"What? What do you mean you're not home?"

"You knew my flight was today. Yes, bu- no. No. Mu- okay, look, that's brilliant and all, but what do I do now? No, mum, it's bloody pouring. Fine. Yes. No- No, mum, I- of course not. Of course. I would never," a sudden grunt, "Yes, yes, I'll do just that. Yes. Okay, bye. Love you, mum." There was the quiet beep of a cell phone, and then just the sound of the rain, when…

CRASH!

Alfred jumped up with a small squeak, suddenly (and painfully) made aware of the fact that, unless he was hearing things, there was someone in his house. He froze for a minute. He could hear muffled movement downstairs, and he quietly inched himself off his bed, abandoning a comic book to the floor. It landed on a carpet of laundry that desperately wanted washing, but probably wouldn't leave the room unless it passed a sniff test and was deemed eligible to wear out of the house.

Quietly, quietly, Alfred inched across his room to the closet. The door opened with a squeak, making him scream inside a little, but he tried to remain as calm as possible. He grasped the baseball bat firmly, and made his way through the dark hall and began the treacherous descent down the stairs.

All the lights were off in the downstairs section of the house. The only sound came from that stupid clock his mom wouldn't get rid of. It was creepy. Alfred thought he would die. He was going to end up like one of those dumb girls in the movies, face cut to ribbons, hair all shaved off, with some mundane and sharp object sticking out of her neck. That couldn't happen. He was too young, too good looking, to die. He hadn't even done all he wanted to yet. But the images reeled through his mind. Pictures of himself, all cut up, left in the closet, tied up, with only his superman boxers, now shredded to pieces, on him, eyes gone, fingernails ripped off, with half his chest carved up into intricate and morbid designs, all spelling out the names of gruesome Russian fairy tales-

He backed into something - no, someone - and froze for a moment. Before he could assess the situation, he did the first thing his body let him. Shrieking, he spun around, raised the bat, and hit the intruder in the back of the head.

"Jesus fucking Chris-"

"SHUT UP! I- I'm warning you! What are you doing in my house?" Alfred backed up, clutching the bat in one hand. He flipped the light switch on, and pointed the baseball bat at the intruder, who was now doubled up and holding his head.

"Your house - the fuck d'you think you are?" The voice was, undeniably, British. It was also, undeniably, furious. With a growl, the person, a young man, stood, clutching the back of his head. His hair was a rumpled mess of ash blonde color, and his eyes, beneath thick eyebrows, were extremely green.

And extremely pissed.

Alfred gulped. The pissed off kid stepped forward, rubbing at the back of his head, but Alfred brandished the bat at him.

"I'm warning you!" Alfred snapped, waving the bat around like an idiot. He nearly knocked the stranger in the side of the head at least twice. "You just stay right there! I'm going to make a call… And you're going to stand right there…" He was inching over toward an end table, hand knocking over picture frames and almost a lamp as he attempted to snatch up the phone receiver.

"This is fucking ridicu-"

"Shut up!" Alfred began dialing into the phone. After a minute, he frowned, and began dialing again, frantically, before he realized that the receiver was dead - as were his chances of surviving this night alone. Goodbye, world, he thought glumly. Goodbye, Mattie. Mom, Dad. Annoying Pizza Hut guy that likes to rip people off. Late World of Warcraft games with Kiku. Hamburgers. Chocolate sundaes. Chocolate hamburger sundaes. It was nice to know you all-

"Can you please put that bloody bat down?"

Alfred screamed, and the phone went flying. He nearly dropped the bat, too, but he managed to snatch it up in the nick of time (if it left a mark, his mother would kill him in a much more terrifying fashion than any sex-crazed, European axe murderer). "I thought I told you to shut up!" he squeaked.

The sex crazed, European axe-murderer scowled and took a step forward. Alfred instinctively took a step back, and began flailing the bat around. The intruder wasn't intimidated - hell, he actually seemed to get more irritated. He took a quick step forward and lunged for the bat, locking the two of them into a desperate struggle for the only weapon. In the end, Alfred ended up backed against a wall, holding the lamp for support, while the British kid leaned on the bat and glared at him.

The kid opened his mouth, but Alfred cut him off (again).

"If you kill me, my parents will know!" Alfred blurted, "You know, they won't just let you come in here and kill me. They'll have your ass. You'll be in jail for twenty to life, all because you decided it would be fun to crash into someone's house and take their shit and do something crafty with a baseball bat and then sli-"

"Are you on drugs?" The British kid demanded. "I was just trying to get into my house-"

"This isn't your hou-"

"-only to be assaulted by some idiot with a baseball bat-"

"You barged into my fucking house!"

"-which is assault-"

"Self defense! It's legal!"

"It's stupid," the British kid snapped, "and some idiot is in my hou-"

"THIS IS NOT YOUR HOUSE!" Alfred bellowed, stopping the guy in his tracks. He picked up one of the picture frames he had knocked over earlier, and shoved it in the intruder's face. "Does this look like your family? No? THAT'S BECAUSE IT ISN'T YOUR HOUSE. That's me, and that's my brother, and that's my mo-"

"Oh."

Alfred wrenched the picture back. "Yeah. Oh."

"Fuck," the British guy moaned, and frantically fished a cell phone out of his pocket. "What's this street address?"

"2304."

"Dammit, James," the guy growled, furiously tapping something into his cell phone and muttering something about murder.

Alfred blinked. "Uh… my name isn't James…"

"Not you, you idiot," the British kid snapped. "My brother. He gave me the wrong bloody street address. He probably fucking did it on purpos-"

"Um, not to be rude or anything," Alfred cut in, setting the lamp back on the end table, "but, like, who the fuck are you? Do you belong to that British family that just moved in?"

"Er… yeah. They've been here for nearly a year," the intruder said, holding the baseball bat out to Alfred. Alfred darted forward and took it quickly, ignoring the eye roll he received. He clutched it to his chest protectively. "My name's Arthur. Arthur Kirkland."

"Alfred Jones, at your service," Alfred said with a flourish, practically hitting Arthur with the baseball bat yet again. "Are you still in school?"

Arthur was texting something again, and answering somewhat distractedly. "Ah… yes, I'm in the uh… shit… how the hell do you guys do schooling? Well, I'm seventeen."

"Oh, me too." There was an awkward pause. "Then, uh… I'll probably see you at school…"

"Probably," Arthur agreed, just as awkward. He waved his phone a little, before saying, "Um… I should probably get going…"

"Uh… yeah. Do you need help getting in your house?"

Arthur gave an airy wave, "No, no, it's fine. Thank you for your troubles. Sorry for trespassing."

"Uh… No problem?"

"Right." They both paused, and Arthur turned around and began heading back to the open window (how he had opened it without breaking it was beyond Alfred), where two nice suitcases lay, as though haphazardly thrown in through the window. Arthur picked them up, and threw one of them out harshly, while the other one he lowered to the ground in a somewhat gentle fashion. After that, he jumped right out the window and waved.

A few seconds later, before Alfred could even process what had just happened, he heard another crash and another string of cusswords, this time coming from the house of his neighbors.

Things are about to get interesting, Alfred thought, meandering up to his room and watching the other house from the window as Arthur crawled through a shattered window, similar to his own downstairs.

jfc, this was also hilarious to write.