I...was working on something more ~*dramatic*~, but I (once again) got bored and this popped into my head instead. The UK recently went through its worst recession since WW2.

In short: Let us revisit a time in which England caught a cold.

But not that one time back in WW2.

Also, err, I guess this is some kind of established relationship because I wanted it to be. And I had to separate it into two chapters because I'm pretty sure it would've grown to be far too long for just one, I am so sorry. This really has no plot other than being fluffy.

Disclaimer: I don't own Hetalia.

Bent over his desk, which really wasn't good for his posture at all, Arthur Kirkland tried to concentrate on the first bit of a large stack of paperwork piled neatly on the corner of his desk. He sniffled a few times, and scrawled his signature at the bottom of the page. He coughed, had the sudden urge to scribble "fuck this" all over the page, and took another sip of his peppermint tea. A glance at his watch told him he still had another few hours to go before he would allow himself a break. After all, even if he had a slight cold—slight–there was work to be done. If he waited until he was well, it would just pile up to the point of hopelessness. Still, that didn't help the pounding headache he was getting from all those tiny words littering the page. Arthur groaned. He hated being sick.

The sudden ringing of the doorbell dragged Arthur from cold-induced gloom. He had no idea who would be visiting, but, frankly, he didn't care, as long as it gave him an excuse to take a break, and as long as it wasn't Francis. He immediately cursed himself for having had that thought, knowing that, with his luck, it would be the perverted Frenchman.

With a sigh, Arthur shuffled down the hallway. He ended up taking a while, which had the doorbell ringing several more times before he reached the door. Whoever was out there was getting impatient; by the time Arthur turned the handle, his visitor had begun to repeatedly ring the doorbell, which certainly did not help the splitting pain in his head.

"What is it?" Arthur flung open the door, fully intending to slap whoever was molesting his doorbell, when a fairly unexpected—and not thoroughly unwanted—sight greeted him.

There stood Alfred, nervously shuffling his feet and holding a rather deflated-looking bunch of roses.

"Uh, hi," he said, grinning nervously. "Um, I had business over here, but I wanted to surprise you, so...surprise?"

Arthur stared, sneezed, and replied with a flat "Your roses have wilted" before turning and marching back to his office, leaving an equally wilted Alfred behind to see himself in.

"I thought you'd be happy to see me." Alfred followed Arthur to his study, tossing his jacket to the floor unceremoniously, but keeping a protective hold on the roses. "And I even brought you flowers!"

Ignoring the other's whines and pleas for attention, Arthur plopped back down at his desk, rubbing his temples. He loved the boy, that was something he simply couldn't deny any longer, but as of now, he was just another unneeded distraction. Arthur had been hoping to finish his work early today so he could get some much-needed rest, and he hadn't even cleaned his house lately, so it was in no condition to house an unexpected guest. He shook his head, which only caused it to pound more, and picked up his pen to continue his work despite the distraction. These things needed to be finished!

Unfortunately, Arthur didn't get very far before he was once again interrupted, this time by heavy arms wrapping round his shoulders and a voice whining in his ear.

"I came all the way here, Arthur," the voice implored, much to Arthur's eternal chagrin. "I missed you..."

Arthur groaned. He could only imagine the puppy eyes that would undoubtedly be accompanying Alfred's pleading voice. He sighed, opening his mouth to say something, but instead started coughing violently. Curse that bloody cold of his. Not only did he feel miserable, but it always had a way of foiling his meager attempts at speaking properly. Not that he'd been out and about much; he felt too awful to be running all over the place.

As soon as he'd managed to get his coughing under control, Arthur felts a smooth hand on his forehead. He looked up, slightly cross-eyed.

"You're still sick, huh?" mumbled Alfred, still close to Arthur's ear.

Arthur responded with a miserable sneeze. Deeming that an appropriate answer, Arthur shoved the hand away from his forehead and picked his pen back up.

"If you please, Alfred, I'll entertain you when I'm done with my work. Please stop bothering me; you're making my headache worse."

A sudden silence and lack of excited movement sent Arthur into a state of relief as he began to twiddle the pen between his fingers. Normally, he was worried about the rambunctious boy running about and messing up his house, but at the moment, if it got Alfred out of his hair, he was willing to accept nearly anything.

Nearly anything.

What he would not accept was being yanked from his chair, spun in a circle, and then picked up, one strong arm under his knees, one round his shoulders.

Horrified at the way he was being treated (particularly the spinning bit, he was sick, after all), Arthur began to squirm, attempting to kick his abductor...well, anywhere, really. It was difficult enough as it was, he wasn't going to be picky. At this, Alfred merely grinned like the idiot he was, and crooned to Arthur as if he were a grumpy child.

"Don't worry, Arthur!" Alfred said, already in the process of carrying him out of the room. "Now that I'm here to take care of you, everything will be awesome!"

And then he sneezed.

Not only did he sneeze, he nearly dropped Arthur, who immediately attempted to elbow him in the face. Arthur did not much appreciate being sneezed on or dropped, and wasn't in much of a pleasant mood to begin with.

"You bloody idiot, you're still sick?" he cried, still attempting to hit Alfred somewhere, though it would probably result in him landing painfully on the floor. "You can't take care of a sick person when you are sick yourself!"

"Says who?" Alfred sniffled, successfully avoiding Arthur's flailing. "Plus, if we're both sick, we can kiss without worrying about spreading germs!"

It wasn't simply the sentence that brought the blood in Arthur's veins to a boiling point. It was the way he said it so obliviously, as if it were the most reasonable suggestion in the world. This, and the humiliation of being carried like some invalid, finally allowed Arthur's elbow to connect with Alfred's jaw, at which he was nearly (nearly, damn it all) released from Alfred's iron grip.

But not quite. Much to Arthur's dismay, Alfred merely whined and nuzzled his bruised jaw into Arthur's soft hair, mumbling something about how mean it was to hit your hero. Arthur, realising his situation was utterly hopeless, groaned miserably and finally stopped attempting to injure his self-proclaimed "hero". He resigned himself to being carried through the house, wondering vaguely where he would end up. Perhaps it wasn't so bad, suggested a tiny voice in his head, one he preferred to keep locked far, far away, as it had a habit of distracting him from his business. After all, Alfred was rather warm, though the jostling was doing nothing for his poor head.

After a moment, Alfred stopped. Glancing around, Arthur was only barely able to determine that they were in the hall before a door was cringing kicked open, and he was deposited safely on the floor.

It took a moment for Arthur's spinning head to register exactly what was going on, and he glanced forlornly at the door before turning a glare on Alfred.

"The bathroom? Really?" God only knew what sort of idiocy the American was planning; Arthur never could understand the reasoning behind about ninety percent of the things he did.

Alfred merely grinned. "Where else are you going to take a bath?"

"I am not taking a bath, Alfred. I don't know what you're implying, or what you're trying to do, but I'll have you know I'm not in the mood for any of it, and I have a whole pile of work to do, and...and what in God's name are you doing?"

That last bit came out a bit squeaky, unfortunately, though Arthur told himself it was justified, seeing as Alfred was suddenly undoing the buttons that ran neatly down the front of Arthur's shirt.

Alfred continued, undeterred, though Arthur had begun to shove at him indignantly. "Relax, Arthur, don't you know baths are really good for colds?"

"I don't care what they're good for, you get your hands off me this instant!" Arthur attempted to wrestle Alfred's arms away from his poor shirt, which was nearly completely unbuttoned, but Alfred had apparently decided it was a good day to be stubborn and put his ridiculous strength to use. He didn't stop until he'd successfully finished unbuttoning the shirt, after which he slipped it off and tossed it to the floor.

His face was flushed merely because of his illness, Arthur told himself, crossing his arms over his chest and putting on his fiercest scowl. This was soon replaced by a horrified kind of stare, however, as Alfred began an attempt to unbutton his trousers.

"I-I beg your pardon!" Arthur stammered, indignation mixed with utter embarrassment, "But I am perfectly capable of removing my own trousers, thank you very much!" He slapped at the American's hands, tempted to...bite him, or something, simply to get him to stay away.

"You weren't gonna do it." Alfred, thankfully, removed his hands, but retained his dorky grin.

Finally realising the utter hopelessness of the situation, Arthur turned with a huff and removed his trousers on his own, still blushing—no, he was just running a fever!—as he deposited them on the floor.

"Can't take a bath with your socks," prompted Alfred, receiving another glare from the Englishman.

Removing his socks, Arthur couldn't resist throwing them angrily at his infuriating companion as he began to draw the bath. Reluctantly, he admitted to himself that a hot bath probably would help, though he didn't have to be happy about it. He sighed, waiting for Alfred to get the hell out so he could hurry up and get this over with. He still had work to do, after all.

Alfred, however, appeared to have no intention of leaving, standing there dumbly and watching the water fill up nearly to the top of the large, clawfoot tub. Arthur cleared his scratchy throat, which only served to make it hurt more. Still, it earned the desired attention of the other man.

"You're not completely undressed!" Alfred seemed to have chosen that day to point out the obvious and treat Arthur like a child at the same time. "You can't take a bath in your boxers, silly."

Arthur glared. "I am not taking these off as long as you're in here."

Grinning, Alfred shrugged. "I guess you can keep them on. The point's not to get clean, anyway."

At this, Arthur sighed. He waited for Alfred to get out and leave him alone, but it soon became apparent that Alfred still was not going to leave, and Arthur groaned in exasperation. Fed up with it all, he simply slipped into the tub, having run out of patience with waiting for Alfred to leave.

Arthur hissed as the hot water touched his skin. "Bloody hell, Alfred, what are you trying to do, boil me? I am not a lobster, though knowing your intelligence, perhaps you've mistaken me for one."

"Well, you are a little crabby."

At this, Arthur could only stare at him, knocked completely speechless by the sheer stupidity of his joke, and the way he could make such a horrible pun at all. He shook his head and closed his eyes, attempting to block everything out and concentrate on not boiling to death in the scalding water. For all he knew, Alfred could have left the room; yes, that rustling of fabric could only be him turning and marching right out of there, and—

Arthur yelped and jerked his knees up to his chest as he felt something brush his leg. His eyes flew open. Immediately after, however, he wanted to shut them and pretend this all was not happening; Alfred was not lowering himself into the tub, no, no, no, no, no.

But yes, Alfred was indeed lowering himself into the tub, and Arthur could only hope that he had kept on his boxers, for God's sake. In fact, he began to repeat this plea in his head like some sort of lifeline as he attempted to move as far to his own side as possible. The tub, thankfully, was quite large, though not so large as to allow two grown men to sit in it without at all touching. Alfred, grinning from the other end of the tub, allowed his leg to brush Arthur's, earning a strangled string of curses from the blushing Brit.

"Alfred, for fuck's sake, get out of my tub!" he yelled, slipping on the smooth porcelain lining. "This is completely inappropriate and stop touching me, you pervert!"

"It's just my leg, I'm not even doing anything!" protested Alfred, sinking further into the water. "And since we're both sick, I thought you'd like to save water!"

"You thought wrong!" Arthur contemplated getting out of there immediately and risking puddles all over his clean floor, but realised that his wet boxers were probably no longer in the most modest condition. He debated back and forth between the two options before relenting and sinking into the water up to his chin, hiding as much of himself as possible.

After a moment of silence, Alfred felt the need to break the awkwardness. "So, this is nice."

"No, it isn't." Arthur glared at him from across the tub.

"Should I have made it more romantic?" said Alfred, that blasted grin plastered back on his face.

Arthur growled. "If you had, I'd have socked you. I am complying with this ridiculous...I don't know what to call this, but the only reason I'm here right now is because perhaps there is a bit of sense to your insane logic, and I don't want to waste the water." He had to admit, the steam was already making his throat feel a little less raw.

Alfred pouted. "I thought you'd like it."

There is was, that bloody pout of his. Sighing, Arthur found he was no more able to resist that face than he usually was, finally relenting, though still not exactly happy about it. "Just belt up and let me soak."

For once, Alfred complied.

Peppermint tea is good for colds. Unfortunately, I never have any when I actually get sick.

Also, I refuse to make Arthur a super-uke-face, even if he is ill.

Why do these always end up so much longer than I'd imagined? Though be glad, because this means it will actually be finished, since the end is in sight. It's just...uploaded separately. Also, it is 3:43 AM and I should stop writing this. If you want an idea as to the next chapter, I will give you a hint:

Vicks VapoRub.