A/N: So, hey guys! *dodges projectiles* Sorry I kind of escaped all summer, ye who read me and my one crap story. But behold! Oneshot wonder! Take it as an apology and please don't internet-lynch me, it's rude. If you're reading this, I love you and all your decendants, and review if you want, I won't push you, you know, much. ~Maya

P.S. I don't own Hetalia, or England, or America. Admitting it made me die a little, though...

Raising the Weapon

Arthur stared hard at his general. "What did you say?"

The grizzled, battle-hardened man, his face as dirty and weary as Arthur's, shifted uneasily from foot to foot. "We… cannot win, sir. With France's aid and the homeland advantage, this is a hopeless fight for us."

Emerald eyes glinted with hardness. "Are you suggesting that we—I—the British Empire, surrender?"

The gray, wise head bowed slightly in the face of England's fury. "We have no choice, sir."

"…Leave."

"Sir?"

"Leave!" Arthur roared, throwing maps and papers with discarded strategies scribbled on them fluttering loudly from his desk to the soggy ground with a violent sweep of his arm. Cornwallis saluted and hurried from the tent.

Arthur leaned over the nearly-bare desk, bracing his hands on the wood, his shoulders to his ears. That last battle… Looking down, he could still see the mud on his knees from that blasted field, that battlefield. He remembered Alfred's sad, tiredly triumphant face as he looked down and murmured:

"You used to be so big…"

Alfred had been taller than him for decades. When he'd noticed, the young colony had been unbearable with glee, while all Arthur could think about was that day when he and France and Spain had found him, a tiny blond thing peeking at them from bushes with enormous, untainted blue eyes as people filed across the ocean like ducklings. Now, the top of Arthur's head barely cleared Alfred's chin when they stood face-to-face. Not that they did that overmuch anymore. Not for years; Alfred had been so quiet, so distant, like he didn't want to talk anymore, didn't want anything of Arthur anymore, when he used to dog Arthur's every step with questions and comments and requests. But one day, it stopped. And then there was war.

That battle, at Yorktown, he had been on the field then. So had Alfred, and it was the last time Arthur had seen him. Arthur had looked around at his men, all tired and sick and homesick, and known he had lost. But that couldn't be; this was his damned colony, his land, his Alfred, his. There was no way Alfred would leave him. Across the battlefield-to-be, he could see him, standing there, so strangely tall, in that ridiculous blue coat, assuring a man in a messy white wig of something. The over-exuberance of Alfred's hand gestures was still there, and even from here, Arthur could see that stubborn cowlick of his and the confidence in those blue, blue eyes.

Those eyes turned to Arthur suddenly, meeting his green ones, and hardened. Arthur's heart fell into his boots, and he knew he had lost.

He had charged in anyway, and Alfred had followed suit. They both felt every blow, slash, and stab dealt to their soldiers, doubly so for Arthur, who still considered the rebels his countrymen and therefore felt their pain. At last, it was over, the survivors exhausted, panting and staggering over the bodies of their fallen comrades and enemies. Arthur fell to his knees before Alfred, in twice as much pain as the former, fighting tears as mud seeped into his once-white trousers.

Breathing heavily with exhaustion and stifled sobs of pain, Arthur had looked up through his bangs and laboriously unshed tears to see America standing there, with that expression and those whispered words. Then the larger man had turned and walked away, head as high as it could be, that absurd cowlick waving as proudly as that even more absurd flag. And Arthur had lowered his head and wished he was taller.

Now, Arthur lost another battle, against his tears. He seemed to be on a losing streak; he hoped this wasn't going to be a trend. He stood there, crying silently as a tiny puddle of tears formed on his desk. Alfred had done it; he had left England, left Arthur, and for the life of him, the empire couldn't imagine why. This land, which had been so warm to him at first, was now cold, a fierce chill in the air that disregarded his red coat and ripped through his bones. A violent shiver wracked his body, making his fingers and nails dig into the wood. His fingertips, in their blind, tired scrabbling, brushed the coolness of metal.

Tear-blurry green eyes opened to see the dagger he had driven into a letter from his Prime Minister, Lord North—and consequentially his desk—regarding his plans of resignation. It is a lost cause, North said. The colonies are strong, and Parliament wants it to end. The smooth sparkle of the well-cared-for blade seemed so calm, somehow. Like this war wasn't happening, Alfred wasn't leaving him, and his government wasn't reduced to throwing balled up paper during speeches like schoolboys. Arthur's fingers drifted slowly up the blade to grip the handle, reverently yanking the knife from its oversized wooden stand. Turning it over and over in his hands, he watched the dim lamplight briefly color the silvery glint of the dagger gold, and recalled how he'd gotten the elegant weapon, a stiletto. He'd caught Romano cleaning his teeth with it and confiscated the thing. Antonio had restrained the little country while Arthur rolled his eyes at their obvious affection, and Alfred had watched the whole scene, uncharacteristically silent, from the table, blue eyes dully sad.

Arthur should have known by then that something was wrong. The stiletto twirled gracefully, dangerously in his grip as he watch the dance like it wasn't his hands performing it. Alfred had been quiet, so quiet, reduced to a mere bystander rather than his usual, exuberant, nosy self. He had been sitting at that table, watching, for months, speaking only when spoken to and little and quietly then. Foolish Arthur had figured that Alfred was merely being a good boy, a good colony, and he turned his gaze from the brewing storms of revolution behind those blue eyes. It wasn't true if he didn't see it.

He barely noticed his armed hands drifting closer to his chest, that dangerous dance speeding up. Alfred was so big now. When he'd lifted that tiny, wide-eyed child into his arms in that empty field, he'd never dreamed he would get to be so much bigger than he was. The last time they stood face-to-face, for their armies to declare war, Alfred had looked down at his caretaker; his shoulders were so broad, squared as they were, and he seemed so… large. Now that he'd outgrown Arthur, what was there? Such a large thing had grown inside him, stretching him beyond his limits before merely stepping out of him and into the sun. Now there was all this space inside Arthur, and he didn't know how to fill it; he was left as a bubble simply deflated, rendered useless and empty, fluttering alone.

He felt a tiny pressure on his hollow chest, and he slowly looked down to see his own foreign hands pressing the dagger point into his chest. His eyelids became limply heavy, as if he was drowsy, and he wondered if his chest would be as void-filled as he imagined if he opened it. Was it physically possible to open one's own torso to look inside, just to check? No, Arthur supposed not. Leisurely, he twirled the stiletto in his fingers, the point still menacing against the wool of his coat. Would his heart be as vacant as it felt? He supposed he could check rather neatly; simply slide the dagger in between his ribs and poke his heart. He might feel something in there, if that sharpness touches deep enough, something inside his heart. If he didn't… as he pressed a little harder, his eyes falling closed, he wondered what would happen if he didn't.

Would he die?

A shuffling sounded behind Arthur, jerking his eyes wide open. Someone was behind him, in the tent; must've crawled under the canvas like a spy. Or a child. "England."

Arthur froze, his eyes closing again as he called his ears liars. A large, warm hand closed over both of his, and a large, warm chest was at his back. "England, stop."

A breath he didn't know he was holding escaped Arthur, and he asked, "Why?"

"Please don't." That warm breath was on his ear, and it felt like Alfred was leaning down to do it. How could that be right?

"That doesn't answer my question." Foolishly, though, he made no move to pull away from his… former colony, though his grip on the dagger didn't slacken.

"I don't want you to." His voice was soft, hoarse from battle cries, so unlike what Arthur was used to hearing from him.

"Don't be a child, Alfred." Even as he said that, he let the new American pull the stiletto and their joined hands from his waiting, empty chest. "You threw that away; you can't be a child anymore."

"I don't want to be a child anymore." Those large hands dropped the beautiful weapon into the dirt. Those strong arms wrapped around Arthur's tired body, encompassing it. "I'm not a child anymore, you see?"

"You are," Arthur insisted, "you always will be. You're a child, Alfred."

"Arthur." It was a whisper, and it pierced the empire's heart like any dagger. "Arthur, I'm not a child anymore. You don't need to protect me. I can stand on my own."

"I'm not trying to protect you," Arthur lied. His voice was hoarse now, too, but he couldn't think why.

"I'm not your charge, Arthur. I'm bigger than you. Stronger."

Arthur grit his teeth and struggled, but to no avail. "Yes, we've made that abundantly clear, haven't we?"

"I mean," Alfred clarified, "we're equals now."

Arthur went so stiff, he wondered if his heart still beat. "Equals."

"You never looked at me, Arthur, don't try to deny it. You never saw me as anything more than some nameless thing you picked up on a random field one day." The arms around Arthur's body tightened, almost desperately. "I'm always a wide-eyed child to you, but I want to be more."

Arthur couldn't seem to work his lungs properly. "More…?"

"More." Alfred buried his face in the side of his old caretaker's neck. "So much more. I had to become your equal, so I—we—could be more."

"Alfred."

"You couldn't hear me before, Arthur, because I was a child at your heels. Now I'm not, and you can."

Arthur frowned, staring ahead into the yellowed canvas walls of the tent. "Alfred, you can't tell me you started a war for my attention and in the same breath say you're not a child."

"What kind of child starts a war?"

"One that's too damn big."

He could feel Alfred rolling his eyes. "Arthur, we're both countries now. You're not in charge of me, I'm not in charge of you." He spun the smaller nation around to face him, clasping hands with him, and in those tired blue eyes Arthur saw so much hope. "Equal footing."

Unable to crush that hope (how had he remained so pure through the bloodshed?), Arthur asked, "And what do you intend to do with that equal footing?"

Alfred grinned at him then, and oh he hadn't seen that bright, mischievous look in so long, and he had missed it even more than he'd thought—oh.

While Arthur was distracted, Alfred bent down slightly and kissed him. It was brief and chaste, nothing to write home about, except that it was. Alfred pulled away from the stunned other nation, still grinning, and replied, "That."

Blinking, first in the brightness of that long-absent smile, then in the shock of that kiss, Arthur eventually responded weakly, "Oh."

"I want to be more to you, Arthur," Alfred told him earnestly, squeezing his fingers.

Arthur nodded, a bit dazedly. "Yes, I see." Then he blinked and frowned at his former charge. "Wait… you mean to say you started a war and severely damaged the relationship between our respective countries just to court me?"

"Er, no."

"Alfred…" He pulled his hands from the new nation's grip to run one through his hair. "Well, I don't even know where to begin."

That deadly grin was back. "Then don't." And with that he kissed him again, and Arthur let him.