'ᴜɴᴅᴇʀ ᴛʜᴇ ᴡᴇᴀᴛʜᴇʀ' || ʜᴇᴛᴀʟɪᴀ

2

"Alfred?"

"Arthur!"

England stood, bewildered, holding the front door to his temporarily quiet home open. He silently cursed the hot draft that had dared to start flowing into the house. He hated the heat, especially as it meant he had the pain-staking job of watering the gardens later on. But what he hated even more was the fact that America had shown up out-of-the-blue, and that he himself was standing there, unwillingly, wearing only a baggy t-shirt and boxers. Alfred really had bad timing . . .

"Why are you here, Alfred?" he asked, tired.

"I wanted to come and check in on you, that's all," Alfred replied humbly. "Germany filled me in on the situation last night and I thought I ought to make sure you're feeling alright."

Arthur raised an confused eyebrow.

"A-And the rest of Europe too, of course," Alfred added hastily.

Truth be told, that wasn't entirely the case. If Alfred had planned to see any other countries in Europe, it would've been limited to a handful. He couldn't deny the reality of it--there was only one European he cared about significantly more than the rest, and that someone didn't even seem to know it.

"Right, well, you do realise that in this modern age we have these wonderful things called telephones, yes?" Arthur responded, "Calling would've saved you a lot of time and effort."

"I was headed to Berlin anyway . . ." the American said, unsure if he was actually welcome or not at this point.

Arthur leant against the door frame, bored of holding the door open pointlessly. "So this is just a pit-stop?" he asked, hiding his now annoyed curiosity.

"Yeah, I guess . . ." Alfred replied solemnly with a light shrug, "Anyway, you never answered my question."

"What question? You haven't asked me a single thing since you showed up."

"Oh, u-uh, my bad . . ."

"Jesus, maybe you're just exhausted from the journey or something and the lack of sleep, but you don't exactly seem to be 'with it', as they say," Arthur remarked, not out of curtness but more so out of compassion/ "Perhaps you should come inside. Beats standing there like a lemon."

"Lemons stand?"

"In or out, Alfred?"

"Lead the way, my good sir," Alfred smiled.

So lead he did. Arthur abandoned Alfred momentarily in the living room before rushing upstairs and putting on the first pair of trouser-like things he could find. In this case, he was glad that it was a pair of shorts he encountered first, and he figured he could at least stand outside without melting with them on. Less than five minutes after Alfred knocked, he and Arthur were both downstairs again, the latter now fumbling around cupboards for glasses for drinks.

Biscuit made a brief appearance, heading straight for America and purring affectionately, fairly happy that the American soon picked him up, held him close, and began to snuggle with him. Arthur did his best to ignore it. He ended up pouring two glasses of water--it was suddenly becoming too hot for tea--and carrying them into the living room, past the cat-cuddling America. The three of them were soon sat down, and the cat quickly scampered away into the vast house once more.

"Damn, he's feeling energetic this morning, isn't he?" Alfred remarked as he saw the tail disappear around the doorway.

"Makes one of us, I suppose," Arthur sighed, "though you seem rather lively yourself this morning. I didn't realise that Europe was that exciting, to be honest."