Chapter 8

Lingering grazes

"Dudes! Dudes! Come on already, get your freakin' asses up! It's like, super important!"

That, accompanied by a rapid series of strikes upon the door that seemed inches away from collapse, were what woke Arthur Kirkland at precisely 1:50am (according to the piercingly bright letters of his digital clock).

How tempting it would be to roll over, press the pillow to his ears and ignore the entire scene. In fact, it was more than tempting; it was exactly what he was going to do.

Almost as if picking up the Briton's intentions, a well-timed tap sounded from the other side of the paper-thin wall separating the two disagreeable 'roomies'. "Your turn, cher…" Came a resigned murmur not long after. Brilliant. So not only would he be dealing with an American at the crack of dawn, but he was doing so on the whim of a Frenchman. That more than warranted a tap back, though in this case it was more of a punch, and, judging by the whining that ensued as a result, he had succeeded in jolting the bed frame on the other side. Arthur supposed that he would save the rest of his indignation for the morning, which was (hopefully), the next time he would be face-to-face with the offender. That is, if he managed to keep the encounter to a minimum length and salvage some more sleep without further disruption. Now at least he had an incentive to get up, giving a big 'sod off' to Francis has always improved his mood under these circumstances. As the recipient, Francis only wished he could say the same thing.

The walls of the place were only that: paper-thin. Any old idiot could find a way around them, so why couldn't Francis? He respected the disgruntled Englishman's personal space, he really did, but right now (if he knew there would be no consequences or arguments), he desired more than anything to get to the person on the other side. Not to hit (or most likely: receive a hit from), bicker or even tease, but to simply…what was the word? He never could find the words to say what exactly he needed with Arthur, which was odd considering he usually had a pretty good idea with most. All Francis knew was that the feeling was somehow different. He had been in a multitude of relationships before, but none of them had ever really felt like much. With Arthur, however, he was perfectly content with just sitting beside him, and considering that was as far as he would probably be getting for the foreseeable future, he'd take it any day.

There was only one setback – he sincerely doubted any of these feelings were reciprocated. He couldn't help but sigh at the thought, but luckily, a fresh bout of arguing prevented him from dwelling upon these thoughts all that much.

"Are you Americans really so extra-terrestrial that you do not require sleep?"

"Whatever, man! Sleep is for losers! Just wait 'til I show you guys this kickass thing I wanna test to get outta revision!" The bubbly American rummaged through his pockets excessively, struggling to separate the 'vital item' from a multitude of hamburger wrappers.

"Dropping out?" It felt odd to hear criticism coming from Arthur's mouth that wasn't directed toward him. All the more reason for Francis to get up and investigate.

"No way, man! Ah! Here we go! Francis, get over here, like pronto!"

Fair to say, Arthur was a little stunned to see the Frenchman, and practically leapt a foot or two in the air. The urge to instigate a bear hug only grew from that point onwards.

"So, you guys, check it!" Finally, Alfred produced a completely normal world map (aside from the fact that Russia was marked with commies in bold red crayon), if anything, the only odd thing was why he had even brought it along in the first place. "You ever notice how crazy close Britain and France are?"

"Mon dieu…" This was the third month that France had had his beauty sleep interrupted by stupid, caffeine-fuelled questions from a jittery Alfred. It definitely wouldn't be the last.

"As fascinating as basic geography must be for the likes of you, I'd quite like to get a second's break from stupidity. Goodbye, and give Kiku the best of luck from me. God knows he'll need it when you're involved." One, two, three seconds of silence. Then he slammed the door in the man's face, which was unfortunately stuck open a crack by a single snoopy slipper.

"Come on, dude! Hear me out!" Apparently the pain took a while to register. "Holy balls that stings…"

"Can it not wait until the morning, cher? We were in the middle of splendid tranquillity…"

"Pfft, whatever, but give it a peep! Y'see this annoying scraggly little island above Europe?"

"…Britain, you mean?" A dry tone. As expected, Arthur wasn't exactly overjoyed.

"Yeah, that. And y'see that other thing below it that's, like, exactly the same?" That drew a horrified gasp from them both.

"You cheeky little twit!"

"You disrupted my beauty sleep to lump my gorgeous culture with his bland mess? We have more going for us than time-travelling phone booths, you know!"

"What, like consuming the population of my Grandmother's garden? You never were very good at telling jokes, Frenchie!"

"Who is joking? I would take escargot over those lumps of cement you call scones any day, lapin."

"Maybe next time I won't make breakfast, if you're going to be such a prize arsehole about it!"

"You won't? Merci beaucoup!" With a flourish, he embraced the younger blond with rib-crushing strength, sputtering random French terms of endearment.

"Remove yourself, you absolute prat!" Spat an unquestionably livid Arthur, shoving the Frenchman's face all the while to reject the multiple nuzzles the latter was trying to get across. "You smell like a horse's arse!"

"Uh… guys? I'm totally trying to talk here!" Stunningly, that at least aroused the attention of the two, who were now in the process of practically ripping each other's faces in half via cheek pulling. "Alright, so here's my idea! Since they're both so close together and same-ish, what's the point of studying stuff that happened to them individually? We should get Superman to superglue 'em together!"

"That may just be…" Francis began.

"…The stupidest idea I've ever heard in my entire life." Arthur concluded, who looked like he'd just had whatever remaining faith in humanity he held close smashed before his very eyes.

"S'not my fault you guys can't see how kickass it is..."

"Pray tell, why did you find this relevant in the first place?"

"Oh, that! I was wondering if you guys knew Superman's phone number!"

With that, both Arthur and then Francis made a grab for the handle, and finally managed to shut the obnoxious American out. Luckily he had moved his foot; neither of them quite knew how they'd manage if he stayed for any longer.

But there was something they noticed about this.

After giving a joint sigh of relief, they looked up to acknowledge that Francis' hand had found its way over to cover Arthur's, and by god, the wait had been worth it. He would have gone through a million of Alfred's idiotic rants to stay like that, squeezing those soft, pale digits. Unfortunately for him, fate was a cruel mistress. The regrettably surly owner of the hand yanked it away and stormed to the kitchen, but not before Francis identified a delicate blush that had smeared across those cheeks.

Is it wrong that I was screeching whilst writing this in places? No, scratch that, the whole thing? They're kinda like a family now, with Kiku as that one relative that stays as far away from family affairs as possible to be with his cats. So close to FACE, but no cigar...