"I don't like it," England whispers.
It is the whisper that catches France's attention. "What?"
"This..." England pauses, sighs, and his entire body seems to drop with the motion. France watches it from the corner of his eyes, sees the tense form suddenly fall - he thinks of marionettes with their strings cut, statues crumbling under too much pressure. England looks old - older than he has for centuries.
The island turns to look at France; his eyes do not meet his, but stare right past him, the green dull and unfocused. There is a shimmer in England's eyes usually, a spark like a wildfire, a power like the ocean. Right now, staring out at the gray sky above the soon to be channel, the shimmer is gone, the spark put out, the power weakened.
(Those eyes are one of the few things France has always loved about England - a sort of deadly beauty. Like the art of fencing. Like a battlefield. Like the blood France has spilled from England's body; like the blood England has spilled from his - dark and red and smeared across the face so it brightens the lips, flushes the face. France can't tell at these moments whether he's poetic or simply morbid.
Perhaps simply too interested and too tangled in with England to be healthy.)
"This bloody channel," England's voice answers; it is hoarse and gritty, rough like sandpaper.
And quiet.
There are things France knows as facts of life; things he has come to learn over decades and many days -England's voice is for obnoxious laughing, prideful boasting, and thundering insults; the quiet is unnerving. The quiet is wrong.
France's eyes flick over to the site of the channel, the uprooted ground of England. This channel is a new idea, a wonderful innovation. It is just another form of transportation; just another small add-on to England's lands over the years, but the island nation looks small, frail. Scared.
France thinks he understands. He reaches a hand out, thinks better of it inches from England's shoulder and pulls back quick, stuffs it in his coat pocket instead. They are not friends. (They are not enemies?) "You can't stay isolated forever, Arthur," and the human name sounds too familiar to be natural; it doesn't fit right in his mouth, his lips not shaped for that word.
"No," England whispers, eyes still staring off at nothing. "I suppose not."
(But what he doesn't say, and what France tries not to think about is this: it's worse than opening his shut off island to another land - England feels like there is a string tied to his heart; the skin around it itches with construction, but he can't seem to pull it out so he claws at the skin, leaves angry red marks.
He feels like there's a sting tied to his heart now, and it's tying him to France.
Arthur's never been more frightened in his life.)