Disclaimer: I do not own Hetalia.

Warnings: Slash, AU, swearing, sub-par writing, wonky plots, appallingly slow updates, and Hitler jokes.

I don't know what I'm doing.

Unbeta'd.

[Chapter 13]

Alfred woke up at a quarter to dawn and immediately discovered that, at some point during the night, Arthur had decided he wanted cuddle. Unable to decide whether he wanted to be big spoon or little spoon, Arthur had settled for sprawling himself across Alfred's torso in an ungainly collection of limbs. Following this discovery was the stillest, most silent panic attack Alfred had ever had. He was being cuddled by someone who would respond in a ninja-esque fashion should he move. And he doubted that asphalt would be as forgiving as hotel carpeting.

So Alfred stayed stock still and freaked the fuck out while Arthur made sleepy noises against his clavicle. Not the best of plans as Arthur's sleepy noises became grumbles, presumably in response to Alfred's rigidness.

Alfred forced a couple of deep breaths and managed to relax. His unwanted cuddling companion wrapped his arms around him like he was an oversized teddy bear and nuzzled his nose against Alfred's collarbone.

Arthur was going to kill him. Arthur was going to wake up, and then he was going to kill him. Alfred was going to be road kill. He was going to be worse than road kill. They were going to have to scrape him off the concrete with a spatula-

Arthur whimpered.

It took Alfred a minute to realize that it had been Arthur rather than some small animal passing by, because this was Arthur. Arthur didn't whimper. Arthur yelled, and scoffed, and kicked ass when the occasion called for it.

Yet, here he was, making vulnerable noises and gripping Alfred ever tighter as though he was going to slip away. Alfred winced as nails dug into his sides.

"Arthur? Hey, Arthur. Wake up. You're dreaming."

Arthur jolted and pulled himself upright, mumbling something incoherent. Alfred hesitated and then awkwardly wrapped his arms around Arthur, dragging him back down to his chest and rubbing slow circles onto the panicked man's back.

"Hey, easy there. Easy. It's ok. You're ok. Just breathe. You're fine. You awake?"

More incoherent mumbling. That was a no.

"Come on. You're safe. No evil spies or whatever. Just me. Just Alfred."

Arthur relaxed, becoming a warm heavy weight on Alfred's chest. The mumbling didn't stop, so Alfred just kept crooning calming nonsense until Arthur quieted and his breathing evened out. Alfred kept running his hand up and down Arthur's spine long after the man had gone back to sleep.

So, on a positive note, it didn't look like he was going to be tossed into the air by an irritated agent. On the other hand, he now had the aforementioned agent snoring, definitely snoring, on his chest. And they had their arms wrapped around each other. It was strangely comfortable.

Alfred didn't chose to dwell on that, instead noting how odd his life had become and wondering where it might be going until eventually his breath steadied to match Arthur's and he slipped off once more into dreamland.

Dawn found them spooning on the hood of a beat up car decorated with dying glow sticks. The sun rose without comment and the two slept on.

An hour or so later, Alfred got thrown off the hood of the car anyway. Not through any ill intentions on Arthur's part, but because tractor trailers make quite a bit of noise as they roll past. Arthur had simply obeyed the ingrained response to get the hell away from whatever was barreling towards them. Unfortunately, as they were still sleepily entwined, Alfred had been brought along for the ride. The two of them landed with a thud on the relatively forgiving dirt instead of the dreaded asphalt.

Arthur rolled off Alfred almost immediately after they hit the ground, diving for cover and greeting the day with an angry cry of "Motherfucker!"

Alfred dug the heels of his hands into his eyes and wondered if he was going to have to convince Arthur not to start shooting things.

Arthur had refused diners or fast food as a breakfast option, so Alfred had improvised. There'd been an organic food store not too far down the road and Alfred had purchased a bag full of oranges. The two of them peeled and ate their fill on the curb near Alfred's sloppy parking job, while Alfred sipped hesitantly at free trade coffee and Arthur cursed softly as he tried to fish a teabag out of some exotic herbal blend.

If Arthur remembered what had happened that morning, he was choosing not to comment. Alfred stuffed a quarter of an orange in his mouth, feeling oddly relieved. Arthur finally succeeded in removing the errant teabag and tossed it out into the street. He turned to Alfred, only to find him grinning like an idiot, lips pulled back in an orange peel smile. The Brit managed to look singularly unimpressed for a moment, before the expression crumpled and he chuckled in amusement.

Alfred pumped his fists in victory. In retaliation, Arthur threw an orange at him.

"Hey!" Alfred said, or tried to say. He spat out the orange peel and tried again. "What was that for?"

"You know."

"Come on, it's fun! I used to do it all the time when I played soccer back in grade school. We used to pretend they were mouth guards."

"Oh, so you played proper football then?"

"For a while, yeah. Then I realized that football, American football, is clearly the superior sport."

Arthur threw another orange at him. Alfred caught it one-handed.

"Aw, yeah! Who's the man?"

Arthur scoffed into his tea. Alfred figured he was probably just jealous.

"So, I've been thinking."

"God forbid." Arthur drawled, failing to hide his smile in the rim of his cup.

Alfred tossed the orange back. It went wide and tumbled into the gutter. Neither of them made any attempt to retrieve it. Thanks to a pushy saleswoman, Alfred had bought more oranges than they could hope to eat in one sitting.

"I don't know where you've been checking for info on Tino, but I've thought of a few places I could try. If you think you need the help."

"You have access to something better than my spy network?"

"Not saying I'm better than whoever you've been talking to, but I could probably hustle something up if you gave me enough time and a net connection."

"Are you suggesting hacking?" Arthur hissed.

"Yeah." Alfred said with a shrug. It's not like he'd never done it before, but perhaps he shouldn't mention that while Arthur was glaring at him.

"Are you mad? Do you know how much trouble you could land yourself in?"

"Please, I know what I'm doing. And most hackers don't get sent to jail, not real jail anyway."

"Real jail?" came Arthur's incredulous reply "Is there a fake jail?"

"Well, there's Monopoly jail."

"Yes." Arthur deadpanned. "Monopoly jail. Do not pass go. Do not collect 200 dollars."

"I've always wondered about 'Go'." Alfred mused "Everything else in Monopoly sort of makes sense in a real world context, but it's not like everyone gets a wad of money every so often. Well, some people do, but it's not like-"

"Alfred!" Arthur snaped "Focus!"

"What? You can't tell me you've never wondered about that."

"Alfred, I've never wondered about that."

Alfred pouted. "I'm only trying to help."

Arthur started and lowered his eyes to the cup in his lap. "I don't mean to sound ungrateful, I really don't. But I don't want to see you dragged into this."

"Dude. I got run off a cliff by a bunch of angry mooks. Little late for that."

Arthur looked supremely guilty, and Alfred scrambled to say something meaningful. He didn't get the chance.

"I know. We have a pact. You agreed to this, but I- I don't think I could take it if someone else important to me got hurt. Just be careful, alright?"

Alfred gave a short determined nod, eyes never leaving Arthur's.

"I suppose there's no talking you out of this. Right then." Arthur knocked back the last of his tea "Let's go find you some Wi-Fi."

Wi-Fi came from a deli with horribly scuffed floors that didn't care what they did so long as they purchased something every two hours and kept up the illusion that the place was doing a good business. The seats were comfortable and the connection speed was decent. They settled in.

"So what am I looking for?"

Arthur dug through his papers and brought out a paper clipped section.

"Most of the information I've been able to gather recently has been financial. He's been using the funds set aside for his new identity for a different cause. I still don't know what it is. Lots of payoffs to people. Bribing shipping companies. He's got people on his payroll, and he's moving something somewhere. Finer details are proving harder to come by."

Alfred took the documents. "Well, it's a start. Go buy something so they don't kick us out. Hopefully I'll have something before we need to buy another one."

Arthur nodded and slid out to address the sleepy man at the counter. Alfred rummaged through his duffle for his Frankenstein's monster of a laptop. It tumbled out along with the strange part from his deceased GPS.

Alfred turned the black box around in his hands, pondering what it could be. But the only way he could find out was to retrofit his laptop and combine it with Hitler's parts. This wasn't a viable option. He needed it for other purposes, and there was no guarantee that electronic jury-rigging would actually work.

Besides, making Franken-Hitler just seemed like a bad idea.

He tucked it away as Arthur came back with a sandwich made of meat and cheese piled high on bread colored an odd shade of grey. The look on his face suggested that he clearly would not have purchased anything from this place if they hadn't had to worry about being kicked out for loitering. He placed it in front of Alfred, correctly concluding that the man would eat just about anything, suspect bread or not. Alfred cracked his knuckles and got to work.

Three sandwiches later he actually had something.

"Hey, Arthur."

Arthur jerked back to reality. Having had nothing to so for the past eight hours, he had begun watching whatever daytime television was being broadcast from the TV on the deli counter, and had been slipping in and out of the same comatose state the deli employee had been rendered nearly brain dead by.

"Wha-?"

"Think I found something."

Arthur was immediately on alert. "What have you got?"

"At some point during the last couple of months, Tino rented space on a server. It's like a storage unit, only for electronic files. His account is no longer active, so the company dumped whatever might have been stored there. But, I got to thinking. Sometimes services like this hang onto information longer than they need to, just in case the feds come a calling. Turns out they did exactly that. I called up their last backup, and it turns out there was some stuff still there. Tino seems to have taken down everything useful, but I did find this. Seems to be a list of names. Don't know what it's for, but I thought you should take a look."

Arthur frowned and leaned forward, scanning the document.

"Do you recognize any of these people?"

"Well," Alfred scrolled to the middle of the list, "I recognized those two names immediately. See the two under that Von Bock guy? I attended a seminar on programming a few years back, and they were the ones running it. Those five over here? True blue code monkeys. They're kind of like urban legends in the programming world. This man- no sorry, not Lili Z-whatever, the name across- this man is an aeronautical engineer. I heard about him at NASA. Supposed to be very good at what he does. There are a couple other names that are sort of familiar, but I can't say for certain that I know them. Most everyone I think I recognize does something with computers."

Arthur had pulled out a notepad and was furiously copying names, along with Alfred's commentary.

"Any idea what Tino might want with these people?" he asked.

"I've got no idea. You think it has something to do with that SATS thing you were talking about?"

"Maybe. Those three-" Arthur tapped the screen with his pencil "were involved with the original project. But, if Tino managed to convince them to work for him, he wouldn't need so many others. They knew enough about the project that they probably would have been able to come up with some sort of duplicate with just a small team of additional workers. Maybe if he were trying to reproduce the exact infrastructure he'd need this many people, but, again, he has members from the original project. Not to mention his contacts. He shouldn't need workers on this scale. Assuming he's even using these people as workers. For all we know, these are people he's ordered hits on."

Arthur sat back down in his chair with a frustrated grunt.

"Two steps forward, one step back?" Alfred offered. Arthur only made another frustrated noise and leaned all the way back in his seat, letting his head loll back.

"God, I need a drink." he groaned.

Alfred shut his laptop's lid with a snap and reached for his keys. "That can be arranged."

The establishment was part biker bar, part truck stop, all roadside monstrosity. Wafting out onto the parking lot was the stench of bodily fluids and alcohol and there was little doubt as to where it was wafting from. Alfred didn't think he'd ever seen a place that screamed 'come here to get shitfaced' quite so loudly. At least not without a neon sign perched outside proclaiming that it was half-priced Jager night.

Alfred slammed his door shut, hoping it wouldn't attract the attention of the biker gang gathered by the door. They were leaning against their cycles, roughhousing and making friendly catcalls at the waitress who had come outside to serve them. One of them reached out to cop a feel as she passed out beer bottles, only to be slapped by one of his fellows.

"Watch your hands." the biker chuckled "That's Lars' sister, look don't touch."

The one Alfred guessed was Lars was a large man with blonde hair who had decided, for whatever reason, to slick his bangs almost straight up. He and the waitress were exchanging soft words and she gave him a pat on the shoulder before sauntering back to the bar. Alfred and Arthur skirted the bikers and followed her inside.

The inside smelt much the same as the outside, only it substituted grease and body odor for the faint smell of motor oil that had lingered in the parking lot. Most of the customers were middle aged men whose frames were heavy with muscle or fat or both. Some sat hunched over their drinks and others were slurring stories to each other with wide grins and loud voices.

Arthur waded through the room with an air of confidence, broadcasting the intent to knock back at least half a dozen glasses before calling it quits. Alfred slinked after him, desperately trying not to bump into anyone and thinking fondly of the establishments he used to visit, places where ordering fruity drinks wouldn't get you sucker punched.

Arthur sat down on a chair in the back like he owned the place, pulling a bowl of suspect peanuts towards him. Alfred sat down slowly, wincing when he was finally situated. His seat was every bit as sticky as he had feared it would be.

"Am I ordering then?"

Arthur cracked a peanut in his fist, tossing the edible bits into his mouth and the shells on the floor. "Yours is the face we don't have to worry about anyone recognizing."

"What am I getting you?"

"Rum."

"Rum and what?"

"Just rum."

"Alrighty then." Alfred practically shot out of his seat, incredibly happy to no longer be in contact with the surface of his chair.

The bar had six stools in front of it, only four of which were occupied, and only one occupant who wasn't face down on the counter. The man didn't look too far away from joining his companions. The waitress who had been outside with the bikers was fiddling with glasses behind the bar. She looked nice enough, with shoulder length blonde hair decorated with a red ribbon. She gave him a smile when she saw him approach.

"Well, hello." she crooned, dragging her eyes across his figure "Don't think I've seen you before. Name's Bella."

"Hey." Alfred replied awkwardly. He'd never really gotten the hang of the 'pick up people in bars' thing. "Never been here before. My friend and I are just passing through."

"And what can I do for you?"

"Um, well, my friend would like rum? Please?"

She giggled. "So polite. And my question was what I could get you."

"Nothing tonight. Designated driver." he stuttered. He really did need to make sure they didn't wind up in a ditch. Again. The fumes in this place were making him tipsy enough as it was.

"Alright, but if you change your mind-" she trailed off, fluttering her eyelashes at him.

"No just the rum. I need to get my friend home safely. I promised him a drink, he's been pretty stressed lately, and I think he could use some down time."

Bella studied him for a moment and then her expression switched to one of surprised understanding. "Oh! Oh, gosh! I'm sorry, I hadn't realized."

She poured out Arthur's drink and handed it over. "I wouldn't have been so forward if I'd known, but you were sweet not to flat out turn me down. You two have fun with your 'down time.'" She winked as she said 'down time,' like they were sharing a secret.

Alfred took the glass and stammered some confused thanks. What was that about? Whatever. At least Arthur had his drink. Alfred hadn't even needed to pay for it.

He avoided drunken flailing from the happier drunks and eye contact with the angrier ones, and had almost made it back to the table when he noticed Arthur had company. Unwanted company, if Arthur's stiff posture was anything to go by. The man was tall and had a shock of blonde hair that stuck out in all directions. He looked like nothing more than a happy drunk. Arthur was probably trying not to snap at the man. Alfred sighed and kept moving forward, preparing to shoo the man away before he got punched, when the man made a little gesture and Arthur's eyes followed, tight with some emotion. Alfred glanced down to see what they we looking at-

Alfred's whole body seized up. He'd seen enough real guns lately to know that was the genuine article being pointed at Arthur under a chipped barroom table.

Could they never catch a break?

"How did you find me, Mathias?" Arthur was asking, barely audible over the ambient noise.

The man grinned lazily. "Would you believe it was dumb luck? Was sweeping the grid where we thought you might be, stopped for a drink, and presto! Here you are! Tino will be very pleased. You've been quite the little nuisance."

Alfred backed up slowly. One of Tino's henchmen was here. He had a gun. He had Arthur. Alfred wasn't even aware he'd backtracked to the bar until Bella cautiously tapped his shoulder. He startled, sloshing rum everywhere.

"Hey, you alright?" One look at his face told her he was not alright, and she began scanning the bar for trouble. She must have been better at spotting it than Alfred, because she frowned and stalked off towards Arthur's table almost immediately. She clearly intended to ask him to leave, but, after a moment, her posture stiffened and, when Mathias motioned for her to sit down, she sat, looking every bit as uncomfortable as Arthur.

What had he done? He'd just sent some poor girl to her doom. He should be the one sitting next to Arthur being held at gun point. He- He-

He had a plan.

Not stopping to think, he dropped the glass and bolted outside. The biker gang was still there, still as rowdy as they'd been when Alfred had first pulled up.

"Hey!" he shouted, not even having to fake the panic in his voice "Somebody go for help! They've got Bella at gunpoint!"

The gang went silent. Lars stood up, pulling out a metal pipe around which was wrapped, of all things, a rabbit charm and headed towards the door. The rest of the gang pulled out their own menagerie of weapons and bolted after their leader, storming the bar like some sort of strange studded leather cavalry. Half a beat later, the unmistakable sound of a bar fight started up.

Dear God, this might actually work.

Alfred ran back in to discover chaos. Every man in the place had decided to fight, and now the room was a whirlwind of fists and curses. Alfred entered the fray, sticking to the walls and trying to avoid being dragged into anything. He ducked behind a table as a man twice his size came flying through the air and found a full bottle of god knew what rolling around on the floor. He grasped it by the neck. Now he had a weapon.

Standing back up, he found Lars. The man had his sister grasped firmly to his side and was swinging his pipe with abandon, dragging himself and his sibling towards the door. Alfred looked in the direction he'd come from and spotted Arthur and Mathias slugging it out by the back wall. Apparently, Mathias had lost his gun in the chaos. Alfred surged forward, bottle raised high, and charged an unsuspecting Mathias.

The bottle didn't break like it did in the movies, but there was a very satisfying thud as it connected with the back of his opponents head. Mathias slumped to the floor, lost among the other brawlers.

Alfred didn't bother to find out what had become of him. He was too busy grasping Arthur's hand, pulling him along and shouting "Don't let go! Don't you dare let go!" above the din.

It was slow going. Apparently, bursting into a bar fight is much easier than trying to leave one. But Alfred had his bottle and Arthur was still amazing with his fists and eventually they bolted out into the parking lot, hands still clasped.

"So, you saw I was in trouble and you set a biker gang on my aggressor?"

"Pretty much, yeah."

They'd driven from the bar like bats out of hell and had again found themselves facing nightfall on the side of the road. They'd driven far enough off the highway that they could still see it and parked facing broadside. Alfred had pulled a tarp from his trunk and Arthur had covered it with brush and the like, and now the two were leaning against the un-camouflaged side, backs to the side doors and the road behind them.

"I don't know if that was a brilliant decision or a stupid one on your part."

"It saved your ass, didn't it? That makes it brilliant."

Arthur chuckled. "I suppose it does. Never did get that drink though."

"Oh!" said Alfred, scrambling to his feet.

"Oh?" Arthur responded lazily as Alfred dove into the car.

"Tada!" Alfred sang, offering Arthur the bottle he'd been using as a weapon.

"I take it back!" Arthur exclaimed, with quite a bit of enthusiasm "Your plan was brilliant! Now pour me a shot of- what is it?"

Alfred squinted at the label in the dark. "Rum? Whiskey? Bourbon? I don't really know." he said with a shrug. He rummaged through the backseat of his car and came up with the cups they'd used that morning, pouring a generous shot into each.

"Cheers!" he said, and handed Arthur his cup. Arthur slugged it back without a second thought. Alfred took a more cautious sip of his own.

"Jesus!" he coughed, eyes watering as the liquor burned its way down his throat "How do you drink this stuff?"

Arthur made a noncommittal noise and downed another shot with something like relief. Alfred took another sip, shuddered, and reached for the leftover oranges.

"I'll just stick with these." he decided, already starting to peel one of them.

Arthur shrugged. "More for me, then."

"Go for it. Hell, drink straight from the bottle. I'm not having any more of it."

Arthur immediately launched into a tirade about how, as a gentleman, he would do no such thing. Alfred quarreled back, and eventually the settled into easy conversation, with Arthur doing exactly what he said he wouldn't.

They sat there, Alfred eating and Arthur drinking, as the sound of traffic faded in and out behind them. Eventually, Alfred noted how dark it was getting.

"I can't see my hand in front of my face. Do you want to turn in?"

"Not quite yet."

"Well, then I need a light or something." Which was something of a conundrum. He couldn't turn on the headlights, for fear of being spotted, and it would take a bazillion glow sticks to get bright enough for Alfred's taste.

Eventually, he had a revelation.

"What are you doing?" Arthur queried once he'd sat back down, having gotten up to retrieve a knife, matches, and a bottle of something from the car.

"You can make candles from oranges, watch."

Arthur leaned over and watched Alfred work.

"See, you cut the orange in half, just beyond the peel, and you pull, just like- oomph! just like that. You have to be careful to keep the stem intact, cause that's what you use for a wick. Then you take some oil and you fill up the orange half, making sure to douse the stem. Now you light it."

"Nothing's happening, Alfred."

"Just give it a minute. There! Now we've got a candle."

Alfred cradled the orange half in his hands, watching the flickering light inside it.

"Very romantic." Arthur drawled. Alfred shoved him halfheartedly and continued with his explanation.

"See, if you look closely, you'll see that the stem isn't actually burning. It's the fumes coming off the oil that catch fire, not the oil itself. That's what makes the wick last. The oil continues to be drawn up the stem through capillary action and-"

"Alfred?"

"Yeah?"

"Stop talking."

Arthur had told Alfred to shut up in no uncertain terms with a whole variety of venom behind them, but this time the order was soft and almost affectionate. Alfred smiled in response and leaned back against the car, letting his shoulder brush against Arthur's.

This was nice. Sitting with Arthur leaning against his side, flickering candle in his palms, stars spread out above them. Alfred could get used to this.

"Hey, Alfred?"

"Hmm?"

"You know what we should do?"

"Um, go to sleep?"

"No. We should dance."

"Wha-?" Alfred started to say, but Arthur had already rocketed to his feet and was thrusting the bottle at Alfred.

"Here, hold this."

Alfred took the bottle, it sloshed around and Alfred realized it was already more than half empty. Way more.

"Dude, how much of this did you drink?"

"Stupid question!" Arthur laughed, tugging at Alfred, trying to make him stand "Come on! Come dance with me!"

"Hey, hey, hey! Hold up! I'm gonna set myself on fire if you keep tugging at me like that."

Arthur seemed to agree that this was bad, and he backed off long enough that Alfred could set down his things and get to his feet.

"Dude, I think you're drunk."

"Not drunk." Arthur argued "Just want to dance."

He began to twirl in the darkness, Alfred watching carefully.

"Don't hurt yourself!"

"I'm not going to hurt myself. Come dance!"

Alfred sighed and trotted after him, stopping to do some odd shuffling.

"There, I danced. Will you come back now?" He really needed to get Arthur back under cover. They couldn't afford to be spotted.

"Nope!" Arthur skipped up to him and grabbed his hands "Come on."

They began to spin in a circle. Alfred didn't know how Arthur was doing this. Most drunks couldn't walk a straight line, much less stand up after- Arthur stumbled and Alfred caught him, pulling him up to his chest in a way that was oddly reminiscent of that morning. Arthur slumped against him, wrapping his arms around Alfred's torso and giving a content hum.

"You're warm." he said "You're warm and you look after me even though I keep getting you into trouble and you make me smile even when I don't want to. You're a good person."

He lifted his cheek from Alfred's chest to look him straight in the eye. "I really like you."

Something flickered to life in Alfred's stomach. Something he didn't think had anything to do with the stress or the alcohol or the spinning. It was something warm and gentle and it fizzed through his core like soft static. The knowledge of what it might be left him breathless.

"Alfred? You ok?" Arthur asked, pulling back.

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm ok."

"Ok. I don't think I want to dance anymore."

"Alright. Let's go back to the car."

"Ok."

Alfred led him back to the vehicle, getting him settled and making sure the rest of the alcohol was out of his reach. Arthur was gone almost as soon as Alfred had wrapped a blanket around his shoulders, curling up by the rear tire to sleep off his drinking binge.

Alfred stayed up for a long time, looking into the flames of the orange candle and thinking about how he sort of- maybe- possibly- for Arthur.

[End Chapter]

So, my November started with my dad's car being totaled (he's fine, car's not) and ended with my computer crashing and then reviving itself four and a half hours later (the little troll). In between these events were copious amounts of schoolwork, a series of nerve-wracking interviews, and surgeries performed on various family members.

I don't think I've ever been this glad for a month to be over.

In other news, I've tweaked my story outline and partially re-planned the ending. I think I like where it's going.

The orange candle is really a thing. Go look it up.

Hope to have another chapter up soon. Thanks to everyone who reviewed!

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