These Boots Are Made For Walkin' 6/?
Hello~ ^.^
Here is chapter 6. Sorry for the delay. School and stuff (=_=)
Title: These Boots Are Made For Walkin'
Series: Hetalia Axis Powers
Rating: 17
Warning: ArthurAngst. Tears. Icecream and TV with duvets.
Pairings: US/UK, PolLiet, possible Rus/US (though its fleeting and creepy) and a few more...hanging around.
Summary: Alfred, a student in a London University, has a strong mindset that Love exists as more than a hormone, and that everyone is entitled to love and be loved. So when he meets a male prostitute after a freak escape, will his mindset be shaken?
Arthur's world is white.
And that's all there is.
It's a void. An endless expanse of blinding, clinical emptiness.
This void fills Arthur with terror. It presses against him and stretches out into the distance. It's in the air he breaths and as he inhales it suffocates his body and clamps over his heart.
It's at its worst when there is nothing else for Arthur. When there is nothing in his life accept the void. That's when all he can think about is himself.
He sees his life in that void. It's on reels of film, scattered photographs and scratched onto the whiteness of its fabric. Onto his eyes.
When he is in that place. When there is nothing but him. That is all Arthur feels.
And he dies.
He gets so scared he can't even scream. He stares at the images. Re-lives the mistakes.
Again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
But it's not only Arthur's past the void shows him. It's his future as well.
He sees himself as he is now. Possibly with a few more shadows. A few more scars. And a few more nightmares for his mind to cup and hold and care for. Because the nightmares are part of him. And if he does not love himself he will break.
But Arthur does not love himself.
The void shows him that.
Arthur is an abomination. A disgrace. Disgusting. Loathsome. Wretched. Hated. Ugly. Worthless. Something to be used then abandoned. Used, and abandoned. Used...
The void echoes these words at him. Sometimes so loud that they bounce off the walls Arthur can't see, other times they're as soft and quiet as the wind.
And Arthur can never stop them.
After all, who can stop the truth?
It strikes him. It festers in his heart, and then, when he feels its walls expanding and its claws digging, dragging, sinking into him, that's when it takes him. He looses himself to the never-ending plains of sharp white. Mind. Body. Soul. Gone.
It's in those times that his heart is laid bare. His thoughts unpicked. His fears filed, selected, then cross-examined in molecular detail.
He is insignificant.
What Arthur fears is fact. And it is useless to fear an irrevocable truth, but he fears it anyway.
Arthur fears his own infinitesimal smallness. As he lays in his cold, dark, cramped bed at night. Alone with nothing but the darkness closing in around him and the void engulfing him whole, he sees himself. He sees himself, and he is growing smaller, and smaller, and soon he is nothing but a speck in the distance. Then, he is not even that.
The void shows him this.
There is a way out of the void.
Not once it's taken hold of course, but if Arthur acts while it sleeps, festering in his heart, than he can put it off for a little while longer yet.
The escape is Distraction.
And Arthur craves this.
It can be so hard to distract himself, sometimes.
But it can also be so, so easy. After all, this life has provided him with the perfect daemon. It's only fair that it also offers a blade with which he can defend himself.
Drink. Drugs. Sex. And stealing.
Some things he does to survive. Like the sex. It's his job. The only one life can offer him. It puts bread on the table, food in his belly, and the wolf from the door. And when no one is there to have him, he steals it.
The actual sex is not as affective as he would have liked. It takes his feeling of disgust, grips it, magnifies it, and makes it an innumerable amount of times more painful and revolting than it had been before. Most of the time he just lies there, feeling dirty, wishing he could scratch out his insides. And when the peak of distraction comes, it's over too quickly, and Arthur is left again, and the void is almost certain to swallow him.
Drugs are a less secure means of escape. He does not like them. They are too much like the void. They take him away, show him colours, feelings, and worlds. They lend him eyes, through which he sees life in a whole new light.
But those are the good times. The bad is hell itself. Second only to the void.
Sometimes he can't remember them. In those times he wakes up to blood on the walls, scrawled in occult swirls and dips, then he looks at his wrists and realises the blood is from him. He wakes up in places he'd much rather be away from. With, or in, people he would much rather be out of.
When he remembers them he checks his limbs are all still intact, his room still immobile and Arthur sometimes wishes he would loose his mind. Perhaps it would be better.
No. The drugs are not the way.
Drink. Drink is a happy medium. It buzzes through his veins and Arthur feels blissfully alive. Sometimes it makes him sad, but most of the time it makes him deliciously, deliriously blank. And he forgets.
However, drink has to be paid for, or stolen.
And we're back to square one.
It was not always like this. Once Arthur used to dream. He still dreams. However Arthur is swift to kill and obliterate the delusion, should a dream accidentally take form.
No. Arthur loves to dream. It just hurts. After all, no matter what he is; he is still human.
He used to dream of happiness. Of his brothers staying, instead of flitting in and out of his life, with every stay growing shorter and shorter, and every month away growing into years. Then more than years. Then never.
Arthur used to dream of a person. This person embodied everything he wanted, everything he imagined a 'good' life would have. When he was feeling childish Arthur used to dream of a person with a handsome face, a large wallet and a larger dick.
However when Arthur sat by his grimy window, or his small wooden table, he would let his eyes glaze over and this person would blossom into his mind, a smile blooming on his fictional lips.
Then suddenly, one day this person stepped out of his mind and into his life.
Of course, Arthur did not believe in 'love at first sight', life was too cruel for that.
But it was as good as.
And this person may not have stepped out with a smile only for Arthur, but Arthur didn't mind.
And this person may have been blooded, bruised, and lost, but Arthur didn't mind.
And this person may have taken Arthur's rule book of life and ripped out it's pages, burned and shredded them. Grasped his puppet strings and slashed them. Picked Arthur up from the dirty ground and taken him.
But Arthur didn't mind.
And the void had been left behind, there in that alleyway. Arthur wasn't going to kid himself. He knew that it was crawling back to him, slowly, but surely.
But it was ok. Arthur had something new. He had a brand new distraction. Something completely its own, with its own walk, and talk, mind and eyes.
Arthur had Alfred.
Arthur's fingers flinched away from the copper handle of the door. No, he did not have Alfred. He simply knew Alfred. And that was more than he deserved.
And with his heart pounding in his ears, Arthur reached forward, griped the copper handle and pushed open the door.
The room was silent, save for the regular ticking of a clock.
Two men sat on a low sofa near a small table littered with books. The room was warm, spacious, and clean. A counter on the far wall, mugs and debris of lunch scatted across its faux-marble surface.
One brunette man smiled. Warmly, widely, with his hair falling over his face, and a spark in his eyes. The other man, blond, fair, and with a gaze to stop a sinners heart. Arthur decided to avoid incurring this mans wrath.
“Take a seat, Mr. Kirkland.” The smiling man said, gesturing to the displaced chair across from him.
Arthur glanced at the abandoned piece of furniture. He reached out a hand and pressed it to the stiff, wooden back, grounding himself, before collapsing into the chair.
“How are you enjoying the university's hospitality?” The tanned man asked. “Not being neglected in any way I hope.”
Arthur checked his throat and lungs quickly. “No, sir.” He replied, the words tense and thick. “I've been well looked after.”
If anything the brunette man's smile grew, the lines in his coffee skin marking his handsome face. He brushed some curls of chestnut hair out of his eyes, then held out his large, worn hand to Arthur. “Forgive me.” He smiled. “I'm Professor Felicita, and this is my colleague Professor Schwertschmied.”
Arthur glanced at Professor Schwertschmied, who sat with his arms crossed, icy gaze boring into Arthur. He quickly looked away and slipped his delicate, pale hand into the teachers'.
Mr Felicita beamed and shook his hand warmly. Arthur focused on making sure his grip was not too slack, nor too tight. He wasn't very sure of himself, but before he could contemplate the art of handshaking any further, the Italian man relinquished his hold. Instead settling his arms across his knees and leaning forward, as if Arthur was the most interesting thing in the world. His syrup brown eyes locked onto Arthur's, as if he were testing the air, noting down all of the details written on Arthur's face, probing into the corners of Arthur's mind as only a teacher can do, then committing all the information to memory.
Professor Felicita came to a decision on how to judge the man before him.
“I've heard about you from Alfred.”
Arthur's entire body seized up. His eyes flew open and his blood filled with hot poison. His jaw wired itself shut and robbed him of the ability to speak, to see. To breath.
The reaction was noted.
Mr Felicita abruptly stood up. Arthur blinked and looked up at him. “Do you take coffee, or tea?” The man asked, his eyes sparkling.
Arthur's jaw worked. “Ah...Tea.”
The teacher beamed as if he had been paid a handsome compliment. “Excellent.” He clapped his hands together and begun pottering around the counter like an old man.
Arthur was given no time to think. No time to reflect on how he could hide himself behind his face. He had never been placed in a situation like this before, and suddenly he felt very young.
Mr Felicita sat down again. “It's not too hot I hope?” He inquired over the rim of his own cup.
Again, Arthur blinked. He glanced down at the mug before him. He reached out and picked it up, feeling the heat radiate through the china, into his fingers, the steam float up and pillow over his face.
“I understand that you are in a difficult spot in life.” Mr Felicita's voice was low. It made Arthur look up from the bubbles on the surface of his tea.
“Ah.” His face heated at his slow tongue.
“Have you been to school? Had any kind of experience in schools?”
“I..Er..used to go to school. Though never regularly. I ...I had to ...quit in favour of a job.” Arthur could not for the life of him look the man in the eye. It was as though he couldn't even glance upwards, could not even risk that connection that would throw his pathetic life and his filthy soul on display.
Mr Felicita nodded. “I see, and this job covers your life expenses?”
Arthur nodded. Yes, his job may disgust him, torment him day and night, rip his soul from his chest and break him, but let it not be said that it paid him badly for it. “Yes, it covers every thing I need, and I have plenty of savings should I need them.”
“Hmm...”
There was a moment of silence. Arthur sipped his tea and shifted his fingers against the cup, wanting to absorb more of the warmth. It seemed no one really knew what to say. Arthur thought of asking a question. Perhaps; why they where asking him questions. What they had heard from Alfred. When they expected him to leave.
“I'm having trouble on this essay a students written.”
Arthur blinked himself back into the staffroom.
Mr Schwertschmied's voice was as clear and light as his face. He was looking, slightly sullenly, at Mr Felicita, pen and paper in his elegant, pale hands.
Mr Felicita blinked, slightly flawed by the sudden question. “Well...What's difficult about it?”
Mr Schwertschmied sighed and sat back against the sofa. “I cannot make myself certain of how to mark this. Its an open question, Romeo and Juliet, however this person insists on making classic mistakes; such as thinking “where for art thou” means where are you, and she seems fixated on the fact that 'Romeo and Juliet is the greatest romance of all time.'”
“That's ridiculous.”
Both teachers glanced up from the sheets of paper towards the younger man before them.
Arthur huffed. “Romeo and Juliet where nothing but a couple of over zealous, hormone-ravaged teenagers who didn't know how to deal with a situation if it hit them in the face. Honestly, why they remain one of Shakespeare's most well known couples escapes me. The play attempts to show the consequences of not relying on your own judgement, and how outside advice may not always be the best approach to tackling a problem, however the public seems to have missed this message completely. Instead the masses bypass the obvious and instead jumps at the idea of a ground-breaking romance simply because they are young and they both end up dying dramatically in each others arms.”
The two teachers sat in silence for a moment, Arthur's words floating in the air between them. Then another smile bloomed on Mr Felicita's face.
“Indeed.” He chuckled. “That seems a plausible opinion.” Arthur flushed and wished he could take back the words.
The teacher set the mug of half-drained tea back onto the table top and sat back in the sofa. He regarded Arthur with a serious air, tinged with something Arthur couldn't put his finger on.
“I'm going to ask you something very important now, Arthur.” He said, fixing Arthur's green eyes to his. “I'm going to be honest with you so please be honest with me. I'm not sure just how badly life has treated you and you may be glad to know that Alfred never actually told me what your occupation may be. Only that he feels you do not deserve the position this world has placed you in, and I have several ideas as to what that position might be. In meeting you he hoped that he could prove a certain point, and indeed, it has been proven.” He chuckled, leaning forward and capturing the rooms light in his eyes. Arthur couldn't help but stare fixedly at them.
“Arthur, this university is a small one with plenty of places, it's open to a spectrum of different kinds of people form all over the world from all walks of life. Mr Kirkland, I would like to offer you a place in this university.”
Arthur's heart stopped.
“This meeting can be used as your interview.”
He misheard.
“I shall take you through the paperwork personally.”
He must have misheard.
Mr Felicita's smile electrified the air around him. He, once again, offered his hand to the young, small man before him. “Do you accept the position?”
Arthur's heart tugged in his chest, attempting to start again. His fingers twitched on the mug in his hands. His eyes where wide, glossy, disbelieving. He must have misheard. This man cannot be offering this. Life never treated him this good.
The words tumbled around his head. A place. In a university. Being offered a place. The first step to having a respectable life. Maybe even the beginnings of a good life.
This man had no idea what he was giving Arthur.
The china mug wobbled slightly on the table top and Arthur clasped Mr Felicita's hand in his.
“Yes.” He said, the words sounding breathlessly determined. He was shaking as if he where naked outside in a snowstorm but that didn't matter. It didn't matter. “Yes!” He said again. He wanted to offer an 'Are you sure?' an 'are you joking?' a 'can you trust me?' But he couldn't bring himself to question a good thing.
“Excellent.” Mr Felicita said again, beaming. He released Arthur's hand and the younger man collapsed back into his seat. Arthur couldn't possibly find the words.
“I'll let you go now” Mr Felicita said “I'll send for you about the forms in due course. I'm sure your friends are waiting outside.” He winked, and picked up the cups and heading back over to the counter, humming softly, lifting the foil off the plate of pancakes eagerly.
Arthur stumbled to his feet and almost fell onto the doorhandle. He wrenched open the door and let it shut behind him. The air tasted different here, and he breathed like the had just sprinted a mile. His heart beating hard, his body shaking, and his breath coming quickly.
“Arthur!” He glanced up, almost surprised at the sight of Alfred, Toris, and Feliks, stood in the corridor.
Alfred stepped forward, Arthur almost thought that he was going to hug him, but the American man stopped. He looked at Arthur with wide, expectant eyes. “What happened, Arthur? Did they let you in?”
Arthur didn't know, had they?
His head span and he couldn't speak, so he nodded.
Alfred's face positively shone with the smile he gave Arthur. He whooped loudly and Arthur would have flinched and told him off if he could remember how to. Then he was being enveloped in a hug.
Arthur blinked at the feeling of Alfred's body against his. He moved to shove him off, then stopped. He was still dirty, right? This didn't change who he was. This wouldn't erase his past. It didn't make him a better person, equal to the people around him, the man embracing him.
Hope niggled at Arthur's poor, beaten soul, awakening it. Arthur hated that. Hope made you vulnerable. He should crush it while he still can.
But he couldn't bring himself too.
What if this was the beginning of something better. It may not erase his past, but maybe. Maybe he could become better.
Arthur's hands pressed to Alfred's broad back. He felt the man smile and pull him closer.
Arthur blinked. Breathed, and that breath caught in his throat, and the tears where spilling down his cheeks. His hands fisted in the fabric of Alfred's shirt and suddenly he was bawling.
Alfred started and pulled back, staring at Arthur's face as he sobbed and wailed, tears dripping from his chin and pattering on the carpet, on his shirt, on his hands as he covered his face.
“Arthur. Arthur what's -” Alfred's face fell, he pulled at Arthur's hands, trying to look at the smaller man.
“Alfred.” Feliks tugged at the taller students shirt. “Not to be melodramatic or anything, but his life is changing.”
Alfred's brow lowered and his lips parted. He turned back to the man he still held, watched Arthur's body wrack with sobs. He leaned forward.
“C'mon, Arthur.” He murmured close to the man's forehead. He carded his fingers through the man's hair and rubbed his thumb against his back.
Arthur nodded through his tears. He wiped at his face with his hands, his sleeves but the tears kept coming so he gave up.
Together they trooped back to the dorm room. Alfred let them in and lead Arthur to the sofa. He switched the TV on, draped a duvet over the smaller man's back, and even gave him a tub of cookie-dough ice cream.
This made Arthur cry even harder.
Eventually the tears did subside as the tub emptied and the programs became more engaging, and soon Arthur was staring at the glowing screen, his mouth full of cookie-dough, and Alfred fast asleep beside him even though it was only just growing dark.
Arthur look at him for a while as Alfred lay against him, the duvet acting as a cushion for the young man's head. He shifted slightly, pulling the duvet away so that Alfred's head rested on his shoulder. He let his own head settle on Alfred's, feeling the boy's warmth and the softness of his hair against his cheek.
He let himself stay like this, with Alfred asleep, and felt a tiny glow of happiness.
Here is chapter 6. Sorry for the delay. School and stuff (=_=)
Title: These Boots Are Made For Walkin'
Series: Hetalia Axis Powers
Rating: 17
Warning: ArthurAngst. Tears. Icecream and TV with duvets.
Pairings: US/UK, PolLiet, possible Rus/US (though its fleeting and creepy) and a few more...hanging around.
Summary: Alfred, a student in a London University, has a strong mindset that Love exists as more than a hormone, and that everyone is entitled to love and be loved. So when he meets a male prostitute after a freak escape, will his mindset be shaken?
Arthur's world is white.
And that's all there is.
It's a void. An endless expanse of blinding, clinical emptiness.
This void fills Arthur with terror. It presses against him and stretches out into the distance. It's in the air he breaths and as he inhales it suffocates his body and clamps over his heart.
It's at its worst when there is nothing else for Arthur. When there is nothing in his life accept the void. That's when all he can think about is himself.
He sees his life in that void. It's on reels of film, scattered photographs and scratched onto the whiteness of its fabric. Onto his eyes.
When he is in that place. When there is nothing but him. That is all Arthur feels.
And he dies.
He gets so scared he can't even scream. He stares at the images. Re-lives the mistakes.
Again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
But it's not only Arthur's past the void shows him. It's his future as well.
He sees himself as he is now. Possibly with a few more shadows. A few more scars. And a few more nightmares for his mind to cup and hold and care for. Because the nightmares are part of him. And if he does not love himself he will break.
But Arthur does not love himself.
The void shows him that.
Arthur is an abomination. A disgrace. Disgusting. Loathsome. Wretched. Hated. Ugly. Worthless. Something to be used then abandoned. Used, and abandoned. Used...
The void echoes these words at him. Sometimes so loud that they bounce off the walls Arthur can't see, other times they're as soft and quiet as the wind.
And Arthur can never stop them.
After all, who can stop the truth?
It strikes him. It festers in his heart, and then, when he feels its walls expanding and its claws digging, dragging, sinking into him, that's when it takes him. He looses himself to the never-ending plains of sharp white. Mind. Body. Soul. Gone.
It's in those times that his heart is laid bare. His thoughts unpicked. His fears filed, selected, then cross-examined in molecular detail.
He is insignificant.
What Arthur fears is fact. And it is useless to fear an irrevocable truth, but he fears it anyway.
Arthur fears his own infinitesimal smallness. As he lays in his cold, dark, cramped bed at night. Alone with nothing but the darkness closing in around him and the void engulfing him whole, he sees himself. He sees himself, and he is growing smaller, and smaller, and soon he is nothing but a speck in the distance. Then, he is not even that.
The void shows him this.
There is a way out of the void.
Not once it's taken hold of course, but if Arthur acts while it sleeps, festering in his heart, than he can put it off for a little while longer yet.
The escape is Distraction.
And Arthur craves this.
It can be so hard to distract himself, sometimes.
But it can also be so, so easy. After all, this life has provided him with the perfect daemon. It's only fair that it also offers a blade with which he can defend himself.
Drink. Drugs. Sex. And stealing.
Some things he does to survive. Like the sex. It's his job. The only one life can offer him. It puts bread on the table, food in his belly, and the wolf from the door. And when no one is there to have him, he steals it.
The actual sex is not as affective as he would have liked. It takes his feeling of disgust, grips it, magnifies it, and makes it an innumerable amount of times more painful and revolting than it had been before. Most of the time he just lies there, feeling dirty, wishing he could scratch out his insides. And when the peak of distraction comes, it's over too quickly, and Arthur is left again, and the void is almost certain to swallow him.
Drugs are a less secure means of escape. He does not like them. They are too much like the void. They take him away, show him colours, feelings, and worlds. They lend him eyes, through which he sees life in a whole new light.
But those are the good times. The bad is hell itself. Second only to the void.
Sometimes he can't remember them. In those times he wakes up to blood on the walls, scrawled in occult swirls and dips, then he looks at his wrists and realises the blood is from him. He wakes up in places he'd much rather be away from. With, or in, people he would much rather be out of.
When he remembers them he checks his limbs are all still intact, his room still immobile and Arthur sometimes wishes he would loose his mind. Perhaps it would be better.
No. The drugs are not the way.
Drink. Drink is a happy medium. It buzzes through his veins and Arthur feels blissfully alive. Sometimes it makes him sad, but most of the time it makes him deliciously, deliriously blank. And he forgets.
However, drink has to be paid for, or stolen.
And we're back to square one.
It was not always like this. Once Arthur used to dream. He still dreams. However Arthur is swift to kill and obliterate the delusion, should a dream accidentally take form.
No. Arthur loves to dream. It just hurts. After all, no matter what he is; he is still human.
He used to dream of happiness. Of his brothers staying, instead of flitting in and out of his life, with every stay growing shorter and shorter, and every month away growing into years. Then more than years. Then never.
Arthur used to dream of a person. This person embodied everything he wanted, everything he imagined a 'good' life would have. When he was feeling childish Arthur used to dream of a person with a handsome face, a large wallet and a larger dick.
However when Arthur sat by his grimy window, or his small wooden table, he would let his eyes glaze over and this person would blossom into his mind, a smile blooming on his fictional lips.
Then suddenly, one day this person stepped out of his mind and into his life.
Of course, Arthur did not believe in 'love at first sight', life was too cruel for that.
But it was as good as.
And this person may not have stepped out with a smile only for Arthur, but Arthur didn't mind.
And this person may have been blooded, bruised, and lost, but Arthur didn't mind.
And this person may have taken Arthur's rule book of life and ripped out it's pages, burned and shredded them. Grasped his puppet strings and slashed them. Picked Arthur up from the dirty ground and taken him.
But Arthur didn't mind.
And the void had been left behind, there in that alleyway. Arthur wasn't going to kid himself. He knew that it was crawling back to him, slowly, but surely.
But it was ok. Arthur had something new. He had a brand new distraction. Something completely its own, with its own walk, and talk, mind and eyes.
Arthur had Alfred.
Arthur's fingers flinched away from the copper handle of the door. No, he did not have Alfred. He simply knew Alfred. And that was more than he deserved.
And with his heart pounding in his ears, Arthur reached forward, griped the copper handle and pushed open the door.
The room was silent, save for the regular ticking of a clock.
Two men sat on a low sofa near a small table littered with books. The room was warm, spacious, and clean. A counter on the far wall, mugs and debris of lunch scatted across its faux-marble surface.
One brunette man smiled. Warmly, widely, with his hair falling over his face, and a spark in his eyes. The other man, blond, fair, and with a gaze to stop a sinners heart. Arthur decided to avoid incurring this mans wrath.
“Take a seat, Mr. Kirkland.” The smiling man said, gesturing to the displaced chair across from him.
Arthur glanced at the abandoned piece of furniture. He reached out a hand and pressed it to the stiff, wooden back, grounding himself, before collapsing into the chair.
“How are you enjoying the university's hospitality?” The tanned man asked. “Not being neglected in any way I hope.”
Arthur checked his throat and lungs quickly. “No, sir.” He replied, the words tense and thick. “I've been well looked after.”
If anything the brunette man's smile grew, the lines in his coffee skin marking his handsome face. He brushed some curls of chestnut hair out of his eyes, then held out his large, worn hand to Arthur. “Forgive me.” He smiled. “I'm Professor Felicita, and this is my colleague Professor Schwertschmied.”
Arthur glanced at Professor Schwertschmied, who sat with his arms crossed, icy gaze boring into Arthur. He quickly looked away and slipped his delicate, pale hand into the teachers'.
Mr Felicita beamed and shook his hand warmly. Arthur focused on making sure his grip was not too slack, nor too tight. He wasn't very sure of himself, but before he could contemplate the art of handshaking any further, the Italian man relinquished his hold. Instead settling his arms across his knees and leaning forward, as if Arthur was the most interesting thing in the world. His syrup brown eyes locked onto Arthur's, as if he were testing the air, noting down all of the details written on Arthur's face, probing into the corners of Arthur's mind as only a teacher can do, then committing all the information to memory.
Professor Felicita came to a decision on how to judge the man before him.
“I've heard about you from Alfred.”
Arthur's entire body seized up. His eyes flew open and his blood filled with hot poison. His jaw wired itself shut and robbed him of the ability to speak, to see. To breath.
The reaction was noted.
Mr Felicita abruptly stood up. Arthur blinked and looked up at him. “Do you take coffee, or tea?” The man asked, his eyes sparkling.
Arthur's jaw worked. “Ah...Tea.”
The teacher beamed as if he had been paid a handsome compliment. “Excellent.” He clapped his hands together and begun pottering around the counter like an old man.
Arthur was given no time to think. No time to reflect on how he could hide himself behind his face. He had never been placed in a situation like this before, and suddenly he felt very young.
Mr Felicita sat down again. “It's not too hot I hope?” He inquired over the rim of his own cup.
Again, Arthur blinked. He glanced down at the mug before him. He reached out and picked it up, feeling the heat radiate through the china, into his fingers, the steam float up and pillow over his face.
“I understand that you are in a difficult spot in life.” Mr Felicita's voice was low. It made Arthur look up from the bubbles on the surface of his tea.
“Ah.” His face heated at his slow tongue.
“Have you been to school? Had any kind of experience in schools?”
“I..Er..used to go to school. Though never regularly. I ...I had to ...quit in favour of a job.” Arthur could not for the life of him look the man in the eye. It was as though he couldn't even glance upwards, could not even risk that connection that would throw his pathetic life and his filthy soul on display.
Mr Felicita nodded. “I see, and this job covers your life expenses?”
Arthur nodded. Yes, his job may disgust him, torment him day and night, rip his soul from his chest and break him, but let it not be said that it paid him badly for it. “Yes, it covers every thing I need, and I have plenty of savings should I need them.”
“Hmm...”
There was a moment of silence. Arthur sipped his tea and shifted his fingers against the cup, wanting to absorb more of the warmth. It seemed no one really knew what to say. Arthur thought of asking a question. Perhaps; why they where asking him questions. What they had heard from Alfred. When they expected him to leave.
“I'm having trouble on this essay a students written.”
Arthur blinked himself back into the staffroom.
Mr Schwertschmied's voice was as clear and light as his face. He was looking, slightly sullenly, at Mr Felicita, pen and paper in his elegant, pale hands.
Mr Felicita blinked, slightly flawed by the sudden question. “Well...What's difficult about it?”
Mr Schwertschmied sighed and sat back against the sofa. “I cannot make myself certain of how to mark this. Its an open question, Romeo and Juliet, however this person insists on making classic mistakes; such as thinking “where for art thou” means where are you, and she seems fixated on the fact that 'Romeo and Juliet is the greatest romance of all time.'”
“That's ridiculous.”
Both teachers glanced up from the sheets of paper towards the younger man before them.
Arthur huffed. “Romeo and Juliet where nothing but a couple of over zealous, hormone-ravaged teenagers who didn't know how to deal with a situation if it hit them in the face. Honestly, why they remain one of Shakespeare's most well known couples escapes me. The play attempts to show the consequences of not relying on your own judgement, and how outside advice may not always be the best approach to tackling a problem, however the public seems to have missed this message completely. Instead the masses bypass the obvious and instead jumps at the idea of a ground-breaking romance simply because they are young and they both end up dying dramatically in each others arms.”
The two teachers sat in silence for a moment, Arthur's words floating in the air between them. Then another smile bloomed on Mr Felicita's face.
“Indeed.” He chuckled. “That seems a plausible opinion.” Arthur flushed and wished he could take back the words.
The teacher set the mug of half-drained tea back onto the table top and sat back in the sofa. He regarded Arthur with a serious air, tinged with something Arthur couldn't put his finger on.
“I'm going to ask you something very important now, Arthur.” He said, fixing Arthur's green eyes to his. “I'm going to be honest with you so please be honest with me. I'm not sure just how badly life has treated you and you may be glad to know that Alfred never actually told me what your occupation may be. Only that he feels you do not deserve the position this world has placed you in, and I have several ideas as to what that position might be. In meeting you he hoped that he could prove a certain point, and indeed, it has been proven.” He chuckled, leaning forward and capturing the rooms light in his eyes. Arthur couldn't help but stare fixedly at them.
“Arthur, this university is a small one with plenty of places, it's open to a spectrum of different kinds of people form all over the world from all walks of life. Mr Kirkland, I would like to offer you a place in this university.”
Arthur's heart stopped.
“This meeting can be used as your interview.”
He misheard.
“I shall take you through the paperwork personally.”
He must have misheard.
Mr Felicita's smile electrified the air around him. He, once again, offered his hand to the young, small man before him. “Do you accept the position?”
Arthur's heart tugged in his chest, attempting to start again. His fingers twitched on the mug in his hands. His eyes where wide, glossy, disbelieving. He must have misheard. This man cannot be offering this. Life never treated him this good.
The words tumbled around his head. A place. In a university. Being offered a place. The first step to having a respectable life. Maybe even the beginnings of a good life.
This man had no idea what he was giving Arthur.
The china mug wobbled slightly on the table top and Arthur clasped Mr Felicita's hand in his.
“Yes.” He said, the words sounding breathlessly determined. He was shaking as if he where naked outside in a snowstorm but that didn't matter. It didn't matter. “Yes!” He said again. He wanted to offer an 'Are you sure?' an 'are you joking?' a 'can you trust me?' But he couldn't bring himself to question a good thing.
“Excellent.” Mr Felicita said again, beaming. He released Arthur's hand and the younger man collapsed back into his seat. Arthur couldn't possibly find the words.
“I'll let you go now” Mr Felicita said “I'll send for you about the forms in due course. I'm sure your friends are waiting outside.” He winked, and picked up the cups and heading back over to the counter, humming softly, lifting the foil off the plate of pancakes eagerly.
Arthur stumbled to his feet and almost fell onto the doorhandle. He wrenched open the door and let it shut behind him. The air tasted different here, and he breathed like the had just sprinted a mile. His heart beating hard, his body shaking, and his breath coming quickly.
“Arthur!” He glanced up, almost surprised at the sight of Alfred, Toris, and Feliks, stood in the corridor.
Alfred stepped forward, Arthur almost thought that he was going to hug him, but the American man stopped. He looked at Arthur with wide, expectant eyes. “What happened, Arthur? Did they let you in?”
Arthur didn't know, had they?
His head span and he couldn't speak, so he nodded.
Alfred's face positively shone with the smile he gave Arthur. He whooped loudly and Arthur would have flinched and told him off if he could remember how to. Then he was being enveloped in a hug.
Arthur blinked at the feeling of Alfred's body against his. He moved to shove him off, then stopped. He was still dirty, right? This didn't change who he was. This wouldn't erase his past. It didn't make him a better person, equal to the people around him, the man embracing him.
Hope niggled at Arthur's poor, beaten soul, awakening it. Arthur hated that. Hope made you vulnerable. He should crush it while he still can.
But he couldn't bring himself too.
What if this was the beginning of something better. It may not erase his past, but maybe. Maybe he could become better.
Arthur's hands pressed to Alfred's broad back. He felt the man smile and pull him closer.
Arthur blinked. Breathed, and that breath caught in his throat, and the tears where spilling down his cheeks. His hands fisted in the fabric of Alfred's shirt and suddenly he was bawling.
Alfred started and pulled back, staring at Arthur's face as he sobbed and wailed, tears dripping from his chin and pattering on the carpet, on his shirt, on his hands as he covered his face.
“Arthur. Arthur what's -” Alfred's face fell, he pulled at Arthur's hands, trying to look at the smaller man.
“Alfred.” Feliks tugged at the taller students shirt. “Not to be melodramatic or anything, but his life is changing.”
Alfred's brow lowered and his lips parted. He turned back to the man he still held, watched Arthur's body wrack with sobs. He leaned forward.
“C'mon, Arthur.” He murmured close to the man's forehead. He carded his fingers through the man's hair and rubbed his thumb against his back.
Arthur nodded through his tears. He wiped at his face with his hands, his sleeves but the tears kept coming so he gave up.
Together they trooped back to the dorm room. Alfred let them in and lead Arthur to the sofa. He switched the TV on, draped a duvet over the smaller man's back, and even gave him a tub of cookie-dough ice cream.
This made Arthur cry even harder.
Eventually the tears did subside as the tub emptied and the programs became more engaging, and soon Arthur was staring at the glowing screen, his mouth full of cookie-dough, and Alfred fast asleep beside him even though it was only just growing dark.
Arthur look at him for a while as Alfred lay against him, the duvet acting as a cushion for the young man's head. He shifted slightly, pulling the duvet away so that Alfred's head rested on his shoulder. He let his own head settle on Alfred's, feeling the boy's warmth and the softness of his hair against his cheek.
He let himself stay like this, with Alfred asleep, and felt a tiny glow of happiness.