'ᴜɴᴅᴇʀ ᴛʜᴇ ᴡᴇᴀᴛʜᴇʀ' || ʜᴇᴛᴀʟɪᴀ

14

Arthur flung the bedroom door open, gripping the wooden panel and its frame tightly, and he stared up at Alfred, a frown on his face and an air of anger about him. Alfred bit the inside of his lip. He felt bad for kind of just throwing himself on Arthur like he had, but then, he wasn't entirely sure if the reason the Brit had fled was because of himself or what Alfred had done.

"Still here?"

"Yeah, I am."

"What for? You can go home now. I don't need you here," Arthur bluntly replied.

"There's a difference between wanting and needing, Arthur," Alfred sighed. "And quite frankly, whether you want to acknowledge it or not, you're still sick. If I go, God knows what'll happen--"

"I'll make a tea and sleep it off," Arthur interjected. His vice-like grip on the door frame tightened ever so slightly. "I'll hibernate if I have to, I don't care."

"I do."

"I still don't care."

Alfred ran his fingers through his hair in tiredness and boredom; he was tired of trying to reason, and bored of having all of his effort thrown back into his face. He resented how Arthur wouldn't accept an apology, or give him another chance, or at least try to forget what happened like Alfred was willing to.

"Why are you still stood there?" Arthur said, shaking his head. "I mean, what could you possibly get out of staying here, Alfred? You've been away from your country for long enough! Just go back!"

"I can't!" Alfred replied, his frustration growing.

"There's a difference between being able to and wanting to," Arthur mocked with a quiet scoff. "You're a joke . . ."

"And you're a mess," Alfred stated matter-of-factly. "I'm glad that we're being honest with each other all of a sudden."

"What's that supposed to-- Actually, you know what, forget it," England said. "If you insist on staying here, fine. But leave me be."

And he shut the door again before Alfred could respond. The American sighed and left him to it. It was no good talking to Arthur, he decided, because that was the equivalent of talking to a rock, and he'd have more luck trying to get a tree to speak to him. But he couldn't stay mad, he'd brought it upon himself. He didn't know what it was that had made him kiss Arthur like that. Impulse? Instinct? Stupidity? At the moment, it certainly felt like the latter.

On the other side of the bedroom door, Arthur listened in silence as Alfred's footsteps disappeared down the long hallway and out of earshot. He turned around to look at his large, boring, bare room, and he let himself carelessly slump down against the door onto the floor. He didn't know what was wrong with him. He was acting like a complete asshole, and no matter how much he wanted to apologise and just tell Alfred how he really felt, he couldn't bring himself to do it. It was too hard.

He sat there for a few minutes, thoughts in his mind going back and forth like a tennis ball--tell him? don't tell him? tell him? don't tell him?--and Arthur eventually decided that if he was going to reveal all, then he would do it properly.

He wasn't sure how to go about it; such a thing wasn't something he'd ever confessed before, and he was at a loss. When he stood up, he headed straight for his desk by the window, and he took a seat on the soft-cushioned chair. In the desk's top drawer was a huge stack of various paper types: lined, plain, thick, coloured, printed, most types you could imagine.

He sifted through the pile in search of some plain white printer paper, but as he lifted more and more sheets, his finger unfortunately dragged along the edge of one of the thin blade-like sheets, and it cut his finger open quite deeply. He flinched, and withdrew his hand immediately.