Think We Are (2/8)
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: The Hetalia/Breakfast Club fusion everyone wanted apparently! Enjoy, and drop a line if you care to let me know what you thought.
Previous Scene
Think We Are
Scene Two
“You're an idiot anyway. But if you say you get along with your parents, well, you're a liar too.” - John Bender, The Breakfast Club (1985)
A Snippet of Elizaveta
She hated it, being popular. Well, now that wasn’t completely right because most times she didn't.
Being popular meant that everyone, whether it was true or not, had to make like they loved you. Or, keep up the pretense and really, that was all she hoped for because teenagers are the most hurtful, poisonous, back-stabbing generation of them all, and that’s including lawyers.
But, there were moments when she was so tired of everything. When she wanted to be able to wear sweatpants to school and sleep in instead of doing her make-up. When she wanted to eat that double bacon cheeseburger because it smells fucking amazing and living off of Crystal Light and crackers just doesn’t quite seem worth it to wear that size two dress in her closet. When she wanted to admit that she likes comic books because her dad read them to her when she was younger and it’s one thing they both still have in common. When she’s so bone-deep tired of dating pompous jerks like Roderich or Sadiq or Francis and just wanted to date someone who made her laugh and wouldn’t mind seeing her in the aforementioned sweatpants.
Elizaveta had so much, but lately, the baggage that came with everything just wasn’t worth the hassle.
Staring across the way at Gilbert, at Kiku, even at Arthur, who she knew was fucked up three ways to Sunday because of his parents, she envied them, their freedom of not having to be perfect all the time, not like her. She wished she could have laughed at Gilbert when he called her ‘tits,’ or messed up the door like Arthur, or try to speak up for them to just all shut up like Kiku. But she couldn’t, not really, not even here.
God, she should have just ignored that stupid taffeta sale at JoAnns-she wanted to be anywhere else but there.
*********
Arthur grinned at everyone and tried to push down the overwhelming hatred he held for Germania because he did not need four strangers (and yes, Alfred was a bloody stranger to him now-they barely even spoke the same language anymore) to see how badly that pisser's words and disdain affected him. Because he wasn’t nothing. He was something, even if that something was a constant thorn in the faculty’s side because he didn’t fit into any of their neat little boxes as to what they all thought he should be. He wasn’t the poor, tragic little orphan who was a genius and would make his dead parents proud. He wasn’t the doped up drug addict who needed to be saved. He wasn’t even really a criminal, no matter how much they may have wanted to force him into that box. They hated him because they couldn’t define him, and he’d be lying if that fact didn’t both thrill and disappoint him.
He tried not to look too much at Alfred as he glanced around the room because whenever he looked at Alfred, he got mad and confused and he felt like his skin was too brittle or easier to break. It was safer to think of Alfred as the stuck-up, callous jock instead of what he remembered Alfred as (who he probably still was underneath all of the pomp and circumstance he paraded around at school). If he was ‘Golden Boy’ and not ‘Alfie,’ Arthur didn’t have to feel bad about trying to hate him. He didn’t have to feel as wretched as he generally felt about not being able to let go of a childhood crush that should’ve died back with the rest of his former life.
It was hard to ignore him though-his eyes naturally gravitated towards Alfred and it was so easy to rile him up.
“I’m sorry, but what fun? In case you forgot, because you’re in here so much of the time anyway, we’re still in detention.” He looked over and glared at Elizaveta; they were few people he genuinely detested at school apart from the faculty, but Elizaveta Hedervary was one of them.
“Your powers of deduction notwithstanding, prom queen, the door to the library is in fact closed, meaning I'll be arsed if Germania is actually going to be checking over here at all and we are free to do something more than ponder about the error of our ways. Of course, if you’d rather sit down and stare at the desk until drool starts pooling out of your mouth, feel free.” Arthur pushed up from his desk and headed over to where there was a rack of magazines. The librarian had a soft spot for him (Arthur will never know why…he once rearranged her entire history section by order of book size) and usually kept the TIME and Newsweek magazines hidden behind the National Geographic magazines for him. Instead of returning back to the desk with his spoils, he hopped up over the librarian’s front desk and sat down in her much more comfortable rolling chair.
“Hey, does Miss Fatso keep any good snacks back there?” Arthur scowled up at Gilbert’s manic grin and turned back to his magazine.
“Her name is Miss Fasso and no she doesn’t. Back on the bandwagon this week. Even if she wasn’t, I wouldn’t give you any of her food, you cretin.” He flipped a page in his magazine and pointedly ignored Gilbert’s whining as he draped himself over the front desk. A glance out back towards the library told him the others were all still in their seats, but Alfred and Elizaveta were chatting now. He huffed and went back to his magazine and told himself he was being an idiot for getting upset about two people who could have had less in common with chatting. He could hear snippets between them though, even with Gilbert aimlessly flipping through the library catalog index (he’d long since grown used to tuning Gilbert out-it was how their not-a-friendship-friendship thrived). Talks of a party and whether they were going to go; Arthur frowned and read the same sentence in his article about four times before he eventually grew frustrated and set it down.
“…divorce could be imminent. You know, I’m only here because my mom didn’t want me to go and my dad wanted to use me against my mom. I am getting so sick of their squabbling.” He heard the annoyance in her voice and it rankled him, hearing her talk about her parents like that. So many stupid teenagers took their parents for granted, it was sick. He hopped onto the desk and cocked his head at her.
“If you had to choose one, who would it be?” She looked up at him and felt a sense of delight that she didn’t quite make the connection of what she was about to get into and with who. Alfred did-his eyes widened and he tried to tap Elizaveta and talk about the party again.
“I’m sorry, what are you spewing about?”
“If you had to pick one, which would you pick? Who do you like better, your mum or your dad?” Her eyes went a little wide, as if she had never been asked such a question before. “Divorce can be messy and I’m sure a custody battle would ensue between them, but you’re old enough to decide who to live with so, who would you choose?”
“What kind of question is that? I can’t choose between my parents that’s-they’re both just so involved with themselves they don’t even see what all their fighting is doing to m-all of us.” She looked at him, offended, and he leaned forward a little, resting his elbows on his knees.
“It’s a completely valid question; it’s probably just one you don’t want to think about. But, here’s a thought, if you can’t pick one of them over the other, you could always just imagine what life might be like without them. There, no more fighting that bothers you.” Her face paled and he grinned a little; she understood what he was on about now.
“That’s not what she was saying, Arth-Kirkland!”
“No,” Gilbert drawled. He abandoned the library catalogue and hopped up onto the desk Elizaveta and Alfred were sitting at. “She’s just feeling sorry for herself and wants to have a little pity-party. Princess, that’s the last fucking thing you’re going to get here.”
“I wasn’t-” She took a deep breath and when she came back to herself, any trace of the uncertainty and regret he’d seen before was gone. “I’m sorry if I said anything that upset you, Kirkland, but maybe you shouldn’t butt your nose into someone else’s conversation. And get off the damn desk, Gilbert!”
“It’s a free country, Lizzie, and I may rest my supple buttocks where I desire.” She smacked at him with her purse and he threw his head back and laughed. “Now, I can understand that you’re all sadpants over your parents arguing over what yacht to buy and who would get the Aspen home in the divorce, but please try to remember a couple of key things before spouting off about how ‘hard’ things are for you. Numero one: Kirkland over there is an orphan, so no matter what complaint you have against your parents, he will always win every argument on the subject by default. Numero two: commoners like Jones and Honda don’t have yachts and Aspen homes so talking about that shit probably makes them feel inferior, which I know gets your juices goin’ but it’s really a dick move. And numero three: at least your parents love you enough to value you as a real bargaining chip, instead of ignoring you as the first try fuck-up.”
He grinned at her stupefied face and hopped off the desk, making his way towards his usual perch in the back. Arthur smiled at her a little bit wider, a little bit meaner, and started to clap in honor of Gilbert’s speech. She glared at him and he started to laugh, just a little, just enough to annoy her.
“You know, he kind of has a point.” Arthur stopped laughing and stared at Alfred, a little surprised himself that those words had just been uttered.
“Alfred!”
“What? I’m sorry Liz, but come on, compared to those two, your parent issues really aren’t that bad-besides, maybe they just like to argue, you know? Some couples are like that.”
“I am sorry for your troubles at home, Elizaveta,” Kiku chimed in. Arthur rolled his eyes and flopped back so that he was staring up at the library’s ceiling from the front desk. “I can assure you, I did not feel at all during your confessions that you were flaunting your wealth in either mine or Alfred’s face.”
“Yeah…what Kiku said. You know, you don’t have to be so polite and junk. We’re like seventeen, I think the only one who cares about manners is Art-Kirkland and you can just ignore him.”
He felt annoyance lick up his spine again and he sat back up. “And what about you, Golden Boy? Do you get along with your parents?”
Alfred glared at him. “I guess, for the most part. What, does that make me lame or dumb for saying so?”
“You were dumb before. Just trying to determine now if you’re a liar as well.”
“So, you gave Liz shit because she complained about her parents and now you’re giving me shit because I’m not?” Alfred looked mad, madder than he’d been with Arthur so far that morning, and it felt good, safe. Familiar and not the unsettling, dangerous pull towards Alfred he’d felt since the moment he’d sat down behind him.
“People our age never get along with their parents, and if they say they do, they’re either deluded or lying. So which are you: deluded or a liar?” Arthur asked.
“Oh, so you’re saying that that’s how you would be if your parents were here? You’d be a dick to them too?” Arthur could see that Alfred regretted saying the words the minute they were out, and strangely, that made him madder than the fact that he’d actually said them.
“Well, my parents are dead so I guess we’ll never know, unless you secretly dabble in necromancy and have something you need to share with the class.”
“And buzz effectively killed; Christ, I don’t know whether I want to bet on you guys killing or fucking each other by the time the day’s over, but you're getting ridiculous.” Arthur flushed at Gilbert’s words, and the only thing that kept him from getting up and strangling the psycho was that Alfred was blushing too. And that was too confusing for Arthur to even go near at the moment. “Can we talk about something other than dead parents? Say, for instance, why this guy doesn’t seem to know how to talk?”
Kiku frowned at Gilbert and sat up a little straighter in his chair, the only indication that he was at all bothered by Gilbert’s mocking tone. “I have been speaking, even if we’re not meant to. I’m not about to shout to make myself heard.”
“Ah, so you enjoy being ignored then?”
“I don’t-”
“Well, since I don’t think you can take the tone of the conversation down a dark and morbid path, want to tell us how you and your folks get along? Do you all gossip over rice balls and bond over pictures?”
“That’s incredibly racist, you ass.” Elizaveta glared at him.
“Yeah, Japanese people totally do more stuff together than that!” Oh, Alfred-Arthur would find him endearing if he wasn’t so busy trying to hate him.
“I appreciate your candor, Gilbert, but my family has lived in America for the past three generations-usually we just eat Taco Bell.” Kiku smiled, a small and gossamer grin that everyone up short and then had them laughing a little in kind. Arthur even chuckled because honestly, Kiku eating Taco Bell? He doubted that was the Honda dinner of choice for family night.
The mood lightened a little and it was strange how not strange it was-just moments before they’d been attacking each other in turn and now they were laughing as if they really were all friends and sharing an inside joke. Elizaveta looked different when she laughed, and not the shrill, mean-spirited laugh he was used to-her smile was genuine and it made her look younger, better. Kiku relaxed his shoulders and had actually put his pen down on the desk; Gilbert was laughing so hard he was crying a little and Arthur could honestly say he had never seen him look so amused. And Alfred. He looked the same, which wasn’t a surprise because he was always big smiles and ready laughs but this time, it didn’t hurt Arthur to see it, to see him. Alfred looked at him, caught his eyes, and his smile softened a little; Arthur ducked his head away.
The laughter started to dry up and they all ducked their heads from each other eventually-no one said anything, not even Gilbert, for fear of breaking whatever steady truce they’d brokered in that moment. At least, that’s why Arthur stayed quiet-he may be good at insulting everyone near him, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t exhausting and that it didn’t leave him feeling as if his parents would be ashamed of him if they could see him now. Arthur grabbed his magazines and walked back towards his desk; he didn’t look at Alfred and sat behind Elizaveta this time instead. Kiku turned back to his blank paper and started to write down whatever essay he’d decided would best satisfy the headmistress’s exercise and Gilbert stared at the ceiling until his eyes slipped shut. Alfred didn’t do anything, but out of the corner of his eye, Arthur could see he kept turning his body just so, as if he was trying to glance back at Arthur.
The whole thing between Alfred and him was such a jumbled mess that it was hard for Arthur to figure out when exactly he’d gone from his best friend to his most scorned person. Intuitively, he knew that a lot of it had to do with how he’d reacted to his parents dying and being placed in his eldest brother’s custody. Liam was barely able to support himself, let alone three brothers. For a time, he’d thought they’d all end up going back to England, even though they were all technically dual citizens and Liam had a work visa-they never did though. They’d stayed in the same town they’d grown up with their parents and Arthur had to deal with their ghosts nearly every day. He hated it and had wished they’d leave constantly-he still did and he counted down the days to when he’d finish school and could attend college somewhere, anywhere, but there. A lot of that emotion was hard to understand as a child, especially when your only disciplinary figure was a bully of a brother who resented the fact you were there to begin with.
He had pushed nearly all of his friends away and had been happy to-they didn’t know how to deal with poor, parentless Artie and some (i.e. Francis Bonnefoy, the biggest prat if there ever was one) had even started to taunt him about it. Alfred never had, but he’d never defended him either-and now he was friends with all of those berks and the school fawned over him while Arthur was treated like his next stop was prison (like he would ever do something that would warrant anything more than a slap on the wrist, he’d studied the penal code, thank you very much). His reputation did serve some good though; it kept people away from him, which was how he liked it. Or that was what he told himself was easier, because losing someone you let close…
It was the worst thing imaginable and no one understood that because they’d never experienced anything quite so desolate in their petty, shallow lives where the only thing that mattered was to be on top.
Stuck in the group detention (which had to be new because while yes they’d done classroom detention before, the Academy had never done an all day Saturday session and given him the chance to cut them off from their overseer), where everyone was just a bit too close to him for comfort and, well. He peeked up and saw that Alfred was playing with a small, paper American football he’d made out of his essay paper, concentrated on kicking it between two goal posts he’d made out of pencils. His tongue was peeking out from between his lips and he looked completely enthralled in his game, even giving a little, silent cheer when he flicked it between the pencils. He turned his eyes away before he was caught and closed his eyes.
The detention was a bloody pain in the arse, that’s what it was.
*********
Elizaveta wasn’t stupid.
She may not have been as studious as Kiku or an evil genius like Arthur, but she had one of the highest standings in their class nonetheless. She was, above all, extremely observant, which was useful in both directing and managing the multiple groups she was a member of and also in finding weakness in others and using it best against them. She could admit she wasn’t the nicest of people because of this, but no one was really nice in high school-the entire institution was built to split teenagers into specific social groups and standing and to hold some groups higher than others. However, there were times when she used her skills for good, such as when she noticed two idiots dancing around each other and decided that a little matchmaking was in order to help give her some brownie points in her karmic balance spreadsheet.
She liked Alfred Jones. He was the rare jock who was actually a good guy for the most part, some of his most recent indiscretions notwithstanding (she knew what he’d done to land in detention and she knew he was ashamed about it, so hadn’t mentioned anything). He’d shared a private secret regarding his bisexuality and while part of her couldn’t believe he’d confessed something like that to her in the first place, another part had been grateful that someone sincerely trusted her for once. He was handsome, funny, a little slow on the uptake sometimes, scarily smart in physics, completely lacking of most tact, a devoted older brother, and adorably naïve about life. So yes, she liked him, even if they weren’t really friends.
Arthur Kirkland she did not like and was fairly certain the feeling was mutual. His life was a sad one and she felt pity for him because of that (not that he’d appreciate any of her pity, but he had it anyway), but having tragedy in your life didn’t give him permission to be the tyrannical bully he was to so many in school. Elizaveta believed that everyone had a choice in what they decide to do with their life after something terrible happened, and she thought that Arthur had chosen horribly. It didn’t help that his insults were generally so cutting because they exposed the worst truths that everyone tried to hide and he especially liked to attack the popular crowds, which meant Elizaveta. He was a punkish brute who was too smart for his own good and Elizaveta couldn’t wait until they graduated and she hopefully wouldn’t have to see him again.
However, because it was her business to know things, she knew that before Arthur’s parents had died, he’d been a good person and he’d been best friends with Alfred. Or, as best friends someone as stodgy as Arthur had been could be with someone as energetic as Alfred. Still, they’d been close and Elizaveta could tell a pigtail-pulling crush when she saw one. Gilbert had actually helped solidify her suspicions with his crude comments earlier, and while she wasn’t about to thank the disgusting pig, she was grateful for his unique intervention. Alfred and Arthur liked each other underneath all the hurt and distance between them, and while Elizaveta didn’t do favors for people like Arthur, she would for someone like Alfred.
She flounced her hair and hummed to herself as she began circling different dresses she could potentially wear to prom that year from a magazine she had smuggled in; the others looked like they were falling asleep (except Kiku, he was writing that essay like his life depended on it) but Elizaveta wasn’t about to waste time with sleep when she could be productive in biding her time. She smiled a little as she circled a green, empire-wasted dress that would look amazing on her and waited for the others to wake up.
TBC…