Disclaimer: Much to my eternal disappointment, I am nowhere near talented enough to be the owner of Hetalia - Axis Powers. That right belongs to the wonderful Hidekaz Himaruya.
Married life came with an introduction to every tedious activity your partner liked to participate in, every odd trait and peculiarity that they partook in and every idiosyncrasy that they had. Arthur, who was perhaps as straight-laced as a man who embroidered and talked to 'fairies' could get, had always known that Alfred F. Jones was as perfect and imperfect as one could be at the same time. For all that he was beautiful and funny and sweet and sexy, he was also inconsiderate, sloppy and had a habit of avoiding early mornings. Arthur had always been aware of these things, however, it seemed that being his husband had now allowed him a more intimate knowledge with all that made Alfred F. Jones such a unique individual.
Arthur thought perhaps a book should be made for newlyweds, so that their adjustment into learning about their partners was far less of a rickety-ride then Arthur's was turning out to be. It wasn't anything so drastic as to make Arthur fall out of love with Alfred, however, Arthur had wondered at times if Alfred might cause him a heart-attack sometime in the near-future.
Alfred and Arthur had lived together for about a year before they'd gotten married, and had been together, as a couple, for three years prior to that. As that was the case, Arthur was very much aware of Alfred's sleeping habits and how he cocooned himself into bed at night, stealing all the blankets away from Arthur during winter. Arthur knew that Alfred tended to sleep on top of him during summer, as if to protect him from all the bad things in the world; he knew (and secretly worshipped the fact) that Alfred stripped down to his underwear almost immediately after arriving home, knew that he sung in the shower and pretended he could manipulate water causing the bathroom to practically become a swamp, he knew and loved the fact that Alfred would remember something from years ago and randomly burst into laughter - he knew, and loved it all. But that didn't stop him from finding some of Alfred's more peculiar habits annoying.
Such as loudly singing the Star Spangled Banner (loudly!) every morning before he went to work, celebrating strange holidays (such as Cinco de Mayo, a really quite unnecessary holiday in Arthur's opinion), insisting that Americans needed to eat American food and American food only (including food made by Americans but not necessarily American food) else they would die (which, at first, Arthur thought was a ploy to stop him from cooking, but then, Alfred loved him, so it couldn't be so), and eating ice-cream in winter, despite the fact that he was shivering under a pile of thick blankets while the heater ran at 30 degrees celsius.
Yes, it was a fact of life that Arthur's new husband was really quite strange, but, as Marilyn Monroe once said, "Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius and it's better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring." And in all honest, it was only one thing about Alfred that Arthur found truly intolerable, and that was Alfred's addiction to making immature, distressing and absolutely heart-attack inducing prank calls.
Arthur had left the house that morning as Alfred started the second verse of the American national anthem (he knew all the verses - who knew all the verses these days, honestly?) It was seven-thirty, an hour before school started, but Arthur always got to school early so he could grade papers in the peaceful morning quiet. Alfred wasn't due to work until 8:30AM that morning, the lucky bastard, but he had opted to get up and make Arthur breakfast. He had the day shift for the next few weeks, a blessing really, considering their recent marriage. It meant they would be able to spend the evenings together.
Other than an uncanny number of absentees in his homeroom that morning, the day seemed to be fairly ordinary - no assignments to get in, no upcoming tests, no social drama. Nothing. It was a nice change to the hectic weeks following their honeymoon where they'd both had to catch up with work.
Of course, in Arthur's life, ordinary never cared to stick around for too long.
His phone buzzed on his desk beside him, and Arthur glanced at it, feeling a smile grace his features as the caller ID popped up on the screen: the Emergency Room, Alfred's workplace.
Alfred liked to call him towards the middle of each day to ask how Arthur was going, how his students were behaving, to tell him about his own day and the patients that had filtered in and out of the ER that day, and Arthur loved him all the more for it. It was nice to just hear Alfred's voice during the day, when they were apart. It lessened the longing and gave him a sense of satisfaction.
"Hello?" he asked with a smile, already knowing it was Alfred.
"Arthur? Hi. It's Nurse Eliza. I have some bad news."
Arthur's heart seemed to stop beating, his breathing hitching, and he felt his whole body start to tremble.
That wasn't Alfred.
His mind seemed to be on a forced repeat, his thoughts going round and round in a constant rush of 'Alfred, Alfred, Alfred! Something's happened to Alfred!' Arthur felt his hands clutch his mobile unbearably tight, while his lips tried to form words, none of them making their way out of his throat.
Eliza continued. "It's Alfred, I'm afraid he's-"
"I'm coming!" Arthur finally managed to shouted, before she could finish, as he jumped to his feet. "I'm coming, right now! I'm coming! Make sure he- make sure he waits!" He felt his voice crack at the end of the sentence (what if he couldn't wait? What if he was dying as they spoke?), and yet, somehow, he didn't care, preferring to end the call and race out of the classroom to his car.
Arthur could barely remember the ride from the school to the hospital, and wasn't sure if he wanted to; his tears had been so thick and unstoppable he hadn't been able to see properly, and he could only pray he hadn't killed anyone (not that he had time to worry about anyone else but his new - too new for this to be happening - husband). Haphazardly, he parked in the drop off zone outside the ER and scrambled towards the entrance, breathless and teary, only to run in to a clearly worried and distressed looking Eliza.
"Arthur, darling, I'm sorry I-"
"Where is he?" Arthur pleaded, clenching his fists around the fabric of her scrubs as he looked imploringly up at her. "Please, I need to see him- Where's Alfred? What happened to him? Oh god, please, he can't- I can't lose him- I- we only-" he choked up, unable to continue as his throat clenched around his words, making him let lose a pitiful sob.
Eliza looked simultaneously worried and furious. "Now, Arthur darling," the Nurse started, talking over his sobs, tone too soothing and too clinical for Arthur's liking. He knew that tone, Alfred used that that tone (or was it now used to use? Was Arthur a widower already?) with families he was about to break bad news to. "I want you to sit down, take a deep breath, and stay here for a little while so I can go... take care of some things, alright?" Arthur looked up at her, sniffling, and nodded, letting himself be led over to a row of chairs opposite the reception desk.
She gave him a smile, then frowned, her features set into a terrifying sort of determination, as if she was about to do battle. Arthur had not the mind nor the heart to care what that expression meant, concentrated as he was on not breaking down in the middle of the ER.
The teacher wiped his nose with a handkerchief that he fetched from his coat pocket, before realising that Alfred had given him that particular handkerchief. Arthur stared at it for a moment, his bottom lip wobbling pathetically before he let loose a painful wail, burying his head in his hands that were propped up on his knees.
He couldn't be a widower yet, he wasn't ready for Alfred to leave him! "Alfred," he sobbed, "oh god, Alfred, y-you can't be... be gone! I love you, I love you! It's j-just not fair! Pl-please! You can't just- just leave!" Arthur felt a new wave of hot tears stream down his cheeks, and couldn't muster the will to wipe them away.
Suddenly, he felt arms wrap around him, familiar arms, and he thought for a second that they were Alfred's but then- he shook his head. "Alfred can't be dead!"
There was a laugh, and suddenly, the arms retracted and a warm hand was cupping his cheek and raising his head to look up. Arthur gasped at the face he saw. "Well o' course I'm not dead, sweetheart," Alfred whispered, kissing the tip of his nose. "It was just a prank call is all!"
Arthur felt his mouth fall open. "Y-you mean to say-"
Alfred wiped away the remaining tears on Arthur's cheeks away, and smiled, whispering, "It was all a joke, baby. Didn't realise you'd react so badly."
Arthur felt a rush of emotion course through his body; love, compassion, gratitude, anger, fury, disbelief, anger, fury, anger, anger, anger, anger, anger- "You stupid bloody git I can't believe you! Just you wait until I-"
There was a compelling urge within Arthur telling him to just punch Alfred silly until he really did end up in one of the beds in the Emergency Room, but Alfred had long ago mastered the art of rendering him motionless and completely at his mercy and so, with naught but a kiss, any notions that Arthur had recently formed about possible divorce and manslaughter were pushed so far back in his mind that they were almost completely eradicated.
With a husband like Alfred, Arthur was obliged to agree with Marilyn Monroe. For all that Alfred was completely and utterly foolish and painful, he was, at the same time, the loveable fool that had captured Arthur's heart wholly and truly.
'Better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring, indeed!'
A/N: This was written for my 600th follower over on tumblr, ameritaniaangel. The prompt was: Newlywed USUK/UKUS. I'm afraid I probably didn't quite to the standard that you were probably hoping for, my dear, but... well, here we are!