Chapter ten – Dreams? More like nightmares

Arthur and Alfred still weren't talking. It was a few days after the heated break-up at the start of the week. That also meant it was a few days after Matthew's little kissing session with both Owain and Alfred. It was fair enough to say that quite a few people had quite a few problems to deal with. In fact, an awful lot more than you'd think.

Of course, there was Arthur worrying that he'd be forever alone, and that he'd live in a house with twenty five cats. Then Alfred's worries about turning into a moody dickhead, and his additional worries about kissing Matthew and what strings he'd gotten caught up in there. Owain was worried about Francis finding out about him kissing Matthew, while Francis was worried about Owain finding out about him kissing Matthew. Alastair was pissed at the world and the fact that it felt like no one loved him, and wouldn't stop moping about the fact he was single. Matthew was worried about turning into a heartless slut, or that he'd maybe even turned into one already. Gilbert was fretting about forever falling in love with people that would never really love him back, and was constantly arguing with himself about whether or not to confront Matthew about their situation or not. Kiku was not looking forward to English, which was first lesson tomorrow morning, as it would involve being taught by his incredibly sexy ex, Heracles Karpusi, and would be more than a little awkward. Ludwig was trying to choose between his work, and spending time with Feliciano, while Feliciano was constantly trying to figure out that on the rare occasions when he did spend time with Ludwig if it was interrupting anything the German could be doing.

So there was a fair amount of worry, a little bit of anger, a sprinkle of angst and self-hatred, and that was pretty much the situation at Goverek high school.

Naturally with all these problems and numerous others floating around in the heads of the pupils, patience was short. A lot of arguments had broken out between friends that would never usually think of arguing with one another over stupid things, like whose pencil was sharpest. Alastair and Owain had had quite a few unusual tiffs in the past few days, the main subject being Francis. Even Feliciano had snapped at Ludwig once or twice. No one thought it'd been possible for Feliciano to snap. Kiku had been rude to teachers, Matthew had sworn at a year seven. It felt like they were in a parallel universe.

On top of the worries and the arguments, there was an infinite amount of classwork and homework to be getting on with. By 'infinite', I mean, once a student had finally finished their huge pile of homework, they handed it into their teacher, and they were given another huge pile of homework to complete. And so on went this insane cycle. But, because boys will be boys no matter what, a lot of them found they left their homework to the last minute, which meant they did it at night. Which meant they had a lack of sleep – with a lack of sleep, not only did this make them more that a little irritable, but this caused their immune to be running a little low, which caused a lot of the boys to catch colds.

So to summarise – the majority of the boys in Year 10 and Year 11 were worrying about their social life, arguing with their friends and/or girlfriends or boyfriends, worrying about not getting their homework done in time, or failing their class completely, constantly tired and run down, and sneezing constantly throughout.

What a wonderful life.

Arthur was quite fed up of it.

Alfred was quite fed up with it.

In fact, pretty much every student – if not every student, unless they were creepily masochistic, was completely fed up with their system. They wanted to quit the work, make up with their friends, recharge their batteries and just relax. They couldn't even recharge at weekends – they were too busy completing all of their homework! When they weren't doing that, they were arguing. It was a terrible vicious circle that pretty much every student alive has fallen into, or come pretty close to falling into.

"I just want to sleep," Arthur muttered to himself, rubbing his eyes, and willing himself to stay awake as he copied out quadratic equations.

"I know the feeling…" Owain muttered from beside him, who was working on his Othello essay.

"Oui, oui," Francis whispered hoarsely – he'd been coughing all day and was now working on his biology assignment.

Arthur had continued to share a room with Owain and Francis while he was on bad ground with Alfred. Neither of the boys minded, really, though Francis had been known to kick up a fuss now and then about how untidy Arthur was. Now though, the three of them were simply too tired to argue. They were too tired to do anything. Francis and Owain hadn't gone on a date in a while – breaching Francis' policy of 'at least one date a week'.

"I'm going to bed. I don't care if I fail… I just need to live…" Owain grumbled sleepily, falling into bed, not even bothering to kick his shoes off.

"I agree, mon cher…" Francis moaned, flopping beside the already asleep Welsh boy.

Arthur rolled his eyes at the two, determined to finish his maths before he slept. He could do it. He knew he could! Come on, Arthur, come on!

He felt his pencil falling loose in his grasp, very nearly drifting off. He shook himself awake, and realised happily that he was writing down the final problem. Sadly, this problem was the longest, and by all means the most difficult and complex. The last questions always are.

Arthur worked his way through the problem, his brain groaning at him the whole time for his hand to have mercy and stop using up all his energy and just let him sleep. Finally, with an unenthusiastic flourish, Arthur underlined the final answer, and very nearly jumped for joy – he probably would have if he'd had more energy.

His happiness didn't last long. He soon realised that the answer he'd put just didn't make sense – it completely contradicted an earlier point in the equation. Arthur wanted to throw something. Gritting his teeth and feebly beginning to rub the mistake out, he sighed, and began doing the equation all over again.

Halfway through, though, his pencil fell slack, and his head bumped down on the desk, the weak light casting shadows all over his face. He wasn't asleep – more dozing, but even so, vivid images were dancing around in his mind. Dreams flooded his vision – but they were the worst kind of dream. It was the type of dream you get when you're half-awake, and things just don't make sense, and everything seems exaggerated.

Arthur's dream was, as it had been an awful lot recently, starring Alfred F. Jones. He was partly thankful for it, partly ripping his hair out. It showed him how much he did miss Alfred, despite he was telling himself that he could manage without the American. Though of course, everyone knew Arthur missed Alfred and vice versa. But no, Arthur was just too insecure for Alfred, apparently. Too much of a girl.

In this dream, Alfred was asleep. Just sleeping. The semi-awake Arthur began muttering inaudible things aloud that were meant to be attempts to get the dream-Alfred to wake up. In the dream he was having, he was actually speaking very clearly – Alfred was responding to his calls.

Dream-Alfred rubbed his eyes, obviously awake, and began walking closer and closer to Dream-Arthur. Alfred had a smile on his face, but Arthur couldn't place what the smile displayed. It wasn't happiness, or laughter… but it didn't look like a sarcastic or cruel smile either. It was just a smile.

And then, Dream-Alfred began to whisper something. A very long something, and a very, very quiet something. Arthur found he had to move up right close to Alfred's face to hear.

Arthur was a little shocked to hear that Alfred was muttering nothing. It was complete mumbo-jumbo. A long stream of words all sewn messily together by random sentences, all in all making no sense.

Wait, Arthur told himself, Something Alfred was saying seemed to make a little bit of sense.

"One minute you're all over me, the next you think I'm dating you for a joke, and the minute after that you're in a world of your own!"

Oh no, no, no. Arthur did not want to hear this again! He'd heard it once before, and he did not want Alfred to say it again!

"Then you try to make it better and treat me like a girl. I'm not a girl. Perhaps if you can't accept that, you should go over to Coverack and take your pick out of the girls there"

Arthur covered his ears, trying to shout loudly to not hear Alfred. But logic doesn't apply to dreams – frustratingly, Alfred's voice just got louder and louder like it was being amplified in his head. Arthur began screaming back apologies, insults, explanations, anything at Alfred. The American didn't respond and just carried on with his words. Arthur began backing away, trying to escape, but in that frustrating, dream-like way, his feet felt like they were made out of lead. They weren't moving anywhere. Alfred began moving closer to Arthur, and Arthur didn't want to know what would happen next. He tried to block out the one-sided conversation again, but it was as useless as before. Alfred got closer and closer, Arthur tried shouting louder and louder.

But, Dream-Arthur didn't experience anything as painful as he thought he might've. Dream-Alfred didn't attack him like Arthur had suspected him to do. He didn't do anything, in fact. He just stared at Arthur's eyes, and then muttered a part of the argument that Arthur definitely hadn't heard before.

"I'm sorry." Dream-Alfred said, and then hugged Dream-Arthur.

With a jolt, the real Arthur sprung awake, his whole body jumping and his head shooting up off his desk. He groaned, rubbing his eyes and checking the clock. It was half two in the morning – he'd been asleep for about fifteen minutes. Shaking his head, Arthur closed his book and stumbled over to his bed. He'd have to do it in the morning, he told himself.

Sadly, though, even when trying to sleep he couldn't relax. His thoughts were full of his little dream. He knew it hadn't really meant much, but it did confuse him. It mad no sense that Alfred would shout at him, and then hug him and forgive him. Call Arthur sentimental, but he believed that all dreams were dreamt for a reason – not to say that they were to predict anything or something like that – no, more that they weren't as random as some people thought they were, and that, in each dream, there were your key thoughts all scrambled up into one confusing ball. The hard part was to separate the feelings.

Annoyingly, Arthur didn't need an oneirologist to tell him that he missed Alfred.

Meanwhile, Alfred and Matthew were sprawled out across Alfred's bed. Unlike every single one of their classmates, they'd left their homework in a neat pile, untouched. Whether it was a rebellious phase, or that Alfred was trying to prove something by not doing his homework, Matthew didn't know, but he more than happily copied Alfred.

"So why aren't you sleeping with Gilbert?" Alfred muttered into the darkness, yawning a little.

"Dunno. He's being weird with me. I knew we weren't really… okay… but, he's acting like I've done something terrible…" Matthew muttered.

"Well you kinda have, remember?"

"Yeah, but Gilbert doesn't know about that…" Matthew muttered, "Or he shouldn't. Maybe someone told him. It wasn't you was it!?"

"No!" Alfred cried, a little annoyed that Matthew might suspect him.

Matthew sighed, "Sorry… So, why'd you break up with Arthur again?"

Alfred shut up, frowning.

"Oh come on, you can tell me."

"Because I was stupid – I woke up, and I was annoyed with myself, and I took it out on Arthur." Alfred explained flatly, gritting his teeth.

"Why were you in a bad mood with yourself?"

"I had a stage dream."

"What was it?"

"Will you ever stop asking questions!?" Alfred asked, only half-serious, "I can't remember…"

"Yes you can!" Matthew insisted with a grin.

Alfred sighed again, "Fine, fine, but you can't tell anyone."

Matthew matched Alfred's sigh, "Fine."

Alfred rolled his eyes, and then remembered that Matthew wouldn't be able to see him in the dark, "Well… I kinda dreamt that… I don't even know. It was a weird, kinda twisted dream."

"Come on, you can tell me!"

"Bear with me a minute, will you?" Alfred said, "I… was like… I don't even know. Some sort of man-whore? It was like I was one of those guys you see with big-boobed girls surrounding him 24/7… But… Ehh… I wasn't surrounded by big boobs…" Alfred muttered, now feeling a little embarrassed, "It… was you guys…"

"What?" Matthew asked, genuinely confused.

Alfred shook his head, "I told you, I don't know! Like you, Kiku, Owain, Feliciano, Lovino – all the people that I've found… mildly attractive in the past."

"You've found me 'mildly attractive'!?" Matthew blinked, quite pleased with himself, "Wait. You found Lovino mildly attractive!?"

"If he shut his mouth, then he'd be cute," Alfred pouted in self-defence, "But that's not the point here, you idiot! I had a dream about girly-guys—"

"Watch it." Matthew warned, glaring.

"Sorry," Alfred corrected himself, "Pretty boys, then, drooling all over me in, like… no clothes. And Arthur wasn't there! I didn't even think about him! And it was one of the best dreams I've ever had! It was seriously screwed-up!"

"But it was hot?"

"Hotter than the fucking sun." Alfred answered guiltily.

"Swearing doesn't suit you…" Matthew muttered.

"That's not the point – what am I meant to do?" Alfred rubbed his eyes, trying to stay awake.

Matthew thought for a moment, "Well you don't need to do anything now, do you? You've already screwed things up with Arthur—"

"Thanks, man."

"Let me finish," Matthew said patiently, "You've already messed up there, so why bother dwelling over that? So you had a wet dream about me and some other guys getting it on with you. Why does that matter? It was only a dream. It doesn't really mean anything," Matthew shrugged, "Rather than worrying about that stuff, you should be thinking about how to fix things."

Alfred sighed, "I know, I want to… I just can't."

"And why not?"

"Because he hates me, maybe?" Alfred deadpanned, frowning in the dark, "Even if I did apologise, it'd be useless."

Matthew suddenly felt a wave of annoyance, "Alfred F. Jones. You are determined. You are fearless. And right now, this is definitely not you! For God's sake, wake up! Arthur isn't going to waltz back into your arms. You'll need to work to get him back! You didn't have to do much at the start of your relationship – all you had to do was accept him. Now it's your turn to do the wooing. You need to convince Arthur to come back to you. And I am not letting you give up that easily!"

Alfred sat there for a second, a little stunned at Matthew's enthusiastic outburst.

"No." Alfred answered flatly, turning over in his covers.

"What!?"

"I don't want to," Alfred said, and then explained himself, "Loads of people have relationships that don't work, Matthew. This is just another one of those. Me and Arthur aren't a pair of star-crossed lovers that fate loves to play with! We're just two people that happened to date, and it didn't work."

"So you're telling me that you're going to let a year-and-a-bit long relationship crumble over a dream?" Matthew said, not attempting to mask the unimpressed tone in his voice.

"Yeah, but it wasn't a year-and-a-bit long relationship, Mattie," Alfred sighed, "We started dating too young – it wasn't dating, it was friendship, but with an allowance of hand-holding and other cute stuff like that. A relationship is something that hurts, and is complicated, and right now I don't really wanna be in one, get me?"

Matthew shook his head, "What happened to you?"

"What?"

"You… You really changed…" Matthew muttered, sounding almost a little hurt as his eyebrows knitted together, "You were never like this. I don't know what happened… But this isn't you. I don't like it."

Alfred scowled, "Well get used to it. This is me."

Matthew sighed, "Whatever."

There was an awkward silence for a moment or two as the boys settled down into more comfortable positions in their respected beds.

"Night…" Alfred muttered, suddenly feeling a little bad.

Either Matthew was already asleep, or he had chosen to ignore Alfred.

Despite it being the third English lesson he'd had this week, Kiku still froze when faced with the large wooden door.

Kiku had done his best to sink into the crowd with his English lessons. They hadn't been as terrible as he'd imagined them to be. Heracles, or as he'd been known recently, 'Mr. Karpusi', or usually plain old 'sir', had pretty much ignored him. Kiku was thankful for this – he knew that he and Heracles had left on a somewhat open note, but Heracles was going so far as to not bring attention to Kiku, Kiku was beginning to wonder if Heracles actually knew he was in his class.

However, Kiku soon realised that Heracles knew he existed, and also that Heracles was having fun playing with his power.

"Sit down, no talking," he addressed his class flatly but not harshly – it simply sounded like he was tired, "Today we'll be reading through Act Two, Scene Two of Romeo and Juliet. As you all know, this coming November you'll all be doing a controlled assessment on this very play, so be sure to take notes. We'll first read through the scene, and then discuss about certain points that you'll want to mention in your exam. Questions?"

No one raised their hand.

"Good. Now, I'll need a few help with readers for certain parts. In this scene, Romeo has the most lines, so I'll be reading that. I need a Juliet."

Everyone shut up. Yes, half of them were show offs and loved reading allowed. Yes, most of them were hopeless romantics and loved nothing better than the soppy balcony scene in such a famous play. And yes, most of them in the room were gay, but not a single one of them in the room wanted to read out Juliet's lines.

"No one? Okay, Jones," Heracles looked over at Alfred, who was sitting at the front of the class, a row in front of him – as far away from Arthur as he possibly could, Kiku noticed. "Give me a number between one and thirty."

Alfred furrowed his brow in confusion, "Ten?" he tried, still baffled.

"Thank you," Heracles nodded, and then began counting the heads of students, making his way up the rows. Suddenly the students realised it was almost like a game of eeny-meeny-miny-mo. The tenth student to be pointed at would be unlucky enough to read aloud Juliet's lines.

Kiku knew he should've saluted to those magpies he saw that morning…

"Nine…" Heracles counted Owain, who was sitting nervously next to Kiku, letting out a sigh of relief when he realised he wasn't the victim, and then Heracles' eyes rested on the Japanese boy, "And ten. We've found our Juliet."

Kiku wanted to hide under the desk. Why did this have to happen to him? He made a mental note to never tell Lars of this.

"Let us begin then." Heracles smiled a little at the class, "Don't forget about your notes, class.

"He jests at scars that never felt a wound…"

Kiku had never had such an impulse to swear before in his life.

A/N

I'd be lying if I said I didn't take inspiration from my everyday life X'D
I hope you liked the chapter :D Thank you for reviews/faves/follows – anything XD love you guys!
I'll try to update soon – and remember, always have faith in the USUK pairing X'D it will be a happy ending! :'D
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ALSO. Anyone going to London Comic Con at the end of October? Tell me if ya wanna meet :'D
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