4:58

A light was still on. Francis' bleary eyes stared at the ceiling and then looked over toward the light. Alfred had been using it to read by or play one of those games of his, but it seemed the boy had finally drifted off. It was strange. Again he felt proud, as if he had had some say in raising him. He really needed to stop that feeling.

Blinking a few times he turned his head to see the clock. 4:58. Wonderful. Shifting slightly, he tried to get back to sleep when he heard the door open. He did not know why he looked over. It could only be one person. Unless someone broke in, or Maddox was still up. Actually, that was a frightening thought, considering everything Maddox had been doing lately. So it was to relieve his own mind that he looked over to see who was entering the room.

"Arthur?"

The Briton stayed quiet, stepping in carefully and closing the door behind him, but not letting it snap shut. Francis sat up slightly, a bit worried by the other's actions. After all, Arthur might not have had the same situation as Francis, but he was still further down on the scale of health than he should have been.

"What are you...?" he began to ask, but Arthur walked over, bent down to look him in the eyes, and then kissed him.

Francis might have been shocked, but his first reaction was to kiss Arthur back. Of course. Who would he be to miss an opportunity like this? That only lasted a few second though, because not only did Arthur pull away, Francis remembered that this was Arthur. Ergo, he should not be as pleased about being kissed. Francis immediately blamed the fact that it had been too long since he had had a date for his lapse in judgment.

Arthur covered a cough.

"So did my near death experience rekindle your love for me, or did you just want to get me sick?" Francis asked irritably, wiping off his mouth. "You do know what you have is not something I can catch. I know when to worry and when not to bother."

"You... got one of those spot on," Arthur said, albeit slowly. "And the other is... missing quite a few details." He coughed again.

Oh, well, let's just guess which one was spot on. "I won't be in your house for much longer. So please leave me be."

"I..." Arthur hesitated, then glared down at him. "Oh, I should have known."

Despite the fact that Arthur had always had these mood swings (much like a woman), Francis found himself just as lost as to what caused it as he usually did. "Quoi?"

"Never mind!" he snapped quietly, turning and leaving the room. Francis stared at his retreating back (back, not anything else because he was just going to keep believing that Arthur's ass had gotten fat and not try and figure out otherwise) and wondered how exactly it was he had ever thought there was anything remotely nice about the man in the first place.

But it must have been nice for Arthur to have a woman's mentality. Francis was furious with him, but would not have minded continuing that kiss. How separated his emotions were from his needs. He groaned, fell back on the bed, and considered sticking a pillow over his face. Considering his recent breathing problems, he settled for pulling the blankets up over his face.

Meanwhile, in the corner on the other bed, Alfred opened one of his eyes again to survey the situation.

And then he decided his 'mom' was not the only one who really needed some help.


Notes:

So... I am thinking about taking some of my stuff over to Livejournal. Just because. Does anyone want to help me figure it out (as I am really slow in learning about websites and the like) and answer some questions I have about it? If no one does I am likely to give up on trying to figure it out. Which would be sad.