Germany was completely determined to use his time today effectively and make a sizeable dent in his growing pile of paperwork. The past few days had made it difficult to focus on it, but this morning he had awoken knowing he needed to finish. Armed with several cups of coffee and announcing to the rest of the occupants of his house that he would not tolerate interruptions he had shut the door and begun to tediously sort through everything. He was now several hours in and feeling like he was finally making some headway.

That was until his door was thrown open and a terrified Italian ran in.

Germany looked up in annoyance as the brunette quickly shut the door and leaned against it breathing heavily, though that emotion quickly left and was replaced by a mixture of concern and relief. An afraid Italian was someone he was used to dealing with and it crept into his mind that perhaps now the madness was over.

Italy's fuchsia eyes darted around the room and settled on Germany. "You have to hide me."

Germany blinked several times. "What? What are hiding from this time?"

"The scariest thing to exist in this world." Italy told him, and began to furiously pull open cabinets trying to find enough space to hide inside one of them.

Germany sighed as he watched the smaller nation continue to run around the room. "That doesn't explain anything." He didn't get an explanation for Italy's behavior as there came a knock on his office door. The Italian squeaked and in blind terror leapt behind Germany's desk huddling on the floor by his feet. The blonde raised an eyebrow at this and grimaced before answering the knock, completely unprepared for what came through the door.

The blonde that sidled in he didn't recognize until the first words were spoken: "Caio Germany! Have you seen Veneziano today?" The pen he had been holding slipped from his fingers as Germany's mouth hung open at the sight before him. Romano smiled, a genuine smile, not a sneer or smirk, a genuine happy and pleased with the world grin that Germany had been utterly convinced the other's face had no idea how to form. Germany was a complete loss for words and his lack of response had Romano waving a hand in front of him. "Umm? Germany?"

"You are blonde." Was all that the German managed to say.

Romano giggled, apparently today was a day of firsts. "Yes, I am! What do you think?" He gave a quick spin to show all sides of his new look: light bleach blonde hair, a clean-cut designer suit, and a delicate scarf wrapped lovingly around his neck. "Do you like it? I think this color suits me pretty well, don't you agree?"

Germany really didn't know what to think, except to make a mental note to have someone check into the water supply back at Italy's place. "Is there something I can help you with?"

"Why, yes. I'm looking for Veneziano." Romano explained looking around room to see if he could spot his brother hiding somewhere. Beside him, Germany sensed that Italy wasn't even breathing in hopes he wouldn't be caught. "He's being so silly today and ran off before we could spend some quality time together. I just wanted to fix his hair was all and he acted like I was killing him." Romano gave a tired, and overly dramatic sigh. "I just cannot understand him sometimes."

"He's not here." Germany lied, not really understanding what was happening.

Romano looked him over and shrugged. "Well, he'll turn up eventually. He's obsessed with you after all. I find it rather cute, and so long as you don't hurt him I don't mind the two of you were a little more than friends."

Germany grimaced at that but didn't comment. "As you can see I am busy with work," he gave a nod to his desk to indicate the scattered papers, "so if you could show yourself out…"

"Sure, sorry for interrupting." Romano grinned, heading back out the door. "I may go and catch up with Prussia; haven't chatted with him in ages. So if you do see my silly little brother, send him my way. Ciao!"

When the door closed with a click Italy slowly appeared from behind the desk with narrowed eyes. "There is something very wrong with him today."

Germany just gaped as the Italian stood up from his hiding place and rubbed his chin in thought. "It's as though his entire personality has just switched overnight. You think he might be ill?" He didn't really wait for an answer pacing slightly as he thought aloud. "Maybe this is what happens when one of our kind reaches the end of their lives." He abruptly stopped pacing and grinned slightly. "We should put him out of his misery."

"Italy, you are interrupting my work." Germany grumbled when he realized that nothing had changed with the initial problem and now there would be another to add to it. "I am very busy today."

The shorter nation frowned. "You are always busy with work. You never have any time for me."

Germany groaned as he tried to focus on what was written on the pages before him. "I will play with you later, but I cannot until I am finished with these first."

The resulting silence was pleasing but short lived as a few quick footsteps later and Italy was close enough to shove everything off his desk and onto the floor. Germany stared in horror at the messy pile of paper covering his carpet and turned, absolutely furious, towards a smirking Italy. "What have you done?!"

"I guess you have some time right now." The brunette shrugged and easily hopped onto the desk. Germany dug his fingers into the arm rests of his chair as he watched the nation in front him settle comfortably and smile. "So, Germany, what do you want to do?"

"Why are you doing this?" Germany muttered lowly while fixing the sternest glare he could muster on the brunette.

"Hmm?" Italy tilted his head to the side in confusion. "I already said I wanted to spend time with you."

"No, why are you acting like this? Why are you different?" He rubbed a hand over his face as he tried to understand. All of this was just giving him a headache, or perhaps just intensifying the one he already had.

"Awe, poor Germany." Italy cooed giving a quick pat to the top of the other's head. "You cannot figure it out, can you?" He rested his chin in his hand and smirked. "Ever thought I like being like this?"

Germany didn't even want to consider such an option, but his wide-eyed expression made the brunette laugh. "Say, why don't we do something? The Axis hasn't made any more progress in battles recently. Why don't we decide who we should attack next? England?"

"You are willing to go up against England?" Germany cautioned, looking suspiciously over the small nation.

Italy gave a lazy shrug. "Sure, why not?"

"And you are not afraid of him?" Germany tried again.

"Why should I be?" Italy smiled in a way that made the blonde uneasy. "I've come to realize that he's not as tough as he looks. It's all a front with only the worst cooking imaginable to back him up."

"I will… consider it…" Germany said slowly trying to look anywhere else but at the nation on his desk.

"Oi, West! I know you said you didn't want me to interrupt you while you were working, but-" Prussia paused as he held the door open and surveyed the scene that lay before him, more specifically that Germany's paperwork was on the floor and Italy was lounging comfortably on the desk. "Oh, you were that type of working."

"What do you want?" Germany snarled as he leaned around the nation blocking his view of the door, attempting to ignore both the blush that was rising to his face and the pleased grin that Italy wore.

Prussia waited a second more before launching into his explanation for his visit. "Well, you see Romano's weird today and normally I could handle it, but he may have called Austria various forms of old-fashioned and you know what a pain in the asrch he can be normally, but now that's he's offended…"

"I get it." Germany groaned and held up a hand to pause his brother. He was already wishing the day would end. "Where are they now?"

"Austria is fuming in the kitchen and Romano's probably followed him to give him fashion advice." Prussia explained and leaned against the door way. "We need a way to get him to leave."

"I have a way." Italy offered, brandishing his knife with a sinister grin. Germany held a moment of wonder where he considered where it could have been previously hidden.

"Go call Spain." Germany instructed, ignoring Italy's suggestion completely. "You should still have his number, right?"

Prussia nodded, disappearing to call the Spaniard and Germany stood up snatching Italy's arm in the process. "Come with me."

"Where are we going?" Italy purred, using the opportunity to get closer to Germany and rest his head against his arm.

Germany didn't answer him, instead just leading him down the hall and thrusting him through the doorway of another room. "I have found him."

"Finally!" Romano squealed leaving the fuming Austrian and dashing across the room to grab his brother who had realized all too late what was happening.

"You will pay for this." Italy hissed back as he was forcibly dragged away and pushed into one of the chairs. Austria sniffed irritably and left them alone, clenching his coffee a bit harder than normal.

It still took several hours of listening to Romano's incessant chatting and watching as Italy scowled darkly at him before the doorbell rang and Germany left to go answer it and found a tired looking Spaniard on the other side of it. "Hola, Germany." Spain greeted him. "Prussia called, but I don't really understand. Something happened with Romano?"

"Better just come see for yourself." Germany muttered holding the door open for the other nation and indicating that he follow him back down the hall towards the kitchen. They entered to find that Romano still had Italy trapped on a chair and was playing with his hair while the younger brother glared daggers at the wall.

Romano looked up when Spain entered and smiled broadly. "Spain! You've come to visit?"

"Romano?" Spain said slowly, glancing at Germany hoping for some kind of explanation. "What are you doing?"

"Fixing Veneziano's hair. I think he's due for a change, don't you think so?" Romano chirped happily despite the hissing sound that came from Italy.

"I… I don't think Italy wants you to change his hair…" Spain stated, looking a bit worried towards the younger Italian.

"Hmm?" Romano looked between the two with confusion. "Why wouldn't he want me to?"

"Because I like my hair as it is!" Italy snapped, trying to escape out of his brother's clutches and batting his hands away.

"Romano, why don't you spend time with Spain instead?" Germany suggested, hoping to get at least one of his problems out of the house. Spain nodded in confused agreement from beside him.

The blonde Italian thought about it for a moment and then grinned. "Sure. I love spending time with you Spain."

"You do?" Spain looked genuinely shocked.

"Of course!" Romano laughed, abandoning his brother to join the other. "I always have."

"Re-Really?" Spain stammered, looking down at the large smile on younger's face. His own smile slowly formed and grabbed Romano up in a crushing hug that the smaller nation easily returned. "Oh, Romano, you are so cute! Let's go!" Spain cried tugging the blonde with him towards the door. "This calls for a fiesta! With tomatoes!"

"As long as it doesn't make a mess." They could hear Romano say from the hallway before there was silence once again. Germany hesitated before slowly turning to find Italy glaring at him with his arms crossed from the chair he had been held in all afternoon and a lesser man would have flinched at the look he received.

"You are lucky I like you, Germany," Italy said quietly, "so I won't kill you, but I'm also not going to forgive you for this." He rose quietly to his feet and brushed past the blonde leaving through the same door his brother had minutes earlier. Germany rubbed a hand through his hair as he heard the door slam behind him and left to gather his paperwork from the floor and consider what options had for alternative places to sleep tonight.

AN: I love 2p Romano! :D He giggles, has the best fashion sense and has the word 'sorry' as a useable part of his vocabulary (granted, this may be more my version). I've been so excited to post this chapter.

And we've hit double digits in chapters! Whoo! Still pretty far from the end though ;) and all of your amazing reviews are so encouraging!