That bloody frog! I stomp around the apartment in an annoyed huff until the china in my cabinets shake and clatter around. Finally I take a deep breath and collect myself, it wouldn't do for a gentleman like myself to be seen in such a state.

I give a sigh and pull back the curtains once more, watching the bus pull away from my house, this morning things had returned to normal but last night was...different. I let the lace fall closed, I shouldn't keep thinking about it... it's in the past and that is that. I go to the kitchen to begin a meal only to find the customary rose that has become associated with the Frenchman and a pre-cooked breakfast "lovingly" made for me.

Wait. Lovingly?! What am I thinking?

My mind wanders back on last night again my better judgment, I have to stop thinking about it. I can feel heat rising back up to my cheeks but I can't help myself, his voice, his touch, the way his eyes bore into mine when he leaned down to seal our lip together..

"AHHH! Stop thinking about it!"

I quickly take a throw pillow from the loveseat and smash my face into it, yelling out a string of very undignified curses into the cotton. The scratch of his beard over my cheek and chin while he hovered above my face as he pressed into me and rocked. God, our joining was even more unbearable gentle than normal...i can't stand it.

Much as I've told him to stop that, he has never done as I ask, would it kill the man to just throw me into bed and have his way with me? But no, he would never do what I want him to, he never has, after centuries of knowing him why would it change now?

I huff and groan, he is so unbearably gentle, every time he comes here for a visit we end up in the bedroom, it's like he thinks I'm some sort of woman he needs to woo and make love to. I'm a man, damn him. No! I'm more than a man! I'm the bloody United Kingdom! How dare that frog treat me like a woman!

And now he kisses me! He kissed me... my heart is fluttering uncontrollably and it drives me mad, my eyes are glued to the rose on the table, I reach out picking it up, the stem is squared, he took the time to cut away the thorns for my sake... How can he make it so impossible to be angry with him.

I can't help the way I ache for him to be here now, if he were here I could scream at him... scream until I couldn't feel the way my chest constricts as I remember last night. I know this feeling and I wish he were here to distract me from it, I'm longing for him.

Damn you...

Damn you!...

I've held those barriers for so long and in one move he shatters them. He kissed me and now I can't get it out of my head... I want him to come back to me, to take the loneliness out of this house... the house where I raised my colonies... the colonies that left me behind.

It's so lonely here, so lonely I don't think I can stand it any longer and then suddenly he'll show up, he'll bring me a rose, he'll insult my cooking, he'll laugh and drink with me and we'll argue about which is better, rum or wine... I still think rum is much better, thank you, We'll talk for hours and then he'll chase the last of my loneliness away when we lay down for the night.

And then I'm alright, no... I can pretend I'm alright for another week...

I was so sure of myself, that I could keep doing this... and just like that, he kissed me and now... now I.

I'm in my bedroom, why did I come here... the remains of our act is left in my sheets, I was too tired to clean them last night... I can smell him in the room.

Come back..

I can't take how lonely I am, how my heart aches, please don't leave me alone. Come back, please.

With a simple kiss you've unraveled me... left me bare to you, centuries of hard work to keep you away gone to waste and I can't bring myself to care, come home and kiss me again you stupid frog, hold me and touch me gently like you always do, wash away all the pain and loneliness I feel and never let me go again.

I understand why you've always been so gentle with me, now... I understand. So just come back.

Is that knocking?

Who's knocking on the door?

I quickly go down to check the door, oh, I still have the rose in my hand, too late to put it down now. I reach out and open the door and he's there, he's standing in front of me and I can't move, I can't speak, I can't breathe. Every nerve in my body aches and I want to soar from joy but melt from pain, what is this feeling?

"Arthur? Why are you crying?"

I'm crying? It seems I am because he reaches out and wipes over my cheek and there is water on his hand and god why does his touch feel so good, oh... I'm leaning into it but he's not pulling away. He's smiling at me and I'm scared for a moment as if he can hear my thoughts, maybe he can because he pulls me into his arms and holds me against his chest.

The answer seems so simple now, the questions i'd been asking myself were concluded in that one move, he's never held me this before and I... I can't imagine going the rest of my life without him holding me like this. I close my eyes and bury my face into his chest, the faint musk of french cologne rolls off him and it smells like home to me.

Have I really become so used to him that he smells like home?

I can't help myself, I smile, because all this time I was pushing him away but I can't anymore, just like that, with one kiss he crossed that borderline and everything that had been forced back was rushing out like a levy had broken and emotions poured out like water.

"hey frog... do that think you did last night again."

He didn't need to be told what I meant, he simply reached down and cupped my cheek, tilted my head and connected our mouths together, this was more than a brush of lips, there was no mistaking it, this was a kiss.

We stayed like that for what felt like hours, my admittedly smaller frame wrapped in his arms, kissing in the doorway to my living room.

"whatcha doing iggy?"

and just like that the moment was gone, my defenses came up and I shoved the Frenchman away from me and into the doorway, knocking over the American boy behind him as well.

"YOU DAMNED FROG! WHAT THE BLOODY HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU!?"

The two males on my floor groan and I feel my head rushing, heat coursing through me from how red my face is. France looks up at me with apologetic blue eyes and rolls off the American.

"Je suis désolé, ma chérie. I remembered I had left my train pass in my wallet"

He motions to the wallet sticking out of the arm chair cushion, it had obviously fallen there and gotten stuck and it suddenly makes sense why he came back.

"Amérique met me at the station on his way here and offered to pay my way till i got my wallet back"

The unspoken question of why he kissed me in front of the american was left alone for the time being as i went to make some tea for my "guests" . it was a good enough excuse to get out of the room. I was glad to be in the kitchen and out of view.

My heart was racing and the anger and embarassment was gone quickly enough, replaced by a warm sensation, maybe alfred had seen something i didn't want him to but somehow i couldn't bring myself to care, last night wasn't a mistake, francis has meant to kiss me.

My eyes closed as i waited for the water to boil, my thoughts slipping back into the soft haze they'd been in all morning, wrapped around france and his stupid... his...delightful affections. I really have to stop lying to myself.

I've been pretending too long that i don't want him to be good to me that it's second nature, to be honest, i love it when he's sweet to me. I love it when he takes care of me, when he kisses me simply because i want him to.

I'm smiling, i can feel it, it's not a normal expression for me, normally i'd scowl but i'm too happy to right now.

I can feel the presense behind me before i hear the shoes come to a stop, expesive loafers, there's a click to the heels, america always wear sneakers, even with his suits. I know who's in the room before i turn around but when i'm do i'm met with beautiful blue eyes standing way too close to me for me to think clearly.

I can feel his breath on his face and his hands come to rest on my sides, sensual but soft, keeping me steady and away from the stove so i won't burn myself but demanding my attension which is a moot point since my attension is on those delightful fingers dancing over my shirt and how i can feel thier heat through the material rather than anything that deep voice is wispering into my hair.

His lips moves from in my hair toward my cheek and then down towards my jaw before finding their way to my neck and it feels unlike all the other times he's done this, so different but it's the same movements, perhaps i had been tuning out those touches before because now it feels like my body is on fire and i want more of that perfect burn.

Why do our bodies have to fit so perfectly together, when pressed so closely. It feels like we are living puzzle peices that are just meant to be connected, however corny that sounds. My head falls back and i let out a low moan as he leaves a blooming mark in the now bared flesh of my shoulder, he is too good to me and i can't help myself, i want more of him. My hands runs up the back of his neck to tug on his ponytail, his head lifts to look at me, and our eyes make a connection. without a word passing he has me pressed to the side to the counter and is practically ravaging my mouth with his own.

And now i understand why they call it a french kiss.

A voice from the livingroom stops us and we are forced to pull apart, our eyes lock as we stand, encircled in each other's arms, panting in the midst of the kitchen, the whistle of the kettle the only sound left in the world anymore. After a comment about not wanting to be around when we " get it on " america pulls the kettle off the stove and shows himself out of my home.

We are left alone.

I regrettly part from him and traverse the kitchen to grab the tea bags from my cabinet when i feel his hand on mine, he's stopping me. I turn to face him and i know that expression, i've seen it many times before, i know what he will say before he says it. I lift a inger, resting it upon his lips the moment they open, hushing him.

" stay the night ?"

it is a simple question but he understands, just as he has always understood. He doesn't need to nod, i know he'll stay.

We spend the day as we normally would, laughing, drinking, and insulting each other, and when night comes we go to my room but instead of wanting something rough and hard to remind myself that i can't have him, i give in and we make love.

I let him touch me gently as he always had and i respond in return, soft and loving touches passing between us and when we finish he gets up to go to the guest room but for the first, i stop him.

We slept together last night, for the first time in all the years i've known him, it was more than company, more than sex, it was intimate, it was intimate.

My eyes flutter open the next morning to find the spot next to me empty and i panic for a split second, is he gone as he normally is ? I go over to the window, looking out to see the bus pull away, my heart sinking as low as it can get.

I'm slow to dress myself this morning and slower to go downstairs, i don't want to see the rose on the table, to be reminded of how i feel like i'm being ripped apart but eventually i'll have to go down to the kitchen so i bite back the pain and head for the stairs.

I'm in the door to the kitchen but there is no rose left on the table, instead there are a dozen roses in the vase he got me for my birthday last year, the one i told him that i threw away but secretly hid and treasured, and there in front of the stove is my ocean eyed lover.

It is safe to call him lover now ? I wonder...

he faces me and brings the omlette he cooked over to the table, putting it on a plate before returning the pan to the sink, and it's obvious in the silence, we're both thinking the same thing, was last night a one time thing ?

I can feel the tension in the air and my chest clenches tightly, is it worth it ? We've been this way for centuries and a romance after all that would be new and foreign territory, could we handle it ? After all we do fight quite often, would we be an "on and off" couple ?

Is it a good idea to break all that we'd had, the years of freindship over a one night stand ?

And then i realized, nothing has really changed, france has always been this way, gentle, kind, loving.. had he truely been standing there all of this time with his hand held out to me, just waiting patiently for me to take it and come to him ?

I don't have to think about it anymore, i cross the kitchen in three strides, strong and sure of myself, this is right, i want this. I stand on tiptoes and kiss him softly and i can feel him relax, it's been finalized.

"good morning francis"

the normal nickname of "frog" is gone for now, and it's different... but.. maybe different isn't really a bad thing.

Today, the wall that we put up to protect ourselves for so long came crashing down but i'm not afraid of this anymore, because as of today the borderlines are gone and i'm standing, hand in hand, with the man i love as we walk toward a new world where we'll never be alone again.