[Fic] The Doctor Alfred F. Jones Christmas Special II

[shiyasim]

They met after school the next day and for all that Alfred said it would be horribly boring, he was like a child in a candy shop as soon as he walked in. The exhibition was based on time travel and included mostly a lot of modern art portraying various classic and popular time travel stories and devices. There was a huge mural of all the various actors who had played the Doctor for Doctor Who. There were realistic paintings of Lewis from Meet the Robinsons. There was even a full-scale model of the bizarre looking machine from “The Time Machine.” And then there were various books and blueprints on display as well as designs, sculptures, paintings, and photographs of all sorts of time travelers and time machines.

Naturally, all the displays came with plagues explaining what they were and the history and theory behind a lot of them. Alfred ran from one to another, dragging Arthur along and exclaiming how awesome it all was while telling Arthur about how each different time machine was modeled and how they were supposed to work.

“A lot of them are based on car designs like the Back to the Future time machine or Meet the Robinsons,” Alfred said, looking up at a huge projected screen that was playing the dialogue from both movies backwards in some bizarre attempt to express traveling to the past, Arthur supposed.

“Did you know in the Back to the Future movies, the DeLorean - you know, the car that they use there - it’s supposed to go so fast that you can travel in time, but to design an engine that has enough power to even consider going that fast is nearly impossible because it would have to be huge. It would weigh itself down,” Alfred told Arthur.



The DeLorean car time machine from Back to the Future!
“Mmhm…” Arthur said, only half paying attention to Alfred’s ramblings because he had absolutely no interest in Alfred’s obsession with scifi, but he did enjoy some of the art.

“Well I was thinking about perception of time,” Alfred continued. “You know like in Catch-22 when Dunbar says he bores himself so it feels like he has a lot more time because it’s passing so slowly when he’s bored?”

“I’ve never read it and I don’t think perception will help you actually time travel,” Arthur said.

“You haven’t? You’re supposed to be the huge lit nerd,” Alfred said.

Arthur rolled his eyes. “Have you read every single book about physics or time travel or whatever you’re on about? I might like literature, but I don’t have time to read everything.”

“I’ve read all the important stuff,” Alfred said proudly.

Even though between the two of them, Arthur was usually considered the smarter one, Alfred, as stupid as he sounded most of the time, was surprisingly educated.

“Anyway, or like rewinding or fast-forwarding a song,” Alfred said. “You can crunch together all that stuff instead of playing it real time. If I could just figure out how to do that… hey look! That time machine looks like a rocket!”

Arthur suppressed a smile as he walked over to where Alfred had all but pressed his nose against a glass case. As annoying as Alfred could be when he got so unrealistic and nerdy, it was also cute how he was so unadulteratedly enthusiastic. It wasn’t exactly the ideal date or a date at all, but at least Alfred was enjoying himself and of course, just being with Alfred made Arthur happy.

When they walked out of the exhibition two hours later, having spent quite a bit of time at nearly every single piece of art, Alfred was still going on about how awesome it was.

“The Tardis looks so stupid from the inside - man, they need better special effects on Doctor Who,” Alfred said. “The guy who did that awesome redesign of it - they should totally use that but I’d make it look even more organic - you know, that way it looks even more futuristic.”

“That’s what your time machine design is like?” Arthur asked absently.

“Well, no. It’s sorta clunky right now, but I can fix that later,” Alfred said.

Arthur wondered if Alfred would be going straight home now though it was only six or so. He hoped Alfred was hungry so maybe they could go somewhere to get dinner together before Alfred left because clearly Alfred was itching to go home and work on his time machine again.

“Are you going back to work on it now?” Arthur asked. “I… maybe I could go back with you and you could show me,” he said. “Your time machine, I mean, cause…”

Alfred grinned. “You actually want to see it?” he asked.

Arthur turned red. “It’s not like I’m interested or anything, I’m just a bit curious since you keep talking about it…” In fact he had no interest in it at all, but Alfred didn’t need to know it was all an excuse to stay with him longer.

“Actually since we’re here, want to go see anything else?” Alfred asked.

That took Arthur by surprise. “What?”

“You know, since we’re already here and everything and you like going to see all the boring stuff at museums.” Alfred smiled.

“You don’t mind?” Arthur asked.

“Well it’s boring, but you did give me the ticket to this - I didn’t even know they had something like this here,” Alfred said. “What do you want to go see?”

And actually there was one other special exhibition going on that Arthur was really very interested in that he hadn’t seen before. He half wished Francis had given him tickets to that, though then, Alfred probably wouldn’t go with him. “The Anarchy in the UK exhibition,” Arthur said. “It’s on the 4th floor.”

“Don’t tell me, punk rock?” Alfred asked.

Arthur was rather proud that Alfred would recognize a reference like that by now because he’d made Alfred listen to enough punk rock over the years. “Yes,” he said. “I didn’t know they had this going on either.”

Alfred laughed. “All right, let’s go,” he said. “I’ll even pay for your ticket this time.”

The exhibit was, of course, completely amazing - much more so than the time travel one in Arthur’s opinion. It detailed the origins of punk rock and various infamous bands like the Sex Pistols, The Misfits, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Amebix, Asta Kask, GBH, and so on.

“Did you know The Damned was probably the first punk band to release an album in the UK?” Arthur said as he stared in fascination at one of the original guitars used by The Misfits. “They had an album even before the Sex Pistols - their first album was released in 1977. Of course The Damned went on to gothic rock later…”

“You are such a nerd,” Alfred said.

“That’s rich coming from you,” Arthur answered. “Wow, look at those original posters,” he said, moving on to a wall that was covered in different retro posters. Arthur even had several of the reprints up on his walls at home though he’d dearly love to get his hands on a few of the ones he didn’t have - they’d have to go to the gift shop later to see if he could find them.

“You have totally old fashioned taste in music,” Alfred said.

In the background, there was all sorts of loud punk rock being blasted, and there were quite a few exhibits with headphones so people could listen to the music.

“I don’t want to hear that from the person who only listens to the American Top 40s,” Arthur said. “This stuff was influential.”

“And so are the Top 40s,” Alfred said. “There’s a reason they get so popular you know - because they’re good.”

Arthur rolled his eyes. “There’s no reasoning with you.”

“Because I’d win,” Alfred said, grinning. “But I’ll take punk rock if you play and sing for me.”

In fact, that was what Arthur had done for Alfred two years in a row now, but Alfred had missed it both times and now Arthur was too embarrassed to play any sort of music in public at all much less for Alfred. “It’s not going to happen,” he said.

“Of course it is. I’m building my time machine,” Alfred said confidently.

It was an excellent exhibition and probably one of the best days he’d spent together with Alfred so far, though Arthur would say that any time he spent with Alfred was considered a good day. And later when they went to the gift shop, Arthur did find several posters to take home with him. He hated owing Francis for anything, but he might actually be, for once, feeling a little gratitude because it had been a wonderful afternoon.

Alfred was nowhere in sight when Arthur walked out of the gift shop with his posters, but a moment later, something brushed the back of his neck.

“What-” Arthur jumped.

“Hey, hold still,” Alfred said.

“What are you doing-” Arthur stopped when he realized Alfred was putting something around his neck. “What on earth?” He looked down to see a golden necklace with a bizarre round design hanging down at his collar. “What is this? A retarded Vivienne Westwood orb?”

Alfred rolled his eyes this time. “Do you know nothing else about popular culture but punk?” he said. “It’s Hermione’s time turner - you know, from Harry Potter, her time machine though I guess you can’t really call it a machine-”

“Yes, I know. Are you serious?” Arthur said, looking between the necklace and Alfred’s expectant face.

“You don’t like it?” Alfred asked. “It was pretty expensive you know.”

“It’s-this-”

“I’ll take it back if you don’t want it,” Alfred said and reached for it.

“No!” Arthur grabbed the necklace and turned so Alfred couldn’t reach it, blushing, because for the three years he’d known Alfred, Alfred always gave him things like gift cards to McDonald’s or else his used iPods with insults attached, but Alfred had never gotten Arthur anything like this before. This was even jewelry and expensive jewelry - it was a collectible item, Arthur was pretty sure - and it didn’t seem like a platonic sort of gift.

“It’s your Christmas present - it looks punk enough for you anyway,” Alfred said, grinning. “You even thought it was Vivienne Westwood.”

“Oh shut up,” Arthur said.

“You better get me something good too,” Alfred said.

“You’re not supposed to give gifts expecting something back,” Arthur said.

Alfred slung his arm around Arthur’s shoulders and laughed. “Let’s get dinner. I’m starving.”



I know Arthur actually likes Harry Potter!

***
In the debate between embarrassment and being able to wear something Alfred had bought especially for him, the second won out and Arthur wore the necklace to school on Monday. It was too big to fit comfortably inside his shirt so he had to leave it out, swinging by the buttons of his blazer jacket. Everyone noticed it.

For one, Arthur never wore jewelry, and for another, it was a really big necklace.

Gilbert whistled as soon as Arthur walked into the student council room that morning. “Where’d you get that piece of bling?” he asked.

“Isn’t that the Time Turner?” Kiku added, bending closer to stare at it in interest. Kiku was usually a quiet student who behaved himself and had a very strict sense of personal space. On the other hand, Kiku was best friends with Alfred thanks to their shared interest in technology so Arthur should have expected he’d know something like this. “Didn’t Alfred-”

“It’s nothing!” Arthur quickly interrupted.

Kiku looked up at Arthur’s face, interested. “I see…” he said.

Arthur flushed.

“The Time Turner? But that’s the time machine sort of thing Alfred’s interested in right… now…” Elizaveta trailed off. She suddenly looked a lot more interested. “Hey, Francis?” she asked, turning to Francis who was wearing the smuggest smirk Arthur had ever seen before. She pasted a smile on her face and even though Arthur knew for a fact that she did not like Francis because of the one time Francis had tried to feel up her boyfriend, Roderich - and Francis had walked funny for a week after Elizaveta was through with him - she all but pasted herself to his side. “You did say you got Arthur and Alfred to go on a date, right?” she said. “Details,” she demanded.

“Well, Arthur hasn’t kept up his part of the bargain and told me about it yet,” Francis said, surreptitiously putting an arm around Elizaveta’s waist.

She smacked his hand hard and Francis winced, pulling back. “Arthur?” Elizaveta asked.

Arthur decided that his private life was entirely too public and that everyone he knew was entirely too interested in gossip. “If you aren’t in the student council then leave and everyone else get back to work!” Arthur ordered.

But throughout the day, Arthur found himself fiddling with the necklace, and even with the endured humiliation of every other person in the school shooting knowing looks in his direction, it was all worth it when he saw Alfred’s grin widen when he saw Arthur was wearing his gift.



What Arthur looks like when he's laughing (but it's rare)!

“I knew you liked it!” Alfred said entirely too loudly.

“I knew you gave it to him!” Elizaveta shrieked and she and Francis seemed to have become best friends today with the way they were having a ball about the whole thing.

“Of course I did. You think Arthur would have anything that awesome if it wasn’t for me?” Alfred answered proudly.

Arthur glared at him. “I have plenty of nice things,” he said.

“So you two are official now?” Gilbert asked only to yelp when Elizaveta stamped on his foot hard. “What the hell was that for?”

“Have a little more tact, please,” Elizaveta snapped but turned with interested to Arthur. “So is it true?” she asked.

“What are you talking about?” Alfred asked, laughing, as the question went right over his head.

Arthur wasn’t sure if he felt more relieved or disappointed at how thick Alfred could be sometimes or most of the time, really.

Then, though Arthur had hoped that last Friday meant things were going better for them again, Alfred immediately sat down at one of the desks and pulled out notebooks and books as he began scribbling away, completely lost to the rest of the world.

The entire week more or less passed again that way with Alfred being even less responsive than usual. It was incredibly frustrating for Arthur who kept hoping - even though he should really know better after two years running - that Alfred might feel the same way about him this time around since he’d given Arthur such a nice gift.

Every time Arthur saw him though, Alfred was constantly scribbling away or else telling some other person about some overly complicated formula that he had written up. It wasn’t even that Alfred was being particularly mean to Arthur or anything - just not spending as much time as usual talking to him, and with only that, Arthur felt upset and jealous.

“So what is this you are working on?” Francis asked, leaning over Alfred who was sitting across one of the tables from Arthur. Today, Alfred had brought his laptop and he’d been typing away all lunch. “I thought you finished your robots for the show?”

“A time machine,” Alfred said without breaking a stride in his typing.

Francis perched himself on the arm of the chair, entirely too close to Alfred. “A time machine? What is that? A movie?”

“No, I mean a real one,” Alfred said with his eyes still riveted to the screen though he’d stopped typing. “So I can go see Arthur sing from last year. I don’t have enough time to make one that does all the things, but I think I’ve got a way here that could work if I set it to go exactly one year back,” he said.

He looked up and grinned straight at Arthur. Arthur flushed, surprised.

“So I’ll set it to go off the day of the Christmas Show and if everything works according to plan, I should be able to go back to last year,” Alfred said brightly.

“Wait, you actually designed one that works?” Arthur asked incredulously. Sure, Alfred was smart, but this was in the realm of science fiction.

“Well, I haven’t tried it yet since I’m still building, but it should work out,” Alfred said.

At about this time was when Alfred should start inviting Arthur over and asking for Arthur to help or more likely, just stand around and cheerlead for him. Alfred demanded copious amounts of attention and he loved being admired. Alfred just being his loud self usually got any attention he asked for, but Arthur was one of the people who, while not exactly happy to give it to him, usually ended up supporting Alfred along the way too whether or not it was a good idea. And impossible time machines definitely weren’t a good idea.

Of course Arthur was much too busy to actually do too much with Alfred regardless of whatever attention hogging Alfred wanted what with the Christmas Show coming up, but the offer to have Arthur over to his house never even came.

“Is that so…” Francis asked instead and ran one of his hands down Alfred’s arm.

“Yeah! It’ll be awesome!” Alfred said obliviously.

“Would you like me to help?” If Francis thought he could encroach on Arthur's time with Alfred, he had another thing coming.

“Get out, you frog,” Arthur said, glaring at him.

“Hey, hey, I’m supposed to be here,” Francis said. He was playing with Alfred’s hair now while shooting Arthur a very knowing look. Alfred swatted at him though he didn’t seem overly bothered or to even notice it much at all.

“Not if you’re going to-just get out!” Arthur ordered even though he knew Francis was only messing with him - probably.

Francis was just doing it on purpose because his grin widened until it was more a leer than a smile. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to steal your boyfriend… unless Alfred wants me to,” he added which completely didn’t help.

Alfred turned a little red, but he only shoved Francis off, rolling his eyes. “Haha, very funny,” he said.

It was depressing how Alfred didn’t even consider Arthur being his boyfriend, and later that afternoon, when Francis caught Alfred pulling out a small but intricate model that he’d made of the time machine, and said: “That boy might as well be dating technology,” Arthur was inclined to agree.

It was horribly depressing to be in such a one-sided relationship, but Arthur didn’t even really want to get over Alfred which was the saddest part.



***
Alfred didn’t talk at all to Arthur for the next few days, wrapped up in his project, and Arthur gave up Friday for a lost cause this week, which was probably a good thing because some moron had messed things up in the auditorium and now it looked like Arthur was going to have to spend his entire weekend just trying to think of a way to fix things.

“For fuck’s sake, what have you all been doing?” Arthur yelled at the stage crew who had managed to blow out not one, but both of the big speakers. How on earth was he going to get a new pair of speakers on such short notice - those things were expensive. Installing them could take days depending on the type they were and Arthur only had a week before the show now.

He took a few deep breaths before turning to the sound crew who were possibly even more upset than Arthur about the damaged speakers. “Do we have any old speakers in storage?” Arthur asked. “If we can just get something up for the show-”

“We haven’t got anything else big enough to handle the auditorium,” Tino said, crossing his arms. Tino was one of the students working with the sound crew, and while he was normally quite sweet and complacent, he could get pushy about certain things - like music. For all his sweet appearance, Tino liked hard metal even more than Arthur liked punk rock, and rumours were that Tino used to play for some death metal band when he was still in Finland. It would explain a lot about how he could handle Berwald who was terrifying.

“If we use any of the old speakers we have, they wouldn’t match our current auditorium size,” Tino said, glaring at the stage crew.

Ivan, who was on the stage crew and the biggest student in the entire school, smiled down at Tino, but Tino didn’t back down at all. Everyone in the school, including Arthur, was at least mildly scared of Ivan on appearance alone even without all the scary rumours about him.

“How on earth did you even do that?” Tino demanded. It was a bit like watching a Chihuahua take on a Husky and the Chihuahua was winning.

Ivan’s smile never moved. “It was an accident,” he said. “We have to turn up the speakers to test the microphones, yes?”

“No!” Tino said. “You plug in the microphone and turn it on before you turn up the speakers or this is what happens!” he said, gesturing at the speakers.

It looked like a fight might actually break out which Arthur really couldn’t handle on top of everything else.

“Look, I’ll find speakers!” Arthur shouted which got both Ivan’s and Tino’s attentions.

“Can you manage?” Tino asked, looking worried as though he hadn’t just been insisting on it.

“I’ll have to somehow,” Arthur said. “Just go and…make sure this doesn’t happen again,” he said, looking between the sound crew and stage crew.

He sighed, feeling the beginnings of a headache come on as he walked out of the auditorium. At least he still had a week though Arthur wasn’t sure how big of a dent this was going to make in their funds which Yao, the treasurer, was definitely going to get on his back about.

“Arthur!”

Arthur turned to see Alfred jogging down the hall toward him. “What?” Arthur said, more snippy than he’d intended, but he was having one of the worst days ever and the entire next week was guaranteed to be like this. These things always seemed to happen right before big productions.

“Whoa, what are you so mad about?” Alfred asked.

“You actually noticed for once?” Arthur said and immediately felt guilty. It wasn’t Alfred’s fault he was denser than a rock, and it also wasn’t his fault that all these things were happening. “It’s just the speakers,” Arthur explained and sighed. “They’re both broken now so I’ve got a week to find and install two new ones,” he said.

“Oh, is that all?” Alfred said.

Arthur glared at him. “This is a big problem. I don’t think we even have enough in our budget to do this.”

“Why don’t you just tell a teacher?” Alfred asked, falling into step beside Arthur.

“And have them think I can’t handle this?” Arthur said. “I’m not going to ask for help unless I absolutely need it,” he said. “I’d rather buy them with my own money before I do that.”

Alfred rolled his eyes and grinned. “Well, you only need them for the Christmas Show, right? Then you can figure out how to buy new ones. Why don’t you just borrow some?”

“From where?” Arthur said. “It’s not as though I could go and borrow them from some other school - I’m not all that familiar with the other schools around here and I doubt they’d be okay with it if I went and asked nicely,” he said.

Alfred laughed. “I’ve got a pair you can borrow,” he said.

Arthur stopped in his tracks. “No you don’t,” he said.

“Yes I do,” Alfred said.

“I’ve been to your house, and I know you definitely don-”

“My dad does,” Alfred said. “In the rec room - you’ve never been in there when you were over?” he asked.

“You have a rec room?” Arthur asked.

“I’ll take that as a no.” Alfred grinned. “But yeah, they’re pretty big - probably good enough for the auditorium,” he said.

“Your father would be all right with that?” Arthur asked incredulously. Speakers that big had to be extremely expensive. Usually people didn’t even like moving them around for fear of damaging them.

“Probably if I told him what we need it for,” Alfred said. “Come on. I’ll show you them and you can see if they’ll work out,” he said.

“You… have time?” Arthur asked, surprised, because all week Alfred had more or less been gone.

“Of course. We always spend Fridays together. Come on,” Alfred said.

At times like these, Arthur would even admit that Alfred was a bit of a hero like he claimed to be.



***
They spent most of the afternoon moving the speakers. One phone call later, Alfred had permission to take them to school so long as he was careful. Alfred’s parents were big advocates of education clearly, judging by all the things they bought for Alfred and his crazy experiments - and happy to give their son anything he wanted.

It had been a bit more trouble than that because then Arthur had to call around until he found out that Yao had a truck though he didn’t seem to have a license. It took the combined efforts of himself, Alfred, and Yao to get the speakers safely into the truck and only because Alfred had been blessed with an insane strength which just wasn’t fair on top of his good looks and smarts although Alfred could certainly be said to be mentally deficient in other significant areas such as common sense. Tino had volunteered to help get the speakers installed along with a few of the other sound crew so after they’d finished transporting the speakers, Arthur was free to go.

By then it was already dusk and Arthur was exhausted from a day of stress, and he still had loads more work to do at home.

“Hey, want to go get something to eat?” Alfred asked as he and Arthur walked back to the student council room to pick up Arthur’s things. “We can go to my place. There’s going to be a Doctor Who marathon on tonight so we can-”

“I can’t, I need to send emails to all the supervisors and teachers about the Christmas Show,” Arthur said. He still had homework on top of that and exams to study for too and normally he watched those sorts of television shows because Alfred like to watch them and not so much because Arthur had any particular interest in that sort of thing.

“Well you can’t work on an empty stomach,” Alfred said. “We’ll get dinner out and you can go home then.”

Alfred was looking stubborn and it was just about impossible to dissuade Alfred when he had his mind set on something even if it was as trivial as dinner, and as usual, Arthur found himself giving in.

“Fine, but it has to be close by,” Arthur said.

Alfred grinned. “Great! McDonald’s then!” he said.

Arthur sighed, but at least McDonald’s would be fast. So they went to the nearby McDonald’s for dinner during which Alfred ate twice the amount Arthur did at about twice the speed and then began stealing food off of Arthur’s tray.

“You know this much fast food isn’t good for you,” Arthur said. He knew he should be going home, and even though he was still annoyed at Alfred for having been all but ignoring him the last week, he was a little less upset and stressed after Alfred had helped with the speakers.

“Yeah, whatever, I’m going to get a coffee. Want anything else?” Alfred asked.

“No, this is fine,” Arthur said. He watched as Alfred went back up to the counter and bought two coffees anyway. At the concessions stand, Alfred dumped four packs of sugar and two creams into one of the coffees and then brought them both back, setting the black coffee in front of Arthur.

“I said I didn’t want one,” Arthur said.

“Yeah, but old guys like you need their caffeine or else how are you going to stay up working tonight?” Alfred answered cheerfully and sipped at his disgustingly sweet coffee.

Arthur rolled his eyes but accepted the bitter drink.

By then, he had unwound enough to feel less like he was about to go to pieces with stress. “Thanks,” Arthur said. “Also about today - the speakers and everything,” he added.

Alfred brightened. “No problem. See? I can be a hero,” he said.

“Of course,” Arthur said indulgently.

“So… you have to go home now?” Alfred asked as Arthur finished off the last of his food and stood up to dump his tray.

It was really supposed to be Arthur who was lovesick, but then Alfred would look at him like that all hopeful puppy, and Arthur would think maybe he did have a chance again. “We can go the long way to the Tube station,” Arthur said. “I need to relax a bit anyway,” he said as an excuse.

Alfred smiled. “Great!” he said, picking up both his and Arthur’s coffees and followed him to the door as Arthur dumped his tray and took his coffee from Alfred.

The sun had just about set by now but the sky was still a light pink as they walked down to the Thames. It was a longer way to walk than was practical, but it meant a few more minutes with Alfred. The air was chilly even with a pea coat over his blazer jacket, but the coffee cup in Arthur’s hands was warm, and Alfred, who seemed to be cold because the big idiot was wearing only a sweatshirt, walked so close to him that they kept brushing.

“You’ve been wearing that all week,” Alfred said and Arthur automatically looked down at his chest where the necklace was still swinging. “I knew you’d like it.”

Arthur would have liked anything as long as it was Alfred giving it to him, but he did like the necklace. “It’s not horribly tasteless,” he admitted.

“Of course not, I have excellent taste!” Alfred said cheerfully. “Way better than you anyway.”

It was busier than usual along the bank of the Thames where all sorts of people were staying out late by the popular river’s edge on a Friday night. The buildings around them and streetlights were all lit up to reflect pale off of the water. There were tourists eating at restaurants facing the riverfront, businessmen and women heading home for the night after picking up ready-to-go dinners at the groceries, couples sitting on the benches, looking out at Tower Bridge.

Arthur sighed, feeling conscious of Alfred who was walking so close to him, though Alfred, dense as he was, didn’t seem to think anything of the mood.

“Are you doing anything for Christmas?” Alfred asked.

“The day? I don’t have anything planned right now,” Arthur said. “I’ll probably be going to see my family,” he said.

“Oh right, you have that huge house in the country,” Alfred said.

Arthur rolled his eyes. “As though you don’t have one just as big - probably bigger in America,” he answered.

“Can I come?” Alfred asked.

Arthur whipped around to stare at him. “What?”

“To your house. I’ve never seen it before,” Alfred said like it was no big deal and to Alfred it probably wasn’t, though Arthur wasn’t sure what his family would think of a loud American like Alfred coming home with him. Also, he had a sinking feeling they’d probably see right through his awful crush on Alfred and he would never ever hear the end of it.

“Well maybe not Christmas-Christmas cause I definitely gotta be with my family for that,” Alfred said. “But when are you going back anyway? Hey, you know you should come to my place for Christmas and then we can go to yours for the rest of the holidays!” he said.

“I-”

“Unless you’re spending Christmas with your family but I know last year all you did was go watch one of those weird panto skit things,” Alfred said.

“Excuse you, Christmas pantos are perfectly traditional,” Arthur said.

“That just goes to show how far the British have fallen,” Alfred said.

Arthur elbowed him in the side. “And I suppose your American mass commercialized Christmases are much better?”

“Gifts are always a good thing,” Alfred said and tapped Arthur on his necklace.

Arthur flushed. “When the entire holiday is made to sell things, you’ve got a problem,” he said.

“It’s the Christmas spirit of giving!” Alfred said cheerfully.

“Bollocks,” Arthur said.

“You’re gonna become a scrooge with that sort of attitude,” Alfred said.

It was getting darker as they walked and Arthur found himself slowing his footsteps as they neared the next Tube station. On the walk over, they’d really already passed two more stations they could have gone on, but Alfred hadn’t said anything about it and neither had Arthur.

They passed by several sets of couples who had climbed up onto a short concrete wall bordering the river and were cuddling. Nearly everyone was looking out at the water and the opposite bank that was bright with warm lights - even more plentiful this season than any other - and really beginning to show up now that the sunlight was nearly entirely gone.

Arthur had only glanced at the couples with a little bit of resentment and a little bit of longing, when Alfred climbed up on the concrete wall too. “Hey, come on up,” Alfred said, turning back to grin at Arthur.

“What?” Arthur asked.

“You need me to help you up here?” Alfred asked.

Arthur glared at him but heaved himself up on the wall next to him. “I need to go home,” he said.

“I know, just for a few minutes. The sun’s setting now, this is gonna look really nice,” Alfred said. And it did. As the sun went down, only the warm golden lights were left dancing across the water, and chilly as it was up on the wall, it really was beautiful to see on a clear night like this.

“You know, everyone says that beautiful landscapes are ruined by advancement but that’s not true,” Alfred said. “Just look at the cityscape - it’s great, isn’t it? Of course New York is better, but…”

“You can’t just appreciate something, can you?” Arthur said, but he leaned a little to the left where he could feel Alfred’s warm body.

“I do appreciate it,” Alfred said.

There was something in his tone and when Arthur turned to look at him, he found Alfred was already staring back at him. He could smell the coffee on Alfred’s breath and when Alfred was looking at him like that, he wondered if maybe right now, if he told Alfred how he felt, maybe Alfred would…

Then Alfred jumped up.

“Okay, let’s go,” Alfred said, vaulting back down to the ground and entirely ruining the moment.

This was a perfect example and reminder of why Arthur was never making a fool of himself over Alfred ever again. Every time he thought something might be happening, it turned out he was wrong. Before Alfred F. Jones, Arthur hadn’t been this bad at perception - or maybe it was just that Alfred was difficult to read.

Arthur exhaled and jumped back down to the ground too. They turned at the corner and went into the underground station.

“I gotta go to King’s Cross,” Alfred said.

“Yeah, I’ll… I’ll see you Monday then,” Arthur said and headed for his own line.



What Arthur almost always looks like.

***
Alfred didn’t text or call him at all over the weekend and even though it was the busiest weekend of the school year so far, as usual, Arthur still noticed it. He tried not to think too much of it until lunchtime came around Monday and Alfred didn’t show up like he usually did. At the end of lunch, Arthur casually walked by the chem labs where Alfred could usually be counted on being if he wasn’t in the student council room.

“Is he absent?” Arthur casually asked Toris who was in the same class as Alfred.

“He hasn’t showed up yet today,” Toris said. “He didn’t tell you?” he asked, looking surprised.

Although Toris didn’t have a devious bone in his body and was clearly asking the question out of pure curiosity, the assumption was so embarrassing that Arthur snapped at him anyway. “I-It’s not like I know everything he does!” Arthur said.

“Really? I thought you two were like totally tight,” Feliks said. Feliks was an even huger gossip than Elizaveta and Francis though he tended to be very quiet in class and then talked loads when he was with friends.

Arthur glared at him and left the classroom.

He called Alfred who picked up on the first ring. “Hello?” Alfred said, clipped.

“Where are you?” Arthur asked.

“Huh?”

“Are you at school?” Arthur asked.

“Oh, uh, no, I didn’t go today,” Alfred said, sounding distracted. There was some loud clattering going on in the background.

“What on earth are you doing? Where are you?” Arthur demanded.

“I’m at home,” Alfred said. “Working on the time machine. I only have what? Four days left?”

“You-you what?” Arthur demanded, incredulous. “You skipped school to work on your time machine?”

“Hey, if I miss it this year, who knows how hard it’s gonna be to make a time machine that goes back two years? You know a year doesn’t measure exactly,” Alfred said.

“Get your arse to school right now, you stupid-I can’t believe you-”

“Exams are next week and I can catch up on my work later,” Alfred said.

“If you don’t get to school now, I’m going to go over your house and-”

“It’ll be fine,” Alfred said, entirely unconcerned. “Bye.”

Then he actually hung up on Arthur.

Arthur sputtered for a moment, still not quite believing that Alfred was skipping school for something as stupid as an impossible time machine. But no matter how many times Arthur texted Alfred the rest of the afternoon, Alfred either replied back with short, one-word answers or else failed to reply at all. At the end of the day, Arthur was in such a foul mood that everyone was giving him wide berth.

“You have a fight with your boyfriend or something? Stop taking it out on the rest of us,” Francis said.

“He’s not my bloody fucking boyfriend, and unless you want me to tear you a new arsehole, you better shut the fuck up!” Arthur shouted at him.

Everyone in the student council room turned to stare at Arthur who massaged his forehead. He felt a little guilty but only a little because it was Francis he’d yelled at and Francis was so obnoxious that he deserved being yelled at even if this wasn’t actually related to him at all.

“What are you all looking at?” Arthur snapped. “Get back to work!”

Although he tried to concentrate on work, he kept glancing at his phone every few moments, waiting for a text from Alfred that wasn’t coming even though Arthur had last sent one to him three hours ago. It was also annoying how everyone didn’t even pretend that they didn’t know this was about Alfred because Arthur kept hearing people whispering about it.

“With a personality that shitty, no wonder Alfred’s pretending he never knew about that first year confession,” Arthur heard Gilbert say but before Arthur could threaten to castrate him, Ludwig, his younger brother who had come in to schedule in a rehearsal time, was dragging Gilbert out with a hiss to be quiet.

It only made Arthur’s mood worse. The start of the week was like an ominous precursor to the rest of the week because it only got worse. Alfred ditched every single day of the week and only barely replied to Arthur’s phone calls and texts, ignoring all orders for him to come to school.

If Arthur had thought it was bad before when Alfred was merely distracted a lot and talked gibberish about his project, it was much worse when Arthur couldn’t even see Alfred or talk to him at all. The only upside to the whole week was that after the speakers incident, things had been going fairly smoothly with the Christmas Show preparations.

When Alfred still didn’t show up on Friday even though rehearsals were scheduled that afternoon, Arthur lost it. Alfred didn’t pick up when Arthur called him so through lunch, Arthur dialed continuously while overseeing the rehearsal setup just to be sure nothing else went wrong. His phone said he’d dialed Alfred thirty-two times before Alfred finally picked up.

“What happened?” Alfred asked as soon as he picked up.

“You bloody idiot, have you forgotten you have rehearsals for the show today?” Arthur demanded. “Or have you forgotten that the show is tomorrow or do you intend to not show up for a third year!” he shouted into the phone.

“Wait, today’s Friday?” Alfred asked and then cursed. “Today?” he repeated.

“Yes bloody today!” Arthur snapped. “And if you don’t get your arse to school right now, I’m taking you off the bloody program!”

“Okay, I’ll be there in a moment. I just gotta pack my stuff,” Alfred said. There was some crashing sound in the background which Arthur was sure had to be his brother’s drum set.

He hung up on Alfred this time.



Arthur when he's pissed.

***
Even though Alfred was finally coming to school, it didn’t help Arthur’s mood any when Alfred also apparently needed a very long setup time to get his laptop hooked up to the sound system, and the robots hooked up to his laptop, and then there was still the drum set and guitar to set up with the robots which were apparently quite delicate because they didn’t work right if they weren’t set up exactly so.

They’d already had to start rehearsals and stage setups without Alfred because he was so late getting there, but then Alfred held everyone up because no one knew how to set up his robots except himself, and he had to interrupt the entire production so it could be hooked up properly.

Of course because his act also had to compatible with the sound system and where computers and technology were involved, there were always problems, of course Alfred's laptop would choose right then to crash so he had to reboot the entire system.

In the end, Arthur gave up and ordered him off stage so the rest of the rehearsals could continue soundless while the sound crew tried to figure out what had gone wrong with Alfred’s laptop and get his robots set up.

This dragged on the entire afternoon and into the night. There was still one more act to rehearse, discounting Alfred's, when they finally got Alfred’s laptop and robots sorted.

“You’re sure you’re ready?” Arthur asked when they had to once again hold up rehearsals so the sound could get tested. Ludwig, Feliciano, and Kiku who were scheduled to go right before Alfred and so they had been waiting this entire time, looked only marginally less exhausted than Arthur felt. Feliciano who had been late to begin with, had gone to sleep with his head against Ludwig’s shoulder, and Kiku appeared to be playing a game on his handheld Nintendo. Ludwig was the only one who seemed to be paying attention to anything that was happening at all, and he mostly looked worried.

“Yes,” Alfred said and pushed a button on his laptop.

To Arthur’s surprise, the robots did actually begin to move in a rather mechanical beat, but a recognizable one nonetheless. The strange robot that was attached to the electronic guitar that Alfred had also borrowed from him actually did begin to strum. It was quite a complicated robot because it had tabs to press down on all the right strings in the right places for the notes it needed, and then even more bizarre parts that had to strum the guitar strings.

Feliciano came awake as soon as the guitar began to play and then stared wide-eyed at it. “Wow, the guitar is playing by itself!” he said. “Ludwig, did you see that?”

“Yes,” Ludwig said wearily though he looked interested too, but Ludwig liked engineering quite a bit.

And then one of the “fingers” twanged and approximately half the robot on the guitar came clattering to the floor along with one of the guitar strings that snapped.

After that, it was just the worst sort of noise Arthur had ever heard because the drums went on, but the speakers that were hooked to the guitar went into ringing feedback thanks to the noise from the broken robot, and it was only thanks to some very fast shutting down in the sound booth that they didn’t blow out the speakers again.

Alfred immediately rushed up to his robots after the noise shut down.

“What happened?” Arthur asked.

“A screw broke,” Alfred said, looking in dismay at his detached robot. “Now I’ll have to recalculate the angle after I get it fixed,” he said. At least he’d brought a toolkit along though Arthur really didn’t want to know how much longer this was going to take.

“Can’t you just tape it?” Arthur asked, exhausted after a week of frustration and stress, and now a very long day of preparations and afternoon of rehearsals.

“It isn’t going to move if I just tape it,” Alfred said as he pried the rest of the robot loose from the guitar.

Arthur lost it. “If you weren’t ready, then you shouldn’t have come at all!” he shouted.

“I told you, these are delicate and you didn’t give me enough time to set up!” Alfred shouted back at him.

“I gave you plenty of time! You’re the bloody idiot who forgot what day it was and came here so late and held up the entire rehearsal!” Arthur shouted. “You and your stupid, unrealistic daydreams! Do you even know how stupid and unrealistic you sound?”

He felt guilty as soon as he said it, but it was already too late, and Alfred actually looked hurt before the look immediately changed to anger. Alfred’s lips thinned in a line and although Arthur expected Alfred to shout back at him - to justify himself like he always did about these sorts of things, Alfred just stalked off the stage, leaving everything behind.

Arthur hadn’t meant to be harsh about it, but he wasn’t wrong either, he told himself.

He glared at the three last performers who were staring rather wide-eyed at him. “Hey, you three get up here!” he shouted.

Feliciano yelped and ducked behind Ludwig even though Arthur wasn't actually mad at him. Feliciano and his brother were perpetually late to classes though so they'd gotten lectures from Arthur so often that they seemed to hold a permanent terror of him.

“Just do the first couple of minutes of your act,” Arthur snapped, annoyed at being tired and annoyed at Alfred for the entire miserable week and annoyed at himself for being annoyed about it.

Arthur didn’t even bother watching what the three were doing, because he was feeling more and more guilty about snapping at Alfred.

But everything Arthur had said was true, he told himself. After all, Alfred had wasted so much time daydreaming his science fiction fantasies instead of doing real work and paying attention to schedules and being considerate of other people. It was for his own good that Arthur told him so maybe Alfred could work on something real for once such as getting his act together for the Christmas Show instead of wasting so much time on pointless things like time machines.

None of the justifying made Arthur feel any better.

This wasn’t how he’d wanted things to go with Alfred at all after he’d missed him for an entire week. Arthur missed seeing him and he missed talking to him and he missed just being with him, and Arthur really hated it when Alfred was seriously cross with him.

“Er…we’re done,” Ludwig said awkwardly and Arthur realized that the three on stage were just standing there and staring at him now.

“Oh, right,” Arthur said. “All right. We’re done today,” he said and turned to look at the sound booth. “You can all leave. Meet back here tomorrow after school for sound check and lights,” Arthur told them.

He wanted to go home too, but now that he’d calmed down, he was feeling worse and worse about Alfred. He looked over at the abandoned drums and robots, and the guitar that was missing a string now. Arthur had extra guitar strings at home, but not at school unless Alfred happened to have some which he doubted.

He grabbed the guitar by the fingerboard and went outside to look for Alfred. The school was mostly empty now, and most of the hallways were also dimmed. Alfred wasn’t in the hallways or the student council room or any of the other rooms when Arthur checked. He was beginning to get annoyed all over again when he chanced to look out of a second-story window and saw Alfred sitting just outside of the school on the stone steps leading up to the building.

Arthur felt even more guilty watching Alfred sit there alone, face turned up toward the sky, and he went down to meet him.

Alfred turned when Arthur opened the front door of the school. He raised an eyebrow in question, but didn’t say anything to Arthur.

“I…I’ve got extra strings at home if you need them,” Arthur said and winced when it came out sounding short and cross.

“Oh…” Alfred said, a lot less exuberantly than usual and Arthur felt even guiltier. He slowly walked over to Alfred who said nothing to him even when Arthur sat down next to him.

Arthur wanted to apologize, but he also couldn’t bring himself to do it when he wasn’t exactly in the wrong. After all, part of it was definitely Alfred’s fault for not being prepared about this.

The silence stretched and Arthur felt even more uncomfortable. He cleared his throat. “I…I’ll bring another string to school tomorrow,” he said.

“Sure,” Alfred said. He was staring up at the moon, half-obscured by clouds although the city lights were bright. It wasn’t quiet in London with all the traffic and people on the streets, but the silence still felt oppressive when Alfred was mad at Arthur and not speaking.

Alfred who was usually so happy and energetic looked tired and older when he wasn’t smiling. Arthur bit his lip and looked down, wishing he just had the guts to reach over and hug Alfred, or even just hold his hand because he hated seeing Alfred like this.

“S-Sorry…” he finally mumbled. “I didn’t mean to be angry… I just… it’s been a bad week…” Arthur said.

Alfred let out a sigh finally and turned to Arthur who was relieved to see a small smile on his face. “Nice to know you can apologize after all, but it’s not that,” he said. “Well, not all that,” he amended.

Alfred leaned back on the heels of his hands. “I didn’t finish my time machine."

Arthur stared at him and then sighed. Alfred really was hopeless. “You didn’t ever actually expect it to work, did you? Alfred, it’s science fiction,” Arthur said for the umpteenth time since Alfred had brought it up, though clearly Alfred had expected it to work if he’d ditched an entire week of school to work on it

“Of course. It’s just a lot harder than I thought,” Alfred said. “I mean, I tried a couple of different ways, but it’s still a lot harder to put something together even if the theory should be right.”

“I did tell you,” Arthur said.

“Yeah, well, now I’ve got to stay up all night,” Alfred said with another sigh.

“What?” Arthur asked. Sometimes Alfred, whose mind definitely worked differently from normal people, would say one thing and then another completely unrelated thing without actually voicing his train of thought so Arthur had no idea what he was talking about.

“To wait for the Doctor,” Alfred said. “So I can hear you sing.”

“What?” Arthur repeated.

“You know, Doctor Who. He always comes during Christmas to London and stuff,” Alfred answered.

Arthur stared incredulously at him. “I thought we just established that those shows are science fiction,” he said.

“You’ve watched the Christmas Specials. Aliens love to invade the UK when it’s Christmas so that’s always when the Doctor shows up and when he does, I’ll just ask him to take me back to last year, or if I’m really lucky, he’ll give me blueprints of the Tardis,” Alfred said, completely ignoring Arthur. "That would be awesome."

“You are not actually serious…” Arthur said.

“Of course I am,” Alfred said.

“It’s not even Christmas, Alfred. We don’t have school during break,” Arthur said.

“Well I don’t know exactly when the Doctor might show up. I’ll just have to watch for him until Christmas. Sometimes he shows up before then,” Alfred said stubbornly. “And if I get the Tardis, then I don’t have to worry about that exactly one year back thing anyway.”

Arthur imagined dealing with another week of this sort of distracted absence from Alfred like the past week, and knowing Alfred and how stubborn he could be when he made up his mind, possibly even longer than that. What if Alfred decided to do this every single day until he found the Doctor, which, with the show being fiction, was never ever going to happen. Arthur didn’t think he could deal with that.

“Alfred, he’s not real!” Arthur said.

“Well, how else am I going to see you perform?” Alfred said and stared stubbornly at the moon.

Arthur despaired. Why did he have to fall for the biggest moron on the planet? He had plenty of normal Brits who believed in reality to choose from, but no, he had to fall for the crazy American who thought things he saw on television were actually real.

He half laughed. “Or you could just ask me,” Arthur said. “Instead of taking such a roundabout way.”

Alfred finally looked away from the sky and at Arthur. “But you said you absolutely wouldn’t do it again,” Alfred said, frowning.

Arthur sighed and picked up the guitar he’d set up against the steps next to him. “This is only because you’d stay out all night and who knows how long you’d look for the Doctor, and I’m not going to be responsible for you if you catch a cold because you were waiting for aliens,” he told Alfred as he began tuning the five remaining strings on the guitar.

Alfred immediately brightened up and waited expectantly.

Arthur was terrible with an audience when it came to performing music now after experiencing traumatizing humiliation for two years running, and it was much, much worse when it was Alfred whom he desperately wanted to impress. “I’ll um… just something simple,” he said.

He had no guitar pick, no amp, and no A-string, so when Arthur strummed with his fingernails, the guitar sounded flat and very quiet.

“God save the Queen, the fascist regime, they made you a moron, a potential H-bomb…” Arthur sang.

Alfred interrupted immediately. “God Save The Queen? Are you serious?” he demanded.

“Hey, I like the national anthem,” Arthur said.

“You’re singing the Sex Pistols version which is definitely not the national anthem,” Alfred said. “And I know cause you made me listen to it so much.”

“I’m very patriotic,” Arthur said, offended.

“Sure, when you’re pretending you aren’t a teenage delinquent under that stuffy gentleman act,” Alfred said, laughing. “Do a Christmas song.”

Arthur sighed but gave in like he always did. “Which one?” he asked.

“Dick In A Box?” Alfred suggested.

“In your dreams, Alfred,” Arthur said, turning red. “That isn’t even a real Christmas song.”

Alfred laughed. “Too bad, fine,” he said and then grinned. “How about Winter Wonderland?” His grin turned soft and Arthur could see the moon reflecting off of his glasses. “Sing it for me?” he requested, quieter.

Arthur swallowed. “But that’s… that’s a love song,” he said, shifting. He felt the necklace that he hadn’t taken off that entire week shift around his neck.

“Yes,” Alfred said.

Arthur bit his lip and looked down at the guitar. Arthur finger plucked instead of strumming chords, settling for a slow acoustic though the guitar had no body so it was so quiet that only he and Alfred could really hear. “Sleigh bells ring, are you listening, in the lane, snow is glistening, a beautiful sight, we’re happy tonight. Walking in a Winter Wonderland…”

Arthur’s voice trailed off when he felt the touch at his cheek, and there were Alfred’s fingers at his chin, slowly, gently turning his face until Arthur was looking at Alfred again, caught. His fingers slipped away from the guitar strings as Alfred leaned forward, and the music died away as they kissed for the first time.

It was the perfect moment. Alfred's lips were slightly chapped but warm, and he smelled faintly of fragrant coffee. They were frozen there and Arthur could feel Alfred's hands shaking a little where he was cupping Arthur's neck. After a moment, Arthur drew back, feeling like he'd just run a mile and back and was ready to do it all over again. He exhaled and opened his eyes, meeting Alfred's gaze.

"I-I-er, that is, I-" Arthur stuttered, trying to come up with anything to say, and then he felt something cold and wet touch his cheek. "What?" Arthur looked up, brushing the drop of water from his face.

Alfred looked up at the sky, equally surprised.

“Is that…” Arthur said.

“It’s snowing!” Alfred said as the grin spread on his face and turned into a laugh. “It’s really snowing!” he said and swept Arthur up in a hug.

Arthur couldn't believe it.

“What kind of a stereotypical-things like this don’t happen in real life!” Arthur said, staring incredulously up at the sky where white flakes of snow had started drifting down to the ground.

“I told you if we sang that song we’d have a white Christmas,” Alfred said knowingly.

“It’s not Christmas yet,” Arthur reminded him again, but he didn’t care how unrealistic Alfred was being. After all, it really was snowing in London.



***
“Later on, we’ll conspire as we dream by the fire, to face unafraid, the plans that we’ve made, walking in a Winter Wonderland!” Arthur all but screamed into the microphone Christmas Show night.

It was burning hot under the bright stage lights and Arthur had to keep up with Alfred’s stupid drumming robots, but every few lines, he could glance over to the left side of the stage and see Alfred beaming at him from the computer where he was manning the live mixing of his robots.

The audience burst into applause after their song was finished and Arthur could safely say that he had never thought he would be performing on stage for Alfred a third year and making a fool of himself for a third time because god knew he was never going to live down a reputation of being in a band with robots.

“Arthur, that was awesome!” Alfred said as soon as the curtains closed, and he all but tackled Arthur in a hug. “Though I never thought I’d be hearing a punk rock version of that song… seriously, is that all you play?”

“Oh, shut up,” Arthur said, but he couldn’t stop the smile that had been on his face ever since the kiss the night before and all through the hours they’d stayed at the school after, re-programming Alfred’s robots to a faster beat so they could play properly with Arthur and then having to practice playing the song with the robots which was just horribly embarrassing. “How on earth did you get me up here?”

Alfred beamed at him. “I’m very convincing and I did say I’d hear you sing.”

“No, you said you were going to build a time machine to hear me sing,” Arthur corrected him.

Alfred’s grin spread wider. “And I did. I never said it had to actually time travel,” he answered.

Arthur sputtered a bit. “Wait. But you-you said you were building-is that why you never let me come over your house once you started building it, you wanker! You never actually-”

Alfred cut him off with a kiss that sufficiently distracted Arthur from beating Alfred into next week.

“I’m not completely unrealistic, Arthur,” Alfred said cheerfully after Arthur had been appeased.

“You could have fooled me,” Arthur snorted, trying to hold on to his annoyance and failing.

Alfred nodded. “Yeah, you need to go through university before you can build things like time machines,” he said.

Arthur couldn’t tell if Alfred was serious or not, and he couldn’t bring himself to care either way as Alfred reached for him, hands warm along Arthur’s waist.

“Merry Christmas,” Alfred said.

And Arthur smiled back, making no move to untangle himself from the embrace. “You know it’s not Christmas yet,” he said, pulling Alfred in close until the necklace hanging out from his shirt bumped against Alfred’s chest. “And I still have a present I have to give you.”

Alfred grinned. “I’m looking forward to it.”

***


Arthur's House on Christmas Eve!

MasterPost