"Love me when I least deserve it, 'cause that's when I really need it."

Swedish Proverb

"What happened, America?"

The personification of the United States of America turned towards the threshold of his kitchen, against which Arthur was leaning, dressed only in a pair of a tracksuit too big for him, and a lustful expression compared on the former's face, deforming his angelic features.

"Pfft, you're such a light weigh that you don't remember anything, Arty? Come on… The pub, the booze, me carrying you here, you dragging me to bed and making yourself be ridden like a slut in heat… Does it ring a bell?"

He cast a wink at him, adding: "By the way, you'd better thank me. For not leaving you there and also for the services later on… Even if I wouldn't have been able to say no to your plea! E from how you were moaning, I assume you enjoyed it!"

Arthur looked at him in the eyes, and America found himself unable to avert his gaze from those green emotionlesscoldhardsteely eyes.

He should have been feeling ashamed, beg him not to tell anything anyone.

Why was he silent? Why wasn't he blushing, spluttering, trying to deny the embarrass?

Why did he looked like he was judging him?

"Come on, Arty, don't sulk like this. There's nothing wrong, right? Only…" America widened his eyes, feigning shock.

Arthur hardly kept back the loathing.

"Oh, France, that's right! What are you going to tell him?" America asked with fake, rotten fake care, bringing a hand to his face in a theatrical gesture, every single word dripping sarcasm and derision.

"The truth."

The English's voice echoed like a whip, and America, unconsciously, backed.

"I'll tell him that nothing happened."

Inside him, America exhaled a sigh of relief, and on his face came back the allusive grimace.

"What? Lying to him? The perfect gentleman lowering himself to lie like a adulteress?"

But Arthur denied him again the control of the situation, perfectly composed.

"Last night nothing happened between us." He touched his lower back, without stopping to stare at him. –I'm not sore, and there's not sperm nor on me nor on the sheets."

How to resume in a sentence the terror that had haunted him when he had woken up naked, alone, in a bed that was him.

The piercing headache, the nausea and abhor he felt when he had thought of what he could have done.

"And from the black eye you're starting to show, I'd say you're the one who begged, but it looks like you didn't have luck."

America closed his hands in fists and grinded his teeth, abandoning every pretending of cordiality, and he approached threatening the other, who stopped him again with his whip"like tongue.

"You're pathetic." He said, and he turned toward the front door.

"Stop!" The other blond growled, grabbing his arm as Arthur was already unlocking the door, forcing him to turn towards the bigger man.

"What does he have in plus of me? You're a pair of losers, that's what you are!"

"You don't want me. You just want to see me running to you crying for your help, you want me to be bounded to you like you were to me long time ago. Well, realize this once for all, loser."

Arthur pierced him with a freezing sneer, impartial and merciless like death's.

"I'm not a child like you, and you will never obtain this satisfaction from me. Once, maybe, but now… Never."

"Why?" America asked with a desperate look, terrified of hearing his mind being dissected and exposed like this.

"Because you left and betrayed me when I needed you. And so, I won't be here when you'll need me."

"Why him, then? He hurt you as much as me!"

"Because Francis had always been with me. How do you say you Americans? "In thick and thin"? He loved me when everyone hated and loathed me, he loved me when I fell from my throne."

While America was asking, no, pleading an answer, his hold had slacked, and Arthur took the chance to open the door and get out, dressed only in those America's tracksuit trousers he found on the floor, too big for him but that protected a bit his feet from the gravel of the path.

"AAAARGH!" America yelled, giving a fist to the door, breaking it down, but Arthur didn't turn back.