Disclaimer - of course I don't own Hetalia. This is a fan-story and no profit will be made from it.

Benison

America really wasn't looking too good, England thought to himself. It was something of an understatement, everyone else at the meeting wore smart suits or was at least neat and tidy. Alfred had chosen to accessorise his rumpled, filthy fatigues with several days' worth of stubble and a wild look in his eye. The Vietnam war was evidently getting to him.

Arthur tapped his fountain pen idly on his jotter pad. America wasn't quite at thousand yard stare territory yet, but... his thought was interrupted by a commotion as Alfred upturned the table in one heave and lunged at France. Arthur darted forward, instinct rather than conscious thought galvanising him, and grabbed the back of America's uniform yanking him back before he got to Francis. The younger nation staggered backwards, off-balance thanks to the shift in centre of gravity and then struggled to throw Arthur off. Arthur desperately tightened his grip, holding him back, but knowing he couldn't keep it up for long.

'Get out of here you damn' fools!' Arthur shouted to the dumbstruck assembled nations. While everyone else beat a hasty retreat, spurred on by England's urgency France hesitated, their millennia of history halting his retreat. Sweat broke out across Arthur's brow, 'Just get away you prick! Now's not the time to come over helpful!' Arthur redoubled his grip on Alfred, calling on centuries of combat experience to stop the much physically stronger nation from breaking free and killing someone.

Eventually Alfred's wild thrashing slowed and then stopped. Alfred slumped forward, collapsing to his knees, Arthur going with him, practically resting on his shoulders and panting hard. Arthur wrapped his arms around America, this time in a tender embrace. 'It's alright lad. Hush there, attaboy.' England mumbled nonsense words on autopilot, soothing him with half-remembered tender entreatments.

Arthur smelled of tea and that soap he'd used for the whole time Al had known him. Al's chest ached heavily and he buried his face in Arthur's sweatervest, howling and weeping for all that was lost. The ex-empire just rocked him gently until he'd cried himself out. 'There there. Now let's get you tidied up and you're coming home with me. You need a good night's sleep, lad.'

He was bluffing madly as he took the lad's hand, looking up into the eyes of a little boy lost who just happened to be tall (and terrifyingly strong, with a hair-trigger temper). 'Come on dear, your room is all ready for you and I think a nap will do you the world of good.'

The cabbie who drove them home had The Who's 'The Kids Are Alright' blasting from his car radio as he drove them to England's townhouse and he carefully didn't comment on the pair holding hands after the shorter one had glared at him before he'd even opened his mouth to say summat. He was so rattled by the whole experience he forgot to even charge them for the journey.

Alfred's room had barely changed in the past two hundred and fifty years and Arthur shooed the lad into his room, plonking a set of pyjamas into his hands. 'Have a quick shower and get into your jim-jams, Alfred. I'll make us a light supper and then maybe a nice hot cocoa.'

Arthur hurried back downstairs, almost tripping on the stairs in his falling-apart tartan slippers (he'd asked Scotland for a new pair for Christmas, but wasn't holding his breath). Alfred looked awful, he might drive Arthur 'round the bend most of the time, but he'd still raised the lad, daft though he was. He put bread in the toaster and put the kettle on, rummaging in the cupboard for the herbal tisanes that Alfred drank when coffee wasn't an option.

When Arthur came back upstairs he sighed at the sight of Alfred sat slumped in the armchair by the window, still fully dressed. 'Oh dearie me, lad. Let's get you into your jim jams. Come on poppet.' He pretty much dressed America, keeping a weather eye on the younger country's blank expression as he buttoned America's pyjama shirt. Alfred flinched a little under Arthur's pat on the shoulder, and accepted Arthur pulling him to his feet. He was guided along by a smaller, rough-calloused hand that drew him gently down the stairs.

Tea and toast with jam on was hardly fancy cooking, but it wasn't MREs either. Arthur switched the radio on and bubblegum pop music flooded the warm kitchen. It was cheesy, but the kitchen was so far from the blood soaked, booby-trapped sweaty-hot jungle that it didn't matter. Al sat down at the kitchen table and ate as Arthur poured himself a mug of tea from a teapot that was covered in a crazy-coloured woolly teacosy. It was nice and Al felt himself relaxing, drinking in the cosy moment.

Afterwards he obediently followed Arthur upstairs and curled up under faded covers, not believing for a moment that he'd sleep, but humouring England's cajoling. 'I don't actually need tucking in, Iggy.'

'Humour an old fool, America.' Arthur gently pushed him back into soft pillows and pulled the covers right up under Al's chin. Al blinked at the kiss that landed on his forehead and looked at Arthur in bemusement, but Arthur simply walked out of the bedroom and switched off the light as he pulled the door to.

America blinked awake feeling confused, but also warm and comfortable. He reached out to pick up his glasses and slid them onto his nose to reveal his childhood bedroom at England's house. Why was he here? He got up anyway and saw a set of clean clothes on the chair by his bed. There was a note on top of the pile. "Your uniform's in the wash, but these should fit."

Oh yeah, he'd wigged out at the world meeting and Iggy had hauled him off France before things had gone from super-embarrassing to creepily-Russia-ish levels of bad. Al guessed that was a good thing. He pulled on the jeans and t-shirt and padded downstairs on bare feet. He opened the kitchen door and promptly broke down coughing at the choking pall of cigarette smoke that hung in the air.

Arthur looked up distractedly at the sudden noise, a lit cigarette dangling from his split lower lip as his head turned. The ashtray before him on the kitchen table was overflowing and the other nation seemed surprised by that.

Thick smoke hung in the air as Al and his squad slogged through the humid jungle floor. In the distance helicopter engines throbbed and mud squelched underfoot. The napalming should be making Charlie desperate and Al and the guys were there to cut off Charlie's retreat. There was movement ahead and America knew it was an ambush, realised a moment too late to save his men's lives as gunfire roared and 'Hello America, are you back with me?'

'Iggy?' His old mentor was leaning over him, crouching beside him with a pinched, worried expression on his face. The dogend of his cigarette still hung from his lip and as Al wondered how England managed to keep it there without worrying about setting himself on fire he realised he was lying flat out on the dusty kitchen floor. 'Why am I on the floor?'

'I think you got caught up in rather an unpleasant memory for a moment there lad. Now alley-oop and sit yourself down at the table, dear.' Alfred's legs didn't feel like they'd hold out for long enough to get there, but he scrambled up onto his wobbly legs and practically collapsed into the indicated chair.

Arthur nodded his approval, then harrumphed and applied himself to the task of cooking breakfast. He hummed as he chopped, stirred and fried. Occasionally snippets were intelligible, as England flipped the fried eggs he cheerfully crooned the line 'with his nancy on his knee~' completely void of any real context. While not untuneful Arthur's habit of singing and humming snatches of half-remembered tunes had always been real annoying, even more so when it was Gilbert and Sullivan. Oddly enough he never seemed to have a problem remembering the lyrics of "The Ballad of Eskimo Nell", or indeed pretty much anything he started belting out after six pints in the brief interval before the weeping and wailing began.

Arthur plonked a big plate of simultaneously charred, raw and in one case still on fire cooked breakfast that had been arranged into a smiley face in front of Al. Al carefully blew out the flaming mushroom and wanly smiled back at the unappetising platter that England had toiled so hard to produce - he'd even attempted to fry tomatoes for Al, in spite of the fact he was incapable of the feat. America grabbed his knife and fork and began eating rapidly, using the theory that if he ate quickly his tongue might not register just how lousy the food was. Urgh, it wasn't working. Did England not have any working taste buds? The other nation was eating his own more modest portion without turning a hair at how god-awful it tasted.

'Gosh, you were hungry. Do you want some more?' Al shook his head as he tried to drown the nasty flavour in the big mug of coffee Artie had poured him. 'Well do you want some toast then?'

How badly could England mess up toastmaking? Al decided to risk it. 'Sure.' As the coffee worked through his system he became more alert. 'How am I gonna get back to 'Nam? My flight was last night and I dunno when the next flight is out of London.'

'You'll have to talk to your boss about that. I called him yesterday evening just to let him know you were staying at my house for a few nights to rest since you looked so very tired at our last meeting.' Arthur poured boiling water from the whistling kettle into his boring brown teapot and then turned at the sound of the toaster popping up. Smoke drifted up from the blackened toast and Arthur smeared both slices with butter and jam while they were still hot.

'That wasn't your call to make, England!' Pride cut at Alfred's temper, ego flaring.

'No, it wasn't, but if you'd made the call your president would have been even more worried than he already was. You were in no fit state to speak with him reasonably last night and if we'd waited until this morning we'd've had a dawn raid by your Navy SEALs or something, wouldn't we?' Iggy sniffed in disgust at that. 'I've only just managed to train those rambling roses around the sitting-room windows. I didn't want dirty great soldiers traipsing their size twelve boots through my herbaceous borders either!'

There were times that Al found listening to Iggy made him feel like he was disappearing down the rabbit hole in that boring English book Iggy made him read once. His brow crinkled. 'What?'

'Exactly. Size twelve boots all over my herbaceous borders - remember the last time they turned up? My foxgloves were nearly pulverised!'

'That was during the Second World War.' Al looked at the older nation as if he were crazy.

'No excuse for pulverising a man's foxgloves!' Arthur let his voice get higher-pitched in ridiculous offence, distracting Al from the building self-righteous upset he'd been about to work himself up to. He couldn't help the boy much, grown sons and daughters never needed the help of an old fogey like him, but he could try and lure him into getting at least a few days' rest. It'd be nice not to have to save the frog again next meeting.

Faced with an argument like that Al felt his energy drain away again. He reached for the mug of coffee and propped his head up in his hand. 'What?'

'Exactly.' Arthur nodded definitively as if Al had responded in the calm affirmative. He stood and twiddled the knobs of the radio set in the kitchen, flooding the little room with quiet, calm violin music. 'Now I've got work to do, do you want something to read while I work?' It evidently wasn't a real question and Al accepted the book of Arthurian legend Arthur nudged his hand with.

He'd always loved stories of heroes as a kid, it had made him the nation he was and defined so much of his nature. After the past weeks, months of Hell it felt like a taunt, but the look England gave him told him not to whine at the choice of book.

'It's got pictures in it, your favourite edition.' Iggy informed him gravely as he spread out half an acre of paperwork across his side of the table and bent over it, losing himself in something probably boring. The music wasn't Al's kinda thing either, so that left the book. Al flipped through to the stories of Gawain, his favourite knight and lost himself in the drama of Gawain and the Green Knight.

Oh poor Gawain, torn between the demands of a beautiful woman and duty to her husband, chivalry, knightly regard for hospitality and fear of mortality. Tears pricked at his eyes as the Green Knight revealed his true identity and bade the knight return to Camelot unharmed, but shamed. America swallowed a lump in his throat, forcing bile back. Damn' that hit close to home! He kept his head bowed over the illustration of the knight hoping England was too busy working to notice him crying like a little kid.

Arthur didn't raise his head at the sound of the first sob, but he subtly glanced over, recognising the illustration on the page Al had opened the book to. No one enjoyed getting their boils lanced, but it was the only way one could heal. He stifled a yawn, he was too old for staying awake all night keeping Alfred's nightmares away and Alfred was far too old and independent to want it from him. They were trampling over lots of old scars to try and ease today's wounds, weren't they? Arthur smiled wryly at that thought, he had to keep his chin up and be cheerful for Alfred, Al needed silly, blustery, mothering old England, not the clapped out old empire with more scars than unmarred flesh.

'I'm sorry I punched France.'

'Hmm. Not that he doesn't deserve a damn' good thrashing from time to time, but this time he didn't really deserve it - he was only trying to get the export duty levels set. Even I didn't want to punch him for that. Still, no harm done, eh?'

'I guess not.'

'He'll be insufferable next time we meet him.' England tilted his head in exaggerated thoughtfulness. 'Then again he's always unbearable, so we probably won't even notice the difference.'

America chuckled and closed his eyes, basking in the warm sunlight. Now was a good time and place to be, and he pushed everything aside just to lie on England's threadbare Persian rug, laughing at his old mentor's weak joke. It was enough.

Fin.