64 Prompts, 51 and 52
Title: Above
Genre: Humor, high school AU
Pairings/characters: US->UK?
Rating: PG
Warnings: Language, mockery
Summary: Arthur would refuse to lower himself to Alfred's level, except on certain special occassions.
51. Above
With all the things he had to do, there was hardly time to spare for silly second-years with big mouths. Arthur couldn’t be bothered to spare the boy a passing glance most days, but today….today was another matter entirely. Today Arthur was tired of dealing with Alfred F Jones being a pain in his side and he was going to send the boy off his trail for once and for all.
Just walking into school, Arthur already expected the little upstart to have something to mouth off about. Arthur was of a higher class than Alfred; a better student, better leader, better everything. True, Alfred was superior in sports, but that only furthered Arthur’s theory that he had somehow reached a higher level of evolution than Alfred, and the stupid underclassman was still tragically trapped somewhere between the present time period and the Mesozoic era.
Either way, his taunts weren’t intelligent (they never were), but for some reason today they pushed Arthur’s buttons in just the correct sequence to set him off. Arthur walked innocently past his locker, and there was Alfred, slumped against the metal wall of lockers, but still infuriatingly taller than Arthur despite their age difference.
“Hey, Eyebrows!” Alfred called cheerily when he was within shouting distance. Arthur’s shoulders immediately tensed. No, he was above this inferior excuse for a man-child. Arthur refused to lower himself to calling anything back, to playing his stupid little game.
“Aw, still not talking to me?” Alfred was, of course, leaned within inches of Arthur’s locker, so the upper classman had to stand uncomfortably close to him in order to open the damn thing. If he hadn’t needed his chemistry book from inside, Arthur might have forgone the morning locker visit in favor of avoiding his own personal annoyance, but at this point, it simply couldn’t be helped.
“C’mon, sweetie, why won’t you talk to me?” Alfred asked, grinning like a child. “Are those caterpillars eating your brain power or did your scones finally break all your teeth?” Arthur glowered and felt his nails dig into the spine of his textbook almost painfully. Sadly, the book retained most of the damage, a few tears popping up along its binding. This seemed to only increase Alfred’s amusement, as the idiot started up again, rambling like the simpleton he was.
He always did this; come rain or shine, sickness or health, until damn death (or graduation) did they part, Alfred was sure to irritate Arthur. The older was even starting to suspect Alfred might follow him to whatever college he settled on, simply for the delight of making Arthur’s life hellish. And that thought, in combination with the kissy faces Alfred was currently making at him (which was classic Alfred, along with pretending to jerk off whenever Arthur was in sight, because nothing amused a Neanderthal like him more than sex), pushed Arthur to his limit and he slammed the locker door shut with unusual force.
Alfred’s grin didn’t even falter. Of course not. So Arthur was forced to retort, because he really couldn’t deal with this shit for one more second.
“Jones,” Arthur seethed, “Either bugger off or actually make a fucking move, you child.”
He didn’t mean it. Heaven forbid Alfred actually take a serious interest in him; Arthur might frankly die of shock and horror. But though he knew he’d lowered himself to Alfred’s level and snapped the first thing that came to mind capable of shutting him up, Arthur still felt victorious. The astonished wide eyes and the perfect circle formed by Alfred’s dropped jaw sent little sparks of pleasure through Arthur’s skin, and he walked to class with a bit of a spring in his step.
Title: Below
Genre: Surfer AU, romance
Pairings/characters: artist!UK, surfer!US, US/UK (sorta, you'll see)
Rating: PG
Warnings: Near-death experience
Summary: Alfred finally sees his artist again, but not at the most opportune moment.
52. Below
Living in California pretty much insisted that you know how to swim, so Alfred had learned at about age zero. Literally, his mom (being the ex-hippie she was) read from some spiritual dude that babies could instinctively swim in infancy, so she’d thrown the kid into a shallow pool before he’d mastered crawling.
By either a miracle or said dude being right, Alfred had picked it up quickly. At age six, he was swimming like a fish, and through middle and high school, Alfred was on swim teams and winning medals. Sure, he wasn’t super smart like Matt, but Alfred had his niche. It was in the water. So it was no surprise that when he went to college, he chose UC Santa Cruz, mostly for the beachside location.
And weekends were awesome! Alfred eventually even managed to rearrange his classes so he had afternoons off, and became a classic beach rat, surfing until the tide waned and acquiring a full-body tan in no time. It was how he’d met Gilbert, who managed to stay pale despite practically living in the sand and didn’t seem to do anything besides hang out, mooch off his younger brother Ludwig, and hit on anything with a pulse for the fun of it.
Then Gilbert had introduced him to Antonio, who brought Lovino into the picture, whose brother Feliciano was dating Ludwig, and those two were friends with Kiku, who happened to be in Alfred’s computer graphics class and soon had the position of best friend. In a weird, circular way, Alfred felt like it all fit. He had a great school, an adoring family, the sun and the surf. Life was good.
But then there was the mystery of that picture Kiku had bought. There was no way it wasn’t Alfred in that picture, and for a while that had freaked him out. But when Kiku gave it to him and Alfred spent a few minutes actually studying it, it was kind of flattering. The artist had clearly taken time making it beautiful, despite it only being a charcoal sketch with few colors. His eyes were picked out in blue and there were swipes of flesh tone staining his arms and torso and the line of his waist, but other than that, it was all shades of black, white, and grey.
Having kept it for a while, Alfred found it almost looked like there was affection worked right into the picture. The movement of his own body captured there looked so graceful and prettier than he would have ever attributed to himself. Alfred decided he had to find the artist.
Of course that was harder than it sounded. Kiku remembered which corner he’d bought the picture on, but Alfred’s artist was never there when he checked. So he’d resorted to scanning the beach. After all, the guy had to have a reference, right?
Thus began weeks of searching the beach without actually seeming to. Alfred’s clues consisted of the fact that he was male, blonde if Kiku remembered right, and had the initials AK, not that the last one really helped. Anyway, he’d finally finally narrowed it down to one guy; the artist who camped out under the same pier almost every day.
He was smallish from what Alfred could tell, and had unruly blonde hair, but that was all Alfred could really tell. Alfred had caught the guy tracing his movements a couple times, and once almost fell into a wave because he was busy trying to see more of his artist. Still, every time he thought he might get up the guts to talk to him, his artist was already packing up and leaving and Alfred would have no chance of catching him.
And then he’d managed to almost get him, one day when luck was on his side. But the guy had escaped again. Alfred had learned a few things though. He was British, judging by the accent, he had green eyes and adorably large eyebrows, and he was the definition of cute with a blush all over his face. And Alfred hadn’t seen him since.
And now, because fate either loved or despised him, Alfred was seeing his artist again for the first time since then, floating a few feet below the surface of the water, eyes closed and limbs too loose to be natural. Alfred had no idea how he’d managed to get himself half-drowned, and frankly, he didn’t care. The point here was that his artist was drowning, and Alfred immediately threw himself from the board he’d been floating on the minute this knowledge hit his brain.
Alfred vaguely heard Gilbert, than Antonio call after him, but there were more important things to deal with right now. Namely, Alfred’s possibly-love-at-first-sight needing to be rescued. With long, practiced strokes, Alfred reached him in under ten seconds, panic already setting in at the back of his mind. Diving, it only took a further few moments to reach the smaller man and loop his arms under the artist’s armpits and drag him upward.
Silently thanking all the practice he had under his belt, Alfred fought the tide and his artist’s dead weight to get to the beach. Winded, he hit shallower water and pulled the small artist into his arms further, one arm under his knees, the other holding his shoulders. People started talking and moving the instant he came in sight, their panic slightly annoying to the frantic work going on in his mind.
Alfred set the man gently onto the sand and stretched him out to give his lungs room to work. There was no sound of him breathing, but Alfred got a pulse when he pushed two fingers against the man’s neck. Water in his lungs, probably, making it hard for them to start up again. Alfred sort of knew what to do with that, and was slightly relieved he wouldn’t have to possibly break his artist’s ribs trying to get his heart started.
Instead, Alfred pinched his nose closed, not waiting for someone more professional to show up, and breathed into the smaller man’s open mouth. His chest rose slightly, but fell again when Alfred backed away and didn’t rise again on its own.
“Come on,” Alfred muttered lowly, tipping the artist’s head in what he hoped might be a more helpful angle. He went back to breathe for him again and heard someone calling for a lifeguard and an ambulance. His chest rose, then stilled again. He couldn’t die, he just couldn’t. Alfred had spent too long trying to find him, and now save him, and he wasn’t going to let his artist slip away from him.
Alfred breathed into his mouth again, emptying his lungs into the smaller man and praying he would start breathing soon. The thin chest rose, fell slightly, faltered, and then his entire torso convulsed, and Alfred turned him just in time for the man to heave sea water and whatever else had been in his stomach onto the sand.
“Oh, thank God,” Alfred breathed. The smaller man was currently gasping, half-slumped onto the beach, waterlogged from his messy hair down to his clinging jeans, but he was breathing and alive. That was enough.
“Hey, you okay, man?” Alfred rubbed at the artist’s shoulders, trying to get a response.
He got a nod at first. “Thank you,” the man said into the sand, eyes still closed in exhaustion. “I…thank you.” His breathing started to calm, and in the distance Alfred picked out the sound of sirens.
“Don’t take this the wrong way alright,” Alfred started. “What’s your name?” The man’s eyes slid open and after a second of confusion, widened as he was recognized. The artist tried to sit up further, but Alfred held him down gently. “I’m gonna have to tell the police or whatever your name, and I doubt you wanna deal with them, so I need it. I’m not trying to pick you up this time, promise.” Alfred grinned haphazardly, and the artist’s breathing calmed slightly as his pale face started to regain some color.
“It’s Arthur,” he muttered. “Arthur Kirkland.” Instead of a handshake or some other traditional greeting gesture, Alfred nodded before lifting the smaller man into his arms again. Arthur wiggled and protested in a strained voice, but Alfred held on as he started toward the road.
“I don’t want you to strain yourself,” Alfred explained, and Arthur settled slightly. “I just rescued your ass, and I wanna make sure it stays safe.”
They reached the ambulance within seconds of it reaching the curb, and Arthur was immediately interrogated. The smaller man turned into Alfred’s chest and let him field all the questions, muttering answers when Alfred didn’t know them on his own. However, they didn’t want Alfred coming along, despite him having saved Arthur’s life in the first place.
“He’s my boyfriend!” Arthur finally shouted, or at least tried to shout with how hoarse his voice still was. “Please, let him come too.” They were still hesitant, but Alfred eventually climbed into the back of the ambulance with him, hand sneaking into Arthur’s as the vehicle started away.
“Boyfriend, huh?” Alfred said with what felt like an obnoxious grin on his face.
“Shut up,” Arthur whispered back, making sure the other occupants of the ambulance couldn’t hear. “I needed y- someone with me.”
Alfred nodded, still smiling, then leaned down to place a (mostly) chaste kiss on Arthur’s still slightly pale lips. His breath hitched, but Arthur couldn’t protest, lest he give them both away. Alfred pulled away after a second or two, still smiling while Arthur simply looked shocked.
“Nice to finally meet you, Arthur.”
--
A/N: I thought it fitting that these two be posted together. The first is based on actual events...namely at the anime con this last weekend. And I hope you guys remember the surfer AU from way back at number 18! Otherwise, we'll just pretend it makes sense anyway. ^^;