I'll apologise in advance for this chapter. You'll see why. *headdesks*
~o~o~
April 27th 2013 was the date, and the Beer-team was sitting in their usual café.
"One piece of advice for you guys: Never let someone drag you to an ice hockey game. Holy shit." Abel was so kind so share with his friends.
"I'll take the bait. Why?" Mathias asked.
"I've never seen so many guys getting smashed into the boarding in such a violent way, and I've never been so scared Matthew would take a puck to the face at some point."
"What, did he get rammed so often?"
"No, it was him doing the ramming. That's the point. I can suddenly see where Alfred's trauma came from."
"Matthew of all people is the one nearly killing everyone?" Roderich asked. "Are you sure we're talking about the same person?"
"I couldn't believe it either, but now I'm scared." Abel said.
"Don't be scared of your own boyfriend, dude." Mathias chuckled. "But I'm not really one to talk there."
"You're scared of Aleksander?"
"Yeah! Have you seen him when he's pissed?! He knows how to handle knifes, he's a lot stronger than he looks and I wouldn't be surprised if he could summon trolls at will." Mathias took a good swig of beer to calm down his own rambling. Now was not the moment to start rattling up all his traumas.
"I'm not scared of Feliciano. It's his mother's colleagues that freak me out." Ludwig admitted. "I can't set a foot in that house anymore, or one nut-job model-scout or another tries to trick me into becoming a model. Yuck."
"Hey, speaking of boyfriends: What was that about Tino?" Mathias asked. "Did he really break up with Emma or was that just Berwald's wishful thinking blasting itself throughout the school?"
"No. Other way around." Ludwig shared his knowledge. "She broke up with him."
"Why?" Mathias asked no one in particular. "She's the one who initiated the whole thing."
"From what I've caught from the gossip-network is that she didn't like that 'nothing happened' between them." Abel added.
"Did she expect him to shag her before the end of the week or what?" Mathias huffed.
"No, it was more that they were together for half a year and they still hadn't kissed because 'he didn't feel like it'."
"O-kay. But she'd flippin' gorgeous, so...Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Mathias asked Abel.
"If you're thinking Tino could beat the two of us in a queer-contest, then yes." Abel responded.
"Little less blunt, but yeah. Basically that."
"So, Berwald, are you over Tino ye-?" Abel started, but was cut off.
"No."
"Clear." Abel squeaked, trying to hide the fact he was shivering. Damn, Berwald could be so scary. He wasn't scary at all. He was one of the most friendly and relaxed guys out there, but he could so easily come across as scarily intimidating.
"Maybe this would be a good time to give it a shot?" Mathias suggested.
"Hm don't think so. He's quite down 'bout 't."
"That's what I said."
"No. That's horrible."
When it came to boyfriends, Abel was a lot luckier than some of is friends. Granted, Ellen could be downright evil, and Alfred and Arthur were a huge pain in the neck sometimes, but it could have been much worse. And it wasn't like they constantly picked on each other. Under the right circumstances, they got along just fine. Even Alfred got along with Abel, given he'd keep his hands off Matthew, and Arthur was there for distraction. Apparently, that was the formula to avoid cock-fighting. That way, even having a casual conversation with the four of them in one room was possible. Who would have thought? The only thing in that short list of downsides to dating Matthew that probably wouldn't change, was Ellen's evilness. That was proven once again when Abel was unlucky enough to be at Matthew's place at the wrong time.
"You know what time it is!" Ellen exclaimed, completely excited when she plopped down on the couch, right in between Abel and Arthur. A big, heavy album was sitting on her lap, ready to be opened. "Embarrassing baby-pictures!" She exclaimed even more enthusiastically and opened the album.
"No! Kill it with fire!" Alfred shouted immediately. The fear was so thick in his expression that even a blind man could see it. He completely forgot that he'd been snuggling with Arthur just a second ago, and basically dropped the guy off his lap.
"Please put that away! Mom!" Matthew pleaded, but it fell on deaf ears. "Dad. Please tell her to hide it in a safe and bury it on the South Pole!"
Jonathan smiled from behind his newspaper. "Sorry, Matt. I've managed to keep her from it for quite a while now, and I couldn't distract her any longer."
Matthew cried, shouted and protested, tried to snatch the collection-of-shame away and cried more, but his father only sniggered and enjoyed this moment of schadenfreude.
Ellen was already pointing at the first picture. One of two very young, small but quite chubby little babies with the most adorably round faces. One was wearing a red cap, the other a blue one but both wore identical white bodysuits with red feet.
The former stared petrified into the camera like a deer into the headlights of a car, the other reached out to the camera as though it were candy.
"Just guess which one is Alfred." Ellen said, smiling and giggling.
"This one." Arthur and Abel said simultaneously, both pointing at the hyper baby.
"Correct." Ellen laughed, also glancing at both her sons who were now slapping a pillow into their face as a desperate attempt to pretend not to be there.
They went on to pictures of the two babies with their grandparents. Grandma and grandpa Williams. It wasn't exactly hard to see which ones of the grandparents were from which side of the family. Jonathan looked a surprising lot like his mother, just enough to make it scary. The only thing he had gotten from his father were the hair and horrible eyesight.
The pictures of Ellen's parents with their grandchildren were a little less diabetes-inducing, though. Not only were Ellen's parents significantly older, they also seemed a little reluctant to actually be where they were. Overall, those pictures seemed a tad bit...off.
"That old hag's my mother." Ellen said, pointing at the elderly lady in the picture who was holding baby Alfred. "And that was my father in the background."
"Was?" Abel asked, and right after received an elbow in the side from Matthew.
"Yes. Was." Ellen said. "He died about twelve years ago. Hunting accident."
"Sorry." Abel said a little awkwardly. Nice going. Any points he'd scored up until now were cleanly drop-kicked out the window.
"But anyway." Ellen broke the gloomy mood. "This one is cute! They got teeth!" She skipped a few pictures and pointed out a picture of Jonathan sitting on the couch, holding out both index fingers on which on either side one of the twins was gnawing. He himself had an expression as though he wanted to be out of there, while the two babies were holding a tight grip on his fingers with both their hands and munched and drooled with the biggest, most innocently glimmering eyes.
"That's so embarrassing." Alfred moaned.
"Nonsense. You were an adorable baby." Arthur swooned, in a tone that betrayed surprise. "Look at you with your chubby cheeks and your big blue eyes. Aww."
"Hey!"
"Forget the chewing and drooling." Abel said, taking a closer look at the picture. "The real embarrassing thing about this picture is the 90's-version of your dad."
Yes, Jonathan with hair slightly longer than it should be and curlier than it was now, and sporting a full Freddy Mercury-moustache in the same dark colour as his hair. When not expected, this image was quite a shocker.
"I can hear you, you know." Jonathan looked at him over his glasses.
Abel ignored him. "Matt, you may never grow a moustache." He warned, already imagining that would probably look just about the same.
"I couldn't if I wanted to." Matthew said, crossing his arms. "And if you use the term 'baby-face' now, I'll use you for ice hockey target-practice."
Abel, before looking like he was about to say something, sat back again, mouth firmly shut.
"You look so young here, though." Arthur noticed. "I mean, not much older than Al now."
"That's because I wasn't." Jonathan said. "I was twenty in that picture."
"Really? That young?"
"Wow, wow, wow, hold on a sec." Ellen interrupted. "How old do you guys think I am?"
"Eeeerm..." Neither Abel nor Arthur actually dared to answer that. Abel's parents were both very near their fifties, and Arthur's had already passed that mark quite a while ago. They'd just guessed that Ellen was at least in her forties.
"I am thirty six, you couple of monkeys!" She shouted as if she could read their minds.
"Wait a sec, though." Abel said before skipping back to the first page of the album, showing a mid-winter wedding picture of Jonathan and Ellen. "How far on your way were you here?"
"Hold it right there, Mr. Porcupine. Who says I was pregnant there?" Ellen retorted immediately.
"Eeeerm..." Was the response from all five men.
"Ugh. Fine. Almost three months. Happy?"
"And no one noticed that?" Abel asked.
"My part of the family is so naive that they believed it immediately when I said they were born early. Except my mom, because it's not like my oldest sister was actually born four months prematurely." Ellen said, rolling her eyes. Jonathan stood up from his chair and put his newspaper away.
"Still, three months." Matthew said.
"Matthew, have you looked at your mother?" Jonathan whispered into his son's ear. "No one will notice a few pounds more or less."
"What did you say?" Ellen asked.
"Nothing at all, sweetheart." Her husband said quickly and went back to his chair with a book. He hoped that his somewhat sadistic snigger would go unnoticed, but Matthew heard it loud and clear.
Back to the pictures, Ellen's eyes fell onto another moment worth being highlighted: Their first birthday. In the picture, Matthew was sitting on his father's lap while Alfred was being held by his mother. In between them was a big blue and red birthday cake with a big candle in the middle which, of course, had to be blown out by the two one-year-olds.
"And look what happened." Ellen said, and she flipped the page. Right there, it showed the scene just a few seconds later. Matthew was crying hysterically, pieces of cake splattered all over his face and in his hair while little Alfred was laughing and happily slapping both his little hands into the cake. Pieces of sugar work and fondant were scattered all over the room and the two boys, as well as their parents.
As this humiliating tale was being told, the brothers hid their faces further and further into their pillows and curled up to a small ball of shame at the far ends of the couch.
Ellen was laughing just as hard as Arthur and Abel. "Prepare for more of this, guys. Pretty much every picture in this album has Matthew crying because of something Alfred did."
"Mom!" Both brothers shouted simultaneously.
After nearly thirty minutes of pictures of the first years of their boyfriends' lives, Abel and Arthur had to conclude that Ellen was right: nearly every picture showed Alfred doing something reckless and Matthew crying because of being the victim of said action. Apparently, it had become a bit of a birthday-tradition to have Matthew end up with cake in his face. Always.
On their second birthday, Alfred had been a little too fanatic to blow his candle out and had managed to blow so much wax from the candle onto Matthew's piece that it was almost completely covered. As the icing on the cake, Alfred had tried very sweetly to comfort his crying twin by feeding him pieces of his own cake. Unfortunately for little Matthew, his twin back then had dexterity appropriate to his age. In other words: The cake had ended up everywhere in his face but where it was supposed to go.
For their third birthday, both boys had gotten a baseball with the first letter of their name on it from their Grandpa Jones. Alfred loved the thing, but Matthew was more interested in his piece of cake. It was quickly ruined, though, when Alfred threw his baseball against the back of his brother's head and knocked him with his face into the cake he was eating.
Just as their fourth birthday, when Matthew walked around with his saucer and piece of birthday cake and Alfred was bouncing about with the bag of marbles he'd got. At a certain point, little Alfred had dropped the bag, tripped over the marbles and Matthew had tripped over him. And yes, once again, Matthew ended up faceplanting into cake.
On their fifth birthday, Alfred had gotten jealous because Matthew got more attention than him, and had pushed a handful of cake right into his face.
"And that's why they haven't had cake on their birthday since their fifth. Matthew has been very quiet and shy ever since." Ellen said as though finishing a bedtime story.
"Mom, you're terrible." Alfred said, muffled by the pillow. Matthew only whined into his pillow and was hugged around the shoulders by Abel.
"Aww, Matty. You were such an adorable little kid."
"Shut up. Shut. Up!" He pushed his face further into the pillow. Maybe, just maybe, if he'd keep doing that, he'd pass out of lack of oxygen, and he'd be spared the embarrassment.
After that, there were more adorable but embarrassing pictures of them sleeping with each other's thumbs in their mouth. They used to do that, apparently.
The first time they went to see a baseball game, which had nine-year-old Alfred nearly bouncing through the roof, but had done little to entertain Matthew. While Alfred was on the edge of his seat in the picture, Matthew was happily nomming on a doughnut.
If they could believe the pictures, the opposite effect was achieved a few months later, when Jonathan and his father had taken the boys to an ice hockey game. While Matthew was more excited than ever before and almost bouncing off his seat, Alfred looked more scared than ever and cringed as though he felt the exact pain of the player who was squashed between the boarding and a player of the opposite team at that moment.
That picture told them more than a thousand words.
Jonathan sighed and put his book down. "The weeks after that, Matthew couldn't keep his mouth shut about how cool it was and Alfred couldn't stop crying about the nightmares he had."
"Hey!" Alfred shouted. "I didn't cry! And I absolutely did not have nightmares."
Of course no one believed that. Also Arthur, who put his arm around his boyfriend's shoulder. "Alfred, sweetheart, you had nightmares about giant dogs trying to eat you after Clover put her paws on your shoulders to lick you."
This triggered a few sniggers and giggles from around the room. Again, something Alfred hadn't told them about.
"Dude. That thing is an Irish Wolfhound! Those are huge!" Alfred defended himself.
"She's not even fully grown yet!" Arthur protested.
"Just…shut up, okay?" Alfred pouted, crossed his arms and sulked.
"Sure, love." Arthur answered with a chuckle. For a few seconds, he considered telling them that Ian actually had Clover doing that all the time at the command 'hug', but decided against it. "Hey, what's that?" Arthur pointed out a picture of a ten-years-old Alfred, dressed as Captain America, crying out loud and clinging to his mother's side. The hysterical little boy had his legs tightly clamped around her waist and his arms around her neck and shoulder.
"Oh, that. Haha." Ellen interrupted he story of how Alfred had objected to his older twin playing ice hockey. "That was right before they went trick-or-treating when we lived in Washington. Matthew was wearing roller skates and his ice hockey attire. Including stick and mask. As you can see, Al hadn't really gotten over the shock of the ice hockey game yet. Got scared to death!"
This time, everyone in the room burst into laughter. Everyone except for Alfred, who slouched lower and lower on the couch while the thundercloud above his head grew and grew.
Ellen laughed at it too. "He clung to my side the entire night and just refused to let go. I had to go trick-or-treating with them. This is the only picture in the entire album where Alfred is crying because of something Matthew did."
"But I didn't even do anything!" Matthew defended himself.
"Which makes it even more hilarious." Abel teased.
The next pages weren't much better than that. By the time they were through the album, Matthew and Alfred were curled up on the far ends of the couch, with the only thing hiding their deep-red faces from the world, a pillow. They hadn't been spared. Not even a flint of them had been saved from complete humiliation. Pictures of them with a broad smile either with no front teeth or decorated with ever so charming braces, them screaming and crying when put onto Santa's lap, Matthew sitting on Alfred's shoulders and calling it 'geography homework', being naked on the beach and even the one in which they were babies and had just vomited on grandma Jones' dress. At the same time.
"I feel dead. Am I dead? Why did you have to show the naked-on-beach photo? Why?" Alfred moaned. Arthur patted him on the shoulder. "You were two years old, and it's not like I haven't seen your bum before."
"That's not helping." Alfred retorted and pushed himself further and further away from the others.
"This isn't real. This can't be real!" Matthew whispered to himself, which Abel thought was absolutely hilarious and adorable. He couldn't stop laughing! "Just you wait until I get to see stupid pictures of you!" Matthew cried and threw the pillow into Abel's direction. He caught it, and forced Matthew into a hug. "Stop laughing, you baboon! It's not funny!"
"Hey, I'd imagined the first time seeing you naked a little differently as well."
"I'm keeping my clothes on, thank you."
"Yeah, please do that."
"Sorry to have spoiled it for you." Ellen joked.
"Mom, please." Matthew whined. "Why do you feel the need to humiliate me?"
"That's not humiliating. That is cute. Kids are always cute." She opened the album again and showed the dreaded picture. "See how cute you were?"
"Mom! Put that away!" He shrieked and slap-closed the album.
"Oh, Matty. You should see that cute blush on your face right now!" Abel teased.
"Stop it!" Matthew whined, and smacked him upside the head with the pillow. He should have known better than that. It was common sense that the more Matthew struggled, the more fun Abel had in continuing to cuddle him like a big, squishy teddy bear.
~o~o~o~
Another filler, because I wanted to include some of Ellen's background as well. She's not all evil, I promise. Just weird.
This is going to kill Matthew one day. Sorry, Matty, but you're just too adorable when you're awkward.
The next chapter, you're probably not going to like.
Please review if you like. Or not. Please just...forget you ever read this. Please do that. Please.