AN: This was originally intended to be a one-shot, but then... Idk, I decided not to ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I'm totally improvising this as I write, so I don't know how often I'll update or how long it'll be. Just enjoy the madness.

Disclaimer: I don't own Hetalia

Disclaimer 2: balconing has no perks at all please don't jump off balconies

Balconing. Act of jumping into a swimming pool from a balcony or falling from height while climbing from one balcony to another in hotels during holidays.

THE PERKS OF BALCONING

1. Angel Of The Morning (Juice Newton)

If Arthur were asked to name his biggest flaw, he'd say, without a doubt, that he didn't make good decisions when he was under the influence of alcohol. As opposed to his siblings, he couldn't handle his alcohol well (Alistair mocked him a lot for that), and his rational mind easily became completely clouded by a fog of "let's do something stupid, it'll be fun!"

That summer, his mistake was not refusing the offer of a night of drinks in his hotel room. Back then, it hadn't seemed a bad idea. He was on vacation, after all, and what was vacation for if not to do what he would otherwise feel bad for doing?

So he drank with his friends (and his brother), and maybe he downed one too many glasses filled with whatever hellish alcoholic combination Alistair had prepared, and maybe he got pissed to the point of no return.

When he stumbled outside the room and into the balcony, desperately needing some fresh air, a white placard on the wall caught his eye:

Recordamos a los señores clientes

que está estrictamente prohibido

saltar a la piscina desde el balcón.

Clients are reminded

that it's strictly forbidden

to jump to the pool from the balcony.

He blinked, slowly processing the information he was reading. Jump to the pool from the balcony. He leant over the railing to look at the pool: it was close and so blue and very tempting.

One thought flashed through his mind:

This is going to be hilarious.

"H-Hey, Alistair!"—hic—"Record this!" he called as he climbed over the railing.

Arthur still had time to hear his brother yelling an insult at him before jumping.

He closed his eyes before the impact.

~{§}~

When he opened them again, everything was white. So, so white. And he was floating in a soft cloud, smoothly rocking back and forth, and he could hear the faint sound of a choir, and that was Heaven. It had to be.

"Baby you're all that I want… Du du du du du du du du… I'm in Heaven," he slurred the Brian Adams song, his tongue dry and heavy in his mouth.

Then he saw the angel.

It was the most beautiful creature Arthur had ever laid eyes on. He was clad all in white, a long tunic perfectly adjusting to his figure. His hair was dark brown, as if God had selected the most delicious shade of chocolate and had poured it on him, and it looked so soft that Arthur wanted nothing more than to run his fingers through it. The angel leant closer to him, smiling the most beautiful smile ever smiled, his eyes big and greener than Ireland on Saint Patrick's, and his voice was clear like a celestial bell when he said:

"Ah, you're awake!"

"You… You…" Arthur mumbled, knowing what he wanted to say but not sure how to voice it.

"Yes?" the angel smiled a little wider, his eyes glimmering.

Daaaaaaamn.

"Let's sin together and I'll ride you down to Hell."

Stunned, the angel dropped his jaw as a loud, obnoxious laugh was heard somewhere in the background. Well… that had been an inappropriate thing to say, hadn't it? Arthur hoped he wouldn't get kicked out of Heaven for it. It'd be such a shame. Though perhaps he wouldn't mind too much if that beauty did, indeed, fall to Hell with him. He was even willing to let him land on him. He'd let the angel step on his face, if asked.

"Um…" the angel said, appearing to be over his stupor. He didn't talk to Arthur, but his eyes never left him as he called: "Francis—Francis, can you come here for a sec?"

Arthur heard footsteps, and caught a glimpse of fiery red hair as a second angel (also good-looking, but nowhere near as gorgeous as the first one) walked into his field of vision to discuss something with the other.

That was odd.

Because that fiery red hair belonged to Alistair, he was sure of it (he'd recognize that mess anywhere), and that couldn't be because: a) his brother, as far as he knew, was still alive — unless he had jumped after him in a desperate display of brotherly love, which he highly doubted; and b) when Alistair Kirkland died, he'd be rotting in Hell like the goddamn bastard he was (and also because he was a redhead and it's widely known that redheads don't have souls, as Arthur loved to remind him).

The second angel, whose silky hair was long and blonde, snickered at whatever the epitome of perfection had told him and glanced at Arthur with deep-blue eyes. "My fault, Toni," he admitted, friendly patting the first angel's shoulder. "My fault."

"Heeeeey," Arthur breathed out. "Don't touch my angel," he slurred, feeling sleepy again. "Mine," he growled as his eyes fell closed.

Before sleep took him, he had time to hear that same laugh from before again, this time accompanied by Alistair's evil, evil cackle.

~{§}~

When Arthur woke up for the second time, he was lucid enough to recognize that he was in a hospital. The clean white of the walls would have been indication enough, but there were other clues, like the bed that wasn't his, the IV on his wrist, or the professional plaster on his left leg.

…

What the fuck?

Arthur tried to speak, call someone, but his mouth was dry and words wouldn't make it out. All he managed to emit was a strangled sound, some sort of blergh that would have been very embarrassing, had someone been there with him.

Turned out, there was a someone.

First there was a quiet pfffft, as if someone was trying to hold back a laugh; and then there was a loud HAHAHAHAHA, as if said someone had failed. The laugh came from his right and was followed by an amused voice: "Good morning, sleeping beauty! The doctor isn't here right now, but he should come back soon. You'll have the chance to compliment him some more in a little while."

All Arthur could say in reply was a confused "…what?" His neck ached, but he managed to turn it enough to take a look at whoever was laughing at his disgrace.

It was a guy around his age whose grey hair contrasted with the mischievous look in his eyes. He was pale… or used to be, before the Spanish sun had given him a lesson about falling asleep under it. Now his face, ears and neck were crab-red, but he didn't seem to be very fazed by that. Sure enough, he had bigger problems: like Arthur, he was lying in a hospital bed with his leg in a cast, and he also presented a purple eye, broken nose and split lip.

"My name is Gilbert Beilschmidt," his roommate introduced himself. The accent had already given him away, but the name confirmed it: German. "It seems we're both stupid tourists who injure themselves by doing idiotic things — I think we'll get along."

"I'm Arthur Kirkland," he mumbled back, deciding to ignore the insults.

"Yes, I know. Your brother told us."

"Alistair's been here? And wait, who's us?"

"Us is me, the doctor and the nurse, of course. You've already met them."

"… I have?"

Gilbert's eyes opened wide in surprise for a split second before regaining that impish glint. "Oh, don't tell me you don't remember…" he chuckled.

"What don't I remember?" Arthur asked, slightly panicked.

"Doesn't matter," Gilbert waved his hand dismissively. "They're good people, I tell you. They're going slow on me to give me more time."

"More time?"

Grinning like a naughty kid, Gilbert raised his right hand, showing that it was cuffed to the hospital bed.

Oh my God I'm sharing a room with a criminal, Arthur thought in paranoia. "W-What did you do?" he asked, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible.

"Ah! Well, you see, it's all because of a girl."

"A girl?"

"Uh huh. So I left my hotel room and went partying, 'cause that's what you do when you're on vacation in Spain, right?"

"Right."

"And I drank a lot. Like, a lot. But I'm German, so that's a given. Anyway, I went into this club and there I met Eliza. Boy, she was awesome! We drunk some more, and we danced, and then went to one of this arcade games places, and they had one of those punching bags, you know what I mean, those that measure your strength, yeah? So I was like, oh this is the perfect chance to impress this girl, so I punched it, and she laughed and said, I'm going to crush you, Beilschmidt, and for some reason I thought it was hot that she called me by my surname? Anyway! She punched the punching bag and she kinda doubled my score and by then I was like, I want to marry you, but I was also super pissed, so when I went to kiss her and propose, I accidentally kissed and proposed to someone else. And that someone else happened to be this huge, huge Russian dude. But, like, he was mega-huge, man, I'm sure he wrestles bears as a pastime in Mother Russia. Anyway, Vladimir — I don't know his real name, so I call him Vladimir — didn't like at all that I had kissed him and proposed, so he punched me straight in the face. Then he kicked me. And then punched me again. Then I was like, whoa, dude, I'm being beat up and that's so un-awesome, so I started punching back. I'm pretty sure he, too, was ultra-drunk. That fight must've been worth watching, heh. Anyway, it got pretty bad, we broke a lot of stuff—my leg included—and in the end the police came. Not the band, I mean the actual police. And they arrested us, but I was so injured they had to take me here, so they left me with these beautiful handcuffs so I wouldn't escape. Oh, some advice for you: if a policeman ever handcuffs you to a hospital bed, don't joke about BDSM. They have no sense of humour and will threaten to fine you. And that's the awesome story of how I ended up in here! But, as I was saying, the doc and the nurse are very good people and they like me, so they're kinda buying me some time so that my brother, who's a lawyer, can fight the system and get me out of this mess. Ain't it great?"

Arthur blinked, slowly processing all the information he had just been told. "That's…" Crazy. Nuts. Insane. Given me a headache.

"Impressive. Yes, I know."

'Impressive' was not the word Arthur would use, or at least not with that positive tone. He really didn't know how to label the story, but one thing was for sure: that man was a lunatic.

Thankfully, a third person entering the room saved him from answering. It was a young man — a nurse, Arthur guessed from the clothes — with long, blonde hair that he kept in a ponytail, striking blue eyes, and the shade of a growing beard on his chin. His nametag read "Francis".

"Good morning, Gilbert! How are we today?" he chirped; and then, not even giving the German the chance to reply, turned all his attention to Arthur. "Oh, you're up! It's nice to see you awake again."

"Again?" Arthur asked. Gilbert had mentioned he had already met the doctor and the nurse… but the blond's pretty face was completely unknown to him.

"Yes?" Francis blinked, confused. "Oh, you—you don't remember?" He shared a quick glance with Gilbert. "Oh my God."

"What? What don't I remember?" Arthur demanded to know. He was starting to get stressed, and the clear amusement in Francis and Gilbert's eyes wasn't helping.

"I guess I owe you an explanation… and an apology," Francis laughed. "You woke up yesterday in the afternoon, but I, um, let's say I had given you one too many doses of painkillers, and you were a teeny tiny bit high."

"Excuse me?"

"Yeah, you were totally hallucinating, man," Gilbert snickered from his bed. "You hit on the doctor and called him an angel."

"Excuse me?!"

"You totally did!" the German went on, ignoring the mortified look on Arthur's face. "Hey—best pick-up line I ever heard."

"W-What did I say?" Arthur stuttered, dreading the answer.

Francis and Gilbert looked at each other again, and this time neither could hold back a laugh.

~{§}~

Every year. Every single year.

As summer approached, it wasn't uncommon for the hospital personnel to start taking bets: When would the first case be? How many stupid Brits would be brought in with broken bones and too much alcohol in their veins? Would there be any deaths?

It was almost a tradition by then—yet Antonio never took part in it. He had quickly grown tired of, year after year, receiving injured tourists under his care; tourists who came to Spain with the sole purpose of getting pissed and then, for some reason he still hadn't figured out, jumped from the hotel balcony into the pool… with disastrous results.

The press called it balconing.

Antonio preferred the term natural selection.

That year they had gotten only one case, so far. A young man who, following the classical scheme, had gotten drunk in his hotel room and then had attempted to jump at the pool. He had been very lucky to make it out with only a broken leg.

"I'd always known Arthur was an idiot, but I never would have expected this," the patient's older brother had said through a thick Scottish accent, shaking his head in disappointment at the bed where the Brit laid unconscious.

An idiot, yes, but a funny one. It wasn't every day that Antonio was called an angel out of the blue. He had had to scold Francis for his little mistake, but what he couldn't deny was that seeing Arthur hallucinating had been very amusing. (The brother had later asked in jest if they happened to have some of those painkillers on sale. Antonio had replied that not for English tourists, lest they came up with something even stupider than jumping off balconies.)

He was precisely walking to Arthur's room for a check when he heard a loud, obnoxious laugh he had come to know as Gilbert's. (Another idiotic tourist, but a whole different case. Antonio quite liked him.) The nurses, patients and relatives who were roaming the corridor stared in question to the half-open door of room 314, from where the thunderous laughter came. Antonio smiled at them and shrugged apologetically before walking in.

He first saw Gilbert, who was pressing his free hand to his moth to try and quieten his laugh.

Then he looked at Francis, who was biting his lip in an attempt at not bursting out laughing.

And then he noticed Arthur.

The good news was that he was awake. The bad news was that he was so pale he looked like he might faint at any time.

"What's all the hubbub about?" Antonio asked, an eyebrow cocked in confusion. Francis waved his hand as if saying I'll tell you later, and Antonio decided not to pry any further. Instead, he turned to Arthur and introduced himself. "It's nice to see you awake. I'm Doctor Fernández—or simply Antonio, if you want," he smiled, friendly, as he reached for a handshake.

It took Arthur a moment to react, and when he did, he moved too fast: his hand collided with Antonio's, pushing it away; then, panicking, he attempted to grab it for a shake, but all he managed to capture was a single finger, which he barely wiggled before dropping it.

Flabbergasted, Antonio watched in awe how all the blood return to Arthur's face, tinting it the darkest red he'd ever seen on a human being — including Gilbert's sunburn.

"O—kay," he chuckled awkwardly. "I think I'd better leave and come back later."

"That'll be for the best, yes," Francis snickered, discretely wiping a tear away.

~{§}~

The moment the doctor and nurse left the room, Arthur groaned and buried his face on his hands. "I want to die," he whined.

"So this is what it feels like to be the receptor and not the source of second-hand embarrassment…" Gilbert mumbled in thought from his bed.

Arthur ignored him.

Knowing that he had been high and hallucinating was bad. Learning that he had hit on his doctor while drugged was even worse. Meeting said doctor and realizing he was actually freaking smoking hot was the worst.

He really, really wanted to die.

"How long does it take a broken leg to heal?" he asked in despair.

Gilbert laughed. "You still have a while here, kiddo," he sneered.

"This is only just starting."

AN: Welp. What can I say: I did warn you this was madness. I'll try to update ofteHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA we all know that won't happen :'D But reviews will surely motivate me to keep the chapters coming n_n (Also, the names of the chapters are going to be songs with the word "angel" in the title, just because.)