AN: I know that this has taken me a horribly long time to update, and all I can do is apologise. I've been busy (although that's really no excuse) and most of this chapter was written on a high-octane combination of chocolate flavoured soya milk and insomnia. Apologies for any errors, and I hope you enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own Hetalia: Axis Powers, or MacDonalds, or 'Truly Madly Deeply'. All credit goes to the owners.

Alfred felt good.

In fact, fuck that shit. Alfred felt fantastic. And for once, it had nothing to do with a two-for-one offer on hamburgers or accidentally being given a free milkshake by an inattentive worker at MacDonald's. He'd been lying in bed when the idea came to him, thinking about the curve of Iggy's neck and the brightness of his eyes and how that slimy French creep probably had his hands all over him.

It wasn't fair. He should be the one kissing those lips that looked unbearably soft (although he'd never actually touched them) and holding his wrist and running his fingers over his too-prominent hipbones. He wanted him so much that it hurt, a physical ache in the back of his head that not even ice cream and sci-fi movies could chase away.

All this fruitless longing was having a horrible effect on his health. He wasn't sleeping well, his concentration in lessons was even worse than normal, his emotional state seemed to be completely beyond his control and although he hadn't lost weight, he felt like he should have.

Maybe I did lose weight, because of all the trauma, but then I turned to comfort eating and put it back on, he mused, staring up at the crack in his ceiling.

To put it plainly, Alfred was moping like a Beatnik who's just been told that it's 2012, and that black-and-sandals combo never really hit it off.

Then it came to him. Perhaps it was fate, or the work of some unknown deity, or (as Matthew later speculated) dehydration, but there it was, the plan engraved into his mind as if it had been there all along.

It had taken a couple of days and a decent amount of cash to get everything sorted, but it was finally in place. All he had to do now was become his own catalyst.

Courage had never really been a problem for him. Even as a little kid, he'd always been the first one to dive off the cliffs and talk to the strangers and touch the animals. His parents hadn't been too happy about it, as they were usually the ones who had to extract him from the sticky situations that he blundered into without a second thought, but as he got older they became proud of his self-confidence.

If this were a different time, a different place, and he were a knight upon a noble steed, he would be the bravest, the most valiant, in all the land. The first to ride into battle, with his sword held high and his armour glinting in the sun.

(He'd also be the first to be killed horribly, but people tend to overlook that detail until there's a body on the floor)

Mathew was late. Not the 'people begin to suspect that you've died' kind of late, but still much later than was comfortable. He stood at the bottom of the stairs, fidgeting, as Gilbert loped about making milkshakes and scratching at the walls and doing other things that seemed to have no purpose other than to waste time.

"Come on, Gil," he called out, for the fifteenth time that morning. The reply, when it came, was so muffled that he had to strain to make out the words.

"I'm in the bathroom."

Matthew sighed to himself. Earlier, when Ludwig had offered him a lift to school, he'd thought that it was unnecessary and a little strange, considering he was Gilbert's boyfriend and had spent the night in Gilbert's room.

(Oh, calm down. They didn't even sleep in the same bed- Matthew was relegated to an air mattress on the floor. Besides, he doubted he'd ever be able to get an erection whilst in the same house as Mr Beillschmidt. That man was terrifying.)

Anyway, he was beginning to regret rejecting Ludwig's offer. He looked at his watch again. 8:23.

"Gilbert!" he tried again, a little desperate now, "School starts in seven minutes. We're never going to get there on time."

"So why try?" Gilbert replied, appearing at the top of the stairs with a shit-eating grin on his face and his T-shirt on backwards.

Matthew rolled his eyes and stepped back to let the albino past. "What were you doing up there?" he asked.

Gilbert turned to smirk at him. "I put all the conditioner in the shampoo bottles, and all the shampoo in the conditioner bottles."

He looked so proud of himself that Matthew almost forgot how ridiculous that was. Almost being the operative word.

"Sometimes I feel more like a babysitter than a boyfriend," he muttered to himself, shaking his head. When, a few minutes later, he had to help Gilbert put his shirt on correctly, the feeling intensified by about two hundred percent.

"Can we go now?" he begged, shifting his rucksack on his shoulder.

"I still have one thing left to do," Gil said, and Matthew resisted the urge to growl.

"What is it?" he demanded through clenched teeth. He wasn't usually this irritable, but punctuality was something he'd always tried to maintain. The number of times he was late per week seemed to be directly proportionate to the amount of time he spent with Gilbert.

"This." Gil leant forward, taking Matthew's chin in his hands, and pressed their mouths together. It was short and light and tender, the gentlest kiss that the Canadian had ever known.

He drew back, smiling although his eyes were dark, and Matthew touched his lips with a finger. Although out of all the times Gil had kissed him, that one felt like the least likely to leave his mouth bruised and swollen, he knew that he'd feel it there all day.

He swallowed, suddenly shy. "Oh."

Gilbert smirked, that same old smirk that he'd been doing since they were both about five- but it was different now, because when they were five the way that Gil quirked the corners of his mouth had never made heat rush to the bottom of Matthew's stomach.

"Yeah," the albino said, his tone light and teasing, "Oh."

He turned away towards the door, suddenly ready to leave, and it took Matthew a couple of seconds before he could follow.

The lunchroom was busy when Alfred strode in – which, he told himself firmly, was a good thing.

There's no point in doing this if no one's going to see it, right?

He scanned the area quickly, blue eyes roving over scores of students until they came to rest on a very familiar blonde head. Arthur was bent over a book (as usual), a flask resting on the table beside him. Alfred couldn't help but smile at that. The English boy could never last the eight hours at school without his precious tea. Arthur wasn't alone; there was a guy with choppy blonde hair who Al vaguely recognised from his chemistry class sitting opposite him, although they weren't talking.

He took a breath, trying to calm himself. It was strange, the way his heart was beating out a quick, nervous rhythm in his chest. He was usually composed, daring, and this newfound anxiety unsettled him a little.

Still. No time like the present, huh? He shot a grin at Arthur, who failed to notice him, and sauntered as casually as he could over to the sound system. Roger, the student technician who took care of this stuff, was waiting there (as they had planned) although he looked kind of jumpy himself.

"You alright?" Al asked as he got within hearing range.

Roger nodded, glancing about. "If the IT support guys find out I'm accepting bribes I'll be fucked."

Al forced out an unnatural-sounding laugh. "Who knew the world of tech support was so much like the police force."

Roger's expression was torn between bemusement and exasperation, and entirely without humour.

"Whatever, man. Just get it over with, and if anyone asks… say you hacked the system, or something. I don't want this to go on my record."

He pushed a few buttons, gave Al one last shift nod and slunk away. Almost immediately the sound system kicked into action, pumping out gentle, pop beats that made almost every student in the room look around in confusion.

Alfred swallowed back the sudden lump in his throat, and clambered rather awkwardly onto the nearest table (cleared for the occasion, although it took another five bucks before Roger would agree to do it). He turns, almost losing his footing, until he's staring straight at Arthur. The British boy is looking back at him, too, his mouth slightly agape. He looks extremely confused, and more than a little horrified.

Fuck. I can't pull out now.

The soft guitar that Al recognised as his cue leaked out of the speakers, and he stumbled slightly over the words as he sand them out to the room at large. Well, not all of the room, actually. To one person in particular.

"I'll be your dream, I'll be your wish, I'll be your fantasy…" Alfred winced. His voice had sounded much better when he'd practiced this in his room. Then, it felt like he was singing. Now, he was painfully aware that it was more like shouting. Still, he blundered on.

"I'll be your hope, I'll be your love, be everything that you need…" His voice cracked on the last word, and he cleared his throat gruffly. People had begun to snicker, their eyes less amused and more judgemental with every syllable that flopped out of his mouth.

He looked desperately at Arthur.

It was a mistake; the blonde teenager was glaring at him by now, his cheeks as red as strawberries- and even in his current state, Alfred couldn't help but find that cute.

The music was still blaring out, but he'd missed his next cue. He tried to recover, realised that he'd forgotten the lyrics, and coughed.

Suddenly, the noise stopped entirely. Al turned his head to see what had happened, fully expecting to be greeted by an irate Roger – and found himself staring straight into cold blue eyes.

"Vous petite merde," Francis hissed out. Alfred had no idea what the words meant, but they didn't sound good.

"This is nothing to do with you," the American boy snapped back. Francis took a step closer, tossing back his hair in a gesture that would have looked feminine if anyone else had performed it.

"You're yelling a terrible love song at my boyfriend, so I think it does have something to do with me."

"He's not your boyfriend," Alfred shouted, horribly aware of how silent the entire room had fallen.

"Really?" Francis smirked, so confident and so smug and God Alfred could punch him right now, and cocked his head to the side. "Well, I consider anyone whose body I am on such… intime terms with more than just a friend."

Rage boiled up in his abdomen, and he stumbled down off the table because the difference in their height was starting to become ridiculous. He was still a couple of inches taller than the French boy, and that gave him a fleeting sense of superiority.

"I love him," he growled out, and it sounded just as low and dangerous as he felt.

"Mon dieu." He laughed, he fucking laughed, and it sent daggers through Alfred's stomach. "You really are pathetic, aren't you?"

Alfred doesn't think it through. It's not a carefully constructed plan. He doesn't even realise what he's doing until his hand is embedded in Francis' hair, and he's dragging him over to the nearest table and pushing his face into some girl's plate of spaghetti.

Francis pulled back, spluttering and furious, and Alfred was so surprised that he let go of his head. The French boy wiped pasta sauce out of his eye, muttered something vicious too quietly for Alfred to hear properly, and grabbed a cup of orange juice from somewhere to his left in a sharp, whirling movement.

Alfred stared at the drink for a moment, completely aware of what was about to happen and yet unable to do anything to stop it.

Sure enough, a couple of seconds later there was orange juice soaking through the front of his blue T-shirt, and Francis was hissing with laughter.

What happened next really wasn't Alfred's fault. The boy sitting next to the girl whose dinner he'd ruined literally pushed his chocolate pudding into the American teenager's hand, and after that it would have been almost rude not to throw it at Francis' crotch.

Francis stopped laughing abruptly, yelling something that even Alfred recognised as a pretty nasty swear word, and a second later there were frogs legs being pelted at his face.

(When he looked back on the whole disastrous ordeal, later, it was this that made Alfred frown. After all, they didn't sell frogs legs in their school cafeteria, and not even Francis would just carry them round in his pockets in case of emergencies… would he?)

Alfred reached for the water jug sitting on the table to his right, fully intending to give Francis what he deserved.

"Stop! Both of you, just bloody stop!"

He froze, his expression melting into something that looked a lot like guilt as he slowly turned around to face Arthur. The British boy was standing with his hands on his hips, his face absolutely murderous. Alfred risked a glance at Francis, who at least had the decency to look ashamed.

"This whole thing is ridiculous." Arthur exhaled angrily, and angled his body towards Francis. "You. We're not dating, alright? We never were, and we never will be. So leave me alone."

A little voice inside Alfred's head cheered, but it died when Arthur's green eyes landed on him.

"And as for you… you just humiliated me in front of the majority of the student body. If you thought that screeching some bloody awful nineties' pop song at me would win me over, you clearly don't know me at all."

He sighed, shaking his head, and seemed to deflate a little.

Arthur… please don't hate me. I'll do anything, just- please.

"I am sick and tired of both of you idiots. I don't know where you got the stupid notion that you needed to fight over me, but let me tell you right now that it isn't going to work. This is immature, and embarrassing, and honestly sort of creepy."

He looked between them, folding his arms across his chest.

"I don't want to go out with either of you."

With that he stormed out of the lunchroom, his flask tucked under one arm and his book held firmly in the other hand.

Alfred sank down to the floor. He'd never really understood it before, when people called themselves deflated. Now, though… well, let's just say he'd gained a bit of empathy, that lunchtime.

Francis was leaning against the wall, his eyes closed. For once, he didn't look arrogant or cocky.

Someone cleared their throat, and the blonde guy who had been sitting on Arthur's table pushed himself to his feet. He had funny eyes- sort of a turquoise colour. They were narrowed, and not at all friendly.

"You are going to clean up the mess you have made," the guy barked out, "And you are going to do it now. The cleaning ladies do not deserve to deal with your combined shit. DO I MAKE MYSELF PERFECTLY CLEAR?"

Holy fuck, he was scary.

Alfred nodded, feeling himself flush, and out of the corner of his eye saw Francis give a carefully-nonchalant shrug. The blonde guy's mouth twisted into an even fiercer scowl.

"Get. Moving."

Matthew had a free period after lunch, and even though he remembered Gilbert once telling him that it was 'totally awesome how their free lessons matched up', he can't find him anywhere. After fifteen minutes or so of searching he headed to the library, figuring that if he couldn't see his boyfriend he might as well get some revision done. He selected a few textbooks that looked like they might be helpful, and shuffled off towards the back, where it was quieter.

To his surprise, there was a familiar figure slumped over a desk near the Ancient History section, his face pressed into the wood. Matthew shuffled awkwardly and shifted his weight from one leg to the other, wondering what was going on.

"Er, Arthur? Arthur, that's you, right?"

There was a mumbling noise of assent, and Matthew slipped into a chair opposite the British boy. He opened one of the textbooks, but kept glancing over anxiously at Arthur's collapsed form.

A few minutes later, Arthur lifted his head off the desk. His face was slightly red, his expression weary.

"Your brother's a wanker," he said shortly.

Matthew closed the textbook.

"Yeah…I know."

There was a long, unforgiving pause.

"What did he do this time?"

Arthur groaned and rested his chin on the table again.

"He- he bloody sang to me. In front of the whole lunchroom. That's- I mean, that's not a normal thing to do. Where I come from, people don't do things like that."

Suddenly, the weird answer phone message from yesterday makes a lot more sense. Matthew cringes, and thanks some unknown deity that he decided to eat lunch outside that day.

"Alfred's a little more…extroverted than most people."

Arthur made a growling sort of noise. "Yes. I'm fucking aware of that."

He was clearly not in the best of moods (and really, was it any wonder?) so Matthew went back to his reading for a little while. Maybe ten minutes later, Arthur shifted himself into a more upright position.

"What about you? How's your romantic-" he made a waving gesture with his hand "-going?"

Matthew felt the blood rush to his cheeks. "It's- it's good. We're… we're going out."

"Really." Arthur didn't sound the least bit surprised. "Where is he now, then?"

Matthew licked his lips nervously. "Er- I don't actually know." He turned a page, although he hadn't looked at the previous one. "He's around somewhere." The words sounded vague and uncertain, even to him.

"Hmm." Arthur was clearly unimpressed, and it gave Matthew a funny nauseous feeling.

"Let me ask you this," the British boy continued, after a couple of seconds, "How much time do you actually spend together? How much of his attention do you actually receive?"

Matthew closed the book, eyes flashing.

"That's- I have to go. I have…I should practice. Hockey."

Arthur let his face sink back to hit the desk.

"Do me a favour. When you're hitting that puck… pretend it's your brother's head."

So, how was it? Awful? Brilliant? Somewhere in between? Send a review, and let me know. Also, can you guess who made the cameo as 'angry guy sitting at Arthur's table'?

And I swear that the next chapter will have more PruCan, and less meandering side-plot.