'ᴜɴᴅᴇʀ ᴛʜᴇ ᴡᴇᴀᴛʜᴇʀ' || ʜᴇᴛᴀʟɪᴀ

18

"You can't be serious . . ."

"I'm dead serious."

"Those are not biscuits! Lord above, what are you trying to do, give me a heart attack?!" Arthur cried, before his horror morphed into disbelieving laughter. "You Americans are crazy, I swear."

Alfred put his phone away, removing the picture he'd found on the Internet and had shown Arthur, which was obviously a mistake. It was just biscuits and gravy, he didn't know what the issue was! But he laughed, too, all the same. They pair had suddenly become so much more comfortable around each other, and he loved it.

"Nah, we're just better than you."

"Mhm, but don't forget who helped end the Cold War. Reagan and Gorbachev only began negotiations after Thatcher--"

"--after Thatcher met with Gorbachev, I know! You remind me almost every time I see you!" Alfred said, shaking his head. "Anyone would think you're losing your memory, dude."

"I hardly think I'm--"

Arthur paused. 'But I did forget, didn't I?' he thought, and he looked at his hand. 'I forgot completely . . .'

At that moment, the sound of claws scratching across the floor as Biscuit darted through the room woke the Brit from his daze. He looked to where the cat had run to, and let out a sigh.

"He disappears for two days, and decides to make a big, noisy entrance when he wants his presence to be known again," he said. Arthur looked to Alfred with a small smirk. "Remind you of anyone?"

"Now that was uncalled for."

"It's true though."

"I wasn't saying it's not true," Alfred responded, "I'm just saying that I didn't deserve it."

They stared at each other for a couple of seconds, green forest meeting the wild ocean, and they quietly laughed again at their mutual stupidity and childishness. Alfred slumped backwards into the sofa and Arthur was drawn back to his hand. It must've been almost two hours since he'd bandaged it . . . Maybe it was time to see if he had been right, and to warn the others. He played with the fraying fabric by his thumb. Alfred picked up on the silence, and when he saw what Arthur was doing, his smile fell flat and all sense of happiness and joy surged out of his being.

"Do you want me to check it?" he asked. Arthur shook his head, still playing with the bandage. "One of us needs to do it, and soon. We can't wait forever."

Arthur lightly bit his lip. He was petrified of what he would discover underneath the wrapping. What if it hadn't healed? If Arthur had lost his immortality, did he still count as a nation? Could he still call himself The United Kingdom, or England, or Great Britain? The colour slowly drained from his face and he moved his fingers away from the bandage. He didn't want that to be his reality. He didn't want to lose it all and see all the suffering of his nation be imposed on someone else for centuries. That wasn't fair. It wasn't just.

"Artie? You still here?"

Arthur sighed. "For now," he replied. "I don't want to see it. If you want to, be my guest, but I . . . I-I don't want to know . . ."

"It's alright," Alfred remarked. He gave Arthur a small smile and took his hand carefully, hoping not to hurt the deep cut if it was still in fact open.

Arthur averted his eyes. He had the sudden vision of being sat in a doctor's office, a child biting their tongue and squeezing their eyes shut as a needle was forced through the skin on their arm. He grimaced. He hated doctors, hospitals . . . Anything like that made him feel uneasy. It wasn't a fear, it was just distaste, and he avoided such places like the plague.