Humming quietly to himself Al stumbled clumsily into his apartment, closing the door behind him with his foot. The place was a bit of a mess, with rubbish and empty plates and such, randomly scattered around. His apartment was about medium sized with light pale blue walls and (what used to be) cream coloured carpet and a few different (half-dead) plants and pictures dotted around. It had a reasonably clean looking kitchen to the right side of the door which melded into the main room. The main area consisted of a large black couch (with blue cushions), a wide-screen T.V (complete with dvd player, various gaming consoles and what-not) and two other doors leading to different bedrooms (each with own bathrooms and showers). In short it looked extremely ordinary, but had a comfortable, almost homely feel to it.

After pausing a moment he carried the thing into the guest bedroom next to his. This was by far the tidiest and emptiest room in the apartment… probably because it was never used. Although he had a lot of 'friends' he wasn't particularly close with any of them, well, that and most of them could only put up with his supposedly 'annoying', 'over-confident' and 'ego-centric' personality. Al snorted lightly at the thought. He wasn't that bad it was just them who were too… something, he couldn't think of a word to call them really. They were just them.

Gently he placed it on top of the bed covers. He paused again, looking at it for a minute. The clothes it was wearing looked dirty and uncomfortable… he should change them for it, like the amazing hero he was. Grinning and nodding to himself, he headed into his own room and dug out the smallest pair of pyjamas he had, hoping they wouldn't be too big on it. Walking back in he quickly set to changing it into the pyjamas. The grin soon left his face though when he finally managed to pull off its t-shirt. On its chest, right over the place where its heart should be, was a large and sore looking purple-green bruise and leaning closer he could see a thin silvery scar that ran across the left side of its neck. Also now that it was in better light and Al had the opportunity to stop and take in its appearance, he could make out lots of other smaller bruises and half healed cuts covered its body, including its face. Al gritted his teeth slightly, anger bubbling up at whoever had done this, he had a strong suspicion that it was that Scottish man though. Hastily he got out his first aid kit and tended to its wounds. Luckily most of them were almost healed anyway and just needed cleaning, so it didn't take long. Frowning when he noticed a deeper, still bleeding cut on the inside of its arm, he carefully began tying a bandage around it, but at the same time felt his stomach drop. Something about this cut was different than the others and it made him uneasy, very similar, nearly healed cuts and older looking scars also surround it. Quickly he pushed away the negative thoughts rising in his mind and once finished, began putting on the pyjamas.

Smiling softly when he was finished, he pulled the covers up around it and tucked it in. And after leaving the room for a minute he returned with a damp wash-cloth and a glass of water. Placing the water on the night stand he sat on the floor next to it, with his arms resting on edge of the bed. Gently moving the scruffy hair out of the way, he pressed the cold cloth on its forehead. It sighed contently in its sleep, moving its head to the side and nuzzling into the pillow, making Al grin again and ruffle its hair lovingly. It really did look cute right now, all defenceless like that and wearing his clothes.

After a while of watching it Al yawned widely and began to rub his eyes. He was exhausted and seriously needed to sleep, so giving it one last look he quietly stood up and left the room, making sure to leave the doors in both the guest room and his room half way. Just in case it woke in the night and called out for him… or in case it might not know how to open doors and would panic thinking it was trapped, he didn't know and wanted to be safe just in case. After changing himself and carelessly shoving some junk off his bed and onto the floor, he collapsed heavily onto it, snuggling under the thick covers and falling deeply asleep almost instantly.

The night passed by quietly and extremely still, and only when the late morning light was shining brightly into the apartment did something begin to stir. The thing opened its eyes slowly, blinking a few times at the unfamiliar ceiling. Groggily it rubbed its eyes, trying to clear its blurred vision and make sense of where it was. It was laying in something soft and warm and it was tempted to just roll over and go back to sleep, but was too curious to do so. After coming out of its daze more, it sat up, putting a hand on it head feeling a little bit dizzy and looked around the room. Distantly it remembered a human called 'Alfred' had spoken to it. He was really kind and had helped it out of the cage… He had punched Scott and rescued it… then he'd ran, pulling it with him… he'd said he was a hero, and was bringing it to his home…

Its eyebrows furrowed together trying to concentrate, but it was getting harder and harder to remember… vaguely the last thing it could picture was Alfred holding it in his arms and looking scared… it'd tried to ask him what was wrong… but then its memory faded to nothingness. It felt a blush rise to its cheeks remembering the strong arms holding it and how close his face had been, but looking around more it couldn't see him anywhere. Feeling a drop of fear start to gather in its gut, it stood up from the bed and staggered weakly out of the room. It wanted Alfred. It needed to find him, he would make everything okay. That's what he'd said wasn't it? Frantically looking around the large messy area in front of it, it didn't see him anywhere, it was empty. With the drop of fear growing, it also felt a bitter sadness swell in its chest. Its eyes turned glassy with hidden tears. What if he'd just abandoned it alone here? He'd 'rescued' it now right? so maybe he just left… after all he'd done his 'hero' job, they weren't 'friends' or anything, he didn't have any reason to stay with it… and why would he have stayed with it anyway? It was just a worthless, and useless, and ugly, pathetic… thing.….. Who would ever want to bother with it…

The pent up ears finally over-flowed and it quickly brought its hand and paw to it mouth, trying to stop the series of choked sobs that were from escaping its throat. Sure, it didn't want to be alone anymore, but crying wasn't going to help anything was it? Desperately rubbing at its eyes it wiped away the tears roughly and tried to calm down its jittery breathing. It was angry with itself now, it was its own damn fault for getting its hopes up like that anyway and it was pathetic and stupid for crying like that. Closing its eyes and taking a deep steadying breath, it focused itself and started to think about what to do now.

Alfred had been awake for a few minutes now, trying to will himself to get up. Glancing at his alarm clock it read 11:57am… he'd over-slept way too long, he'd meant to get up early to check on his room-mate, but his body was tired and achy from the night before. Everything in the apartment was quiet though and he couldn't sense any movement so he'd guessed the guy was still asleep. Moaning lightly as stretched out his back and arms, he smiled sleepily, rolling himself over so he was sitting on the edge of the bed. After feeling around blindly for his glasses and slipping them on his face, he was just about to stand up when he froze. He heard a noise outside his door. Listening intently he heard it again. It sounded like muffled crying. He felt guilt hit him, and worriedly stumbled out the door, still a bit groggy. The thing was standing in the main room with its back to him and looked like it was rubbing its face. Al approached it carefully, and spoke gently not wanting to startle it.

"…Hey, what's wrong? Do you feel not well?" The thing jumped and spun around quickly. Its expression held a weird mix between surprise, anger and shame, its eyes looked slightly damp and bloodshot. It didn't answer him, just stared at him with its mouth open, looking kind of like a deer caught in headlights, like it had been caught off guard. Warily, it took a few steps backing away from him, its ears pinned back and looking uneasy. Al frowned at this and carefully took a few steps towards it. He smiled at it and raised his right hand to show submission and that he was harmless. He still kept his quiet and gentle, not wanting it to bolt.

"Its okay… its me, remember? Alfred? …are you alright? Why were you crying?" it stopped backing away and Al was able to get close to it, its face was unreadable now. When it spoke it tried to keep its voice natural, but it still came out sounding upset.

"…I t-thought you'd gone…" it seemed to try and say something more, but couldn't get the words out. Al felt guilty for not making sure he was there when it woke, but he smiled softly at it, carefully reaching out and ruffling its hair before breaking into a grin.

"Why would I do that? I'm not gonna just leave you, I like you remember so you're kinda stuck with me, unless, well, you wanted to leave me… but, anyway, if you want that is, this is now your new home." he said laughing cheerfully hoping to reassure it, though he felt a pang of pity for it thinking he'd leave like that. It looked completely shocked for a second, but soon managed to gather itself together and actually grinned back at him, chuckling oddly and tilting its head to one side. It remembered now that this one really was generally nice and he didn't seem the type to even be able to lie or be to-faced, and even though they'd barley met, after all he'd done for it, it already trusted him. It put its paw on Al's arm gently, amusement clear in its voice. Its mood seemed to have completely changed from a minute ago.

"Thank you."

"You're welcome!" Al grinned, feeling slightly giddy from happiness that he had a new friend and a roommate. Even though Matt lived next door, he had Gilbert and Al didn't like getting in the way of them too much, so often he got lonely on his own. But now he finally had… someone. That made him realise something.

"Oh, so you already know my name, what's yours?" he asked interested. It hesitated a bit before replying, for some reason sounding unsure.

"My names Arthur."

"ohh cool, nice to meet you Artie!" he said holding out his hand for a handshake. Its eyebrow twitched a bit and it eyed his hand slightly before shaking it.

"I said Arthur. Not 'Artie'." Al nodded but couldn't help snickering loudly at how he looked pouting with those large eyebrows. Arthur glared back at him, but only succeeded in making him snicker more.

"And what's so funny?" he growled trying to sound intimidating.

"Nothing! Nothing."

"Its not nothing, what is it?"

"Nothing, really, I just thought you looked cute pouting like that is all, so, hey are you hungry? I need to go shopping but I should be able to find us some breakfast!" Al said absentmindedly, cheerfully pulling Arthur over to the kitchen and completely missing how red his face had turned. No-one had ever called him 'cute' before (they usually made fun of him for being ugly or his eyebrows) and he didn't know how to handle it. He held his breath willing himself to calm down and hoped to hell his face didn't look as red as it felt. Thankfully Al was too busy with his face buried in the fridge to notice him.

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- ending the chapter there, (not the end of story yet though) Thank you so much for reading! (sorry for bad grammar/spelling and OOCness etc) ^^