Chapter Two:

"Fuck off, there's no way I'd bang a chick like here! Have you seen her teeth? She'd take your cock off, no sweat" laughed Alfred, punching Antonio lightly on the shoulder. The walk to the showers taking a little longer than usual – gosh, the coach had really gone hard on them today.

But it was the lead up to the season, and he wanted the players to be good. Football was serious at Nation's High. Well, football was serious all over the state.

Even if the players weren't serious.

"Serious? But have you seen those legs!?" Antonio gasped, waving his hand like a fan before his face. He was always so full of energy, but wasn't as hyperactive as Alfred was. "I'd love a piece of those legs!"

A laugh came from the behind them, the two friends turning around to see Heracles toddling up. "Antonio, you don't mean old gorilla-legs? Do you?" The Spanish teen's face turned beet red.

"She ain't no gorilla!" he howled in response, pushing Heracles into the showers – clothes and all.

"SPANISH BASTARD!"

"GREEK OLIVE!!"

"...What?"

Antonio sure wasn't the brightest crayon in the box. It especially showed in his insults.

Alfred though, he couldn't help but smile as his friends fought. He knew it was a sign of friendship. Or at least, he hoped it was. He let the thought slip away though, enjoying the hot spray that pelted down across his back. The water crawled over his skin, seeping into his hair, rolling down his face. It felt outstanding.

The pelting of water against the tiles drowned out all the noise from his teammates, the feel of it on his skin melted away all the stiffness and dirt, but best of all - the warm wet envelope hid him away. It swallowed him up and took him far, far away.

This had to be his favourite part of the day.

Even if he had to share it with a dozen other naked guys, in a locker room with chipped tiles and a basket of NOT fluffy towels.

Alfred would have loved fluffy towels.

But, being as cool as he was, he didn't really need them. He liked to get dressed fast anyway, lingering naked with a bunch of boys made you a sure-fire target for a towel-whipping. And that STUNG!

Pulling on his white t-shirt, Al turned to Antonio expectantly – "'Chu doin' this afternoon?" he said with a nod.

"Lovino's going to tutor me, I already told you three times, man" was the reply, making Al's face drop a little.

"You did?"

"Yes, three times" Heracles shouted from behind a locker.

"STOP LISTENING IN, YOU!" cried Antonio, a foot placed in his own locker and he tried to climb up over the metal divider. A fist curled up and waving at the Greek on the other side.

"Stop being STUPID!"

"I HATE YOU!"

"I HATE YOU MORE!"

"I HATE YOUR MUM!"

"...Oh, Antonio, that's just mean. She made you lunch last week" Heracles whispered, strolling out of the locker room lazily.

Antonio blushed. She had made him lunch. Only because he had forgotten his own, Antonio had nearly cried too when he realised. Antonio's mother was so embarrassed – she'd made him walk a cake over as thanks later that evening.

Then Athena, Heracles' mum, had made Antonio stay for dinner too. It was so back and forth – the two boys were always so well fed that it wasn't funny.

Alfred would have loved to be a part of that, even more than he would have loved fluffy towels.

He rubbed his stomach hungrily, "right – home time for me, buddy!" clapping his hand on Antonio's back. "Have fun with the short little angry man!" Al sneered, poking out a tongue for fun.

"Antonio! Why aren't you dressed yet!? Do I have to call your mother!?" coach roared.

"No sir! Not again!"

Alfred was still laughing all the way home, kicking stones and jumping fences as he wandered through town. He lived pretty far away from the school, really, but catching the bus was out – he didn't really want anybody to know exactly where it was he lived.

Still, there were a few that knew. Antonio and Heracles knew. And, of course, Arthur Kirkland knew, because he was Alfred Jones' neighbour.

Well, they were almost neighbours.

Arthur lived in a house in front of Al's, with a high brick fence that separated the two. Arthur's house though, being a double storey and on a high block of land (in the presentable High Street, of the Upper Hill district), looked right down onto Alfred's house. Alfred used the term house lightly too, his place was more like a shack.

Car bodies filled with rust and dead rats littered the yard, the grass was overgrown and glass bottles poked out from between the mattered green patches. There were several dogs – not one of which Alfred liked, prowling around inside the property, which was cut off from the world by a chicken-wire fence. Alfred bowed his head as he walked down the street of shanties. No good came from looking up in this neighbourhood, you had to keep your eyes on the ground in you wanted to keep them in their sockets.

There was the familiar pitch in the concrete path, making Al stop and look up at the place he'd called home for all his young life. A sunken roof, battered white plaster walls and a rickety old door greeted him. Taped up windows and the smell of alcohol bid him a good afternoon too.

But it was the shouting that triggered something inside Al, it made his stomach curl up into a little ball.

"ALFRED JONES! Where the FUCK have you been?" screeched a woman from inside. Her call followed by the shattering of glass bottles.

She was blind drunk, again.

"Comin' Ma!"

Hope you don't mind stupid!Spain, haha. He's adorable, really he is. I made him a little dopey in this, but there is a reason for it - a reason that may start with an "L" and end in a "ovino". Haha!