Loved by the Island, Smitten by the Boot

Ch 7

Have you ever experienced the wrath of God? Have you ever felt the burning justice from the Devil's whip? Arthur has. Arthur was cursing himself, cursing the Lord, cursing every supernatural oddity in existence for giving him such a killer hangover. The lights screamed at him and the shrill alarm from his phone reverberated painfully in his skull. It felt like his head was inside a giant bell. It felt like his head was being bludgeoned by a baseball bat that had spikes nailed through them. His vision was blurred to fuck and his body, well, his body was refusing to do as it was told. He wanted to turn off his alarm but his tired arms willingly ignored him. Breathing in deeply he tried hard to concentrate and was able to grab his phone and shut the painful alarm off. Arthur burped and up came some of last nights alcohol. He remembered he had at the very least two shots, he'd later come to find out from Alfred he had a total of 8 shots and a cocktail that night.

Eventually he was able to pull himself up from bed. He winced in pain and rested for a few minutes before he turned and grabbed his bottle of Advil from the bedside table. Two huge pills later and he was rubbing his eyes, trying to psyche himself up for the day. It was 6:10 in the morning, he could do this.

First things first, he checked his phone, he didn't do that when he shut off his alarm. After turning the brightness down he saw that he had a goodnight message from Feliciano. Upon clicking on it he saw the absolutely terribly spelled messages he had sent. Mentally berating himself his stomach dropped the second he saw that he agreed to dinner with Lovino that night. Groaning loudly and slapping a hand to his face he looked at the room through his fingers. It was time to start the day.

~

He was at the conference room now, he managed to get there early even when experiencing the hangover of his life. He wanted to show up early, he remembered, he set the alarm himself just before falling unconscious so he could get to the building nice and early. Why? He didn't remember the reason, maybe because in his drunken stupor he got emotional and wanted to see his new lover. Maybe he wanted to talk about dinner with Lovino. Maybe he just somehow knew he would need some time to chill out and deal with his hangover with no worries. Whatever it was he was there for it. There was a few other countries that were also early but not enough to make Arthur's pain any worse.

Upon his arrival, Arthur popped on a pair of shades and stumbled out of his car. It was a terrible walk thirty feet to the door, and even worse when he had to use what little strength he had to push open the door. When inside he trudged on further into the building until he finally plopped onto his seat. He was here now. Now what? The throbbing pain in his head told him it was time to close his eyes and relax so he listened. He hid his head in his arms and rested against the table, the cool wood surface easing the tiniest bit of his agony. For a moment he laid there, breathing deeply in and out and trying to compose himself. Then the loudest man in the world screamed his name.

"AR-TUUURO~!" The handful of nations all flinched at the sudden noise but the second they saw it was Italy the noise came from, they went back to their normal business. Arthur didn't have that luxury. He had to endure the high volume calls of his name. Don't get him wrong, he would love nothing more than to hear Feliciano's lovely voice every day, but the bloke was being obnoxiously loud while he had this wicked hangover. Arthur groaned. He could feel the presence of another near him. "What's wrong?" Feliciano asked, placing a hand on Arthur's arm. "You look like me when I see a to-do list." Arthur couldn't stay silent any longer, that'd be rude and would probably break Feliciano's heart. Arthur would rather eat his own tongue than subject such a fine man to such pain.

"Apologies," Arthur winced, "I've a hangover."

"Ve, I think Ludwig has some Advil?"

"No thanks love. I already took the legally allowed amount and it's only worked this far." He pushed himself up and winced at the pain. "Besides, nothing I can't handle. I've had worse hangovers." Feliciano didn't look convinced but at least he dropped the subject. His hand moved from Arthur's arm down to his hand, Feli's fingers just barely touching his.