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“Hey, dudes! So bad news… I accidentally forgot to book a room, so two of you guys will have to share. But don’t shoot the messenger--” Is what Arthur and Francis would have heard Alfred say if they had been paying the least bit of attention to the conversation at hand, but unfortunately for them, they were a bit preoccupied.
“Ouch! What the hell was that for, you frog?” the Englishman yelped, hopping on one leg and nursing the foot that Francis had unceremoniously stepped on with his extravagant, over-the-top, fru-fru heels. Apparently, they couldn’t even last five minutes in the same room together before something went wrong. God, Arthur really hated those boots. It’s not like they made him look super hot and attractive, or anything.
The Frenchman whipped his head around incredulously at the accusation, facing the other. “I did no such thing!” He wasn't lying, per se; he hadn't meant to crush Arthur’s toes; they just happened to be in the way of his shoe!
“Well, you did! And those were expensive shoes; look what you’ve done, you slag! Now they’re all scuffed up!” The indignant blonde pointed at his dented oxfords and jabbed a finger into the other’s chest in anger. He had just gotten them, too.
“What did you just call me? I’m not a slut! I’m sorry you automatically turn off any man or woman in the room; it’s not my fault.” Francis grabbed Arthur’s collar at the hurtful words. “And I know you have more shoes; I’ve been to your house! You still have some from the 15th century, you hoarder.” Then the usual chaos broke out between them: backhanded slaps, hair-pulling, and insults. That was until Arthur looked up from his position, practically rolling on the filthy ground of the hotel lobby, as if suddenly caring about the scene they were causing.
“What?” Both men asked in unison, pausing their loud squabble, abruptly noticing the rest of the group staring at them, each with a finger pressed firmly to their nose. For a split second, Arthur and Francis exchanged confused glances, realizing far too late that something important had happened while they were too busy bickering.
“You two, like, totally missed the ‘nose-goes.’ Looks like you’re stuck sharing the room,” Feliks announced gleefully, waggling his eyebrows and grinning mischievously at the other nations. The rest of the group snickered or looked away, happy to be off the hook.
“Excuse me? I am not sleeping in the same room as that bloody pervert!” Arthur protested loudly, pushing himself away from Francis as if his very proximity was offensive. He brushed off imaginary lint and glared, making a show of his distaste.
Francis immediately bristled. “I do not think this is even fair! No one told me we were doing nose-goes!” His voice was indignant, and he looked around for support, but none seemed to come. The others were clearly enjoying the drama.
Yao, reclining against the reception desk, shrugged with exaggerated nonchalance. “What can I tell you? Life is unfair,” he said, feigning wisdom as if his age lent him some special authority in the matter of hotel room delegation.
Arthur, still dissatisfied, tried to appeal to reason, or perhaps just to deflect. “Why can’t Feliciano and Ludwig get the room instead? I’m sure they would love it, seeing as they sleep in the same bed half the time anyway!” He gestured at the couple with a dramatic wave of his hand.
Romano, who had been ignoring everyone up until now, suddenly perked up and interrupted from across the lobby. “No way in hell am I letting my brother sleep with that fucking potato bastard!” he snapped, shooting Ludwig a dirty look, appalled at the very idea of those two being together, let alone being… intimate.
“Aww, but Fratello! I love him!” Feliciano wailed, clinging to a bewildered Ludwig, who looked down at him, puzzled, but patted Feliciano’s head in a vague attempt at comfort. He hadn’t been paying attention to the conversation; instead, he was trying to talk to the front desk lady about an ironing board or something. Unfortunately, this only made the Italians start arguing with each other, their quarrel devolving into a melodramatic spectacle worthy of a soap opera.
Francis, seizing the opportunity, tried once more to wriggle out of his fate. “I think putting Feli in the same room as Ludwig is a good idea!” he called out, but his suggestion was lost in sauce.
Alfred, sensing things getting out of control, clapped his hands for attention. “Don’t get your panties in a twist, Franny! I think we should call it a night. We have a meeting tomorrow, so I suggest getting your butts to sleep,” he announced, effectively dismissing everyone to do whatever they please for the rest of the night, as long as it wasn’t too disruptive.
Arthur turned on his heel and began walking, his steps clicking sharply against the marble floor as he loudly grumbled about the utterly undesirable, entirely unacceptable sleeping situation. He left Francis standing alone by the reception desk, looking slightly bewildered. However, right before Arthur rounded the corner into the next hallway, his pace slowed. He cast a sharp look back over his shoulder at the other man.
“Well? Are you coming, or do you plan on standing there all night?” Arthur snapped.
“Ah, yes, sorry,” Francis responded, quickly jogging a few paces to catch up with the blonde. Arthur, of course, would never admit it aloud, but he had deliberately paused his stride to ensure the Frenchman didn't get left behind.
As they walked side by side down the repetitive corridor, Francis opened his mouth to speak, a faint, teasing smile beginning to form. But before he could even get a single word out, Arthur cut him off without even looking at him.
“Don’t even think about it.”
“I didn’t even say anything yet!” Francis protested, throwing his hands up in mock innocence and offense.
Arthur simply made a sharp, aggressive shushing sound and shot him a lethal death glare. To be perfectly fair, Arthur’s instincts were entirely correct; Francis had been actively planning to say something rather vulgar.
No longer than a minute later, the duo arrived outside Room 420. Francis gracefully slid ahead to do the honors, pulling the generic plastic key card from his pocket with a flourish. He shoved it into the electronic slot; however, instead of unlocking the door, a harsh red light blinked back at him.
“Ah. Let me try again,” Francis muttered, flipping the card upside down and jamming it in harder. The lock let out a sad, pathetic beep, still glowing red. “Perhaps it requires a more delicate touch…” He began rubbing the magnetic strip against his expensive trousers, as if trying to warm it up.
“Oh, for heaven's sake, give it here,” Arthur groaned, his patience evaporated. “You are completely hopeless. It is a simple, stupid key card, Francis, not a fucking medieval puzzle box.”
“The machine is clearly defective, mon cher! It rejects my hand.”
“It rejects your utter lack of basic cognitive function,” Arthur corrected sharply. He snatched the flimsy plastic directly out of Francis's hands, lined it up properly, and slid it smoothly through the mechanism. The lock clicked instantly, flashing green. Arthur smirked triumphantly, silently affirming that the Frenchman had always been absolutely terrible with any technology invented past the year 1800.
Arthur gripped the metal handle, pushing the door open with a dramatic sigh of exhaustion, ready to simply collapse into his own space and take a shower.
However, the sight the Englishman was met with was arguably one of the most horrific, soul-crushing sights he had ever laid eyes on. He froze dead in his tracks, his breath hitching in his throat.
In the center of the painfully small, cramped room, there was only one queen-sized bed.
It was bad enough that they had to share a cramped, poorly ventilated hotel room, but to share a single bed? Nope, nada, absolutely not going to happen!
“This can’t be happening,” Arthur muttered, filled with the anger a man could only possess if he had stayed up for the last 48 hours flying all the way from London to Chicago, which he had. The Englishman whipped his phone out of his pocket with aggressive speed, already pulling up Alfred’s contact. He fully planned to ‘talk’ to the American, which was really just a polite code for screaming into the receiver until his lungs gave out, about this massive, obnoxious, Francis-shaped problem.
He pressed the phone to his ear, tapping his foot impatiently. “Hey, it’s Alfred! I’m probably eating or doing something heroic like saving a cat-lady from a tree right now! …Wait, I said that wrong… Anyway, leave a message after the—!” Arthur cut the greeting off by slamming his thumb against the screen. The call had gone straight to voicemail. The idiot was already asleep.
“Ohhoho~ do not worry so much, Angleterre,” Francis chimed in, a teasing purr in his voice as he noticed the sheer horror painted across the other's face. He leaned lazily against the doorframe, crossing his arms. “Since we are stuck in this unfortunate situation, we might as well make the most of it, if you know what I mean~” He gave a suggestively slow wink.
“There is absolutely no way in hell that will be happening tonight, or ever,” Arthur hissed, purposely leaving out the again. Although the unsaid word still hung in the air.
And just like that, for the second time that evening, all dignity was thrown out the window as the two broke into a childish physical brawl. It wasn't a classy duel; it was a mess of flailing limbs, slapping hands, hair-pulling, and aggressive shoving. Arthur lunged forward and tackled Francis to the ground, in the process landing on top of him, which caused the Frenchman to accidentally let out an unnaturally high-pitched, breathless moan.
The sound echoed in the small room, and both of them froze instantly.
“I was so mad at you, I almost forgot you were a total freak! You absolute pervert!” Arthur yelled, his face turning a bright red. Desperate to put an end to the sheer embarrassment of the moment, he raised his leg and stomped his full weight right onto the Frenchman’s foot. Admittedly, Arthur was a rather skinny man, so it wasn't a crushing blow, but he channeled every ounce of his frustration right into the heel of his shoe. Maybe that's why so many people kept telling him to go to anger management.
“That is payback for earlier! We’re even now!” Arthur snapped, stepping back.
Francis let out a dramatic, strangled cry, jumping backward and clutching his foot as if it had been shattered into a bazillion pieces. “Mon dieu! You have broken it! You have murdered my foot!”
Arthur rolled his eyes, letting out a sharp huff as he smoothed down his rumpled vest. Then, doing the completely unexpected, he sighed and extended his right hand toward Francis, offering to help him balance.
Francis stopped his dramatic groaning, blinking down at the offered hand with suspicion. He didn't take it right away. “Why are you being so nice to me all of a sudden? Are you trying to lower my guard to put me down or something?”
“I’m being nice to you because you’re sleeping on the floor tonight,” Arthur replied smoothly, a smug, venomous smile spreading across his face.
Francis’s jaw dropped in absolute scandalized betrayal. “Putain de merde, you are putting me down! How cruel can you be? How am I supposed to get my essential beauty sleep on the cold, hard floor!”
“I'm sure such a powerful nation will figure it out. Or have you finally gone senile?”
Without waiting for a retort, Arthur scrambled onto the queen-sized bed, claiming his territory, and immediately began neatly tucking his luggage away. He left Francis standing there to miserable scavenge the bathroom for whatever stray towels and bathmats he could find to piece together a makeshift bed. It was getting incredibly late, so there wasn't much time left for their usual bickering, especially since Francis had stubbornly decided he was going to give the Englishman the silent treatment for the rest of the evening.
With the tension still thick in the air, both finally turned in for the night. Or, at the very least, Arthur did.
For Francis, however, it was like he had been lying on his pathetic little towel-nest for hours, staring up at the dark ceiling. He was freezing. His mind was thinking about how the hotel floor was absolutely teeming with microscopic germs that would most definitely give his beautifully silky locks lice. And to make matters worse, his back was already aching terribly from the stiff posture he was being forced to maintain. God, he was far too old and far too refined for this kind of treatment.
He tossed and turned, trying to find a comfortable position that didn't exist, until eventually, he managed to drift off to the steady, rhythmic sound of Arthur's snoring.
All was peaceful; he even found himself dreaming about some long-gone, domestic day from back when the twins had been small children, until he felt something light skitter up his body and stop directly in his open mouth.
He jolted awake, freezing completely still for a brief moment to address the threat, vaguely wondering if he was just hallucinating like Arthur did whenever he got a bit too lonely. But then, he felt the mysterious object move again. This time, panic took over, and Francis immediately spat the thing out directly into his hand.
He squinted his eyes in the non-existent light, trying to piece together what on earth had just been crawling around his mouth. Francis was still half asleep, so his mind was lagging. For a second, he was entirely frozen in surprise before his thoughts finally caught up with his brain, and he let out a blood-curdling screech that practically shook the walls. There, right in the center of his carefully manicured and cared-for hand, was a ginormous house centipede, its dozens of legs twitching and stuck together with spit.
“What the hell are you doing?! What’s going on?!” Arthur jolted awake, scrambling upright at the terrifying sound that was still echoing around the small room.
“Angleterre! A big, fat, hideous bug just assaulted me!” Francis yelled, frantically flailing his arm as he tried to fling the insect off his hand. It flew onto his makeshift towel-bed, which he quickly and violently vacated, jerking backward.
“Huh? What’s the matter with you?” The Englishman, still groggy, dragged himself out of the comfortable bed to see the damage, comforter around his shoulders like a cape.
The moment his feet hit the floor, Francis ran straight into his arms, clinging to him tightly and chanting a panicked stream of 'ews' and other profanities directed towards the insect.
“It attacked me! I am covered in filth! It was in my mouth, Arthur! My mouth! It ruined my best tool!”
Arthur was still half asleep , his eyes refusing to fully open. He wanted nothing more than to crawl back beneath the covers and pretend the last couple of minutes had been a particularly annoying nightmare. Instead, he stood frozen as Francis detached himself from Arthur's side, practically scrambling backward before sprinting toward the bathroom with a speed that defied logic. He ran as if the house centipede were actively chasing him down, completely ignoring the fact that the insect hadn’t moved a single millimeter from its spot on the discarded towel.
From his stationary spot on the floor Arthur watched the theatrical display unfold through the open bathroom door.
Francis leaned heavily over the porcelain sink, letting out a series of dramatic, unsuccessful gags. He then grabbed his toothbrush and violently started scrubbing his teeth. He was brushing so fast and with such force that the foam flew everywhere, and the poor bristles flattened completely out to the sides. Arthur rubbed the bridge of his nose. He was entirely unsure whether the Frenchman was genuinely as upset as he looked, or if he was dialing up the drama to eleven just to win some sympathy points. Knowing Francis, it was highly likely a calculated mix of both.
“You can sleep on—” Arthur started, finally finding his voice.
But he was instantly cut off. Francis burst out of the bathroom, toothpaste still clinging to the corner of his mouth, and launched himself back to Arthur’s side. He dropped to his knees right on the carpet, clutching at the hem of Arthur’s shirt like a desperate Victorian peasant pleading for some bread.
“Please, Arthur! Mon dieu, I beg of you, don’t make me sleep down there with that monstrosity again!” Francis cried.
Arthur rolled his eyes, exasperatedly trying to tug his shirt out of the man’s grip, fearing it would become stretched out. “Oh, for heaven's sake, quit crying! I am trying to tell you, I said—”
“I’ll do anything! I swear it!” Francis interrupted hysterically, shaking his head. “I won’t speak a single word for a whole week! I will cook for you! I will even suck you off!”
Arthur’s brain short-circuited for a fraction of a second. He stared down at the Frenchman, his face instantly flushing at the utterly botched phrasing. You can not saying that while on your knees. “Shut it!” he yelled, his loud snap successfully breaking Francis out of his frantic spiral. Arthur took a deep, steadying breath to keep his temper under control. “I was trying to say you can just sleep in the bloody bed with me, you twat.”
The wailing stopped instantly. “Oh.”
That definitely shut him up. Francis blinked, the panic evaporating into a stunned, quiet relief. “...Oh. Right. D'accord,” he mumbled, quickly pushing himself up from the floor and straightening his pajamas.
The tension in the room finally began to dissolve as they both made their way to the bed. Arthur climbed in first, aggressively pulling the comforter up, while Francis slid in on the opposite side. They settled down into the mattress, Francis turning onto his side so he was facing Arthur’s back, leaving a cautious gap of space between them.
For a few minutes, the room was completely quiet, save for the low, rhythmic hum of the hotel's outdated air conditioning unit. Then, Francis broke the silence, his voice barely a whisper in the dark.
“It was so incredibly gross, Arthur. The legs... I can still feel them.” He sounded entirely traumatized; ironic considering he was a man who had survived centuries of brutal global warfare, revolutions, and political upheaval. Yet that was completely ‘undone’ by a single, admittedly nasty, multi-legged bug.
Arthur stared at the dark wall, a small, involuntary tug of pity pulling at his chest. He sighed, the last of his irritation fading away.
“It’s okay,” Arthur muttered softly. The words were so quiet they would have been entirely swallowed up by the whirring of the AC if they hadn't been lying, so close to one another.
Without another word, Arthur silently shifted, scooting backward across the mattress until his back met Francis‘s chest. He didn't say anything, and Francis didn't tease him for once; instead, the Frenchman simply adjusted, closing the remaining distance until their bodies pressed together, fitting together as seamlessly as they always did when the rest of the world wasn't watching.
They both drifted off to sleep within minutes. Arthur’s very last conscious thought was a strict mental reminder to himself that he absolutely, under no circumstances, could kiss Francis for at least the next three days.