Fey Sight: CHAPTER 1
A/N: To snowshoebombay for the usxuk community's Secret Santa 2012. Character's belong to Hima.
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At first Arthur thought it was a trick of the overhead florescent lights. After all, he saw many things that other people just didn’t seem to see, sometimes just from the corner of his eye. Sometimes Arthur wasn’t sure what he had seen, but in this case he was having a hard time pretending he was seeing nothing.
The second thought was that it might have been his wishful thinking coming true. The tall, hardworking teenager in front of him had the loveliest golden hair and an arse from heaven, and it was on him they appeared. No, Arthur shook his head in disbelief; it was just as he had first seen it, a wingspan of long, shimmering blue and green fairy wings, with a slight aura of silver.
As the teenager moved, the wings moved with him, and the handsome blond seemed to enjoy that no one could see them, snapping them in and out as if it were a game. The glamour surrounding him was thick, well woven, and at certain times, out of the corner of his eye, Arthur noticed the fey teenager looked purely human, the wings vanishing in a flicker.
“Can I help you with something?” The question shook Arthur out of his reverie. A wide smile accompanied with bright blue eyes made him blank out. He realized that his feet had brought him straight to his enchanted subject and that Arthur was standing right outside the frozen food section, the “slam” and “shick” of the frosted rows of doors being opened and shut as shoppers reached in to grab the food they wanted noisily surrounded him.
The winged worker had been stocking one of the frozen food shelves and hung out of an open door; the cold emanated from the freezer nipping at Arthur’s nose and making him shiver. His smile still lingered, and the box of frozen bags of vegetables sat by their feet.
“Ah, no…” Arthur stuttered, his mind blank.
“Am I in your way?” Asked the teenager, or Alfred, Arthur mentally corrected himself, reading the badge on Alfred’s shirt.
“Um...” Arthur desperately glanced at the bags of food on the cooler shelves, but the glass doors had misted over with frost.
Those magnificent blue iridescent wings twitched. With a grin Alfred stepped around Arthur and said, “Let me know if you need help finding anything.”
Arthur flushed. He had just looked like an utter idiot. Bollocks, bugger, way to go, he mentally chastised himself.
Alfred walked towards down the cart of food to be stocked. Arthur watched him longingly as he laughed and joked with a Russian sounding coworker. Arthur couldn’t help staring. Feeling like a creep, he kept walking back and forth peeking down the aisles, to watch Alfred, smiling, joking around, helping a little old lady get milk out from the dairy section and put it in her trolley for her, and those beautiful wings glimmering and shimmering under the harsh light. If only he could get enough courage to talk to him again.
Alfred made eye contact with him, and Arthur turned away, embarrassed, to peer at whatever was on the end cap of the shelves nearest to him. His heart hammered, please ignore me, his heart hammered, please talk to me again, came his hope in the next beat. His cheeks started to flush.
“Looking for something for your girlfriend? I can get one of the girls to help?” Alfred’s smile was even in his voice.
Girlfriend? To Arthur’s dismay he realized he was looking at napkin pads and tampons being displayed on sale. The bright pink boxes and red sale sign advertising free mascara with purchase glared at him.
“Bugger.” He muttered. He could feel his flush all the way up to his ear tips. “Uh..no..rather.” Think, Arthur, think. Something, anything…
Alfred just straightened something on the next aisle’s side end cap and waited.
“Um, I am looking for a calendar.”
“A what?” Alfred was staring, his head cocked, a ridiculous piece of hair that stuck up from his fringe waved about.
“A calendar.”
“Er…” Alfred smiled, nodding, but his eyes were conveying lack of comprehension.
“You know…A calenh-dahr.” An emphasis was put on every syllable. Arthur was getting desperate. Maybe the faerie was really too new to this world. Maybe Alfred had never heard of calendars. “You have the days and months on it. You write notes and special dates on it.”
“Ohh….” Alfred’s replied was long and drawn out, and accompanied with a laugh. He reached behind to ruffle the back of his head. “A cal-ender,” he repeated, pleased at finally understanding. Arthur stared. The word had been mangled and flattened, and what the world? American accents were horrendous.
“Yes, I suppose. A calendah.”
Alfred just shook his head. “No, dude, a calender.”
“That’s what I said! A calendar.”
They just stared at each other. Defiant green eyes dueled with confused and amused blue eyes. Alfred finally laughed.
“Wow, you’re old, man, most people have that on their phone or pda, or laptops nowadays.”
“Well,” Arthur blustered, “I like to have a tangible, physical something to write on and see, a cal-ehn-dahr.” The last word was drawn out and emphasized.
“Yeah, yeah,” Alfred laughed. “They are on the other side of the store--in the stationary department. Do you want me to walk with you and help you find the stationary section?”
Shameless, Arthur thought, I am shameless, “Sure. That would be great. Then I won’t get lost.”
Alfred just laughed at that, too, and said to his co-worker walking past, “Hey, Ivan, I’m going to take this guest over to the home office department.”
“You are a lazy ass, Jones,” came the accented reply of the almost white haired coworker, a scarf over his red shirt. Arthur thought he could have imagined it, but he swore the Russian gave Arthur an once-over, too.
He must be high fae, Arthur thought, as they walked across the store, past the shampoo aisle, past women’s and men’s clothes. Alfred was whistling and casually said, “So you don’t have a girlfriend.”
Arthur clutched his basket tighter, “No.”
“Calendar for school?” Alfred said.
“University. I lost my last one.”
“That doesn’t surprise me.” Alfred laughed.
Git, Arthur thought bitterly, stupid, handsome fool.
“Actually, I thought a new calendar would help my study schedule.”
Alfred laughed. “ I love your accent!” He stopped suddenly and became serious, “I mean, your British accent’s cool. Are you from England?”
“Yes.” Arthur was blushing again; he could feel it. “You Americans seem fascinated by the accent.”
“Well, you know, calendah and calender and skedule and shedjule.” The two British versions were mangled atrociously. “It just sounds cool. Well, here we are. I think we have personal planners around the corner.”
“Thanks, Alfred.” Arthur tested out the name on his tongue.
Alfred beamed. “Thanks! Glad to help.”
Alfred’s walkie squawked and with a small wave he strode off quickly toward the grocery section again, his wings bobbing and flowing behind him.
Arthur swore in his head. Multiple times, and then muttered to himself, “Just focus on studies, mate, no chasing boys.”
Picking out a new organizing journal, he shook off the urge to head over to the store’s grocery and health section again. He was just nice, that’s all. American customer service or whatever they bloody call it. Heading to the front to check out, he couldn’t help looking around for Alfred. Stupid, he chastised himself. As he walked out the sliding doors into the afternoon sunshine, he swore to himself he would never come back. Distractions of both sights were not needed in his life right now.
†††††
Alfred rushed into his bedroom like a whirling dervish, in the process intentionally bumping his brother who was on the computer. With a great thump, Alfred jumped into the bottom bunk of their bunkbeds, and put his arms over his head triumphantly. Matt rolled his eyes at his younger brother’s antics, but asked the unspoken question begging to be asked, “What’s up with you?”
Alfred just closed his eyes; he could see those deep green eyes, the kind that reminded him of the deep bowers of Faerie, on an intelligent and handsome face. He could hear the sexy (sometimes confusing), amusing British accent. The man had been slightly shorter than him, with those cute, thick eyebrows reminding him of caterpillars.
The man would be a treat to the Fae if he ever stumbled into the Realm. They would make him dance until he had stripped and then make him dance naked. Alfred would watch and wait. Wait for them to wear his mortal out and when the Fae tired of the dancing and had been distracted by some other sadistic game or fancy, he would take the man and lead him to his bower.
Alfred’s fairy side ached to bemuse the mortal, and make him want Alfred in a way that that couldn’t be soothed for hours. He would kiss those eyebrows and have as much sex as he wanted until the dawn. To be honest, Alfred could never do such a thing, it went against his hero mentality. For that reason, Alfred worried he had accidentally bemused the mortal, the way he had followed Alfred like a little lost puppy.
“Saw some eye candy today at work,” was Alfred’s answer to his brother.
“Does he like it in the ass?”
Alfred snorted. “He kept following me.”
Matthew just turned back at the computer’s pinging noise and started typing furiously.
“How’s your Frenchie?” Alfred asked as he played with the support coils from the bed above.
“He’s good.”
Alfred saw the tips of his brother’s ears turn red. “That’s what she said,” he snickered.
“Don’t be a dick.”
“Douche.”
Alfred just grinned brightly. “Maybe my guy will be back tomorrow to see me again!”
“What?” Matthew turned to him a little perturbed, “You enamor him?”
Alfred pouted, “No, don’t think of me that way.”
“Whatever, I bet you wanted to sprinkle him with fairy dust and carry him off to neverneverland.”
“It’s the High Realm, Canuck.”
“Whatever. What the hell?”
“I saw that you got your admission letter to that University up there.”
“Whatever, that doesn’t mean I’m Canadian.”
“I also saw that you put in your citizenship papers.” There was a note of sadness in Alfred’s voice.
“Listen, Alfred,” Matthew turned again, “You know that I spent a good deal of time up there when we were kids. I like it up there. I feel at home there. But I will always love you and this is my home, too.”
Alfred turned to face the wall. Matt rolled his eyes at Alfred’s sulking and went back to his chat.
Pushing away his fear of his brother leaving him again, Alfred thought of the handsome British university student again. He was wise not to mention his name to Alfred. Names had such power. If only he had his name, he could try to magick him back to see Alfred again. Come back to me, Come back to me, Come back to me. He thought over and over again in his head.
He sighed, and unfurled his wings for a good stretch before he went to bed.
“Boys.” It was his mom in the hallway. It was good not to get attached; he had his Mom to think about. That’s right, he needed to be a hero, and heroes couldn’t get distracted.
“Yeah,” was the double response.
“Have a good night. Sleep well. Love you.”
“Love you too, mom.”
Alfred shucked his clothes in the general area of the hamper after furling up his wings. The holes in the fabric were now apparent as the red shirt and khakis lay there limp and sadly, nowhere near making it into the hamper.
“Are you going to be on the computer long?” he said to Matt just to be nosy and annoying.
“Uh huh.” Was the vague reply.
Curling up in his bed, feeling tired and weightless, he thought as he fell asleep, Come back to me.
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At first Arthur thought it was a trick of the overhead florescent lights. After all, he saw many things that other people just didn’t seem to see, sometimes just from the corner of his eye. Sometimes Arthur wasn’t sure what he had seen, but in this case he was having a hard time pretending he was seeing nothing.
The second thought was that it might have been his wishful thinking coming true. The tall, hardworking teenager in front of him had the loveliest golden hair and an arse from heaven, and it was on him they appeared. No, Arthur shook his head in disbelief; it was just as he had first seen it, a wingspan of long, shimmering blue and green fairy wings, with a slight aura of silver.
As the teenager moved, the wings moved with him, and the handsome blond seemed to enjoy that no one could see them, snapping them in and out as if it were a game. The glamour surrounding him was thick, well woven, and at certain times, out of the corner of his eye, Arthur noticed the fey teenager looked purely human, the wings vanishing in a flicker.
“Can I help you with something?” The question shook Arthur out of his reverie. A wide smile accompanied with bright blue eyes made him blank out. He realized that his feet had brought him straight to his enchanted subject and that Arthur was standing right outside the frozen food section, the “slam” and “shick” of the frosted rows of doors being opened and shut as shoppers reached in to grab the food they wanted noisily surrounded him.
The winged worker had been stocking one of the frozen food shelves and hung out of an open door; the cold emanated from the freezer nipping at Arthur’s nose and making him shiver. His smile still lingered, and the box of frozen bags of vegetables sat by their feet.
“Ah, no…” Arthur stuttered, his mind blank.
“Am I in your way?” Asked the teenager, or Alfred, Arthur mentally corrected himself, reading the badge on Alfred’s shirt.
“Um...” Arthur desperately glanced at the bags of food on the cooler shelves, but the glass doors had misted over with frost.
Those magnificent blue iridescent wings twitched. With a grin Alfred stepped around Arthur and said, “Let me know if you need help finding anything.”
Arthur flushed. He had just looked like an utter idiot. Bollocks, bugger, way to go, he mentally chastised himself.
Alfred walked towards down the cart of food to be stocked. Arthur watched him longingly as he laughed and joked with a Russian sounding coworker. Arthur couldn’t help staring. Feeling like a creep, he kept walking back and forth peeking down the aisles, to watch Alfred, smiling, joking around, helping a little old lady get milk out from the dairy section and put it in her trolley for her, and those beautiful wings glimmering and shimmering under the harsh light. If only he could get enough courage to talk to him again.
Alfred made eye contact with him, and Arthur turned away, embarrassed, to peer at whatever was on the end cap of the shelves nearest to him. His heart hammered, please ignore me, his heart hammered, please talk to me again, came his hope in the next beat. His cheeks started to flush.
“Looking for something for your girlfriend? I can get one of the girls to help?” Alfred’s smile was even in his voice.
Girlfriend? To Arthur’s dismay he realized he was looking at napkin pads and tampons being displayed on sale. The bright pink boxes and red sale sign advertising free mascara with purchase glared at him.
“Bugger.” He muttered. He could feel his flush all the way up to his ear tips. “Uh..no..rather.” Think, Arthur, think. Something, anything…
Alfred just straightened something on the next aisle’s side end cap and waited.
“Um, I am looking for a calendar.”
“A what?” Alfred was staring, his head cocked, a ridiculous piece of hair that stuck up from his fringe waved about.
“A calendar.”
“Er…” Alfred smiled, nodding, but his eyes were conveying lack of comprehension.
“You know…A calenh-dahr.” An emphasis was put on every syllable. Arthur was getting desperate. Maybe the faerie was really too new to this world. Maybe Alfred had never heard of calendars. “You have the days and months on it. You write notes and special dates on it.”
“Ohh….” Alfred’s replied was long and drawn out, and accompanied with a laugh. He reached behind to ruffle the back of his head. “A cal-ender,” he repeated, pleased at finally understanding. Arthur stared. The word had been mangled and flattened, and what the world? American accents were horrendous.
“Yes, I suppose. A calendah.”
Alfred just shook his head. “No, dude, a calender.”
“That’s what I said! A calendar.”
They just stared at each other. Defiant green eyes dueled with confused and amused blue eyes. Alfred finally laughed.
“Wow, you’re old, man, most people have that on their phone or pda, or laptops nowadays.”
“Well,” Arthur blustered, “I like to have a tangible, physical something to write on and see, a cal-ehn-dahr.” The last word was drawn out and emphasized.
“Yeah, yeah,” Alfred laughed. “They are on the other side of the store--in the stationary department. Do you want me to walk with you and help you find the stationary section?”
Shameless, Arthur thought, I am shameless, “Sure. That would be great. Then I won’t get lost.”
Alfred just laughed at that, too, and said to his co-worker walking past, “Hey, Ivan, I’m going to take this guest over to the home office department.”
“You are a lazy ass, Jones,” came the accented reply of the almost white haired coworker, a scarf over his red shirt. Arthur thought he could have imagined it, but he swore the Russian gave Arthur an once-over, too.
He must be high fae, Arthur thought, as they walked across the store, past the shampoo aisle, past women’s and men’s clothes. Alfred was whistling and casually said, “So you don’t have a girlfriend.”
Arthur clutched his basket tighter, “No.”
“Calendar for school?” Alfred said.
“University. I lost my last one.”
“That doesn’t surprise me.” Alfred laughed.
Git, Arthur thought bitterly, stupid, handsome fool.
“Actually, I thought a new calendar would help my study schedule.”
Alfred laughed. “ I love your accent!” He stopped suddenly and became serious, “I mean, your British accent’s cool. Are you from England?”
“Yes.” Arthur was blushing again; he could feel it. “You Americans seem fascinated by the accent.”
“Well, you know, calendah and calender and skedule and shedjule.” The two British versions were mangled atrociously. “It just sounds cool. Well, here we are. I think we have personal planners around the corner.”
“Thanks, Alfred.” Arthur tested out the name on his tongue.
Alfred beamed. “Thanks! Glad to help.”
Alfred’s walkie squawked and with a small wave he strode off quickly toward the grocery section again, his wings bobbing and flowing behind him.
Arthur swore in his head. Multiple times, and then muttered to himself, “Just focus on studies, mate, no chasing boys.”
Picking out a new organizing journal, he shook off the urge to head over to the store’s grocery and health section again. He was just nice, that’s all. American customer service or whatever they bloody call it. Heading to the front to check out, he couldn’t help looking around for Alfred. Stupid, he chastised himself. As he walked out the sliding doors into the afternoon sunshine, he swore to himself he would never come back. Distractions of both sights were not needed in his life right now.
†††††
Alfred rushed into his bedroom like a whirling dervish, in the process intentionally bumping his brother who was on the computer. With a great thump, Alfred jumped into the bottom bunk of their bunkbeds, and put his arms over his head triumphantly. Matt rolled his eyes at his younger brother’s antics, but asked the unspoken question begging to be asked, “What’s up with you?”
Alfred just closed his eyes; he could see those deep green eyes, the kind that reminded him of the deep bowers of Faerie, on an intelligent and handsome face. He could hear the sexy (sometimes confusing), amusing British accent. The man had been slightly shorter than him, with those cute, thick eyebrows reminding him of caterpillars.
The man would be a treat to the Fae if he ever stumbled into the Realm. They would make him dance until he had stripped and then make him dance naked. Alfred would watch and wait. Wait for them to wear his mortal out and when the Fae tired of the dancing and had been distracted by some other sadistic game or fancy, he would take the man and lead him to his bower.
Alfred’s fairy side ached to bemuse the mortal, and make him want Alfred in a way that that couldn’t be soothed for hours. He would kiss those eyebrows and have as much sex as he wanted until the dawn. To be honest, Alfred could never do such a thing, it went against his hero mentality. For that reason, Alfred worried he had accidentally bemused the mortal, the way he had followed Alfred like a little lost puppy.
“Saw some eye candy today at work,” was Alfred’s answer to his brother.
“Does he like it in the ass?”
Alfred snorted. “He kept following me.”
Matthew just turned back at the computer’s pinging noise and started typing furiously.
“How’s your Frenchie?” Alfred asked as he played with the support coils from the bed above.
“He’s good.”
Alfred saw the tips of his brother’s ears turn red. “That’s what she said,” he snickered.
“Don’t be a dick.”
“Douche.”
Alfred just grinned brightly. “Maybe my guy will be back tomorrow to see me again!”
“What?” Matthew turned to him a little perturbed, “You enamor him?”
Alfred pouted, “No, don’t think of me that way.”
“Whatever, I bet you wanted to sprinkle him with fairy dust and carry him off to neverneverland.”
“It’s the High Realm, Canuck.”
“Whatever. What the hell?”
“I saw that you got your admission letter to that University up there.”
“Whatever, that doesn’t mean I’m Canadian.”
“I also saw that you put in your citizenship papers.” There was a note of sadness in Alfred’s voice.
“Listen, Alfred,” Matthew turned again, “You know that I spent a good deal of time up there when we were kids. I like it up there. I feel at home there. But I will always love you and this is my home, too.”
Alfred turned to face the wall. Matt rolled his eyes at Alfred’s sulking and went back to his chat.
Pushing away his fear of his brother leaving him again, Alfred thought of the handsome British university student again. He was wise not to mention his name to Alfred. Names had such power. If only he had his name, he could try to magick him back to see Alfred again. Come back to me, Come back to me, Come back to me. He thought over and over again in his head.
He sighed, and unfurled his wings for a good stretch before he went to bed.
“Boys.” It was his mom in the hallway. It was good not to get attached; he had his Mom to think about. That’s right, he needed to be a hero, and heroes couldn’t get distracted.
“Yeah,” was the double response.
“Have a good night. Sleep well. Love you.”
“Love you too, mom.”
Alfred shucked his clothes in the general area of the hamper after furling up his wings. The holes in the fabric were now apparent as the red shirt and khakis lay there limp and sadly, nowhere near making it into the hamper.
“Are you going to be on the computer long?” he said to Matt just to be nosy and annoying.
“Uh huh.” Was the vague reply.
Curling up in his bed, feeling tired and weightless, he thought as he fell asleep, Come back to me.