Think We Are (3/8)
Fic: Think We Are
Genre: humor, angst of the teenage variety, pining, the usual High School Tropes
Pairings: USUK, Prussia/Hungary, Japan/Taiwan (brief)
Rating: M
Warnings: Language to the max, sex/crude language, potentially offensive POVs and nicknames, past character deaths (noncanon), bullying, brief 'slut shaming,' passing mentions of drug abuse, and teenagers(because they need their own warning).
Summary: We accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it was we did wrong. What we did *was* wrong. But we think you're crazy to make an essay telling you who we think we are. You see us as you want to see us...
Note: Sorry for the delay--I blew out my knee and have been on a lot of pain meds the last few days. Because of that, I apologize if there's more typos than normal...it is really hard to focus on stuff while on vicodin. Enjoy!
Previous Scene
Think We Are
Scene Three
“You do everything everyone tells you to do, that is a problem.” - Allison Reynolds, The Breakfast Club (1985)
A Snippet of Kiku
There was a lot of pressure that came with being the best at something.
To be honest, Kiku hadn’t even really tried to be the best at first. He’d always been smart, he’d always been able to do math in his head and remember history facts without much studying, and he’d learned how to speak Japanese and Mandarin when he’d been little. It wasn’t until he was in fifth grade that the word ‘prodigy’ started to get used, and every time someone would mention it, his parents would puff up more, and Kiku would have a little bit more pressure added to his shoulders. Expectations started to mean a lot to him and his family, so much that fun started to seem inconsequential when faced with the possibilities of all that Kiku could achieve if he applied himself.
Kiku had always been a rather serious child, but it wasn’t until middle school that he realized what exactly he was giving up to pursue his dreams of academic excellence. It was there he’d met Alfred Jones and Heracles Karpusi and suddenly, having friends who not only were interested in the same things as he was, but also genuinely liked him, was more important than studying for five hours every day. His parents hadn’t agreed, but as long as his grades didn’t suffer, it wasn’t like they could do much-for the first time, being above average looked better than being perfect.
High school had changed all of that. Alfred started hanging around him less and less as he grew into the football star for the academy and Heracles started becoming less and less motivated in school. They’d grown apart and Kiku started surrounding himself with people who wanted to same thing as he did, to be known for their minds (since there was precious little else about them worth remembering, Kiku had come to the grim realization). Teasing, a ‘friend’ Kiku had always been unable to shake, became less of an occurrence and more of a daily event until having friends, even friends with similar interests, just didn’t seem to matter anymore.
Kiku was in detention because being the best had become the only thing he had that meant anything to him and he couldn’t bear the thought of losing the title. He didn’t know how that compared to the others’ reasons, but to him to bitterness that came with his made it the most terrible to bear.
He really just wanted high school to be over.
*********
Alfred wasn’t sure when exactly he’d fallen asleep, but he knew that when the book slammed down on the desk and woke him up, it had felt like he’d barely shut his eyes. He blinked up at Germania and tried to grin a little bit; the guy didn’t appreciate the half-hearted apology as much as Alfred had hoped he would. He suppressed the urge to stretch (sleeping in a desk didn’t do great things for his back) and tried to avoid Germania’s disappointed scowl until it swept away from him to the rest of the room. Alfred glanced around and saw at least he wasn’t the only one who had been sleeping (hell, Gilbert was still snoring and resisting all of Germania’s attempts to wake him up); only Elizaveta looked alert, which made him a little self-conscious. He didn’t think she’d taken embarrassing pictures of him sleeping, but he never knew with her.
“It’s eleven-thirty; you’ll have a half hour for lunch.” Germania started. Arthur cleared his throat and Alfred couldn’t help but grin at the way Germania’s shoulders got all tensed up. “Yes, Kirkland, what is it?”
“Will milk be made available to us? We are on school property and some of us have lunch passes-the fact that it’s Saturday shouldn’t matter against our ability to have access to school-provided goods.” Alfred glanced over and saw that Arthur didn’t seem to have anything with him, apart from his school bag which was too flat to have any food inside. He felt his stomach clench at the idea of Arthur not eating for the entire day and at the way Germania’s face remained unmoved.
“Yeah, um, you know milk is really good for concentrating and stuff-we should probably have some if we’re going to need to think about our actions for another four hours.” Alfred tried to look innocent and convincing as Germania glared at him. He probably just looked constipated-he could feel Arthur’s stare on him as well and that wasn’t helping his nerves at all.
“I’ve seen Alfred when he can’t concentrate properly, Mr. Germania,” Elizaveta piped up. Alfred looked at her and wished he had half of her poker face because damn, she was good. “It’s terrible and I’m afraid it would keep me from being able to write my own essay.”
“Milk is extremely nutritious,” Kiku added. Alfred smiled and had to push down the impulse to high-five himself because yeah, he was awesome. Gilbert snorted from his position in the back, but Germania didn’t bother to look back at him.
“Fine, we can pick up some milk from the teacher’s lounge. Jones, get up here. You and-you and Kirkland can go get the drinks and if you’re not back in the next ten minutes you’ll both-”
“-be stuck in here until graduation, yes, we know, old boy.” Arthur saluted Germania and gave Alfred a look as he got out of his seat. ‘Well, come on, Golden Boy, can’t have you without your milk now, can we?”
Alfred scrambled up and followed out after Arthur; he caught a glimpse of Germania smacking Gilbert with a magazine as the library doors closed and then hurried to keep up with Arthur’s long strides. He looked over at him and smiled hesitantly when Arthur sighed and turned to meet his gaze. “So, you’re totally welcome.”
Arthur raised his eyebrow before he turned away from Alfred. “And what exactly am I welcome for?”
“You know, for getting you the milk! Germania hates you too much to do anything you ask, but I figured if I asked, or if someone else asked, he’d be more willing to not be such a dick about the milk.” He grinned brightly at the side of Arthur’s head. It faded a little when he heard Arthur give a derisive snort as they turned down the hallway and headed towards the building the teacher’s lounge was in.
“Well, I hate to burst your naïve little bubble, but I don’t give a shit about having milk or not, nor do I feel the need to thank you for swooping in to save the day for me, the lowly peasant to your white knight.” Arthur shoved his hands deeper into his pockets (not that Alfred knew how he even got his hand in there in the first place, they were so tight….and that was enough of that train of thought) and he glanced over at Alfred before they started heading up some stairs. His eyes were darker than usual and they made Alfred want to curl up in a ball. “I just like fucking with Germania-the man is a putrid bugger who likes to see his students squirm under his shadow. He deserves to get taken down a peg or ten.”
“But-” Alfred didn’t know what to say to that. He felt like he had about a hundred things he wanted to say (or yell) at Arthur, but had no idea how to start any of them. Or, at least start them in a way that would make Arthur listen. Shit, being with him when he was such a dick just made the memories he had of when they were kids way worse. “Well, I still got you milk so you should at least say thanks, it’s not like you had anything for lunch anyway.”
And that was probably the last thing Alfred had wanted to say-damn it.
Arthur grabbed his shirt and slammed him into the wall (which was impressive-Alfred wasn’t a huge guy, but he definitely was a lot more brawny compared to Arthur). “I don’t have to say shit to you, Golden Boy. You did your good deed for the school delinquent, did him a favor against the mean, old headmaster, and suddenly you think you’re worth an ounce of my gratitude? You don’t know the meaning of word.”
“Yeah? Well, I know that even if I’m some dumbass jock who picks on kids, which I’m not by the way, I’m a hell of lot nicer than you! You’re just a dickhead because you can be one and get away with it and think you’re like, entitled to be one. Well, guess what? You’re not.” Alfred shoved Arthur off him and clenched his fists up at his sides. He sort of wanted to punch Arthur in the face, but he knew he couldn’t-he wasn’t going to be that guy ever again, even if some people deserved his bad side.
Arthur stared at him with narrowed eyes before he got up close again, not close enough to be threatening, but close enough to speak low and for Alfred to hear him. “You don’t know shit about who I am, Alfred. You haven’t for a long time.”
“And whose fault is that, uh? Pretty sure it was you who called me a ‘pea-brained idiot’ and yelled that you never wanted to see me again when we were kids!” He breathed out through his nose because it was easier to hear his breathing that way, and if he could hear it, he could try and use it to calm down. Because they were heading toward a fight fast and Alfred really didn’t want to fight with Arthur. The additional detention would suck, but mostly he felt like if they fought that it would break whatever small chance they could theoretically have at being something more than what they were. But that was sappy as fuck so Alfred was definitely going with the detention thing if people asked.
Arthur rolled his eyes, but didn’t respond, mostly because he probably knew it was hard to argue against Alfred’s words without going into the messier sides of his shit. He smoothed down his clothes, which was funny because his clothes were supposed to be messy and Arthur wasn’t supposed to care how he looked anyway, but he did. It was moments like this when Alfred could see his Arthur still there. “We’re going to be late with the damn milk if we start brawling in the middle of the hallway.”
Alfred stared after Arthur for a second before following him back towards the break room again. They were silent, really uncomfortably silent, for the rest of the walk there and it was killing Alfred not saying anything but-but he knew Arthur, even if sometimes it didn’t seem like he did anymore, and he knew when it was best to leave him alone in his head. So, he kept his mouth shut (because it was definitely one of the ‘leave Arthur the hell alone’ moments), and suffered the most awkward of awkward silences ever as they walked down the hallways. They arrived at the teacher’s lounge and pushed the door open; it was unlocked, which was a little bit of a surprise, but he guessed Germania probably was going to be napping himself in there sometime today. There was a vending machine in the corner and they made their way over; Arthur cursed and fished out his wallet from his jacket, but Alfred shook his head and shouldered Arthur out of the way.
Alfred knew that the last thing Arthur liked was charity, but he wasn’t going to make the guy pay for milk he apparently hadn’t even wanted so, yeah. He was buying. He pulled out five dollars from his wallet and bought each of them milk, handing them off to Arthur to hold a few as he fed in money to the machine. He carried two of the milks himself and they started on their way back to the library, still in the most awkwardly-awkward silence that had ever awkwarded and by the time they had passed by the science block again, Alfred had to say something to break it. Hopefully, something better than what he’d gone with last time.
“I didn’t, you know, get you the milk you didn’t even want because I wanted to show-off or whatever.” Ok, that he could work with-it was a hell of a lot better a start than last time. “I just-I didn’t want you to be the only one without anything for lunch, and I thought you wanted some so…yeah.”
Arthur glanced over at him, his face carefully schooled into a neutral expression (his face was the fucking Switzerland of neutral expressions when he tried; he could probably give Vash’s deadpan a run for its money some days). “Why do you care about this bloody milk situation? You keep trying to explain yourself and I don’t know why you care.”
“Well, I just, I don’t want you thinking I’d be the sort of guy who just does shit to impress other people or to show how much better I am than others, because I’m not.” He wasn’t, he really, really wasn’t. “I was honestly just trying to get you some sort of lunch.”
Arthur stared at him and paused outside one of the chemistry labs. His eyes were bright and stuck on Alfred with an intensity that made him both uncomfortable and excited (the uncomfortable was both because of his excitement AND the fact that Arthur terrified him-his lust-maybe-love was freaking complicated). “All right, you want to absolve some sort of guilt you obviously have and think changing my mind about how I think of you may help, let’s play then. Why are you here?”
Alfred blinked and his heart beat a little faster in his chest. “Um, what does that have to do with anything?”
“Everything. I want to know why you’re here in detention. This whole milk situation is much too mundane and ridiculous to make you so fixated on the issue of my ‘approval’ over you and who you are, so I want to know why you’re here. Because I wager that whatever you did to land yourself in here is why you care so much.” Arthur crossed his arms and gave Alfred a ‘come on then, I’m waiting’ kind of look and Alfred felt his face heat up. He looked down and would’ve shoved his hands in his jacket pockets if it weren’t for the milk.
“I uh-I did something stupid and Coach-it was fucking Ivan’s idea that-you know what? It doesn’t really matter what it was. I did something stupid, something jackassy. And, now I’m here because Coach and my parents don’t want me to fuck up my chances for scouts to get interested in me and then find out I’m some sort of…and I guess they’re teaching Mattie a lesson while they’re at it, so he doesn’t make the same, ah, mistake.” He glanced up as Arthur cleared his throat and felt his stomach clench up at how unimpressed he looked.
“Well, that was very interesting,” his voice drawled out. “Now, why don’t you tell me why you’re really here. I believe you did something moronic, however, I don’t think it was something that doesn’t matter, and talking around something doesn’t mean you talked about it.”
“I-why are you here?” Alfred felt stupid the minute the question left his mouth and Arthur chuckled, a little helplessly, after him.
“Well, that is the million dollar question, isn’t it?” He turned and started back towards the library; Alfred stared down at the ground for a beat longer before he trailed after. The silence was back, but this time, it felt more like defeated silence to Alfred-he couldn’t help but feel like he had been hoping for Arthur’s approval in some way, or his acknowledgment that he wasn’t a bad guy, and now that he still didn’t have it. Well…it sucked. He blew out a breath and tried to tell himself it didn’t matter what Arthur thought of him, because it wasn’t like they were friends anymore. Arthur was just a guy that Alfred thought had grown up hot and wanted to have sex with him, nothing else. The thought left a nasty taste in his mouth.
“Alfred.” He started at Arthur’s voice. Not only because it was a little less hostile, but also because he’d actually called him by his name.
“Um, yeah?”
“Are you sorry, for whatever it was you did to land yourself in here?” Arthur wasn’t looking at him. He was looking at the library’s double doors they were coming up on quicker than Alfred liked, but he could feel all of Arthur’s attention focused on him.
He didn’t really need much time to answer; he’d felt sorry for what he’d done the second he’d done it, but he wanted Arthur to believe him. He wouldn’t have asked if he hadn’t cared, right? “Yeah…yeah I am.”
Arthur’s eyes darted over to him briefly and he nodded at him. “Good.”
Alfred couldn’t help but smile as they re-entered the library. It was only one word, but there’d been just a little bit of forgiveness in that word and that was what mattered.
*********
A Snippet of Arthur
Bloody idiot…he looks like someone kicked both him and his puppy. And then maybe turned him into a puppy and kicked him again for good measure.
Why does he even give a rat’s arse what I think? For that matter, why did he scheme to get me lunch, despite the fact that it’s milk and I can only stand the stuff when it’s in tea? Why does he care that everyone else, even Gilbert for Christ’s sake, has lunch and I don’t because I couldn’t bloody bother to make a tomato sandwich after the nightmare it had been to take Peter to daycare because I’m stuck in pissing detention and Liam’s actually at work? Why is he even bothering with me after all that I did to break our friendship and all that I’ve done to make his life a little more miserable now? Well, it’s not like I was gunning for him though, was I? Just the elitist bigots at this school and sometimes he happens to hang around them.
He really isn’t like them though-no matter how much I try and tell myself he is because then I don’t have to feel like fool for treating him as such for years.
Sometimes, I think the only reason I ever kept him away for so long is because whenever I look at him, and his family, I can’t help but see all that I’ve lost and how I’ll never get a family like that.
Oh, belt up, Arthur you bleeding coot! He’s walking right behind you and is so obviously consumed with guilt-there must be a reason why he won’t tell me what he’d done. He’s ashamed of himself.
But-what does it mean that having my approval means so much to him?
I suppose…it couldn’t hurt to give him something. He’s not a bad person, not where it counts. At least, no worse than me so if having a fucked up near-convict’s pardon helps him out-well, it’s not like anyone can really see us anyway.
I wish his smile didn’t mean so much to me still-it’s a bloody annoyance that it does.
*********
Gilbert really didn’t give many fucks about anything. He gave a fuck about his brother, even though the little asswipe was a brown-nosing go-getter. He gave a fuck about his pet bird, aptly named Gilbird because how could you not name a fucking bird Gilbird when your name is Gilbert? He also gave a fuck about causing just enough mayhem around school that his parents have to pay attention to him, because some attention was better than nothing. Sometimes, he gave a fuck about his grades, because he did want to get out of his parent’s house and he’d grown accustomed to, you know, eating good food and shit so he was aware he needed an actual job sometime down the road. Mostly, he just didn’t give a fuck though, and he’s found that he was a hell of a lot happier for it.
Arthur Kirkland gave way too many fucks, even though he pretended like he didn’t. He cared about what a lot of people thought of him, people like his brothers, both older and younger, and college admission boards. He didn’t care what the faculty thought of him, but the student body, he certainly cared about his reputation with them. And, as it turned out, he still cared what Alfred Jones thought of him, which was interesting and almost worth being stuck in detention for.
Gilbert hadn’t been friends with Kirkland or Jones when they’d been joined at the hip, but he had lived on the same block as the Kirklands and watched them sometimes. It was because of them he asked his parents if two dudes could get married, because he might have only been eight, but even he could tell that what was growing between Kirkland and Jones was something a lot more complicated than his friendship with Antonio and Francis. He had pegged them to hook up before he even knew what hooking up even was, but then Kirkland’s parents had died in a car crash and they were gone. He hadn’t really thought about the falling out Kirkland and Jones had until now though, watching the two practically pull each other’s pigtails.
He watched them as they walked back into the library, milk in hand, Kirkland’s face closed off but Jones smiling so wide Gilbert thought it might break his face. Deputy headmaster Fuckface gave them a glance, reminded them they had a half hour, and shut the door behind him (yeah, like the guy was really going to monitor that they spent exactly a half hour to eat before going back to ‘reflecting’ on their past indiscretions). Kirkland tossed him a milk carton, which he grabbed midair and pulled out the rest of his lunch; the milk would go nicely with his CapnCrunch and pixie stick sandwich, and he could use the coke he’d brought as a dipping sauce. Sweet.
Honda pulled out a neat and organized lunch that looked like it most definitely was the stereotypical bento box lunch, and began eating silently. The guy was too fucking quiet for Gilbert’s taste, but he wasn’t the usual nerd-type that Gilbert liked to antagonize so he left him alone for the most part. Honda nodded at Jones as he passed out his milk and went back to eating small, measured bites of what looked like sushi. Gilbert snorted and took a huge bite of his sandwich; fucking Taco Bell bullshit, ha!
Hedevary, or ‘Tits’ as he’d taken to calling her in his head because holy shit she had some nice ones, took a milk from Kirkland too and had surprisingly thanked him for it as he walked away. Gilbert stared at her for a little bit, as she opened up a plastic bowl that had something in it that smelled good, soup or something, and had another plastic container next to it with salad inside. Pfft, figured she’d like rabbit food. Her hands were as pretty as the rest of her and he liked how they held a spoon or cradled her bowl (it got his mind going as to other things she could be holding, his dick to be specific) and he liked the shape of her neck as she ate. Yeah, Hedevary was hot as hell and not nearly as much of an airhead as he’d always thought she’d be.
Kirkland sat down at his table, a single milk of his own placed far away from him, and opened up one of his magazines again. He didn’t bother to get out any food of his own. Jones pulled out a fucking grocery bag worth of food and glanced back at Kirkland before nodding to himself, getting up, and down next to Kirkland, who looked speechless for once. And fuck, if that wasn’t priceless. Jones unloaded a shit-ton of food (which included two apples, a banana, a carton of juice, three different meat sandwiches, a bag of animal crackers, a bag of chips, and some jerky) and smiled at Kirkland, waving at his food in silent invitation to help himself. Kirkland stared (along with everyone else) and didn’t bother to try hiding his confusion.
“Well, it’s not like I can really eat all of this. My mom is a food pusher.” He pushed his juice and one of his sandwiches towards Kirkland and started eating his food without saying anything else. Kirkland stared a little bit more and hesitantly began eating alongside Jones, shooting him confused and cautious looks in between bites. Gilbert snorted and took another bite of his own lunch. He knew for a fact that Jones could eat his weight in food; Antonio’s horror stories of after-game buffet trips were legendary and there were stories about how Jones once ate an entire platter of burgers by himself and still asked for ice cream afterwards. Kirkland knew the story too, which was probably why he was staring at Jones as if he’d lost his mind.
Seriously, they were both idiots.
Hedevary was watching them with a disdain too; they caught each other’s eyes over the pair and he smiled at her, mouth full of food as she realized that he saw what she obviously saw (what fucking passengers in a plane saw, Christ). She smirked back at him and inclined her head before turning back to her food primly and taking a determined bite out of her salad. Gilbert may not have given many fucks about a lot of things, but if playing matchmaker with Elizaveta Hedevary got him closer into her skirts, he’d sure as hell give a fuck about it.
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