Ex's to Lovers

Chapter 47

In Which Alfred Is Kidnapped- But He Doesn't Know That

After Michelle left, Alfred and Gibert returned to gaming and movie watching, and stayed in the basement all night, until Gilbert left for school the next day, barely awake and ever more barely on time. Gilbert had forgotten to charge his phone.  Alfred just hadn't bothered to check his. This made them both peacefully oblivious to a series of small, random events which built up to one, very large event.

The first small event was Mathew failing to deny he'd checked with Gilbert, because he hadn't been there When Michelle told Arthur that, and Arthur hadn't bothered to check with him.

No, rather, the first event was the reason why Mathew hadn't been there to deny it. Mathew, knowing full well his brother's habits, had taken to the woods to check Gilbert's tree fort -which Alfred had forgotten Mathew had also helped to build- to see whether his brother was there.

The next small event was Mathew slipping in the mud, falling and discovering a piece of a shirt he recognized well- after all, it had been his before Alfred took it and ruined it- and finding it covered in blood.

The next small event was when Arthur called their cousin Kyle to see if Alfred was there, and Kyle, ever the talkative one, had both denied Alfred's présence and helpfully wanted of a strong of kidnapping and assaults happening nearby. Naturally, Kyle didn't live anywhere near Alfred's small town, but that had never stopped Arthur's overactive imagination before.

And the final, small unrelated event, was Alfred suddenly finding he had a fever (from gaming non-stop for over 24 hours) and passing out into a semi-conscious state on Gilbert's couch.

So it was that Alfred didn't see Gilbert's texts or answer his calls when Gilbert was suddenly clued into the situation by Francis, who always had all the gossip, and never was wrong, unlike Félix, who's gossip was of questionable sources.

"Mon Ami," Francis pressed worriedly, "Did you know that Alfred has been kidnapped?"

Gilbert, who knew for a fact that wasn't true, choked on his juice box.

"What?"

He looked at Francis to see what nonsense his friend was spouting this time. Sadly, Francis looked deadly serious. 

"They found some of his bloodied clothes in the mountains, and theirs a kidnapper going around!" Francis explained. "The cops are looking desperately! I hope they find him!"

Gilbert, who knew very well where Alfred was, and that it was his own home, suddenly turned paler than normal and started sweating, hoping very much that the cops didn't find Alfred.

"Excuse me," Gilbert squeaked, "I need to make a call."

Francis looked sympathetically after his friend. Poor Gilbert hadn't taken Alfred's running away too seriously until this point, and though Francis was glad that Gilbert realized how severe it was, he was worried for his friend. After all, Gilbert had looked so shaken and pale, it was obvious he was terrified for Alfred.

Gilbert dialled his phone for the second time, cursing as it went to voicemail again.

"Dammit, Alfred! Pick up!"

Gilbert wanted to tell Alfred to go home right away, before something got even worse. Unfortunately, the lurking figure in the shadows took Gilbert's desperation to mena something else.

"So even Gilbert does not know where Alfred is?" 

A frown etched itself into Ivan's usually smiling face, and his eyes showed a different type of coldness than before.