For this Chapter:

Character(s), Pairing(s): USUK, FrUK bromance, mentions of Japan, Sealand, Belgium, the Netherlands and the Italies. Oh, and Salem.

Rating: K+

Warnings: Angst: it's USUK. Fluff: a fair bit of it. Slash: a lot of it. Language: everything bar fuck. Mind-fuckery: mild in comparison to what it's going to get like later on, but still heavy in comparison to the rest of my work.

Chapter Summary: After every night, there is a morning, and after every rise, there is a fall.

A/N: ONWARDS. Notes at the end! Enjoy my lovelies!

Chapter Two: Leaking Life Faster than I'm Leaking Blood [David Gray: The One I Love]

"Are you going to be alright?"

"For the fifth time, Alfred – for God's sake, Salem, go downstairs! – I'll be fine. Have you managed to button your shirt properly this time?"

"Yes, mom, sheesh. Want to brush my hair too?"

"Don't tempt me; it looks a mess."

"You're the one who kissed me first."

"Oh, shut your face. Come here, your tie's wonky."

It wasn't, but Alfred didn't need to know that. Besides, they both knew it was just a ploy for Arthur to steal a kiss, and Alfred had him backed against the wall a few seconds later anyway, so it wasn't like it mattered. Seven years they'd been together, even counting the year Arthur had spent in convict orange, their only interactions public with a pane of glass between them, and still they couldn't keep their hands off each other. Francis was forever spewing bile about being 'forever young' and Arthur was always punching him and lodging unheard formal complaints with the Academy about their new special-needs tutor.

He did, however reluctantly Arthur might admit it, have a point. It wasn't to say Arthur agreed with him, because he didn't, under any circumstances – half the time he refuted the points just to be an utter arse about it – but there was something in what he said. Unsure though Arthur was about it, because really, why, it wasn't like they were teenagers any more, and it wasn't like they didn't have all the time in the world, they used every moment together.

Part of him wondered if it was because they were so closely tied now; what with Alfred's heart beating the same drum as Arthur's, and what with Alfred's life only continuing because Arthur had thought to close him off before the demon was paid off. But no, it was more than that, and less than that. There was denying that Arthur loved the younger with every fibre of his being, had since the day his Aunt had introduced them, and maybe it was as simple as that. As simple as their being in love, because wasn't love eternal and without boundaries? Didn't Eros himself care not for propriety in the face of his love?

It had taken the better part of a decade, but Arthur had him now, had Eros trapped in a cage in his heart and only Alfred had the key to it, had taken Eros as his own.

"Make sure you have a proper soak in the bath today," Alfred hummed, nose buried behind Arthur's ear, breath warm against his jaw.

Arthur made a noise in the back of his throat; disbelief, maybe, or just exasperation. "I'm not a woman, Al, what would I do that for?"

Alfred chuckled, pressed in closer, hands a warm pressure against his hips. "It relaxes you, like, major relaxes you. You keep falling asleep in the bath, you know. Have to put you in bed before you go all wrinkly and cold." When Arthur made another noise – angrier, this time, and even a little confused – Alfred chuckled some more and squeezed his hands, fingertips pressing on the bones of his pelvis. "Just do it, babe. Don't forget," he added, finally pulling himself away despite Arthur's lingering touch to his shoulders. "We've got that gig with Francis and the Vargas crew tonight, for the birthday you completely missed yesterday."

Arthur snorted in amusement, still leant against the wall, arms crossed over his chest. He could feel his ribs beneath his fingers and made a note to check his chest measurement. "What if I don't want to go out with Francis? What if I don't want to spend four hours sat with people who hate me and only tolerate me because they're utterly besotted with you?"

For a moment, Alfred was silent, popping the cabinet above the sink to rifle through the mess of bottles and cans to find the body spray he was after and step back onto the landing to spray it. Then, he said, "Well, what do you suggest instead? We stay here and have sex on the kitchen table?"

It made Arthur chuckle. "Well," he hummed as Alfred threw the can back into the cabinet. "If you're offering." He left it hanging, just to see Alfred throw his head back and laugh, cross back to him to steal another kiss.

"I love you, you know," he whispered against his lips, one hand cupping the older man's jaw, fingers curling around the back of his neck and thumb on his cheek.

"I know," Arthur replied, smiling into the kiss. "It was always you." His smile lingered on Alfred's lips as the other pulled away again and gave his appearance one last check in the mirror.

"Do I look alright?" he asked.

"You look fine," Arthur assured. "I don't know what you're stressing about; it's only Kiku's people."

"Exactly," Alfred whined. "I don't know shit about them, other than they like Transformers. What if they don't like me?"

"Alfred," Arthur began, going to him and putting his hands on his face, and they both pretended they couldn't feel the shakes. He had his reasonable voice on, a serious expression on his face that held an edge of softness that Alfred had only ever seen when they were alone, wrapped in the sanctity of the house, and Arthur was feeling… better. Not good, but better. "You'll be fine. They love you; they've followed Clairvoyance since you first got whatsit-comics to publish it. If you accidentally offend them, Kiku's got your back, and I'll punch them in the teeth if they start on you."

Alfred laughed a little. "You sure?"

"I'm sure. They wouldn't have asked for the meeting to turn it into a cartoon if they didn't think it was a good idea. You'll be fine."

"You should be coming too," Alfred told him. "I mean, there wouldn't be a comic without you writing the story – hell, it wouldn't exist if I didn't know you!"

Arthur smiled. "You know I can't go into company buildings, love. Not with the energy there. Oi," he added. "Don't let them get an American in to do my voice, will you? I didn't deliberately make my speech pattern ridiculously English in order to be voiced by someone doing an impression of Dick Van Dyke."

"Promise, babe," Alfred replied, glib and too-innocent. Arthur decided to let it slide, because Kiku would call him to make sure he approved before agreeing to casting anyone. He glanced at his watch. "Shit, I'd better get my groove on."

Arthur laughed and shoved him towards the door, then continued to laugh as he followed him down the stairs. "Go on, you bloody fool. God, I hope you don't start dancing in the meeting room. Actually, where's your iPod, I'm having it."

Heaving the sort of sigh Arthur imagined Alfred might have heaved whilst at the Academy had he been so foolish as to get the damn thing confiscated, he dug deep into his trouser pocket and slapped the Touch into his waiting palm, safely ensconced in the Stars-and-Stripes sock he'd bullied (asked nicely) Arthur to make for him after he dropped it for the hundredth time after tripping over Salem for the hundredth time. Giving the taller man a smug little smile, Arthur gave his thanks and promptly headed to the kitchen.

Alfred, of course, followed him, about to run late or not.

"Hey, what are you going to do today, anyway? Besides have that bath?"

"I'm not having a bath, Alfred, I just had a shower, Christ." Arthur frowned for a moment. "I don't know. I might go to The Leaning Tower, or go sit in on one of Pete's lectures and make a nuisance of myself. If I still drove I might have gone to the Church."

Alfred, perched on the edge of the table, hummed contentedly. "We could do that instead," he suggested. "Instead of going out tonight, we could go out to the wheat fields."

"And do what?" Arthur asked, raising an eyebrow at his lover as he set about making a cup of tea. "Have sex there?"

"If you're offering," Alfred quipped, grinning like a fool. "I was thinking of just lying on a picnic blanket actually, and just star gazing. Like we used to."

Arthur waved a hand at him, laughing, but his expression was fond and utterly loving. "Go on, you fool, go before you're too late to be fashionable."

Alfred gave him a noisy, overdramatic kiss, complete with childish sound-effects, and bolted out the door. Arthur shook his head, smiled fondly, and crouched to pet the cat as she slunk her way across the kitchen to greet him properly now the American was out the way.

"What am I going to do with him?" he asked her, though she clearly didn't care, just rolling onto her back to get a decent scratch to her belly. "You don't give a shit, do you?"

Salem's expression couldn't have said 'no' better than if she could speak.

Francis showed up at lunchtime, walking through the front door as though he owned the cottage, and Arthur ignored him. Sprawled out prone on the couch with a battered copy of Hound of the Baskervilles with Salem tucked into the niche between his knees, he'd been there for the remainder of the morning, idling his time and nit-picking the music Alfred had decided he wanted to have on his iPod. He wouldn't mind so much, but they're all his favourite songs.

The first words out of Francis' mouth were; "Your hair needs a cut."

The first words out of Arthur's were; "Not on your life."

Ten minutes later, Arthur's sat on one of the kitchen chairs, a towel around his shoulders, the radio on, eyes closed as he allows the it was dark and I was over, until you kissed my lips and you saved me to work its way through his veins, across his skin to pull itself free of his throat. He was vaguely aware of Francis humming along, but for the most part, they were silent. Occasionally, Francis had to halt his movements to clamp his hands down on Arthur's shoulders.

"Keep still," he said every time. "Do you want to have a lopsided cut?"

Arthur snorted in amusement. "What do I care?" he asked. "I didn't even ask for this."

"No," Francis agreed. "But it doesn't stop you from liking the attention."

"I like nothing of the sort," Arthur said, turning his nose up.

For a long moment, they were silent; the only sound the faint music in the background and the gentle echo of Francis' scissors in Arthur's hair.

"How do you feel?" Francis asked after the silence had settled past comfortable, and into brotherly.

"What do you mean?"

Arthur had not been lulled into a pleasant quiet, a moment between here and there that was the sort of quiet he'd only found when Alfred had forced his way past his defences to clear out the mess the Ghosts left behind. Alfred was, despite his own localised noise, the only source of quiet in Arthur's life these days, the moments of blessed silence, of the tiniest gasps and brilliant smiles that made all the noise bearable, just to hear the 'I love you' whispered into his skin as his world swam and stars gathered at the back of his eyes. Of course he hadn't been lulled into that quiet by Francis giving him a haircut. Of course not, that was ridiculous.

"I mean; Alfred told me of your… how are we phrasing it now? Your attack? Well, whatever you want to call it, you did your thing yesterday. He's worried about you."

"He's always worried about me."

The landline telephone rang, and for three rings, they stared at it.

"Ignore it," Arthur said when it continued to ring. "We don't answer it anymore if it rings for longer than three rings."

"Why not?" Francis did as told and returned to evening up the hair by Arthur's ear.

Arthur shrugged a little. "We keep getting calls from automated companies for one thing, and Ghosts are constantly pranking the line. And then there's these… people. I don't know who they are; I've never spoken to them. Alfred says not to worry, but you know what he's like, he's probably got into some trouble or something."

There was something Arthur didn't like in Francis' voice when he said, "No, Alfred's right. It's probably nothing to worry about; probably just a persistent company trying to get a sale."

Arthur frowned a little. "If you say so."

"Which I do. Now tell me; how do you feel?"

"I'm fine," Arthur assured him. Francis paused pointedly, and Arthur sighed. "Alright, I'm not fine. I'm anything but fine. But it's not like there's anything I can do. Painkillers aren't touching it." He took a breath, picked at a stray thread on a button of his cardigan and mumbled, "The only thing that keeps my head quiet is Alfred."

"Because of the 'connection', right?"

Snip, snip, snip. The noise was getting louder, echoing across his skull, as if his head was protesting being spoken about in such a manner. He nodded; an abortive little motion.

"Yes. I assume so, anyway. It's not like there's a manual for this. I don't know what happened. I didn't give his soul any reason or opportunity to latch onto mine. I know that when his brother died he died a little himself, but… Christ, I don't know."

Francis finally – finally – set the scissors down and moved to crouch in front of where Arthur sat wringing his hands. He rested his hands first on Arthur's knees, and then caught his hands, pulling them apart and lacing their fingers together. Arthur couldn't help but revel in the softness, the length of those fingers, the strength in them, the very warmth. It seared across his skin, warmed his aching bones, and yet, it was cold, distant.

"Oh, no you don't," Francis warned. "Don't you dare, I have to get back to work in ten minutes."

But Arthur's eyes had shifted out of focus, latching onto the sunlight in the window, the way the warm stone walls bleached white, the way the Ghost of a young girl wandered through one wall and out through another, waving to him a little, smiling, but not recognising him. He smiled back, a shaky little smile. He could hear Francis talking – shouting, even – but didn't hear the words, didn't care to hear them. He was too interested in the noise coming from his back garden; a battle, perhaps, or just a pub brawl; they'd been known to happen from time to time.

Francis was clinging to his hands, trying to keep him seated and grounded in the real world, but Arthur had already torn himself free, gotten to his feet and wandered to the French doors leading out onto the decking. Ghosts were fighting, that much was obvious.

The frog behind him was cursing in French, cursing him and his mother and his cat, and he just laughed, his head swimming, bile rising in his throat even as he set his palms to the glass and watched the dead kill each other with the morbid fascination of one watching a train wreck.

Something was pressed to his ear, and he flinched away from it, but Francis had his head pinned, warm palm over his other ear, holding him still even as that blessed silence washed over him, the static fading as it twisted its way around Alfred's voice, the colour began creeping back into his garden, his grass turning green, the oak tree growing tall and proud, the half-a-decade old football with its peeling leather and its mud, the roses and the foxgloves and the buddleia all coming back in a riot of colour.

"Artie? Artie, are you there? Come on, talk to me."

"Alfred." It was barely a breath, and Arthur didn't remember even saying it.

"Arthur," Alfred breathed back, sounding relieved, the tiniest of gasps and the most brilliant of smiles cording along his words. "Thank God. Artie, forget going out tonight. We'll go to the wheat fields, we'll take cucumber sandwiches and a thermos of tea and that blanket on the couch and we'll go to the furthest edge of the furthest field and we'll lie in the fields of gold, Artie, and we'll look at the stars. It'll just be us; me and you and the stars. No one to tell us what to do, no one to see us, no one to hear us. We'll be there until the morning, just us. Nobody else. Artie, I love you so much, Artie, you know that, right? So we'll go. We'll just get up and we'll go and the things you could do to me, Artie, and I wouldn't care, you could do whatever you liked and I'd let you, so long as we're in those fields, so long as it's just you and me and the silence in your head."

Arthur's eyes slipped shut, a soft, long sigh leaving him, his head silent except for Alfred's voice, the words rushing over him, settling deep in his gut and even deeper into his heart.

"You okay now, sweetheart?"

Another slow breath and as much of a nod as Francis's grip on him would allow. He coughed a little, and said, "Yeah… Yes, I'm okay. I'm good. I… I like the sound of that. Just us. And the silence."

"Just us and the silence," Alfred agreed, and there was an audible smile in his voice. "Now, get in the bath, you. It's a long ride out to the fields, and I want you relaxed. 'Ere, put Francis back on, would you?"

"He wants to talk to you, Frog," Arthur grumbled, pulling himself free of Francis' hands.

"What is it?" Francis asked when he'd put the phone back to his ear. He frowned a little, but nodded. "Alright," he said after a second. "I'll have to call in a favour, but yes, I can do that." Another second. "It's getting worse."

He was silent for longer this time, and Arthur lingered at the doorway to watch him pace.

"I don't know. It's as though there's no need for a trigger any more. It's as though – I don't know – it's like his own thoughts are setting him off. I was cutting his hair, and we were talking, and then I took his hands, and that's what set him off. Just physical contact." He paused again. "That can't be healthy. Alright, I'll talk to Marie and Lars, see what they can get their hands on." A flash of anger crossed his face, and Arthur flinched at the strength of it. "I know you don't like it, but what choice do we have? By your own admission, this isn't something we can go to a doctor with! It's only Romulus Vargas' money that's keeping him out of the asy – mental hospital – as it is. If he goes to professionals, they'll ask questions we can't answer with dirty money."

What? Arthur wasn't a stranger to St. Hetalia, he knew the Vargas family was mafia at its finest (or was it lowest? It was hard to tell when dealing with criminals.) but that didn't explain – he knew Romulus Vargas had bought off his prison sentence, lowered it to something that wouldn't completely ruin his life, changed the charge, acquitted him of murder with a simple bribe – but were they really buying everybody else off as well? Were they keeping him safe by using crime?

Did they think he wouldn't know? Francis was looking at him as he spoke, so clearly he either assumed Arthur already knew, or didn't care. It wasn't as if it was a secret, Arthur supposed, watching the Frenchman frown and speak lowly, rubbing at a temple as though it hurt. They'd just never brought it up; hell, Arthur hadn't asked.

But still…

"Alright," Francis sighed eventually. "Alright, I'll stay with him until you get back. You owe me big time for this, Jones." With an exasperated sigh, he hung up and shoved the mobile into his back pocket. He pointed a finger at Arthur. "You," he said, his tone brooking no nonsense. Arthur supposed it was what a big brother might sound like. "Upstairs. I've got express orders to get you in the bath."

"I've had a shower," Arthur grumbled, but allowed Francis to manhandle him in the direction of the stairs all the same.

++End Chapter++

NOTES::

I have a thing for teacher!Francis, leave me alone. I blame General Relativity really.

Have I been reading Wilfred Owen's poem To Eros? Yes, I have. Go read it, it's one of three of his poems that I can actually stand. I hate poetry as a rule. (The other two, incidentally, are The Last Laugh and Mental Cases. I used those three for my English A-Level transformation coursework piece – I chose Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead and those three poems, and guess who got full marks. Do you care? No, but I thought I'd tell you anyway.)

There's a lot of kissing going on today, isn't there? OH WELL.

Oh, Arthur, you have no idea about American comic books do you? I deliberately left which company had taken it up, but I'm thinking either DC/Dark Horse/Marvel. One of the big ones. Because I can. I'm not sure if it'd be DC, since they've got Hellblazer.

Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins is the most offensive thing I've ever heard. We don't sound like that. Ever.

Arthur, the most technophobic man in the history of ever. I swear the only reason he has a TV is because Alfred bugged him until he got one. I'd quite happily do without a TV if I didn't need one for my DVDs. I don't ever watch any shows – those I do are on the internet since they're Canadian and American, and I don't have the channels. Not that my TV works anyway, whatever.

THAT CAT.

I know I said cornfields in LSN, but really, listen to Eva Cassidy's Fields of Gold. The image I have in my head. Oh God it's so beautiful and so them, I just can't get rid of it.

God boys, you're so romantic. SARCASM. Speaking of romanticism; one of England's character notes, as I remember it, says that he's a romantic, and Jesus Christ have I just proved it to myself. My brain's melted itself through over exposure to some of the most beautiful poetry I've ever read in my life and I don't even like poetry. Screw you, Shakespeare. /rant.

I've been to Baskerville Hall, where Hound of the Baskervilles is set. I tell you what, if you've ever played the first Resident Evil game, or the mansion level of 5, the foyer of that mansion looks like a shrunken version of the Spencer Mansion foyer.

A lot of people, I've noticed, write England as being a punk rocker, and I know it's more canon to his character, but I see him as being a bit more mellow in his music tastes, more eclectic (and totally not like me at all *looks at the Lady GaGa next to Rammstein and Beethoven in her playlist*) and more likely to listen to Savage Garden than he is The Sex Pistols. I just can't see it. For the record, he's listening to Adèle's Set Fire to the Rain. My mates hate this song, but I think it's a) beautiful, and b) fitting to USUK.

Cucumber sandwiches are the most amazing things in the history of ever I swear. No, really, they are amazing. I always have cucumber sandwiches when we go anywhere. It's so British, of course Alfred would suggest it.

What's this, Arthur? Getting a taste of your own medicine with the secret-keeping? Why, yes you are.

OH ALFRED. Inspiration is; Eva Cassidy's version of Fields of Gold. I think I've mentioned it somewhere above, but OH, I LOVE IT SO MUCH.

This is what happens when you don't have a distinct plan set up in your head – oh I know where the story's going and I know what the endgame is, but as for the in-betweens and the chapter plans? Not a clue, so expect lots of chapters like this; i.e. in which not a lot happens. Even so, I hope you enjoyed, my lovelies! ++Vince++