Fic: Think We Are (8/8)
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* 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:IT'S DONE! More notes at the end.

Think We Are

Scene Eight

"Dear Mr. Vernon…." – Brian Johnson, The Breakfast Club (1985)

"So, what happens on Monday?"

It was nearly four, which meant that detention only had a little bit left to go. All of their essays were lying face down on their desks, waiting for Germania to read them whenever they left. They'd all basically said the same thing, but they their own flavor so they didn't sound like they had forced Kiku to write them (though he had offered—they'd thrown paper-balls at him). Four pairs of eyes swung over to look at Kiku and he tried to not shrink under their scrutiny—he may have had the sort of life-affirming day most people only experienced once if they were lucky, but he was still Kiku Honda, nerd extraordinaire and prone to dislike so much attention on him. Elizaveta was sitting on the railing of the handicap ramp, her things all gathered up and resting across her lap; Gilbert was resting against the railings next to her, humming something that sounded like metal-rock and air-guitaring. Arthur and Alfred were sitting close together at one of the tables and looked like they had been in deep conversation. Kiku felt bad for interrupting them (Alfred's eyes were still red from his confession earlier, but he looked less troubled).

"You mean, what do we go back to once school starts?" Elizaveta asked.

Kiku nodded. "Yes. Are we still friends or does that end once we leave the library?"

He wished asking the question didn't leave him as anxious as it did, but he really hoped that whatever sort of feeling or after-school magic that had settled over them wouldn't be wiped away the moment the first warning bell rang Monday morning. He feared that if it did go away, then it wouldn't be long before he reverted back to his old self, the Kiku who wasn't brave enough to do what he wanted and couldn't live with a mistake or failure. Gilbert scoffed but stopped playing his one-man band and shot Kiku an incredulous look.

"You actually want to be friends with us, Honda? A bunch of fuck-ups with a whole mess of issues and meanness that make it a habit to lash out at the first available target?"

"Well, seeing as I'm just as fucked as the rest of you, yes," Kiku shrugged. "I consider you my friends, but if this won't continue after we leave detention, I'd rather know now and save myself an embarrassment Monday."

"Honestly?" Elizaveta asked. Kiku nodded and she took a deep breath. "I don't know. Maybe but—but school is different than this and association amongst cliques isn't usually—I don't know the answer to that yet, Kiku, and I'm really sorry. I know that makes me a bitch but—"

"Yeah, it really does, princess." Gilbert glared at Elizaveta.

"—but that's the best answer I can give."

Kiku nodded and gave her a small, grateful smile; that wasn't the answer he wanted, but he appreciated she told him the truth. And, to be honest, he had been expecting that response from her anyway. She reached out to try and touch Gilbert's shoulder, but he moved down the rail and shot her an ugly look; the way her face crumpled into a frown at the gesture made Kiku want to say something, but he didn't know what to say.

"Well, I don't really have friends, but if you want to be associated with the school nut-job, knock yourself out, Honda. I won't mind—you can actually help me figure out which of my future pranks are kosher and which will land me in jail." Gilbert grinned at him and Kiku nodded back, a small smile on his lips.

"Kiku, dude, I know that I've been too caught up in the jock shit lately but—but you'll always be one of my best friends." Alfred got up from his seat and headed over to Kiku until he could give him a hug; Kiku stiffened in Alfred's hold for a moment, completely unsure what he was supposed to do, before he relaxed and returned the hug. Alfred pulled back and the wide smile he gave Kiku made him feel ridiculously warm. "I think I'm going to take your advice, guys, and hang out with people I actually like, instead of dicks who convince me to do stupid shit."

"While I don't think your parents will be all too thrilled if you began spending time with me, I certainly wouldn't mind the company of someone who doesn't think I'm going to end up a drunk in the next five years." Kiku nodded at Arthur's words; he hadn't expected Arthur to want to talk to him after detention after what had happened during their confessionals. Arthur nodded back before Alfred gathered him up in a big hug too.

"Thank you—and Elizaveta, I understand what you meant. If you ever change your mind though, just know I'll be there." She nodded, still looking small and conflicted and Kiku settled back against his table, a content smile drifting across his face. He gave a secret thanks that he had failed Automotives because without that, he would have never ended up here, with a group of people who were the best sort of friends anyone could ask for. If he got them in exchange for a drop in his class standing, well, that seemed like a small price to pay.

A Future of Kiku

In the end, Kiku won't be the class Valedictorian. He won't even be the Salutatorian. And he'll be happy with that (and so will his parents, eventually—sometimes parents take longer to accept who their child will be and not what they want their child to be).

He'll go to college overseas on scholarship for his advanced scores in computer science and eventually he return to his hometown (city more like by that point) and he'll marry a lovely software developer who hadn't gone to Hetalia Academy but could still talk circles around Kiku when discussing most academic topics. He'll love that she's smarter than him in all the ways that count.

He'll stay in touch with Alfred the best out of everyone. And by keeping in touch with Alfred, he'll also keep in touch with Arthur (most of the time—those two'll have some bumps along the way). And even though sometimes he will get sad about losing touch with Elizaveta and Gilbert, every time he meets up with his friends for happy hour or for a child's birthday party or just because, he 'll remember them fondly because without them, without all of them, Kiku wouldn't have the friends he has now. His life wouldn't be as rich and he wouldn't be as happy.

He'll always remember and hold them in his heart for that.

"We accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it was we did wrong…"

"Did you mean what you said? To Honda? Because I gotta say, princess, I thought we'd come a lot farther than that on you today." Gilbert was mad, and it was fucking stupid that he was mad because he shouldn't give a rat's ass about anything Elizaveta said or thought. He'd wanted to hook up with her and he did that—but she was still under his skin and pissing him off. She had gathered up her crap and moved away from the rest of them after Kiku's little emotional 'be my friend' thing, and Gilbert had followed her and dragged her behind a bookshelf because—well because he had. He wasn't about to admit, even to himself, that he'd done that so the others wouldn't see Elizaveta get upset (or worse, see him get upset because she just did shit to him).

"I meant that I don't know what I'll do on Monday. And that's the truth—I'm not a good person like Kiku or Alfred, all right? I didn't have some kind of life-affirming self-realization in detention today that made me want to stop being the queen bee at this school because guess what Gilbert? I like it. I may not always like the things I do or the people I'm with, but I happen to like being admired, if slightly feared, by this school." Her eyes looked watery but she didn't cry. Gilbert hated crying so he was grateful for that.

"Fine, be popular. Don't think that I'll be as accommodating as Honda if you come crawling back, looking to tap some of this." He smiled lewdly his words were sharp as they attacked Elizaveta. She sniffed and shook her head at him as she grabbed his hand—fuck, if her hand wasn't all warm and fit fucking perfect in his palm. Dammit. God-fucking-dammit.

"Gil, I—" Nope. Not happening.

"Save it, tits. Not interested in your little pity-party or—"

"Dammit, Gilbert! You're so willing to forgive Alfred for what he did to Feliciano and to give him a chance to figure things out before you cut him off, why can't you do that for me? Why do I need to make every decision about you and this stupid detention and everyone else right now? Why can't you give me a chance to figure out what I feel or who I am before writing me off because you don't want to admit that you feel something for me and that is might scare you?" She had backed him up into the shelves somewhere during her rant and her face was nearly red as she shouted at him—she looked fucking beautiful like that.

He didn't really know who moved first, but they were kissing again and her boobs were pressing up hard against his chest and her hair smelled like fucking lilacs or something that he shouldn't find intoxicating but did. She was right (because she would always be fucking right)—the thing between them was intense and hot and it made Gilbert want to fight for Elizaveta and those were all things he'd never felt with anyone before. And it did scare him, the way not knowing if his brother would one day give up on him for being a screw-up scared him. His hands reached up and cradled her face as their lips broke apart from each other and he glared down at her.

"Fine—you get one fucking chance, princess. Don't fuck it up." The words were hissed out of him but they weren't nearly as mean as he would've liked them to be. Instead, they sounded a shade closer to desperate and pleading; she lit up with a smile then, this time her watery eyes spilling over a little and onto the side of his hands. She nodded and rose back up to her toes to kiss him again, whispering her promises against his lips and into his lungs—and fuck it all, if Gilbert didn't believe her.

A Future of Gilbert

Gilbert and Elizaveta will fizzle out at the end of their senior year—a lot of it is because she moves to California for school and they know they won't work as a long-distant thing.

Gilbert graduates high school, but never ends up going to college. He moves to Boston and apprentices at a mechanics while he waits for his brother to show up the next year. Ludwig will get into MIT and live with Gilbert while going to school.

Gilbert will take a lot of pictures. He won't really meant to start, but once he does, he'll find that he isn't half bad at it and even likes taking pictures. Ludwig will get him a gig at MIT's newsletter as a photographer and eventually, after a shit ton of blood, sweat, tears and emotional breakdowns, Gilbert's work gets noticed and then he'll be in a showcase of up and coming photographers. He'll never see his brother (or his parents) so proud of him and he's lying to you if he says he doesn't like it.

His head will calm down when he's taking pictures and the fact that people pay obscene amount of money for his shit is just a bonus. He'll end up paying for some of Ludwig's school shit and even help him apply for grad school once he's got his shiny diploma from MIT. He'll move into a loft in downtown New York and ends up working for some high end fashion magazines because apparently his name is a big deal and fashion editors are looking to sell their first-born kid to get him for their shoots. And hell, if there isn't a better job than taking pictures of beautiful, half naked women all day.

One day, Gilbert will go to work on an editorial fashion shoot for Vogue (and it'll kill him sometimes that he knows what the fuck an editorial fashion shoot is) and while he's waiting for the models to get primped, he sees her.

She'll be dressed to kill in a charcoal grey suit with a skirt that shows off her legs in a way that should be illegal. She'll be barking orders to a couple of frightened chippies that look like interns and her lips will be bright red. Her hair will be shorter than he remembers, but when he gets closer, it'll still smell like lilacs. Her boobs will still be the best pair of tits he's ever seen.

"Hiya, princess."

She'll turn and stare at him like she's seen a ghost, then, it'll be like the fucking Notebook and she'll drop the shit in her hands and leap up, wrapping her legs around his waist and her arms around his neck and kissing him like she's trying to crawl inside his mouth. He'll kiss her back like he hasn't seen her in years, which will be the truth.

Later, he'll call up Honda, Jones, and Kirkland (after begging Ludwig to hack into their old high school's alumni records), and tell them how funny it is when life works out and he expects all of them to fucking be there in Vegas when he and Liz get hitched.

"What we did *was* wrong. But we think you're crazy to make an essay telling you who we think we are."

"So, we're not going to spontaneously break-up on Monday, are we?" Alfred felt stupid asking it, but Kiku's question to them, and Elizaveta's subsequent rejection, worried him. Arthur looked at him and rolled his eyes before he leaned over and kissed Alfred. Kissing was basically the most awesome thing in the history of ever, he'd decided. If he could spend the rest of forever kissing (ok, and eating and possibly in the near future having sex), he was pretty sure that would be a kickass life. He smiled into the kiss and kept grinning goofily at Arthur when they pulled away. "I'll take that as a no."

Arthur smirked and shook his head, his shoulders shaking a little with barely contained giggles (that was the 'giggle shake'—not that Alfred was going to accuse Arthur of giggling because he wasn't suicidal). Alfred grabbed a hold of Arthur's hand and fiddled with his fingers a bit while they all waited for Germania to tell them they were free to go. Kiku was working on his essay a little (they had all finished an hour ago but Kiku was still Kiku and was proofing his) and Gilbert and Elizaveta had disappeared into the library shelves. They'd been yelling pretty loudly earlier but now it was disturbingly quiet. Alfred really hope they weren't defiling the encyclopedia section or anything. Arthur was sitting beside Alfred but they were sitting so close together that they might as well have been in the same seat. Alfred couldn't remember the last time he'd felt that happy and free.

If you had asked Alfred at seven that morning if he was going to find friendship, love, and redemption all during Saturday detention, he probably would've laughed and thought the ubiquitous you (and again with the vocab words—people really needed to stop assuming he was crap at English) had gone nuts. But that had been what happened. Alfred wasn't even sure how they all ended up where they were now when that morning they'd been stiff and mean and staring straight ahead as much as possible. The romantic side of Alfred wanted to say that Arthur had changed a lot of them just by antagonizing them, but Alfred knew that wasn't it. Arthur was too wrapped up in his own issues to start trying to help any of them with theirs (though Gilbert probably did have a point with the whole detention-Jesus thing). It had just…happened. Kind of like how you ended up growing up without really realizing it until it had already happened.

Alfred wasn't dumb though—he knew one day wasn't going to magically change any of them. They were all still pretty mean and petty and messed up and the underlying issues that made them that way hadn't been fixed. But, they'd made a start on it—it was kind of up to them what they wanted to do from there and while Alfred couldn't speak for everyone, he could speak for himself and he was going to take that start and move forward. He didn't want to look back on his teenage years when he was old and only remember how he had humiliated Feliciano Vargas to look cool, or how he had surrounded himself with mostly fake friends and fake girlfriends or boyfriends, or how his parents would look at him and wonder where they went wrong.

What he did want was to remember winning football MVP as a junior and repeating it again as a senior. He wanted to remember acing that physics AP test and getting a full ride to wherever he wanted to go to college. He wanted to remember hanging out with Kiku and geeking out over the new Star Wars movies and about what anime they thought was awesome. He wanted to remember going to prom and actually enjoying himself, not just going because he had to. He wanted to remember rediscovering Arthur Kirkland and finding out that he was still a little bit in love with him (and probably always would be, no matter what happened). He wanted to remember how it was during a Saturday detention he found himself and decided to change everything for the better.

"We're going to be okay, aren't we? Even with all of our crap and you graduating and stuff…" Alfred trailed off. He wasn't really looking for an answer; he felt like he had one already and just wanted to see if Arthur had one too.

Arthur looked at him, all soft and warm and Alfred smiled because he knew he had his answer.

A Future of Alfred

Alfred's senior year will be rough, and he'll know it from the moment Arthur graduates and starts planning his move to Georgetown. But it also won't be as rough as he thought it would.

He'll graduate with honors and will be elected as the class speaker at graduation. A lot of the reason why will be because he spends most of his senior year promoting and creating an LGBT group and awareness project on campus and it gets some national attention, especially when he comes clean and admits to everyone why he starts everything. Feliciano'll hold his hand through the interview and Arthur will call him after to tell him how proud he is of Alfred and how much he loves him. That'll end up meaning a lot because he and Arthur won't be together during that stretch of six months because it'll be really hard to be with someone when they're not there and they are going to fuck things up. They'll end up getting back together not to soon after though and Arthur will be sitting with his parents at graduation, nothing but smiles and happiness on his face.

Alfred will end up getting really interested in going into medicine so he'll wind up going to med school in Arizona. Arthur'll travel with him because by that point, he'll be graduated with his masters in journalism and free-lancing for an online magazine. They'll fight a lot that first year of med school and then decide to get married in Vegas (which will then become something of a joke when Gilbert calls them a few years later to tell them about Elizaveta). Alfred will do his residency in Washington and they'll almost call it quits that first year too, but they'll be too stubborn and love each other to give up.

They'll settle in Denver, which will be a surprise to both of them, but they'll love it (even if that first winter nearly kills them both). Alfred becomes a pediatrician and when he looks back on his life when he's old and retired, with Arthur still by his side, he'll smile because he'll remember everything he wanted to and nothing he didn't.

"You see us as you want to see us... In the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions."

Elizaveta didn't like Gilbert because he was the 'bad boy' or because she thought being with him would piss her parents off (though it would, and that's not a bad bonus). She liked him because he made her feel like she's worth something besides her looks and good social graces. She liked him because he didn't let her get away with anything, and Elizaveta could admit that she was the sort of person who took everything she could get. She liked him because when she'd told everyone her sob story about her and Roderich, he was the only one who hadn't given her pity. He'd very simply told her that she was worth ten of him and she shouldn't have even bothered being upset, because as far as he saw it Roderich was the one who missed out, not her. He told her the truth, and that was a commodity she didn't take for granted.

When Elizaveta had been little, she'd constantly been told how pretty she was or how adorable she was or how cute she would look in this dress. Now, every girl wanted to hear that she's pretty and she did too—but she found if that was all she heard, just that she was pretty, it became harder and harder to find worth in herself beyond what she looked like. She'd been a smart kid though and knew she was just as smart as she was pretty, but when she'd weighed the pros and cons of each, she'd determined that being pretty was more important than being smart, so she hid that piece of herself from everyone. It had worked out pretty well for most of her life. At least, until today it had worked.

She knew telling Kiku she didn't know if come Monday she'd wave hello back to him or insult him showed how ugly she really was sometimes. But she really didn't know what she'd do and she had a feeling she wouldn't know until they came across each other at school—that went for everyone. Maybe even Gilbert. And what did that say about her, that she was willing to ignore a guy she was genuinely coming to really like all in order to be popular and in control? She had a few choice words and she knew the others did too, even if they weren't saying anything.

"You're thinking too loud." She blinked and looked up at Gilbert. They had put the brakes on kissing a little bit ago and now she was resting against his chest, playing with his fingers while she'd been lost in thought and he had rambled about ideas for the senior prank that year. "Don't want to blow a fuse or anything."

She smacked his arm where it settled across her waist, but she smiled softly because there was real warmth and affection in his eyes—she could even see it behind the weird red of his contacts. "Don't be an ass."

"Well, pay attention and maybe I won't have to be."

She chuckled and settled back against him; when she looked at the others, at Kiku and Gilbert and Alfred and even Arthur, she could see the small ways in which they'd changed being stuck together during detention; she wasn't sure if she could look in the mirror and honestly say she saw a similar change in herself. But, she wanted there to be.

A Future of Elizaveta

When Monday comes, Elizaveta will avoid everyone because she still won't know what she'll do if she sees them. Even Gilbert. She'll feel awful about it, of course, and will get such little sleep that week that she'll develop little baggies under her eyes. But then, all it will take is one less than kind remark from her 'friend' and she'll make up her mind. She'll seek Kiku out and hug him when she finds him—she'll do the same for Alfred, not for Arthur because they still won't really care for each other, and will kiss the hell out of Gilbert. He will respond enthusiastically and he'll tell her it's about time she made up her damn mind. He won't ever help her with planning for prom, but he will get her a corsage and slow dance all she wants that night.

They'll end when they graduate and while Elizaveta will cry over this fact for a good few weeks, she finds college in California too thrilling to mourn forever. She'll thrive in college and finally figures out that a girl can be both pretty and smart and there's nothing wrong with it; she will date men who tell her this until it finally starts to stick and she believes it for herself.

She won't visit home too much, but her mother will visit her often enough while her parents finally go through with their divorce. The funny thing will be that they all become closer for it, maybe not her parents, but they'll heal their relationship with Elizaveta—when her father remarries, she'll go to the wedding and will honestly be happy for him and happy for her mom, who will be seeing a nice gentleman from her country club. She won't mind that she's there stag—none of the men she's dated are the right fit for her and she'll know it when she finds it.

When she graduates with a degree in English and a minor is fashion merchandising, she'll immediately move to New York because she wants be in fashion so bad she dreams about it. She'll slave away as an intern for a few years before she finally makes the jump to Photo Director for Vogue—and it'll be there, during one of her first, big shoots, that she'll hear it.

"Hiya, princess."

"But what we found out is that each one of us is a brain...and an athlete...and a basket case... ...and a criminal..."

When Germania came back in to release them from detention, the look on his face suggested that he expected to find the library destroyed or possibly permanently disfigured. Arthur couldn't help but grin and give him a salute out the door as they each filed out.

He wondered what Germania would feel about their essays. They had each left one on their respective desk, and they had left behind a small piece of themselves along with the essays; it was Arthur's idea, their way of identifying who wrote each essay without marking their names on the sheet. Alongside his were the rest of his cigarettes (he had been thinking about quitting anyway). Gilbert had left the rest of his Cap'n Crunch scattered all over the desk and Elizaveta had left a tube of lipstick with a heart drawn on the corner of her essay. Kiku had left behind a small calculator and Alfred had left a folded and colored paper football by his. He didn't know what Germania was looking to find from their essays, but they were happy with them and that was what really mattered.

Elizaveta's and Kiku's parents were already waiting for them outside—they gave a backwards glance and wave before piling into their respective cars. Gilbert pretended to chase after Elizaveta before he stopped alongside a truck that his brother was driving. Gilbert grinned maniacally at both of them before climbing into the truck-bed and pounding on the roof of the cab. Arthur imagined that Ludwig rolled his eyes at that, but he dutifully started going, shouting up in German at Gilbert as they drove off. Arthur glanced over and he saw the familiar minivan Alfred's mum drove; he could see her peering at the pair of them and he focused back in on Alfred.

"Your ride is here." Alfred glanced over and he waved at his mum.

"Yeah—you got a ride?" Alfred asked but he was already leading Arthur towards his mum's car, his hand warm around Arthur's wrist.

"I believe my brother is likely dead drunk at a bar at this hour on a Saturday." Arthur meant it be a joke, but Alfred frowned at the statement; Arthur immediately regretted saying anything and tried to pull his wrist away. "It's fine, Alfred. I can walk—I'm not that far. I walked this morning."

Alfred shook his head and gripped Arthur's wrist a little tighter until they reached the van. "Nope, don't think so. Mom! Can we give Artie a lift? You remember Artie right?"

Alfred's mum looked at him with only the minimum amount of wariness (Arthur took that as a win) before she smiled kindly at him and nodded. "Of course I remember him, Alfie, don't be silly. You two used to be attached at the hip when you were younger. It's nice to see you Arthur, though I suppose you being in detention with Al could use some improvement."

"Yes ma'am." Alfred gave him a look like he couldn't believe Arthur was actually using manners and he fought the urge to shove him because his mother was right there. Alfred chuckled and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek before sliding into the car. Arthur froze and stared, slightly horrified, at Alfred's mum, who had most certainly caught that kiss; Alfred tugged him down into the car and Arthur tried not to meet Mrs. Jones' eyes in the rearview mirror.

"I thought you were supposed to sit and write an essay in detention today." Alfred grinned sheepishly as he caught his mum's knowing and somewhat disapproving look. "I don't remember there being a provision that canoodling was allowed."

"Yeah, it's kind of a long story but pretty much the door to the library got stuck and we kind of had our own mini-therapy session instead—oh, and Arthur and I started dating. Yay us?" Arthur grabbed Alfred's hand from where it was doing hesitant fist pumps and pulled it down, shaking his head because that was not needed at the moment.

Mrs. Jones shot them both an unreadable look before she turned forward and started driving out of the parking lot. "Well, I guess you'll need to start telling that story, Alfred. And Arthur, I hope you like chicken casserole, because you're staying for dinner."

Alfred grinned at his mum and Arthur couldn't help but laugh a little as he started to do as his mom asked, his hand warm and tight around Arthur's the whole ride home.

A Future of Arthur

Arthur won't become the valedictorian because apparently, attendance plays a part in that determination and Arthur's record is spotty at best. He will, however, be the Salutatorian and he'll give an unconventional speech that will make the headmistress laugh and Germania glower at him. Alfred will be there to see him walk and so will his family—it's possible his brothers were there too, but he won't be looking for them so he doesn't know.

He will get out and into a good school, Georgetown, and he'll be an undecided major for most of his first two years. He and Alfred will have a huge row about midway through his freshman year, spend a semester apart, and then reunite at Alfred's graduation—after that, they'll never really break up again, though they will threaten to leave in some harrowing last-ditch attempts during their harder years.

Arthur will find a calling in working for Georgetown's student run paper—writing has always been something he was good at but he'll find a passion there that had been missing when he'd been younger and angrier at everything. And he'll be good at it, good enough that he gets a few short stories published in a literary magazine that will get him noticed by an up and coming publishing house later on down the road.

When he's thirty and he and Alfred are living in Denver, Arthur will begin seeing a therapist about what happened to his parents, his relationship with his brothers, and how he felt for most of his teenage years. Sometimes, Alfred will come to those sessions, but mostly, Arthur will battle his past alone and on the hard days, will curl up with Alfred in their bed and wish that his family hadn't been broken apart. Sometimes, on especially hard nights, Alfred will phone his mum and she'll chatter to Arthur until he's calm enough to fall asleep. Arthur will never stop being grateful that he has Alfred and he has Mary, John, and Matthew Jones in his life.

Mostly, Arthur's life will end up exactly the opposite of how he envisioned it being. And he'll be happier for it.

"Does that answer your question? Sincerely yours,"

Finis.

Guys, Thank you SO much for following, reviewing, and favoriting this brain child of mine! I truly appreciate it. As we are at the end of this story, I would love to hear what you thought about the story as a whole, so frop me a line or hit me up at my Tumblr, my handle is osco-blue-fairy .

Cheers until the nect time, lovelies!

Osco