USUKSummerCampDay14

Written for USUK Summer Camp 2012

August 4: Collision of Worlds

//Summary//
Arthur finds back the photo album holding memories of the road trip through the United Kingdom and USA Alfred and he made in which they'd slowly started falling for each other…

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"Alfred," Arthur said from the living room, "Come look at this," and he grabbed one of the well-organised photo albums form the bookshelf.

The American blond stuffed the last part of his cookie in his mouth before he walked back from the kitchen into the living room. Alfred wondered what Arthur would want to show him, but he soon found out as he saw the Briton sit back on the loveseat, familiar black photo album in hand.

"Look what I found back!" Arthur said and he sounded happy, finding these wonderful memories back, "The photo album of our road trips. Care to take a look?"

"Awesome," Alfred responded, "Just a minute," He walked to the corner of the room to turn on the lamp standing there. It was starting to grow dark and it'd be a bother to turn it on when they were half way remembering good memories. He found it quite a brilliant idea of himself.

With an easy movement he dropped down next to Arthur on the loveseat, scooting a little closer to be able to touch shoulders with the smaller blond. He knew the other wouldn't mind.

The photo album Arthur held in his hands at the moment, was obviously the one about their road trips. They'd been friends all life and at some point in their late teens, early twenties, they decided to make a proper road trip through the UK and the USA. Before the trip they'd been still just friends, but as the road trip continued they found it harder and harder to deny their feelings for the other and at a drunken evening they ended up not caring about the doubts of love any more.

Lucky for them it had resulted into a wonderful relationship. Even now, many years later, they were still happy together as both friends and lovers. Arthur caressed the book, giving it a small stroke with his right hand as it was balanced on his left. Right after he opened it, revealing the first page.

'Road Trip' it said, simple and direct. The handwriting was obviously Arthur's as it was neat and fancy. The smaller blond had insisted on being the one writing it, as he didn't trust the American's handwriting with something this important.

The trip had lasted about one and a half year, which was stated in the dates scribbled down at the bottom of the front page. The exact date of the taken photos would be put next to the photos itself, as they'd build up this book while travelling.

It'd all started off with a road trip through the United Kingdom. Arthur had wanted to show Alfred a lot of his home country first, before setting off to other countries. It'd been a wonderful experience.

On the first picture they saw both of them standing in front of the car they drove around in, fully packed with their bags and ready to leave. This photo had been taken by Arthur's mother as she had waved them off. Back then they had still kept some distance between each other as they posed together. They both looked happy and excited for what adventure awaited them.

The following pictures contained pictures taken around different areas. Either from the car or at a nice spot to stop driving. Sometimes they'd camp outside, sometimes they would sleep at a hotel, it depended on what they felt like and what the weather would do.

They had nice walks at the beach around autumn, when they started their journey, and had visited quite some castles. Arthur seemed to enjoy telling about his home country a lot and Alfred just loved seeing the other's expression. It'd taken a bit of time, but after a few tries he had finally been able to catch it on camera; the warm, soft smile caressing the Briton's face as a slight blush of happiness was visible on his cheeks. His hair shone almost orange in the sunset as the sea wind made it even messier than usual.

Alfred smiled as he saw the picture appear in the album around the same time he thought about the memory. He could feel the urge to kiss Arthur well up inside his stomach, and with a quick movement he placed a small peck on the Briton's hair.

In return, Arthur just hugged closer to Alfred, now leaning more on his chest as both leaned back down in the sofa a bit more. The page was turned and the photo disappeared behind the next page.

This page was covered with pictures of the southern highlands. It had been a great difference compared to their surroundings at the start of their trip and both had found it fascinating to see the change.

A few other pictures showing the both of them were put around the following pages, pictured they'd asked strangest to make and pictures they took of themselves. At one of the pictures of Alfred, the man looked soaked wet with rain and mud, but his brilliantly white teeth still shone brightly as he smiled happily.

The same smile was still often visible on the American's face. It was part of him and nothing would ever change that; Arthur wouldn't complain though, as it was one of the main reasons for falling in love with the other. The brilliant smile.

Another page was flipper and Alfred remembered on of the places as the first place where he'd learnt how to use the British pounds, though it'd taken some time. It was weird that the thick, small coin –one pound apparently- was worth more than the bigger, flatter ones. He'd rather use his credit card instead.

Not only had the money been weird, but the miles and what not was really difficult to understand at first. It would result in Alfred having to calculate while also focussing on driving at the left side of the road and it'd almost caused an accident. That's when Arthur decided to write down a few basic converted speeds. He didn't even bother about learning the measurements like feet anymore, it was supposed to be a trip, not school.

Pages kept being turned showing all kinds of famous tourist spots accompanied by quiet and calm places of which very few knew. It'd been a wonderful adventure and by the time they came back in London to spend their last days before flying off to the USA, they had already felt more attracted to each other.

Arthur had gone totally mad, in Alfred's opinion, about the Sherlock Holmes museum. The guy was much to fond of pointing out all types of details and at one point he even started to try deducting stuff himself. That was when Alfred found it more than enough and dragged the other away from it all, deciding they should see more of the city itself.

Alfred had liked London a lot. It was far different from the American cities he was used to, but it had a special, charming feel about it. he found himself often thinking just how well Arthur fitted in with this city, then after all, the guy had lived there most of his life.

The bobbies had looked funny, in his opinion, with the very recognisable helmet. He hadn't been able to stop himself from trying to make one of the Royal Guards laugh, which resulted in Arthur and him running away in the end as he almost got them arrested. Arthur had not been amused at first, but he couldn't help laugh about it in the end.

Their time in London had ended far too soon as they soon found themselves waiting in the terminal of Heathrow Airport. They would fly to New York City to stay there for a few days, which ended up in about two weeks, and form there on travel on.

After a terribly long flight with Arthur complaining about the length of the trip and the little space for his legs, they landed nearby New York, where they'd stay at a hotel. It'd been a nice hotel, run by two Italians and their grandfather who were some of the happiest people they'd ever seen. Well, except for one of the brothers who seemed to grumble and scowl a lot, but Alfred figured he was just shy. Arthur would sometimes act the same, after all.

Their stay in NY had been great and Alfred had loved finally being able to talk about the Big Apple, one of the biggest cities of his country. The last day of their stay in the city had started by both experiencing the orange-pink rays of the morning light shining through the clouds as they had fallen asleep on the balcony of their hotel room.

They set off to Florida next, sad they couldn't use the famous Route 66, but they wanted to visit DisneyWorld, which they did. Alfred had been way too happy about it all and acted even more like a child than usual, but Arthur didn't mind. He also felt himself become a bit more like a child as he was there and he couldn't help but secretly wish they could be there together, forever.

This was probably the part where they'd slowly started to admit to their feelings, standing together a bit more in each photo and sharing every moment of their day together. As they continued on there had been a few arguments and at some point they'd even ended up thinking about quitting the road trip and turning back, but nothing could beat them once they reached the famous Miami Beach.

The houses looked downright wonderful and Alfred just wanted to live there, but knew neither of them would ever have enough money for that, so instead they travelled on with Arthur being sunburnt and Alfred having a nice tan. The spring had changed into summer quickly and the temperatures were rising.

They'd visited Dallas, Texas, enjoying the sight of a tower that lightened up at night. Alfred couldn't remember the name of it well, but it didn't matter. It was a pretty sight and he'd enjoyed the evening with Arthur, staring at it in a peaceful silence.

They'd travelled onwards to Las Vegas, though half way Arizona they'd ran out of gas. Arthur, in frustration of not being able to ride on, had insisted it was 'petrol' instead. At that moment Alfred had been a bit frustrated as well, which resulted in yet another fine argument, but everything was well once they arrived on their destination with a bit of help from a friendly driver who found them as they were stranded.

Now there is one thing certain about Las Vegas; people getting drunk and wasting a lot of money. The latter had been relatively little, compared to what others spent there, but the alcohol was not held back. It was their first evening there that they'd ended up  kissing roughly on top of the bar, other people around them whistling as no one seemed to mind about them being two guys.

The next morning had been a bit awkward as neither of them knew if it was what really happened and the hangover was too fresh to think it through properly, but eventually they figured out they had indeed kissed. The next night though, they couldn't help but kissing again, yet this time they were relatively sober. They would leave the next say and neither looked forward on driving with a hangover like the first, so they'd held back.

As they continued their drive they had been a bit silent about the events in Las Vegas, trying to avoid the subject as neither really knew how to start talking about it, but even though words were not spoken, affectionate hands and lips said enough.

Deciding on visiting more of the West Coast, they'd seen Los Angeles, California –including Hollywood- and San Francisco, where they'd had a great time.

Their trip had continued onwards to the top of the US, visiting the Grand Canyon and watching the White House as close as can be and they even travelled onwards to visit Vancouver, Canada.

The beach near Chicago had been wonderful  and by now Arthur was long used to riding on the right side of the road. Snow had slowly started to fall, so they decided to spend their days there as they awaited better weather for driving. Once it had cleared up, they continued on.

As they continued they visited a few more cities at the to of the USA and Toronto, as they started to get closer and closer to NYC again. Their trip had almost come to and end and both decided to spend it as good as possible. Long nights and late mornings, warm sun on their skin even though the leaves were colouring and the wind got colder.

Far too soon their trip had ended, the photo album had been filled and their money had been spent, but there were no regrets. Two hearts were bound together on this trip and that was worth more than anything.

By now Arthur had reached the few last pages of the album, feeling how a content smile formed on his lips. It'd been one of the best experiences of his life and he'd never want to trade it for anything else.

"That was nice," Alfred said when the album was closed again, "That was wonderful."

"Yes it was," Arthur replies, he didn't want to put the book away just yet, he didn't want to leave the sofa and the comfortable warmth of Alfred's body. So instead he put the album on the ground next to them, after which he turned over to kiss the American on his chin.

After a long day, Alfred had gotten a bit of a stubble which was actually rather handsome on him, though Arthur still preferred the clean-shaved male's face. He didn't want the other to look like the Frog too much.

The other kissed back tenderly as he moved one arm to hug the smaller blond closer to him. This was wonderful, just brilliant.

"Well, you're a good ole' boy." Alfred said teasingly as Arthur kissed him back a bit rougher.

"Yeah, you're a decent bloke." The Briton mumbled, not wanting to stop kissing. It was too late, he couldn't stop now. It was funny how the world was so small, how they had met and how they had been able to find their perfect match, yet so big that they'd spent one and a half year travelling just the USA and United Kingdom.

As Arthur places another kiss on Alfred's lips he couldn't help but wondering if this collision or worlds was and accident or destiny, yet it didn't matter because Alfred and he were together now, and that was perfect. The collision of their worlds was perfect and nothing would ever change that. 'Till the end of time.