Chapter 5
The second week of school arrived with great fanfare. All of the school ceremonies that had been postponed until the freshman were settled occurred on Monday morning, and they included a speech from the Headmaster, a lengthy flag ceremony, a guest speaker from the British parliament, and a short film about all the travel opportunities they would have throughout the year.
Alfred nodded off during the Headmaster's speech, but watched the movie at the end with great interest (after Arthur had pinched his leg until he woke up with a startled noise of pain that earned him disapproving glares from the upperclassmen.)
"Wow, those places look really cool! I wanna go see Stonehenge for sure. I bet you've already been to all those places though, huh?" Alfred asked Arthur as they filed out of the auditorium.
"Yes, but I might go on a few of the trips. It just depends on when they fall in the school year," Arthur replied. He adjusted his bulging school bag on his shoulder and cast a dark look after Francis, who walked ahead of them and chatted animatedly with a small group of pretty French girls. "And who else signs up," Arthur added darkly.
"Aww, don't be like that! Francis isn't so bad. I'm surprised he hangs out with us, though. I heard him getting some flak for it in the locker room yesterday. They're calling us the Queertet now," Alfred said with a laugh.
"Lovely," Arthur replied dryly, with much less amusement. Though Alfred usually brushed off such teasing, his expression suddenly looked a little glum.
"I'm all for standing up for Mattie…but I really hope that the rumors don't get back to my parents. My dad would kill me if the tabloids start saying I'm gay on top of everything else."
"Everything else?" Arthur asked. Being a British royal, he was all too familiar with the cruel ways of the paparazzi, though they seemed to love him more than hate him.
"Back home, the press likes to pick on me a bit. I don't think anyone really means any harm by it, but it's hard to find fault with my parents, so they make fun of me instead. The late night comedians are the worst. My parents stopped letting me watch their shows, but I still sometimes see clips on the internet or wherever."
"What on earth do they say? Granted, you're not the spitting image of your father, but you're fairly normal as far as teenage boys go," Arthur replied charitably. Alfred rolled his eyes.
"It'd be a shorter list to say what I haven't been teased about. According to the tabloids, I've got an eating disorder, I'm on ADHD medication, I cry too much, I've got bad skin, I'm mentally retarded, I'm a klutz, I'm offensive, I'm politically ignorant, and a general embarrassment to my parents and my country…but thanks for thinking I'm normal," Alfred said with a self-depreciating grin.
"All of that is bollocks. Don't your parents stand up for you?" Arthur asked. Alfred flashed him a confused look.
"Why would they? It's all true. Well, technically I'm not mentally retarded, but some of my old teachers would probably say otherwise," Alfred said with a laugh. Arthur frowned.
"It's not true. I've lived with you a full week now. I think I would have noticed if you had an eating disorder," Arthur said, very serious despite Alfred's casual, joking tone.
"Oh, they just say that because of how skinny I am. I've tried bulking up but nothing really sticks."
"Is that why you're always eating so much? To bulk up?" Arthur asked.
"Yeah. Dad wants me to try out for ruby this year, but there's no way they'll want someone so skinny. He says it'll get me in shape for college football, but I'd much rather play baseball. I'm not really any good at baseball, either, but at least I won't get hit as much."
"Do you even like sports?" Arthur asked. They had nearly reached their math classroom, and Arthur wished they didn't have to go inside just yet. He'd never expected to have such a serious discussion with his roommate, but it was highly interesting. Wrapped up in his own little world, it was rare that Arthur actually had discussions with other people.
"Well, yeah, sure! What boy doesn't like sports?" Alfred replied. Arthur turned up his nose a bit disdainfully.
"I prefer embroidery."
"What's that?" Alfred asked, utterly clueless.
"Otherwise known as needlework…you know, like sewing or quilting."
"Oh…wow. Didn't expect that one, I gotta say!" Alfred replied, clearly struggling not to laugh. Arthur frowned.
"Just what is so amusing, Jones?"
"Nothing! It…fits you. It really does," Alfred said, still smiling. Arthur's voice lowered dangerously.
"Are you implying something?"
"Well, you gotta admit it's a little different…but it's cool that you do what you like and don't worry what other people will think about it! I wish I could be more like that," Alfred said. Arthur felt his cheeks warm with a blush. Not liking so much attention placed on himself, Arthur shifted the focus back to Alfred.
"If what your parents wanted didn't matter, what would you want to do in school?"
Alfred laughed, clearly dismissing the question as crazy talk. They had reached their classroom, but they lingered outside the door, talking in hushed voices.
"I'm gonna be an awesome athlete! Why wouldn't I want that? All the girls will love me, I'll be super popular, and nobody will mess with me. My parents and I have always wanted the same thing."
"Whatever you say, Jones," Arthur said. He glanced at the classroom behind them, nearly full. "It's almost time for math. You finished your homework, right?"
"Most of it," Alfred mumbled guiltily.
"Alfred! What were you doing if not your math last night?" Arthur asked, as they entered the classroom. A platinum haired boy sitting near the door heard the comment and pitched his voice louder so everyone could hear. Gilbert had already gained the reputation of being the class clown, and his reddish-brown eyes were always glinting in amusement at someone else's misfortune.
"He was doing his girly boyfriend. Didn't you see teddy bear walking all funny this morning?"
"Alfred is not dating Matthew," Arthur said forcefully. Behind him, Alfred arched a confused brow at the strange reply.
"I think what Arthur meant to say is, 'stop teasing our friend, Matthew.' Seriously, dude, why do you have to make Mattie the butt of all your jokes?"
"Ha! 'Cause he takes it in the butt! Get it? The butt of all my jokes?" The students who were listening in laughed at the crass reply and Alfred felt his cheeks color with embarrassment. He'd walked right into that one…
"Let's just sit down already," Arthur hissed in displeasure. Feeling helpless to do anything else, Alfred took his seat beside his roommate (his new seat, at the front of the class) and pulled out his homework. Arthur snatched it onto his own desk, his emerald eyes scanning the work hastily.
"If you got these problems right, you should have had any trouble with…oh," Arthur said upon flipping to the second page. The whole left margin of the paper was full of little drawings and doodles, all of them neat and sharp, as well as a larger picture of a female superhero that was really quite beautiful.
Walking by the desk, the professor snatched up the paper and glanced at the name on the front sheet.
"That will be ten points off both of your papers for sharing answers, and another ten points off your paper, Mr. Jones, for all your pointless scribbling. If you have time for childish drawings, you have time enough to finish your assignment."
Alfred sighed, his head dropping onto his arms. He was quite used to point deductions and reproaches, and took it without even blinking, but Arthur was not.
"We were not sharing answers! I was merely seeing which problems gave him difficulties!"
"Kindly let me do the job of teaching, Prince Arthur. Trust me, if I decide Mr. Jones needs a tutor, you're the first person I'll ask, your highness."
Snickers echoed throughout the classroom as they always did when a professor used Arthur's royal title. Quieted by embarrassment, and annoyed that he'd lost marks because of Alfred's incomplete homework assignment, Arthur ignored his roommate for the rest of the period.
USUK
By the third week of school, everyone was finally beginning to settle in. There had been no field trips out into London yet, though all the students were eagerly looking forward to them. Arthur had continued to help Alfred study, and assured him that he looked just fine in his new glasses. A few other boys disagreed, and started calling Alfred "four-eyes," which he took in stride, but Arthur could tell it hurt the gangly teen's feelings.
It hadn't been a smooth start for the two unlikely roommates. For Arthur, it was difficult adjusting to someone always being there. He fell asleep to the sound of Alfred's soft snores, and he woke up to the rather pleasant way Alfred sang in the shower. Their room always smelled like cocoa butter and cheeseburgers, as Alfred was constantly sneaking food into the dorm, and he lathered up in that strange, thick lotion of his every night. Still, Arthur couldn't deny the results. On the rare occasions he'd brushed up against his roommate, or accidentally touched his hand, he was startled to feel the unbelievable softness of Alfred's skin.
As for Alfred, he discovered having his first friend was all that he had hoped it would be and more. Arthur was always helping him out by keeping him organized and caught up in his classes. He ate lunch with him in the cafeteria, they walked to some of their classes together, and they even had a few inside jokes. Alfred had gotten Arthur hooked on one of his online RPGs, one centered around WWII. They teamed up as soldiers from their respective countries to fight zombie Nazis, and both of them enjoyed the anonymity of the internet. Keeping with the theme of sharing their interests, Arthur let Alfred borrow several of his favorite science fiction novels, which the American read with surprising speed. It was a huge deal for Arthur, to be so relaxed and close with someone.
Against all odds, Alfred and Arthur were becoming the very best of friends. Arthur only had one, tiny little problem: Matthew was even closer to Alfred than he was. Despite all of Francis's attempts to keep Matthew's interest solely on himself, Matthew and Alfred connected like twins separated at birth—or like boyfriends, if Matthew had anything to say about it. It wasn't that they had a lot in common, Arthur decided, but rather the experience they'd shared the first week of school had created some kind of bond forged in steel. If Arthur couldn't find his roommate and was forced to look for him, he'd inevitably find him holed up with Matthew giggling over something ridiculous, or they'd be goofing off together in some picturesque spot on campus. It was utterly annoying. The whole school thought they were together, and that annoyed Arthur as well, though he couldn't for the life of him explain why.
He was pondering this very problem as they all sat outside on a rare sunny afternoon, their textbooks for various classes spread out over a picnic table, the four of them studying together. Mostly, however, Alfred and Matthew were goofing off. Alfred had started his reading assignment just fine, but then he'd begun making little doodles in the margin of Matthew's French book that made the other boy giggle like a school girl.
"Will you two concentrate and get some work done for once?" Arthur snapped waspishly. Francis snorted at his tone, but didn't bother to defend Matthew's actions. He shared Arthur's annoyance with the strange, budding relationship between their two roommates. Alfred blinked his big blue eyes innocently at Arthur.
"I am concentrating, I swear!"
"I sincerely doubt you're making much progress in Shakespeare while you're defacing Matthew's textbook."
"I'm not defacing it. I'm adding pictures," Alfred said. Matthew grinned again and added something to Alfred's doodle that made them both start snickering. Fed up with it, Arthur slammed his book shut and leaned over them. Matthew tried to hide the drawing, but he was not quick enough. On the top corner of the page, there was a tiny little drawing of a character who could be none other than Arthur, distorted to extremely short proportions, accompanied by a speech bubble that said "STUDY!" and a constipated look on his face. Matthew had just been scribbling in gigantic eyebrows.
"Screw the both of you. From now on you can just fail, Alfred. See if I give a bloody damn!" Furious, Arthur stormed off after hastily collecting his books. He ignored Alfred's desperate apologies. Francis watched the whole scene with assessing blue eyes. Once Arthur was gone past hearing them, he rebuked Alfred.
"For someone that has been teased quite a bit since coming here, you didn't hesitate to trample over Arthur's feelings, did you?"
"It wasn't just Alfred. I'm the one that drew the eyebrows…" Matthew said, looking very guilty. The truth was, just as Arthur felt a little jealous of Matthew, Matthew felt a little jealous of Arthur. It wasn't because he truly wanted Alfred as his boyfriend, but he did want to be his best friend. It was just a perk that it made Francis jealous to hear him fawn over the American. In this way, Matthew and Arthur were both competing for the attention of a boy who had never had even one friend before, and now had two of them who didn't want to share him.
Feeling a little disappointed in Matthew as well, Francis decided to leave. Francis knew he liked Matthew a great deal, but he was beginning to suspect he only liked him because Matthew was interested in someone else. Francis was a healthy teenage boy, and he had no intention of wasting his entire freshman year pining after a roommate who was hung up on the school's biggest loser. Not to mention, all the whispered jokes about his unofficial membership in the Queertet were beginning to annoy him. If Matthew hadn't seen all the reasons why Francis was obviously superior as a crush by then, the boy just didn't have any taste.
"Au revoir. I suddenly feel the urge to pay a visit to Madeline."
"W-wait! I'll come with you!" Matthew said. Francis gave the boy a considering look, but ultimately stuck with his decision.
"No, this is the sort of visit where three would be a crowd. You understand, don't you Matthew? I will see you later tonight, and tell you all about how it goes," Francis said, confirming what he was just beginning to suspect. Matthew really was just playing a game with his affection. The soft-spoken boy looked more than a little jealous and put-out.
"Man, Francis is so lucky! We've only been here three weeks and he's already got a girl that likes him. Hey, Mattie, think Francis could hook me up with a really hot French girl? They're always hanging all over him…" Alfred said. Matthew frowned, suddenly quite irritated with all of his friends—Arthur, for being too sensitive, Francis, for being too perceptive, and with Alfred as well, for not being perceptive enough.
"You should worry about patching things up with your roommate before he throws all your stuff into the hallway, Alfred," Matthew advised, before gathering his own things and leaving Arthur alone at the table. Alfred was starting to get the impression everyone was suddenly mad at him, when a familiar boy sat down beside him.
"I couldn't help but overhear…" Toris said gently. Alfred shrugged helplessly.
"I was just goofing off with Mattie like always. I dunno why Arthur got so upset all the sudden."
"Wasn't it something about a drawing?"
"Well, yeah, but I've drawn all of us like that. See?" Alfred pulled out a sketch book that was almost full of little doodles and comic strips. Some were drawn more in the traditional style, and featured characters like Superman and Wonder Woman, while the majority seemed to follow the adventures of Alfred and the people he had met at World Academy, all squished into cute little versions of themselves. Toris read over a few of the strips, smiling at the dialogue.
"Matthew helps me come up with the stories. He's really funny. I don't know why he made Arthur have big eyebrows…I mean, they're a little bushy, but they're not that bad or anything. Besides, why would he be sensitive about that? My face looks like a friggin' pizza."
Toris gently closed the book and handed it back to Alfred. "Nobody likes to be teased. Arthur probably didn't realize you draw everyone like that. He must have felt like you and Matthew were laughing at him behind his back."
"I hope he'll believe me when I tell him I wasn't," Alfred fretted.
"Just show him these drawings. I think he'll forgive you if you sincerely apologize."
"Thanks, Toris…hey, so how's it going with Ivan?" Alfred asked. Toris blushed slightly and shifted his gaze to the tabletop.
"He's very…persuasive. But I'm getting used to him. He still kind of scares me sometimes, but I don't think he means much by it. I'm even starting to trust him a little. He has a sweeter side, if you can look past the fact that his family practically runs the Russian mafia."
"The what? Since when is Ivan in the mafia? He's only fifteen!"
"You had not heard? Everyone knows of his family's…connections. Ivan is actually sixteen, though. They held him back last year because he didn't pass his finals."
"They didn't flunk him out?" Alfred asked.
"Would you want to tell the head of the Russian mafia that you're kicking his son out of your school?" Toris asked with quiet amusement. Alfred laughed a bit nervously.
"Yikes! I guess not! Well, guess that explains why he's so scary and nobody talks to him. I'm glad it's going okay, though. I gotta say, I was a little worried about you," Alfred said as he packed up his things. Toris just smiled serenely. "Hey, how come you guys never sit with us at lunch?" Alfred asked.
"I didn't know we were invited," Toris replied with a friendly smile. "Not many students will approach Ivan, and none approach me by extension."
"What? Of course you're invited! Ivan said you could hang out with me. Not that it would matter even if said you couldn't, but ya know what I mean! You should sit with us tomorrow. I'll save you guys some seats."
"Then we would love to join your table sometime. For now, I have to get going. Good luck patching things up with Arthur. Oh, and don't forget that there's supposed to be a special notice posted in the common room in an hour," Toris reminded.
"I wonder if it has anything to do with all the stuff the upperclassman are assembling in the gym?" Alfred mused.
"Maybe," Toris said, standing elegantly and swinging his book bag onto his narrow shoulders. Seemingly out of nowhere, Ivan appeared, startling his honey-haired boyfriend.
"Let's go," Ivan said gruffly. Once his initial surprise faded, Toris smiled serenely at the roommate he had once feared.
"Did your test go well?" he asked.
"It doesn't matter," Ivan grunted. The large teenager looked tense, and in a worse mood than usual. It made Alfred uneasy, but Toris seemed accustomed to it. The gentle boy slipped his hand into Ivan's, petting his thick arm a bit consolingly before stretching onto his tip-toes and kissing Ivan's cheek.
"We'll practice some more tonight, okay? I promise I won't let you get stuck staying behind a year again."
"Whatever. I said let's go. Now."
"Goodbye, Alfred," Toris said with a happy little wave. Alfred smiled back unsurely. He'd have to ask Arthur about the mafia stuff. Toris didn't strike him as the type to lie, but surely it couldn't really be true.
"Later, Toris," Alfred said, collecting his own things. He wasn't looking forward to it, but somehow he had to convince Arthur that he and Matthew weren't making fun of him, or at least, weren't making fun of just him. Considering his luck so far that day, Alfred's hopes weren't too high for success.
A/N: Merry Christmas! A new chapter, finally! Sorry for the long delay guys, but I had to wait till I got some time off for Christmas. Hope it was worth the wait! I can't wait to hear if you guys like the Mafia!Russia sideplot…if you do, I'll give them some more screen time.