Warning: FrUK, FACE Family implied, and swearing.
France collapsed beside Britain, both of them panting messes and flushed red. He pulled the sheets over their bodies, and both silently decided that they would do laundry in the morning.
"Fuck," Arthur had to say it again, because the first came out half strangled in a heavy exhale. "Fuck. Four bloody times," He gasped out.
"Slut," Francis teased.
"Whore."
"That was fun, no?" He relaxed—or perhaps reclined, Arthur thought, Francis was more like a feline reclining in pride at that moment—into the mattress and pulled his lover close. "We have not done anything fun like this in years while you have been sober."
"It still took me two beers to agree to let you come home, bastard," He sighed and cuddled into the other man, reluctantly allowing himself to feel happy about it. "And you managed to impress me."
"I made you scream."
"Hey," He growled out, "That was during the foreplay."
"Tickling still counts and you loved it."
"I fucking hate being tickled-"
"Oh please, you are so cute-!"
"-and you know-"
"-And when you smile I feel myself-"
"-how much I hate it you-"
"-falling in love all over again."
"…Frog," Arthur finished his own sentence, and looked up with a frown at one smug-looking Francis. "That isn't fair," He sighed and rested his head against the other's chest. "I love you too, but tickling is never fair."
"It wasn't the only thing that made you scream though, mon cher," He shut his eyes. "If you are in pain, the Ibuprofen is in the medicine cabinet in the bathroom."
"Darling, the pain is the point. I don't mind it," But the fact that Francis was still caring for his wellbeing was a welcome idea, and so Arthur shut his eyes as he felt himself drifting off again. "We have an entire day before the flight, and then we go to the meeting in America. So long as I am not so sore by the end of tomorrow to sit on the plane then I'll be fine with whatever you plan to do to me."
"So you expect to awaken, say, tied up?" Francis snorted. He hardly ever did that in the company of anyone but those closest to his heart. "That wounds me so! I was hoping to take you out to breakfast, or make breakfast in bed and hand feed you like a king!"
"…A king who will be tied up against his will?" Arthur opened one eye and managed to glare up at his lover like that.
"A king who will be treated to a day of feathers and crops if he so desires."
"…Well fuck," Arthur grit his teeth. "Don't get the king wound up and excited before bed, peasant."
"…Is this our next roleplay?" Francis laughed and rubbed between Arthur's shoulder blades where he knew the man would arch his back if touched.
And Arthur did arch his back, so he hit his lover's chest. "Bloody git, go to bed!"
Their day had been spent preparing for the next summit of the World Meeting. It had only been a month, but duty called. Arthur shouldn't have even needed to go to this meeting coming up, and he did technically not now that Brexit took him away from the Union's agenda, but this was not a matter of political discussion between representatives for the public's knowledge.
No, the countries held their own meetings to discuss private matters without their bosses or governments riding down their backs. It was an unofficial yet highly official meeting (a contradiction if he ever thought one) between the nations themselves to talk out their decisions and make sure that things were in agreement, or talk further if they were not. It was a place for nations outside of places like the European Union to meet. Britain had not heard from America or Canada in a long time now, and especially since America did not have many allies nowadays he worried for the nation.
He worried a lot.
The American man woke up in a bed that was not his.
He sat up in a room that was not his.
He breathed in oxygen from a world that was not his.
Where was the fog? Where was the mold, the fallen buildings, the ash?
He stood up and when feet hit a clean, wooden floor he hissed and pulled it away. Too cold. He was in clean clothes too though, and the room was too bright for him to feel comfortable. The walls were a sky blue that reminded him too much of eyes that would never blink again
Al, we need to talk
and there was an American flag hanging above the bed.
His flag.
His flag was also the pillow he had apparently slept on, and a digital clock (the fuck, there's electricity here?) read the time as eight in the morning. He once again set his feet on the floor, and this time let himself look around the room that was full of superhero posters and a few of his past presidents. His eyes blinked when he realized that he could see, but once he stood up his body moved on its own to the bathroom.
He remembered where he was.
I know a way to help our kind from dying, Allen.
He remembered who he was.
It is harder than it looks to remember things like that when one first wakes up after half a century of hardship and war.
The American man gazed into the bathroom mirror on the wall, his old scars as pink and bright as ever against his only slightly tan skin now, and red eyes met tired red eyes in the mirror. With a heavy sigh, he repeated the same actions he had repeated each morning since he woke up in this world that was so different from the apocalypse that his had been destroyed from.
He brushed his teeth.
He showered.
He reminded himself, when some of the missed strands of brown hair swirled into the bottom of the drain, to re-dye his hair and make sure he did not miss any spots on a head that should be blonde but the fucking cheap hair dye made it look red for fuck's sake.
He put in the blue eye contacts so nobody could see the red eyes of Allen F. Jones.
And finally, before he put on his work clothes for that day, he reminded himself to answer to "Alfred." Some of them said Al, or Mr. Jones, but anyone who called the second persona by "Alfred" was met with silence or confusion at first before he got the hang of it.
It was still fucking hard to fit in around here, but at least he didn't have to suffer like Matt did in a world that left him alone with the guilt of what they had done. At least Allen was too busy to think about the past and their recent actions in it. The second players may have been doing something evil, but it was part of a sacrifice that they could not ignore.
It took them five long, long days to reach the city again.
By this point, Alfred and Matthias were running off of adrenaline and they looked like they had lost a little bit of weight. Their rations had not run out, but water began to get too low for comfort and the juice from their canned foods began to replace it. Green bean water is disgusting, even to those who are growing desperate. They had been in that desert and the heat for nearly ten days and it wreaked absolute havoc on their lungs. Sand waves came and went, but it was always there blinding them exactly like the fog had. All four were coughing messes, and America was faced with half carrying, half dragging Canada and Italy through the sand while Denmark hacked his lungs out for the last two days.
The goggles helped them all, but their bandannas did very little in regards to protection.
When they reached the collapsed overpass, it took them a good forty minutes for everyone to climb up and past it. It took another hour to get to the city, and when the fresh, cool air hit their lungs the four of them removed their filthy goggles and collapsed to the ground. Italy and Canada began to shiver again, but the former also began to weep.
"Th-the sand…I-i-it wasn't…" Italy trembled.
The quartet had not reached the desert until they got past the overpass nine days ago. It took them until the buildings were a bridge away for the sand to disperse. That meant that the desert was growing, or at least moving, into (or towards) the city.
"Doesn't matter. We're here," America panted. "Fuck . . . Aw, fuck."
The ash in the center of the road coming into the city had been swept into a large pile. None of the four saw the top of the mound, but Alfred and Matthias let Matthew and Feliciano stretch a little on the cool pavement and traveled the few feet closer to see what the deal was. The ash had not been swept when they left—they had used this exact road. Yet here was a pile, nearly six feet tall, right in the middle of the road they wanted to travel into the city on.
At the top of the ash pile was a human skull, with its teeth buried into the grains and its cranium caved in the back, as if the person had been killed by a massive blow to the head.
The Demon that had been hunting them knew that they would come back. The desert was too unforgiving and that highway had lead nowhere, the city was the only livable place in the vicinity. There was nowhere else to go.
So It left them a present.