's really charming, Al, using a derogatory word like th-"

"Boys," Francis peeked around the corner, "there's no one up there, hasn't been for a long while." He looked bothered, but it clearly wasn't because of what went on in the attic. "Rather than get into a physical altercation like you always do, you could always come and talk to me."

"Shut up, Francis."

"I'm serious."

"We don't need your fucking med-"

A booming scream assaulted the boys ears, but it wasn't the normal scream of a successful prank; it was a scream of terror.

"Matthew," Arthur's eyes widened when he realized that they had left Matthew downstairs all alone. They were so caught up in their own arguments, they failed to watch the time or listen for anything strange coming from downstairs.

Francis was the first to get downstairs, running down the hall and taking the wooden steps three at a time in a frantic pace. Behind him, Alfred and Arthur called out Matthew's name.

Without even looking at each other, all three of them knew that there was something wrong.

Francis came to an abrupt halt at the foot of the stairs, causing Alfred and Arthur to hit into him.

Alfred and Arthur looked over Francis' shoulder in unison, and made the same shocked sound at what they saw.

Matthew was sprawled on the ground, hands pressing up into the chest of one of their new pledges. This wasn't a friendly gesture though, if the look on Matthew's face said anything about it. Matthew was using all of his power to keep the stocky man off of him. "Someone, please, get this guy off of me," Matthew's voice was straining, and his arms were shaking from the weight above him.

At first none of them could understand why Matthew was so terrified of the pledge on top of him, as Matthew was always a person who could fend for his own when the time came. It was only when the sound of teeth clacking and snapping caught their attention did they realize that this was more than just a prank.

There was something severely wrong with the pledge.

Francis finally moved, and with a look of resignation on his face, grabbed the back of the pledges jackets and tried to tear him off of Matthew. Arthur and Alfred, even Francis himself, looked dumbfounded when the pledge didn't budge from where he hovered over Matthew. Francis leaned into it and tugged even harder, but this time only managing to rip the pledges varsity jacket.

"Please," Matthew choked out; his shaking arms were obviously very close to giving out under the weight of the pledge.

"Boys, don't just stand there, help me!" Francis glared at Arthur and Alfred, who just stood at the foot of the stairs staring at the mess in front of them like curious children.

They both finally reacted when their names were called and jumped into action, joining Francis in pulling the pledge off of Matthew. Alfred and Arthur both grabbed an arm, and Francis pulled the pledge by the collar of his shirt.

With one strong pull they finally got the larger man off of Matthew and onto the floor. The pledge was sprawled on his back and being held by both Arthur and Alfred by either arm, and was clearly defenseless, but despite this he continued to fight. In this light, they could all see that there was something more than drunkenness wrong with the pledge. He continued to snap at the thin air with his feet pushing at the floor for purchase.

Matthew finally got up from where he was sprawled on the floor, looking down at all of them with what seemed to be annoyance. "I tried to tell you guys that the sound wasn't coming from upstairs, but you didn't listen to me."

"Sorry, Matthew," Francis said, patting him on the shoulder. "If it's any consolation, I probably couldn't have kept him off of me."

"He is quite the big bugger," Arthur watched the pledge closely. "He made me nervous right from the start, actually."

"This isn't normal, though, guys!" Alfred spoke up, "I think we're forgetting that this guy was just trying to eat Matthew's face."

"Should we call the cops, maybe? Tell them to send over a paramedic. Maybe this guy's on that new drug… Bath salts, is it?"

"I don't know," Francis reached out and pressed the back of his hand the pledges forehead. "Wow, he's freezing."

Arthur cocked his head to the side, "he's not running a fever?"

Francis shook his head, "that's really weird." Francis reached out yet again, but this time put a hand on the pulse point on the pledges throat.

The silence became heavy, they all watched Francis expectantly.

"…H…He," Francis pulled his hand away, then quickly put it back again to double-check what he felt. "He has no pulse."

They all looked at the still thrashing pledge, then up at Francis incredulously.

"Don't fuck around, Francis."

"I'm not joking, Arthur, check his pulse…"

Arthur put his hand on the inside of the man's wrist instead, waiting patiently for the familiar deep throbbing of an artery.

Nothing.

"What the hell," Arthur pulled his hand back as if he was burned, unthinkingly letting his hold go of the pledge. The pledge jumped up without hesitation and throttled Arthur to the ground with a heavy thud. Arthur tried to choke something out to everyone but he was cut off by a pair of strong hands wrapping around his throat.

In just two seconds he felt the edges of his vision beginning to blur. For someone without a pulse, the pledge was uncomfortable powerful.

Arthur reached up weakly, trying to get the pledge's fingers to ease up on his throat. However, his hands were too weak from the strangling to manage any kind of power.

"Arthur," Arthur could vaguely hear Alfred's voice calling out to him. "Jesus Christ."

"I'll try to pry his fingers off…"

"That's not going to stop him fast enough, he's fucking turning blue already!"

Even the sound was becoming distorted now from his choking, "Al…do… craz…urder!"

Despite Arthur beginning to go into a lethargic state from being choked so hard, he could still hear the familiar tinny sound the drawers made when a knife was being pulled out. And only seconds later, he felt something warm dripping onto his face, and felt the pressure around his throat lessening.

He sucked in a deep breath of air, and felt his throat burn painfully.

Slowly his vision began filtering back in, and the cold silence in the room returned rather than the ringing in his ears from the blood rushing from his head.

"Alfred," Francis' voice was panicked. "Alfred, what have you done?"

Arthur felt a hand grip his upper arm and drag him to his feet, where he could finally see exactly what Alfred had done to cause such panic from Francis.

The pledge lay on the ground, the back of his neck a mutilated mess, surrounded in a pool of his own blood. Alfred had killed the pledge.

Arthur reached a hand up to his face slowly, fingers slipping in the warm liquid that he had felt falling onto his face earlier. Except now Arthur knew that it wasn't just any warm liquid, but the blood of a murdered man.

"Oh god," Arthur leaned over. "I think I'm going to be sick."

Alfred, as realization began to dawn on him, began trying to come up with reasons as to why he had done what he had. "There was nothing else we could do, Arthur, if I hadn't done that he would have killed you!"

Matthew shook his head in disbelief.

"Guys, come on, he didn't even have a pulse. There was something wrong with him, it was self-defence!"

"Mon dieu," Francis spoke in a low voice. "We couldn't completely know that he had no pulse, it could have just been extremely weak from some sort of drug he used…" Francis kept his eyes trained on the dead body, then favoured the weapon of choice in Alfred's hand; a Sharp fileting blade that Francis used when he cooked for the house. "Give me the knife."

"I'm not going to hurt you g-"

"I know that, Alfred, I'm going to disinfect it and then I'm going to hide it where no one will find it." Francis said this clear as day, no hesitation.

Alfred realized what Francis was suggesting, and shakily handed over the knife. He was finally beginning to go into a dazed shock. It only made sense, considering his day had gone from sluggishly roaming around the house in his pajama pants, to murdering a man in cold blood.

"Now boys," Francis spoke in a low and conversational whisper. "I'm going to need all of your cooperation on this. We need to come up with a coordinated story, we need to hide the body properly, and we need to discard all possible evidence."

Arthur finally looked up from where he sat; scrubbing at the blood on his face with the palms of his hands. "We're going to hide a body?"

"What else are we supposed to do with it?"

"Bring him to his parents, maybe? Not leave him buried in the middle of nowhere like some animal! We need to tell someone, you guys!"

"Alfred will go to jail Arthur, and we'll be charged as an accessory!"

"I ca-"

"Don't tell me you can't, Arthur, the blood all over your face will be enough evidence for the police. And don't be so cruel, Alfred just saved your life and you're going to abandon him in his time of need?"

Arthur's eyes widened as he brought his hands up to his face again, fingers trailing through the now dried blood. He couldn't get it all. "It's not my fault, though, I didn't want that."

Alfred sat down on the couch with his head cradled in his hands, breath coming in short bursts before he finally began speaking to no one in particular. "Jesus, Jesus, I just killed someone."

"Relax, Alfred," Matthew put a gentle hand on his step-brother's back, who cringed at the touch. He seemed to be the only one keeping his head in the situation even though he was the one who had been left alone to deal with the pledge in the first place. "It was self-defence, I can vouch for you."

Alfred looked up at Matthew with red rimmed eyes, "could it be considered that?"

"I promise that you could plead self-defence, Al," Matthew chuckled humourlessly. "I'm your resident law student, I know this stuff! I mean, that guy did attack the both of us with full intent to kill, it's kind of common sense..."

The house itself seemed to breathe a sigh of relief at Matthew's reassuring words.

"But he killed him," Arthur said.

"I know, and that will probably make the case a little harder as far as reasonable force goes, but we can all fight it no problem," Matthew looked around the room. "You guys would do that for Alfred, right?"

Francis sighed in agreement, and Arthur mumbled his consent under his breath.

"So, let's call the cops, and we can work this o-"

The same moment Matthew stood up from his seat to retrieve his phone, the front door of the house crashed down with a loud, cracking snap, shaking the houses frame with the force.

It certainly wasn't just a lone pledge anymore; it was a group of people. The only thing reminiscent of the pledge and them was the fact that they all stood there with the same vacant look that the young pledge had on his face, and their intent seemed no different as they began piling into the house.

Arthur looked at Alfred, who still seemed too out of it to move, and threw his arm around his neck. "Let's get the fuck out of here."

"God damn it, I should have known not to close it," Francis reached up for the string to pull down the ladder to the attic, but to no avail. They had always had problems opening up the attic, and for that reason most of them rarely went up. "We should have had this fixed a long time ago."

"There's no time for complaining now," Matthew was the one to finally pull the ladder free. He jumped up and grabbed the string, putting all of his weight into it to get it down.

Without another word spoken both Matthew and Francis climbed the ladder, reaching down to grab Alfred from Arthur. "Quickly," Francis said. "They're coming."

Arthur pulled Alfred's arm from around his shoulders and leaned him into Matthew and Francis' awaiting hands. They both grabbed him by an arm, but were finding it difficult to pull him up. Though Alfred looked thin and lithe, he was a completely solid weight, and as a result was extremely heavy. It also didn't help that Alfred was swimming in and out of a lethargic state after he had killed the pledge.

"Damn it, Alfred, wake up!" Arthur pushed up at Alfred's rear, trying to boost him up into the attic. Even with his help, however, they couldn't get Alfred into the attic.

"You lazy ass," Arthur shouted over the steadily approaching footsteps. "That pledge was trying to kill me and you saved me, you had no choice, he would have killed all of us if you hadn't done what you had!" It was true, Arthur's words, that pledge had almost succeeded in killing him before Alfred had mutilated his throat.

It was also clear to Arthur that the people running down the hall had the same intent as the pledge and that they had the same thing wrong with them. He didn't want to be the one standing in the middle of the hall when they finally reached them.

This must have gotten through to Alfred in some way, as his legs started kicked out for purchase on the ladder, and with Matthew and Francis' help, he got himself into the attic.

The only problem was, Arthur had to get himself up the ladder and into the attic, and the people from before were already running down the hall at him. He could almost feel their breath on the back of his neck.

Everyone reached their hand down for Arthur at the same time, and he jumped to grab them, completely ignoring the ladder because he had no time to climb it properly. He needed to rely fully on his friends.

"Hurry up!"

This was the last thing Arthur said before one of them grabbed his leg and started pulling; followed by another two grabbing the hem of his pants and yanking with obscene force.

"Pull harder," Alfred was leaning into it, his face straining desperately as he and the others tried to wrangle him out of his tight situation.

Luckily for all of them, with that last final pull, they dragged Arthur up – minus one of his pant legs – into the attic; followed by a loud crashing as they pulled the attic's ladder back into place.

They all sat there with their back to wall, breathing in and out heavily as the moans from under them filled the air. None of them spoke, except for Francis, who had his head turned toward the window.

"For some reason I don't think we're the only people having this problem, boys."

A/N: There we have it, my friends, the last chapter before things start getting more interesting! After this we're going to have a lot of character interactions, a bigger plot, and way more drama - with a side of rrrromance!

Stay tuned.