Chapter Text
Arthur has always loved Francis. Whether he wanted to accept that or not. The boy was damn head over heels. He always made it seem that he hated Francis, when it was quite the opposite. He didn’t know why he acted like this. He didn’t know how to act around him. So you could imagine his shock when Francis suddenly showed up at his doorway, shaking and crying.
5 Months Ago…
Arthur is at work. The blond man works at a quite popular restaurant. It’s not like he wants to work there. He works full time to pay for his little brother's college and to have enough money to pay the rent on time. It had been that way ever since he dropped out of his own college. (Which he’s still paying off student loans from way back then.) He also has a second, part-time job where he works at a small coffee shop in the mornings. He works at the coffee shop seven days a week and the restaurant six days a week.
Today is Tuesday, eight PM. He works until eleven PM. Arthur’s at the front of the restaurant. He greets three people and leads them to a suitable table.
“Hello, my name is Arthur, and I’ll be your server for tonight,” He hands the two adults two clean menus and a paper kids menu with a set of crayons for the couples child.
“I’ll give you guys some time to decide on your drinks.” And with that he goes straight back to the front to wait for more people to arrive. A few minutes pass, and four people walk into the building.
“Table for four?” He asks them. A girl with long brown hair nods. Arthur grabs four regular menus and leads the group to a table with two booths. As pairs of two seat themselves, Arthur sets the menus down accordingly and starts speaking.
“Hello, my name is Arthur, and I’ll be your server for tonight,” he tries to keep his tone a calm and professional one, “I will give you four some time to get your drink orders in place before I come back.” He then turns around and walks over to the family of three that he sat down earlier.
“Have we decided on any drinks?” He grabs his notepad and a pen to take their order.
“I’ll have water,” the man orders.
“We’ll all have water,” the woman clarifies. Arthur smiles and puts his notebook and pen away. The order is simple enough; three cups of water.
“Okay, I’ll go bring those out,” He turns around and walks over to the back of the restaurant where a cart of glass cups and smaller, plastic cups are arranged next to a large jug of iced water. He grabs two glass cups and fills them, then the smaller plastic one and fills it. The cups of water are then brought to the family. He sets them down onto the table and pulls out his small notepad and pen.
“Do we have any appetizers ready?”
“Oh, not yet. We need some time," the woman states. Arthur nods and walks over to the table of four, his notepad and pen still in hand.
“Have we decided on drinks?” He asks the group. They all turn to look at him.
“Yes we have,” says the girl with long brown hair, “I’ll have a Guinness,” She makes a pointed look to a man with silver hair sitting across from her.
“I’ll also have a Guinness.” He has a German accent, hm. Arthur thought when he heard the silver haired man's voice. He writes down Guinness x2 when a man with a Spanish accent voices his order. A Strongbow cider. The girl with brown hair looks over at the guy with a Spanish accent.
“Wow, Antonio! Trying something new, are we?” She wears a face of astonishment. “Antonio” smiles languidly.
“Well, you guys have been bothering me all about that stupid drink, so why not try it out now?” The group laughs. Arthur looks over at the last guy. A man with blond, shoulder length, wavy hair styled nicely. He wears a white dress shirt that has two buttons undone. The man looks over at Arthur.
“I’ll have a Pinot Noir, thank you,” He says, a French accent rolling off the tongue. Arthur nods and writes down his order. He looks back up at the group.
“Any appetizers?” He asks.
“Oui, I’ll have calamari with a side of aioli sauce,” says the Frenchman. Arthur nods and writes that down.
“Anything else?” The group shakes their heads.
“Okay, I’ll be out with your drinks in a minute, and the appetizer will come a little later,” The group says an assortment of “thank yous” in different languages as Arthur walks over to the bar. All he could think of is the guy with long blond hair. He feels like he’s seen him before… maybe a couple years ago? He sighs in a pouty way, annoyed that he can’t finger out where he’s seen the Frenchman from.
He enters the bar area and begins to fill up three beer glasses, and one wine glass. He scribbled off the drink orders before ripping off the note paper and clipping it to the order rail in the kitchen. He comes back with a server plate and places all of the drinks onto it, before carrying it all back to the group of four. Arthur names the drink before placing it in front of each customer. He saves the Pinot Noir for last so that he can get a good look at the Frenchman and possibly rack his brain for wherever he might’ve seen him before. He ends up without an answer and places the Pinot Noir in front of the Frenchman.
“Merci,” He thanks Arthur politely and takes a sip of the red wine. Arthur sighs quietly and pulls out his notepad and pen.
“Are we ready to order any mains?” He asks the group. The man with the Spanish accent tells Arthur that they aren’t ready for any drinks just yet. Arthur nods and walks over to the group of three.
“Hello, are we ready to order any appetizers?” He asks the family.
The man shakes his head. “We’ll skip appetizers for today and go straight for mains,”
“Okay, and what would you guys like to eat?”
Arthur had written down the family of three’s order and delivered it to the cooks. He was waiting for a bit in the front– seemingly waiting for people to arrive, but who in their right mind would go to a restaurant at bloody nine PM?
Arthur sighs again and begins to rack his brain for where he could’ve seen the Frenchman before. Maybe I could’ve seen him from when I was in college three years ago? I’m not sure… a lot of people change after college… He decides to let it go before he gives himself a brain aneurysm.
Walking over to the bar area to check on if the family’s food is ready, he passes by the group of four and notices the Frenchman staring at him.
The fuck? Why is he looking at me like that?? Arthur furrows his brows after he’s out of sight. The family’s order isn’t done yet, so he walks back over to the group of four, still wondering why the Frenchman was staring at him so intently.
“Are we ready for mains?” He asks the group.
“We’re going to share marmite roast potatoes,” The girl with long brown hair pointed at the guy with silver hair and a German accent and he nodded. Arthur wrote the order down and turned to the guy with a Spanish accent and the Frenchman. The Frenchman ordered for himself and his friend.
“We are going to share the chicken tikka masala,” He states politely. His friend nods and Arthur writes that down.
“Thats all?”
“Yes.”
“Yup.”
“Oui.”
Arthur walks over to the metal rail and clips the note onto it before walking over to the food pickup area to pick up the family of three’s food. He puts the dishes down onto the server plate and walks over to the family of three. Passing the group of four in the meantime and doesn’t seem to see the Frenchman’s eyes on his back.
Francis watches his group's assigned waiter pass his table with a prying look.
“Francis?” Elizabeta calls his name.
“What is it, Eliza?” He asks her.
“Why do you keep staring at our waiter every time he passes us? Do you need to ask him something?” Francis shakes his head no.
“He just looks familiar to me. Like I’ve seen him before…–”
“Maybe he was one of your exes?” Antonio suggests. Francis gives him an annoyed look.
“You guys think I sleep with everyone in this goddamn country, don’t you? I’m not a slut,” Francis joked. He didn’t consider himself a “slut” but many other people did. The blond man was notorious with his friends for having many one-night-stands or short situationships with both men and women. There were a few times where he had stumbled upon his ex working as their waiter before, but Francis knows that their waiter now wasn’t one of his exes or past one-night-stands. He feels like he knew this waiter on a friend level somehow… or had met him a few years ago during college or something of the sort. Francis takes a sip of his Pinot Noir and pushes the tangly mess of loose ends that could have led to their waiter to the back of his mind. He wants to spend the night with his friends.
“So Gilbert, how’s your little brother?” Francis asks the silver hair’d man sitting next to him. Gilbert takes a large gulp out of his beer before turning toward Francis.
“Same old, same old.. Now that July is ending, the boot camp he runs is starting to wrap up also. It’s too bad he had to miss out on all of the crazy summer nights spending time out in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of snotty nosed little boys, I guess I’m just better than him,” Gilbert laughs.
“So… how are you and Romano? You guys are living together right?” Antonio asks, hinting something Gilbert didn’t catch on.
“Me and Romano? We’re living together, yes. In my awesome house. It’s annoying how he’s always cleaning every little bit of mess in my house. Like, it’s my house, chill out for a bit,” Gilbert drinks a bit of his Guinness before continuing, “and he insists on making dinner that has tomatoes in it. Like, huh?? Tomatoes aren’t even that awesome or good– and apparently they’re a fruit!! This whole time, I’ve been thinking that they are vegetables, but the one time he sends me off to the grocery store to buy fruit specifically, there's tomatoes on the list. And you know what I say? I say, ‘why are there tomatoes, I thought we were getting fruit?’ and he’s like, ‘Tomatoes are fruit you dumbass, just go buy them’ Like what? Tomatoes aren’t fruit, he’s just pulling that out of his ass to make me go buy extra.”
The group laughs.
“Of course he would do that! I’m not very surprised that tomatoes are still his favorite food, he really liked them when he was younger,” Antonio says while wiping a tear from his eye.
Someone walks up to their table. It was their waiter.
The group stops laughing gradually as the waiter sets their food down on the table. Francis and Antonio get their food set down in front of them after Gilbert and Elizabeta. Francis was watching their waiter the whole time.
“Okay. Flag me down if you guys need anything after this, I hope you enjoy the food.” The waiter concludes and leaves. Francis’ eyes are still on him.
“Where have I seen him before?” Francis wondered aloud. Antonio, who had taken a bite of the food he’s sharing, looked up.
“Mayhb, he whus a frehnd uf yorz in cohllegde?”
“Talk after you finish chewing, that’s fucking disgusting,” Elizabeta scolds Antonio and Gilbert laughs so hard he starts crying. Which sets off a chain reaction and all of the college mates are laughing at the end of it. All thoughts about the waiter have left Francis’ mind.
It’s ten-thirty and closing time. The group of four have paid their check and are now drunkenly walking out of the restaurant. Arthur watches them as he cleans up their table. The one most sober being the girl with long brown hair as she helped support the silver hair’d man. He piled all of the glasses and plates onto the black server plate and carried them to the kitchen where he washed all of them and put them away accordingly.
It’s eleven-forty-two and way past closing time. Arthur walks over to his car in the empty lot and opens the door to get into it. He starts the car, which turns on the radio and it’s playing whatever is trending at the moment. He drives ten minutes to the house that he rents and lives in with his four years younger brother. He unlocks the house and walks in sluggishly. The keys are thrown into the keyplate on the entryway table and his shoes are placed under it. Arthur walks over to the bathroom to take a lukewarm shower and brush his teeth. He’s too tired to eat dinner, so he doesn’t eat.
After the shower, he walks into his bedroom and puts on one of his three pairs of sleepwear before plopping onto his bed and falling asleep instantly.
Not even bothering to check whether his little brother was home.