Disclaimer: I don't own Hetalia Axis Powers. Copyrights et al. go to the series' creators/owners.
I felt as if I had to write this. I was inspired by I Dreamed Last Night, a song by The Moody Blues. I definitely recommend listening to it when reading the dream sequences, since that's what I had on repeat when I wrote. Might add some depth or something to the story. ;)
And this served as one hell of a good way to break my 3-week-long writer's block. I love USUK angstflufftragedy. Sorry if this thing starts kinda slow, I hope it's a good story... Please review/critique?
As always, reviews = love. They definitely keep me writing.
Enjoy?~
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Nowhere

Alfie.

Charcoal-tinged midday light poured graciously through the one gothic-style arched window that dominated the north wall of blonde man's bedroom, its ethereal luminescence pooling against frigid hardwood flooring that covered his entire house. The grumpy owner of the home nestled in the center of his expansive bed, countless blankets warmed by his feeble body heat strewn messily around him. His choppy saffron hair stuck up at all different angles atop his head, starkly contrasting the prim tidiness that he worked so hard to maintain day after mundane day. Today, however, his care for neatness abandoned him: a rising fever drained the apricot hue that usually haunted his cheeks, dusting heavy purple shadows underneath his faceted emerald eyes. He appeared as if he hadn't slept a wink in days, yet that was all he had been doing for the past seventy-two hours. Fumbling around under the covers until his fingertips contacted a familiar plastic rectangle, he withdrew the remote to a tiny television set perched atop the stout chest of drawers that faced his bed and flipped the modern invention on, once again abandoning the wireless electronic. Weakly punching his quilted pillow to fluff it, he lay his head against the comforting object filled with goosefeather down as his gaze slid to the fuzzy television screen. A weatherman all but danced eccentrically across the 15-inch screen, pointing out different symbols on the map followed by a quick-lipped explanation of what exactly everything was and what it meant in accordance to the weather. A hand flitted up to the bedridden blonde's head and formed a crown across his forehead, pinching both of his throbbing temples with his thumb and forefinger, attempting to combat the incessant pain that rooted itself on either side of his brain. Bloody fucking weak immune system.

Unidentifiable clatter resonated through the empty hallways and wafted genially underneath the man's bedroom door, only faintly alerting him that something had changed in the downstairs section of his house. The unexpected intruder burst noisily through his bedroom door then, his grating, moderately-toned voice already running a mile a minute. Anger exploded in the man's mind, intensifying the dull twang that barraged his temples to something resembling snare drums being beaten; his teeth grit automatically as he almost shouted to talk over his company's incessant chatter, "For the bloody love of God, you damned noisy wanker, would you keep it down? You have no idea how bad my headache is!"

The other person, a caramel-haired, bespectacled man that appeared younger than the bedded blonde halted all of his animated movements and talking as his cerulean eyes seemed to focus on the other for the first time since unceremoniously barging through the door, crossing the room to the afflicted's bedside and plopping into the armchair pulled out of its usual spot in the corner adjacent to the bed. "Aww, Arthur, what's the matter? Not in the mood?"

Arthur shook his head before he realized that the gesture would only ensure the knocking in his temples to strengthen by a factor of ten, sitting up and in one motion prodding the malleable sides of his head with his fingertips. "Not exactly, Alfred. I've been sick for days, why in the bloody hell would I want to put up with your useless banter now?"

Alfred scratched his head in a rather comical fashion, careful to avoid disturbing his characteristic cowlick that piqued a few strands of his hair in the front before he responded. "That's an easy one, Iggy! 'Cause you've put up with me every day for the past three days, ever since you stayed home because you were sick! You never do well when the seasons change... it's a shame, really!" His head shook as he 'tsk'ed playfully under his breath, gazing upon his slightly blurred friend from over the argentine rim of his glasses.

Arthur's mouth shifted sideways skeptically as his thick brows furrowed, a few shades darker than the hair that partially obscured them. "And why, pray tell, is that?"

It took all of Alfred's self restraint not to burst into a fit of giggles that battled their way up his throat, attempting to pry their way into his voice box. "Pray tell? Who the hell says that nowadays, Iggy? You're so old fashioned..." If the person on the other end of the conversation hadn't been Arthur, the man that had known Alfred longer than either of them could remember, they would have certainly missed the almost imperceptible scrunch that twitched Alfred's nose.

"I do, apparently," Arthur mumbled, loud enough for his companion to hear as he laid back against his mattress, the growing thumping in his head forcing his eyes to flutter shut. "You didn't answer my question, you know..."

Alfred leaned closer to Arthur, his arms resting against the edge of the bed as his head found purchase upon them. "Nothing gets past you, does it? It's a shame because you never get to see the leaves change colors on the first day of autumn. You've never witnessed the first frost only a few days after the winter solstice. You'll never be able to see the flowers pop open in bloom on the first day of spring. And you've never rolled down a yellow grassy hill on the first day of summer to lay under the stars that night, the only night that I think you can see all the stars all at once..." His voice had adopted a dreamlike, airy quality, growing quieter and quieter until he completely trailed off.

Arthur's tense expression noticeably softened as he clung to each of his inconceivable friend's words, allowing them to echo in the vast reaches of his mind before he replied, his voice hovering barely above a whisper, "I can do all of that, Alfred. It's not like I get sick every time the seasons change."

He could hear Alfred roll his eyes doubtfully as his company shifted: he sensed that something novel and as summery as an August evening slip under his fine bangs to cover his forehead. "Yes you do. We're in a temperate climate, Iggy: I think the seasons changing bothers just about everyone. Good God, you're burning up..."

Arthur's steady breathing seemed to shorten at Alfred's remark as the something that felt his forehead was removed, the telltale sound of boots hitting hardwood meeting his eardrums. "Why doesn't it ever bother you then, Alfred?"

Silence filled the emptiness created by his friend having vacated the room, no doubt gone off into the bowels of his house to search for a washcloth or something to that effect. Arthur's forest-hued eyes cracked open as the world began to spin around him, the first waves of nausea engulfing him wholeheartedly. He flipped onto his side facing the idle armchair that Alfred had sat as said man returned, predictably with a damp ecru washcloth in hand. He returned to the chair as he leaned forward to place the washcloth upon Arthur's balmy forehead, robin's egg eyes finding and melting into smoldering peridot for the first time that day. Cool relief spread at once throughout Arthur as he reached almost helplessly for Alfred, tugging with what little strength he possessed on his chocolate-colored bomber jacket's long sleeve. "Alfred... do you have anything else to do today, after you leave here...?"

Alfred shook his head quickly, gazing upon his defenseless childhood friend in something akin to a trance. "Why?"

Arthur's free hand joined his other in clutching the sleeve of Alfred's bomber jacket. "Please, stay with me. I feel like death..."

Alfred straightened, unfurling his friend's fingers from his sleeve and as he stood he kicked off his worn canvas sneakers and shed his jacket, letting it cascade through the comfortable air until it hit the seat of the armchair immediately behind him. "You didn't even have to ask, Iggy."

He refused to let Arthur adjust to accommodate him on the bed, instead stretching out beside him and folding his muscular arms around the smaller man's narrow frame, minimally jostling the other. A hand flickered to the back of Arthur's head, pressing it comfortingly against his toned chest while making sure that the washcloth on his forehead stayed put. Alfred's free hand absently discovered the television remote, plucking it up as his arm curled around Arthur in a protective manner. "You look so tired. Get some rest, Arthur. I'll be here when you wake up."

A diminutive smile upturned the corners of Arthur's mouth as Alfred shifted for a moment, lips as soft as monarch butterfly wings ghosting across the blanched apple of Arthur's cheek. "I hope you know..." Arthur murmured, audible enough for Alfred to clearly hear as his arm draped across his company's midsection, his eyes slowly closing once more while his voice descended in volume and pitch, the unmistakable scratchiness of sleep underlying his words, "I'll definitely hold you to your word... Alfie..."

Arthur regained consciousness in a completely white room. It was impossible for him to discern the point at which the walls turned into the floor of the same snowy color in this otherworldly room that seemed to stretch farther than his naked eye could perceive. He bent for a moment as his fingertips grazed across the floor's surface, mild surprise overtaking him: the floor was as textureless and plain as it appeared. He noticed in passing that the knocking in his head had subsided, as had the unshakable fever that chained him to his bed for the past several days. It seemed that he was the only living being occupying this expansive room in the middle of somewhere that he had ever been before.

A familiar voice, moderate and definitely masculine in tone, abruptly echoed around him as he inwardly jolted from the sound that broke the deafening silence. "Nice of you to come, Iggy. Follow my voice."

Arthur's feet seemed to possess a mind of their own as he began to stride forward, directly down the middle of the rectangular room. The tenacity that he usually possessed to question the living hell out of someone unknown that gave him an order to do something was abnormally absent in this strangely tranquil place. "Who are you and where am I?" he wondered curiously, nervous chartreuse eyes darting in all directions to take in all of his surroundings.

"You should know who I am, so I'm not gonna tell you. We're in a strange kind of place, really. This place has no name actually, so I'm going to make up something. I'll call it Nowhere."

An abbreviated sigh heaved Arthur's chest as he continued down the room, a hand flying up to scratch an itch that prickled the back of his head. "Why am I here?"

"You're here because you need some guidance. You've got a whole lot of emotional baggage that you keep hanging on to, you know that?... Actually, you probably didn't, but now you do. You were brought here because you need to realize a few things about yourself."

Arthur noticed that when the voice put emphasis on a word, its tone became slightly scratchy as if it had reached the highest point on its natural register. Nostalgia enveloped him like a cloud then as forgotten memories resurfaced, of sprawling out at night on his mother's huge lawn with a sandy-haired boy beside him, both pointing skyward as a summer breeze ruffled their hair and shook the flimsy camping tent nearby... of sitting beside a blazing fire in the dead of winter, with snow piled halfway up the windows of the first story of his childhood home, his blue-eyed friend poking marshmallows over the hearth... "Well, this is news to me. What do I need to realize about myself?"

"I can't just tell you! I'd ruin the whole surprise if I did that! Now, why don'tcha use that brain of yours and think for a minute? I'm sure you'll realize it before you find me, but if you don't that's okay too. You're gonna have an epiphany or something like it, either way you look at it!" The voice actually chuckled then, a tinkling sound that swept an unwarranted blush across Arthur's dreamlike expression.

Something popped into view then, seeming a thousand miles away and indistinguishable for the most part. To Arthur it looked like dense, royal purple fog that had coagulated at the end of the hallway-like room for reasons unbeknownst to the short-statured blonde. The urge to reach that fog coiled around him like a vice as he broke into an all-out dash, an action that he hadn't done since grade school a few years ago. His eyes narrowed as he ran: it seemed like the fog was moving away from him, or that he wasn't progressing like he had been down the room. He stopped, taking a few seconds to regain his breath. "What's that down there? It looks like fog of some sort."

"You'll find out in due time. Right now isn't the time for you to discover it yet! That's why you're not getting any closer to it." The voice paused for a long moment before continuing, its tone suddenly hasty and rushed. "You have to go back now to your reality, but you'll come back here soon."

Before Arthur could protest a huge, ominous curtain of pitch black descended upon the room, blotting out the bruise-colored fog and the white walls and floor...

Arthur sat bolt upright in bed, thrown out of the nightmarish dream that had engrossed him throughout his latest REM cycle. He felt even more tired than he had when he had lain down for rest, barely realizing that a sheen of icy sweat dappled his face and neck. The washcloth that Alfred had placed on his forehead what seemed like ages ago tumbled into his cross-legged lap. Harlequin-hued eyes scanned the bedroom, noticing that the television set had been left on before his head craned to the left, something having caught the corner of his eye. A crumpled piece of lined paper perched in the middle of the nightstand that flanked the bed, placed in front of his digital alarm clock just so that it obscured the crimson LED numbers. Recognition immediately dawned upon him at the sight of the bolded obsidian scrawl that bled through to the backside of the page. He snatched the note off of the nightstand, the simple action sapping most of his willpower: his limbs felt as if all of the blood that flowed through them had morphed into lead. He unfolded the page and as his eyes flickered across the hastily-scribbled message about running to the store for some tea and medicine, inexplicable tepid tears shimmered against his irises as loss, the feeling of being isolated from the world and left alone, formed an insurmountable lump in his throat. Dammit, can't that git ever stick to his word for once?