Title: Up All Night

Pairing: Austria + Hungary

Rating: K+ (Mostly because labeling something as "K" makes me feel like I'm writing for kindergartners. XD)

Hungary grumbled to herself as her husband, Austria, began screaming in his sleep. This had been happening ever since the war had started. Though he put on a brave face while he was awake, it was obvious to Hungary that the deaths of his people hurt him. The death toll hurt her as well, but she had always been stronger than the music-loving, aristocratic nation.

Sighing, Hungary reached over and shook Austria awake. The screaming stopped to be replaced by heavy breathing, and then he opened his eyes and looked up at her. Part of her was incredibly annoyed at the sight of tears in his eyes, but another part of her wanted to reach out and kiss them away. In the end, she did something in between the two, reaching out and throwing her arms around him, though still muttering under her breath about how she hadn't gotten a good night's sleep in months.

Austria sniffled lightly into her hair, and Hungary couldn't stop a self-satisfied smile from crossing onto her face. Sure, she loved Austria for being sophisticated and refined at all times, but she also especially liked how he could be so freaking cute! ...Even if those "sometimes" did equal whenever he had an awful nightmare... Hungary frowned. Though she kind of liked how Austria depended on her after a nightmare, she would need to fix them because not only was she not getting any sleep, he wasn't either, plus he was starting to look really bad and all the rest of the Central Powers were starting to notice, and they couldn't have that. They needed to seem strong, not... well, like they weren't getting any sleep.

Hungary sat up in bed, shocking Austria awake once more. He looked up at her with a cute little confused expression, and she could barely stop a smile from tugging at her lips.

"Austria," she said, twisting her you're-so-cute! smile into a determined frown. "I'm going to help you cure your nightmares."

"What?" he asked sleepily. "How?"

She crossed her arms and legs and considered with a pout. "I'll... um... you can't go to sleep!"

The Austrian man next to her gave her a confused frown, sitting up in bed as well. "What do you mean, I can't go to sleep?"

"Um... you can't go to sleep... I'm going to keep you up all night!" she finally said. Austria gave her a horrified look and she realized how wrong that had sounded. "I, um, I mean that I'm going to make you stay awake until you're so tired that you won't even have time for nightmares!" She blushed and looked away, trying not to think about what she had just said. She was only glad that she hadn't said it when they had been camping with the rest of the Central Powers a couple nights before, or Prussia never would have let her hear the end of it. Ever.

"Are you sure that it will work...?" Austria asked, voice soft in the darkness. Hungary felt bad that she had been thinking only of herself and her own sleep for the longest time. She had forgotten that the Austrian was having the nightmares for a reason, not just to annoy her.

Hungary shrugged, but sighed at the look on his face. "I don't know. I hope it will, though, for your sake."

"I hope so as well."

Hungary jumped out of bed, suddenly not feeling so tired. She went to her wardrobe and grabbed a robe to throw on over her nightgown. She turned and grabbed one of Austria's for him to wear, then half-walked half-bounced over to him. "Come on, put this on!" she said excitedly, tugging him up from the bed. "We're going to play games all night, just like I used to with Prussia!"

Austria blanched and gave her a look as he pulled on his robe, and she blushed. "Not that kind of game," she said, feeling awfully embarrassed. What was wrong with her tonight? "I mean a board game, or a card game, or both!" Suddenly she forgot about what she had just accidentally implied. She was excited to play with Austria. Oh crap, that had sounded wrong too-really now?!

She grabbed Austria by the hand and led him down the stairs of their possibly too-big mansion house. "What should we do first?" she asked him as they walked, excitement bubbling over in her chest. "We could play cards! I know this really good card game, Prussia and I used to play it all the time, but he'd always cheat even when I threatened him with my frying pan." She frowned. "Or we could play a boardgame, I'm sure we have some of those somewhere, don't we? Didn't Prussia or someone get me one for my birthday last year? I thought he did..." She pulled him into the drawing room, where the embers of a fire lay smouldering in their fireplace. "Oh, Austria will you fix up the fire and I'll go look for the board games?" She left the room before he could answer, flicking on lights as she went. For as long as she could remember, it had scared her to walk alone in a house in the dark, and she liked the seemingly new-to a country-electric lights that humans had invented. She didn't know what she would do if she had to walk around holding a flickering candle for the rest of her life.

The first place she looked was the closet under the stairs. They kind of just shoved anything and everything under there if they didn't use it that often. She searched around but found nothing, so then she went upstairs and checked the hall closet there, and that's where she hit pay dirt. Grinning happily, she pulled out a couple board games and a deck of cards, then walked quickly back down the stairs to where Austria was adding a log to the fire.

"Look what I found!" she said happily, sitting down on the floor and spreading out the various boxes. "We have Monopoly, Scrabble, checkers, chess-and I also know all these really good card games, like Gin Rummy, 21..." she trailed off when she realized she had been about to say "war." Why would they want to play war when they're already fighting in a real one?

She watched Austria as he thought over the games. "Mm... what about checkers?" he asked, contemplating the board. "I haven't played since I was a child," he admitted. Hungary imagined Austria as a child and couldn't help but giggle to herself. I'll need to find some portraits of him when he was younger... she thought to herself. She still remembered beating him up and then his friend Switzerland coming along to ruin their play... She shook her head to clear it. She had a game to focus on.

"Okay then, checkers it is!" She grabbed the chess board, which doubled as a checkers board, and pulled out the needed pieces. "Black or white?" she asked.

"Black," he said. She separated all the black pieces from the white pieces, then began to set hers up. She talked all the while in an effort to keep the Austrian from falling asleep. "And so then Prussia and I went off to go beat up Britain because, really, who can resist beating that guy up? It's those eyebrows, I swear, they just make you want to rip them off or something-your turn." Austria nearly jumped at the sudden change of subject, then moved one of his pieces. She moved one of hers, and they settled into a calming rhythm, white, black, white, black.

"I think I've won," Austria said as he captured her last piece. Though he tried to hide it, she could see a small smile threatening to break free.

Hungary gasped. "Be still, my heart!" she said jokingly. Austria blushed, and then she realized what exactly was implied with that sentence: that her heart sped up at his brilliance. She blushed as well, but didn't take it back. It was true. He heart did speed up at his brilliance; that was why she had married him in the first place. She could only hope he knew that.

Suddenly, she felt Austria's hand gently rising to cup her cheek. She looked up to find him staring at her, looking rather uncertain. Slowly, carefully, he leaned forward and placed a gentle kiss on her mouth. Her face tingled everywhere he touched, and she leaned into the kiss. This was why she had married him: because he was sweet and nice and cared and genuinely liked her for who she was and who she had been, even if she had beat him up more times than she could count.

He pulled away slowly, leaving her wanting more. "I love you," he said softly.

"I love you too," she said, feeling cliche but liking it. They smiled sweetly at each other, looking like the meaning of love.

And from that time on... Austria had no more nightmares.

A/N Okay, so I totally did not want to end this with something so cliche but... IT WAS SO CUTE! .

Now, everyone thank Calico Productions for this one! XD