A little oneshot slapped together for two reasons:

One: It's Guy Fawkes/Bonfire Night here in the UK, commemorating the failure of the Gunpowder Plot – dreamt up by Catholic rebels against England's new Protestant king, James I – in 1605.

Two: It's actually an advertisement. XD

Gunpowder Tea

Sweet. Bitter. Rich. Bland. Hot. Cold.

Steeped in Boston harbour-water or in heavy English rain; brewed in fine china or in tin mugs in the trenches.

Sugar? Milk? Is it too strong? Too weak? More, maybe – just to top it up, to put the heat back into it?

"I suppose it doesn't matter in the end," England sighs over his cup, the steam parting.

He doesn't look at you; rather, he looks absently past you, through you, as though the way you are now is no more concrete to him than as you were for your little tea-parties with him fifty years ago, a hundred, two hundred—

No. It really doesn't matter. A to B. Here to there. Not even the fact that you'd rather have coffee, really. The tea itself isn't really all that important. It's not what drew you together. It's not even what drove you apart.

It's just a common ground. Lay out the table, sit opposite one another with your cups and saucers and be delicate about it, be gentle, be kind despite everything that has happened.

After all, it's not as if you don't love him.

When you were tiny, he lifted you into his lap and poured it out for you, plenty of sugar and milk so it was mild and you could drink it; held you to his chest and told you stories, smiled at you and told you that you were full of promise, that he had done his best to build you beautifully.

You remembered his words when you revolted. You recalled that he had told you of the traitors all those years ago, back before you were born, the ones who tried to hurt him by rebelling just as you were doing, the Gunpowder Plot to destroy all he stood for; and you took his gunpowder-tainted-tea and threw it into the bay, why lie, you were angry, you wanted to hurt him then.

Then you parted and you held him on the battlefield but not for long, he wouldn't look at you and that was fine, you didn't want to fight any more, you didn't want to hurt him any longer; you walked away and your strides were strong and confident and westward. It was alright. He had cried and you had seen him do it but it was alright. Even when he warped and twisted and changed into something almost unrecognisable – the monstrous machine of an empire – you kept your distance. Isolationism was fine with you. Let him burn down what he liked out of spite, out of pain. It was nothing that couldn't be rebuilt—

Just like him. At the height of his glory as the British Empire, you watched him taking tea at times. He still drank it the same way as he had done on the grass under the oak tree back in Virginia, you in his lap, your toy soldiers in attendance at the tea party as they would be years later. Once or twice you took a seat with him in his Victorian grandeur, sat up straight, fluffed up your cravat, gazed at him from behind your glasses. Common ground once more even though he was powerful, though he was different and yet ever the same.

Then came the wars and there was no time for tea parties. You ignored him for as long as you could even though he demanded and Canada begged. What was it to do with you who shot who where and why? When at last you came to his side, he was cold with you and you were colder still. You drank coffee from cans and didn't meet his gaze over guns and grenades. You barely shook hands over the Treaty of Versailles, he having signed after warming his frostbitten fingers around a cup of tea and you putting your foot down and saying you'd had enough.

Things were different in the 1940s – between you both. You did not fight out of sulky obligation this time. You fought for yourself but you also fought for everyone else. And him. You wanted to help him. For almost a year he'd held off the Axis all by himself and you admired that. You smiled at him absently during meetings, found yourself seeking out his company on purpose. At first he was suspicious, annoyed, grouchy, but then he warmed up to your attention and saw it for what it was and one night, in your shared quarters, as you both huddled around the last canister of gunpowder-flavoured tea from the supplies, he kissed you.

That gunpowder flavour stayed on your lips, tattooed itself onto your tongue. You liked it. It was the taste of war and god how you liked it. In the aftermath you bristled dangerously against Russia and he, with his empire in ruins, simply hung back and said that this wasn't what you had fought for. It means nothing, Captain Britain, so shut up, won't you? In the 50s and 60s and 70s, when you tore yourself to pieces in war after bloody war, you came home in-between to be kissed on the forehead by England and to sit silently in the kitchen while he made tea. Calm tea. Quiet tea. The hell it was. It made you grin behind his back. You'd seen what he'd done over tea – what he'd done to China, to India. Here's your tea, United States of America – would you like some sugar? Milk? Gunpowder?

But he in his tired lies and comfortable ruin was content enough to rot at the edge of the world and that was fine with you – until the wall fell and everything changed again. The world was going to leave you both behind unless you changed with it. It was easy for you to put on a new suit, to slick your hair back and shine up your specs; but a look at him, even though he presented himself so impeccably, made you realise that it wasn't going to be so easy for him. You did your best to breathe life into him again and he wasn't the same and yet he was. He didn't want your computers, he didn't want your VCRs and mobile telephones, he was still happier with a book in one hand and a teacup in the other, but it was better than nothing, a good-enough welcome-back. He would never be great again but that was alright.

You'd always known it would be alright.

(And that day in September he held you as he once had all those years ago when you were small and afraid; only he was small now, and probably afraid too, but he held you all the same and it was enough.)

Today is a nondescript day. Nothing history-making has happened. You argued earlier this morning. You laughed at his predictability and he got even angrier but when he thought you weren't looking, you saw him smile and shake his head.

Now he sits opposite you with his teacup halfway to his mouth, looking through you – looking back through you. How things have changed and how they haven't. You've always liked watching him space out like that. You wonder what he's thinking about when he does it—

Even though, really, you know.

His teacup is almost empty.

"Hey," you say, reaching for the teapot and wrapping your fingers around the handle, "you want some more in there?"

He blinks at you, snapped out of his reverie, and then lowers his cup back onto the saucer with a smile, pushing it towards you.

"Please," he replies. "This is my favourite blend to drink with you, after all."

You grin.

"Gunpowder," you say; and you pour him another cup.

Gunpowder tea is a Chinese tea which takes its English name for two reasons: 1] It comes in little pellets/pearls which are said to resemble gunpowder pellets used in muskets; 2] It often has a slightly smoky flavour, depending on how it is brewed.

SO. I said this fanfic is, in fact, an advertisement. It is. ^^

My good chum AutumnDynasty and I made a USUK fan soundtrack by the title of (naturally) Gunpowder Tea. This fic... sort of sums it up a little, I guess. It's kind of about their historical relationship more so than their romantic one but we had a lot of fun making it and it's available for totally free viewing and/or download if anyone is interested at all! The link for viewing/download is on my profile near the top. You should at least look. It has a pretty front and back cover and everything! (Plus, I mean, you know, free music...?)

Think of it as a Guy Fawkes Night gift from two Brits~!

Lastly... if this has any major typos, I actually couldn't give a fig. I am jetlagged to high hell. I got back from the USA (YaoiCon in San Francisco, lulz) earlier today and haven't been to bed in well over 24 hours so... so there. Nyah.

XD

Happy Bonfire Night!

RobinRocks xXx