A while back I promised my BFF a fluffy FrUK story, and here it is. Your welcome Hannah! (Or should I say Melissa? lol!) Anyway, this is based on something that recently happened to me at my brother's first communion party. I've casted my cousin as France, and I'm Iggy. Now that I think about it, it's kinda awkward *shudders*. Okay, off topic. This took about... 3-4 hours to write? I think that's about it. Also, all the French is pretty self-explanitory, so I'm not putting translations. I'm very impressed if you made it this far in the authors' note. Your reward is that you get to read the story.

I DO NOT own Hetalia. If I did, FrUK would be as canon as GerIta (if not more so).

Arthur sighed deeply as he finished his meal. What was this for again? He had no clue. All he knew was that he was here, at this party, bored out of his mind. There wasn't even any alcohol! Though America claimed that it was for the good of all the nations, he knew he was lying. He had raised the lad for God sakes! Alfred was truly an idiot if he thought he could hide anything from his former guardian. Plus, he could here the drunken laughter of the git and his Russian boyfriend from the kitchen.

Stupid American arsehole.

But that wasn't the worst of it! Oh heavens, no! The absolute worst part of the evening was that, by some terrible stroke of fate, he had been placed at the same table as France. Worse still, he had to sit right next to the bloody Frog! And as if that weren't bad enough, the wanker at been giving him the eyes.

All. Freaking. Night.

All throughout dinner, the damn Frenchie kept chancing glances at him, making the Briton all the more uncomfortable. It was annoying enough that the wretched man had to fire off lewd comments at anything on two legs, but now he had to direct his perverted advances to him? Why? Why God, why? What did he do to deserve such a fate as this? To be stared at like a piece of meat by the most sexually motivated man alive?

He looked up for just a split-second to see if the Frog was still staring at him, and was met with bright blue pools gazing into his own emerald ones. It made him shiver in a not-so-unpleasant way. For once Francis' eyes were not filled with the flirtatious gleam usually held within them, but with a sort of tenderness he had never seen before. Had he been looking at him in this way the entire time, or was the intensity of his gaze just his imagination?

The DJ then spoke up over the noise of the ballroom the party was being held in.

"All right, I think I'll slow it down a bit and see if any couples out there will come out on the dance floor."

And the azure orbs locking with Arthur's sparked with what looked like another one of the Frenchman's brilliant ideas.

Oh joy.

Oh, how beautiful his Angleterre looked in this light! The way the dim light bounced off his ashen blond hair and reflected in his piercing emerald eyes simply drove him mad. He couldn't help but sneak little peeks at his petit lapin throughout the evening. Arthur was just too adorable for his own good, really!

He had decided before he even arrived that he would tell Arthur how he felt tonight. How he felt about him. Francis had been keeping his emotions towards the grumpy Englishman bottled up far too long. How many years? At least a decade, he knew. And what a torturous ten years it had been! Ten long years of hiding his feelings from the love of his life! It pained him just to think about all the times his Angleterre had scowled and openly admitted his intense dislike for the other. (Francis refused to use the word "hate", as he couldn't bare the thought of his amour hating him.) He yearned to see Arthur smile at him. Just him. He wanted so badly to be the only one to make the usually cynical and short-tempered man feel good enough to really smile.

And when the disk jockey decided to play a slow song, he saw his chance, and took it.

"Angleterre, would you dance with me?" Francis asked the man beside him. Though he had seen this coming, Arthur was dumbfounded. Why on God's green earth would France want to dance with him. It made no sense and neither did the previous wordless exchange. What was wrong with him? The Englishman knew that he was a bit sick in the head, but this was ridiculous! Apparently his crystal clear thoughts never made it out his mouth.

"W- what? N- no!" He unintelligently sputtered. Francis aimed a flirtatious smile his way.

"Oh, come on Angleterre! Even you aren't that much of a wet blanket." Arthur pounded his fists on the table, making the silverware and plates rattle with the force of the blow.

"Shut up, Frog! I am not, nor have I ever been, a wet blanket!" The Brit shot back, mental composure regained.

"Prove it." Francis said, crossing his arms over his chest. "Dance with me."

Now Arthur was steaming. How dare he! The Frog had no right to insult him in this manner. He was the bloody British Empire, for Christ sake! And then it hit home exactly what France had said.

Prove it.

He had been challenged, and a gentleman never refused a challenge. If he did, it would mean the loss of his pride, and that was something he would never willingly give up. He gave Francis an ice-cold glare as he stood from his chair.

"I hate you."

The words stung, but Francis quickly recovered when he saw Arthur rise from his seat, and look at him expectantly. His heart skipped a beat. He stood and took Arthur's hand in his own, and lead the scowling blond to the dance floor. The familiar voice of Frank Sinatra flowed out of the speakers as the Frenchman turned to his partner. All the cold confidence had gone from Arthur's features, and he now stood there shuffling his feet awkwardly.

"S- so," he stuttered out. "Wh- who leads?" Francis chuckled softly at the other man's nervousness.

"I will, seeing as I am the man here, oui?" Arthur sputtered indignantly at the comment, trying to voice just how manly he was. His partner just smiled (and not the usual perverted smile, either) and pushed his chin up to close his mouth. The green-eyed man couldn't help but stare at the Frenchie's audacity, but couldn't help but look away when his emeralds locked with the other's sapphires.

Francis snaked his arm around the Briton's waist, and grinned in delight at the small gasp he omitted. He placed his left hand in the shorter man's, and couldn't help but smile when he felt Arthur's hand land feather-light on his shoulder.

And then they began to dance.

Arthur was sure he had never felt this way before. This new feeling felt so impossibly right that it scared him a bit. He looked up at Francis with wide eyes, and inhaled sharply at what he saw. The Frenchman's eyes held a sort of depth he had never dreamed of being there. He gazed into the endless pools of blue, unable to comprehend just what that look on his beautiful face.

Wait.

What the bloody Hell did he just think?

'Beautiful' he repeated in his mind. He felt his stomach turning in his abdomen, the sensation not altogether unpleasant. Did he really think Francis, the French Frog, was beautiful? Handsome? Attractive? Well, that third one, defiantly. There was no doubt in his mind that France was an incredibly ascetically and sexually pleasing man, but was he beautiful? Inside and out? Arthur suddenly realized that, yes, he was. There was an undeniable magnetism between the two, pulling them together. It struck him that this had been happening for years, but he had been too blind to see it. Over time, his worst enemy had become merely his rival. Rivalry had then transformed into a sort of twisted friendship, and friendship had… what had friendship done? Up until this very moment, he had thought of Francis as only a sort-of friend and annoyance, but what was he now? Now that he had made the revelation that he…

Dare he say it?

Dare he even think it?

What would happen if he admitted it?

Out loud?

To himself?

What would happen?

What would change?

Would it be worse?

Would it be better?

Better than what he already had?

Yes, he decided, it would be.

As the poet Alfred Tennyson once said: 'Tis better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all.

Because he loved the damn Frog.

His head spun at the admittance. He loved him. He loved France. He loved Francis Bonnefoy.

And now he had to tell him.

He opened his mouth to speak – to pour his heart out to this man before him as they danced effortlessly. But apparently fate was not on his side.

"Arthur…," Francis whispered, leaning in closer to him. Said man's heart began to race. The way Francis had spoken his name made him feel like his heart was trying to break free of his chest. The Frenchman rested his forehead against his partner's, and whispered so only his beloved would hear.

"Je t'aime."

Arthur gasped sharply as he felt the heat rushing to his face as he blushed crimson. He found that words now failed him, so he did the only thing he could think of in a situation such as this one.

He closed the distance between them, and captured Francis' lips in a tender, loving kiss. Francis dropped Arthur's hand to wrap his own around the Briton's waist, and kissed back with as much love as he could. He and Belgium were the only countries at the party who spoke French, and seeing as said woman was across the room speaking with Hungary, he had said those three little wonderful words in his native language to keep the moment just between himself and his amour. He grinned broadly in his mind as he felt Arthur put his arms around his neck, pulling him closer. He wished this moment would never end, but sadly, there's this thing called oxygen that one needs to breath, and both were beginning to run out.

Arthur pulled away first, and stared up into those fantastically blue eyes of his love, wanting to memorize every aspect of them. Francis then cupped his cheek in his hand, and the usually stifled man nuzzled into the Frenchman's palm.

"I… I love you, too, Fro- Francis." It no longer felt right calling him Frog. He wasn't a frog, more like a… well, he didn't know exactly what else he could compare him to, but a frog was definitely no longer it. Francis beamed happily at the use of his name, and not that of a slimy amphibian.

As the song faded out and the sound of another fast American pop song came blaring over the speakers, Francis lead Arthur to the door. No one would mind if they left, they were to busy with beating the living crap out of America for hiding the alcohol all night and drinking it all himself (Russia helped of course, but no one wanted to anger the slightly tipsy Slavic nation).

"How about I take you home? Since you carpooled with America, and I don't think he'll be in a fit driving state anytime soon." Francis said. Arthur snorted.

"He never was in a fit driving state. I was hanging onto the seat for dear life the entire ride here. I swear, he was taught to drive by an idiot."

"I thought Feliciano taught him to drive?"

"My point exactly." Both blonds chuckled at this, thinking about how Italy had been banned from driving since he drove his brother's car off a pier back in '83.

Francis opened the passenger door of his car in a gentlemanly manner, waiting for Arthur to climb in. Instead, he got another kiss from the Briton, this time slightly more passionate, but just as loving. Francis looked tenderly at the man he had known since childhood, stroking his messing blond hair.

"And to think, you didn't even want to dance with me in their first place."

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