Being in the Christmas spirit wasn't too hard to master. I cope with the stress; I'm British, that's what we do! All the racing around, buying shit for other people that they probably won't use again or will ever use in the first place… It gets older every year it goes by, and yet we still jolly well get on with it… America can't cope. He just cracks straight away if it gets too difficult! That's why every year, the same procedure, I shop with him. Luckily we'd finished all of that already. Of course, it is Christmas Eve! I think if we had left it any longer, I don't think poor Canada would've gotten anything from his brother. The poor guy, he's always last on the American bastard's list, he should be a little more thoughtful towards his only brother, right? I wonder if America even notices Canada at all… I'm afraid to say, even I don't sometimes… I regret it thoroughly; the man deserves more recognition…
Canada aside, I spun around to look into the sky blue eyes that belonged to no other than the yank himself. He was dressed in a surprisingly fitting red pants and jacket, with white fluff for the trim and a black belt around his not-as-slender-as-my-own hips. On top of his sandy brown hair, he had a red and white hat with a bobble on the end, and black boots on his feet. The bloody git was in a Santa costume, for fucks sake!
"What the bloody fucking god do you think you're wearing!" I retorted as he dumped a large brown sack on my living room floor. A grin spread across his face.
"I'm dressed as Sandy Claws, whadduya think!" his wide mouth decided to show his teeth as he stood grandly in between my sofa and my armchair. I could practically feel the essence of Hero oozing out his ears.
"And why is that?" I said bluntly.
"So I can deliver presents, dude! Isn't it obvious!" He sat down beside me.
"Isn't that Finland's job? Really, America, why the bloody hell are you here!" Don't ask me, I was rather annoyed. Scotland had sent me another curse in the post for Christmas.
"I wanna spend Christmas with you this year… You've given me so much help all these years, cos I'm just hopeless! So I went out earlier, and got you a very special present! And I really hope you like it~" So he wants to spend Christmas with me? Even though my turkey will blow up the kitchen, and I completely know what presents he's bought me, seeing as I had to choose them? Wow… America has nerve…
"We won't be able to eat anything, you do realise this? Neither of us can cook."
"Aww, c'mon! We can have a go, can't we?" he got up, and put the contents of the sack underneath my Christmas tree.
The United States of fucking America just encouraged me to cook. He must be in love with me.
"Sure… There's about a million and one ways that this could go wrong, but why not?" I stood up, and started to head to the kitchen. I knew I had all of the ingredients already for a Christmas cake, so why not try and make that? America followed me into the room, and found a sheet of instructions and set them onto a kitchen work surface.
"Chrimbo cake! Sweet, I love that! You put alcohol in that, don't you? You sure we should add that? Hahaha~" he gave me a couple of nudges, and set about finding a big bowl for mixing.
"We most traditionally add it, yes. But we don't have to… Personally, I like it better without, so don't worries," I said, reassuringly. America put his hand on my hair and ruffled it. He claimed butter and eggs from the fridge, while I got the sugar, flour, mixed fruits and spices and some treacle out of the cupboards. Together, we gathered various smaller bowls, tins and grease-proof paper, as well as a big wooden spoon, and some smaller metal ones. Oh, this was going to be fun.
"So… You ever made a cake before?" I asked him. It occurred to me that baking was something that children would normally do with their parents. I, myself, never did that with him.
"Nope! Just eaten them! Ahaha~!" we both laughed a little, before looking to the recipe on how the bloody hell we were supposed to pull this off.
"Lets see… Mix the butter and sugar…" we had already measured a little bit too much of all the ingredients into their own designated bowls, so we untidily threw the butter and sugar into the largest bowl that was still empty, and did something called 'creaming'. It was supposed to go all creamy, or something. Notice the word supposed.
"Fold in the flour…" America read out loud, attempting to not make a mess of the flour, and failing miserably. There was a moment where we couldn't see each other because of the sheer amount of flour surrounding us.
"Iggy! Where are you!" America called to me in the mist of cooking product. I wafted my hands to create some sort of path so I could reach him again. Unfortunately, I bumped right into him, and then he grabbed a hold of me.
"Bloody git, what—!"
"IGGY~!" Santa squeezed me tightly, and the bobble of his hat hit me in the eye.
"Again, I must ask; why Father Christmas?" I said, brushing the pompom away from my face, and round the back of America's head.
"Because! Don't you like mythical things?" I flicked his nose in annoyance.
"SANTA IS NOT MYTHICAL! HE'S REAL! REAL, I SAY!" I exclaimed.
"Alright, alright! But Sandy Claws sent me all your presents, so I gotta put them in your sock for him!" I grimaced at his awful pronunciation, and then smiled at him. I knew that Father Christmas had put my presents in the right hands. Because he is real. And I will hate you if you say otherwise. Seriously.
"Right… Back to the cake, Ameri-chan~" What? HE CALLED ME IGGY!
He gave a quick salute, and let go of my waist. We folded the flour, which just consisted of making an "8" shape with the spoon, until you could no longer see normal bits of flour. Then, cracking the eggs into a mug and whisking, forgetting to remove some small pieces of shell. We added this to the mixture, along with a small amount of treacle, and stirred for a little while, before adding the remaining mixed fruits and spices to the product.
"Here," I said to America, stopping mixing and handing him the bowl and spoon.
"I thought you wanted to mix it!" he said, but still receiving what I'd given him,
"It's a Christmas tradition: All of the family has to mix the Christmas cake. So just stir the damn mixture already!" I fetched the baking tin from a different counter in the kitchen, and put it down closer to where the two of us were standing.
"Dude, seriously? We aren't exactly family…" he looked down at the cake mix.
"You're the only family I've got, so shut up."
"Iggy, you have the whole British Isles—!"
"Like I said; the only family I've got." There was an elephant in the room, as he just stirred. After a while, he said:
"You're really not close with your brothers, are you?"
"Bad memories, please don't bring it up." I clenched my fists, and held back the tears. I will never be able to keep the people close to me, will I? America nodded, and then started spooning the mix into the big cake tin, then giving up because that took too long, and poured it out of the bowl.
The oven turned on, we sat down with our backs on it, next to each other. The silence was a little weird; I didn't even know America could keep his mouth shut for this long! I noticed his hand creeping towards mine, and didn't stop it. The second it touched me, I let my head rest upon his shoulder, and calmly closed my eyes. We had put the cake in the oven at about 10:30PM, and forgot to check how long it would take, so I reached to the nearest counter before sitting back down and reading the instructions.
"FOUR AND A HALF BLOODY HOURS!" I screamed, "THAT WILL TAKE US UNTIL 3AM!"
"Whaaaaaaah! No way! Aww, crap, we didn't think this through!" America said, clasping his forehead.
"Shit… We'll have to stay up, then…"
"You're kidding! It's Christmas, tomorrow! And Santa won't be able to deliver his presents!"
"I thought you were doing that for him?" I smirked, "And I'm not staying up by myself, I'm taking you with me!" he sighed, and looked at me.
"Fine, Iggy… We'll have to stay up… In this together, huh dude?"
"Exactly right!" I grinned at him, and stood up to get a little box on one of my top shelves. It was filled with chocolate products.
"Oh my god, dude."
"We're going to need the energy." I also found two 3-litre bottles of coke in the fridge. "One for you, one for me."
"OH. MY. FREAKING. GOD." His eyes widened in delight. And his mouth stretched to each side of his face. "THIS IS GONNA BE AWESOME!"
"I agree, this shall be a little crazy."
Half an hour later, I wasn't quite myself. I was still sane, however.
"AMERICA! CHECK THIS OUT!" I sat on my laptop, YouTube, watching a hamster in a wheel spinning at an alarming rate, and loosing control. Both me and America howled with laughter, and watched as it spun and spun and spun and spun…
Five minutes went, and we were literally on the floor, still laughing at the hamster, which had stopped playing a long while ago.
Ten minutes after that, I got squirty cream out of the fridge, squirted it in America's ear, and then made him a Santa moustache and beard. Then ate it off him. Then he did the same to me.
Fifteen minutes later, we built a Lego castle.
Another fifteen minutes passed, and we decided it would be a good idea to take off our shirts and jeans and dance around to Electric Six's Gay Bar in our underwear. And of course a pink fluffy scarf that we shared.
It was ten minutes until midnight by now, and America had put his Father Christmas attire back on, because it was winter, it was England, and it was cold. I, myself, put on a Harry Potter Slytherin uniform, because I wanted to dress up, too. I had the Draco Malfoy wand, and everything!
"Iggy, look!" America pointed overhead. Right there, attached to one of my banisters, and above both of our heads, grew a single bunch of mistletoe. We both gasped.
"It's… Christmas tradition…" I blushed, wildly.
"True… I hear it's unlucky if you don't…" our eyes met for a brief moment, before we closed them and closed the gap between our faces. Unfortunately, it wasn't our lips that met, it was our foreheads. We laughed, hysterically. And then we kissed properly. I was incredibly surprised; his lips were so soft for such a masculine guy. It lasted for quite a while, longer than it would to read this sentence twice over. And I let out a groan which was as much a shock to me as it was to America. I let my mouth open, as America's tongue was pressing for entry, and he licked the inside. I returned the action, and found our saliva mixed, kind of like our cake mix, but tastier. After what seemed like hours of snogging, we broke apart, gasping for air.
"Merry Christmas, England~" he smiled at me, lovingly. I gazed at the clock, it was two minutes passed midnight. It was officially Christmas. That was the best present ever.
"Merry Christmas, America." I held his face in my hand for a few seconds, before kissing him once more.
"England? When the cakes finished baking, I have something important to say…"
"Why not say it now?"
"Well… Two things then… The first one is I love you. And have done for a long time…" America glanced sideways. Oh my god…
"I… My feelings are mutual…" I blushed even harder.
"What?"
"I love you, too, damn it!" I glared at him. I was never good at expressing my feelings.
"Oh, Iggy…" he looked at me in awe, and then America leaned into kiss me again. I accepted his wish.
"Mmm~" a sound similar to that escaped both our mouths, and he held my waist.
"I have since you grew up into the wonderful man you are now…" I told him once the kiss had broken. He chuckled, and told me I was gorgeous. I love being complimented, so I stroked his cheek and went to check on the cake.
After a while, we decided to be incredibly annoying by putting on some Christmas CD's. Luckily, the closest neighbour I had was France, and he would probably be having his beauty sleep, which of course we wanted to ruin.
"ROCKIN' AROUND THE CHRISTMAS TREE~" America and I both sang. There were various songs, blasting at the top of the volume, before we gave up with Christmas music, and then resorted to Nickelback, who America seemed to think was an American band. Yet again, he forgets that they are Canadian. I have all their albums, so this took us until at least 1:30. Then, we got Guitar Hero on. And I am glad to say that I am better at it than America, but he made me promise I would never tell anyone. Try getting 5 stars at Sweet Child O' Mine on Expert, bitches.
We played on it for 2 hours, and about 17 minutes. Then again we checked on the cake to make sure it didn't blow up. Like it normally did…
So I and America made a start on the butter-cream icing, mixing icing sugar and butter into another bowl until it turned… well, creamy. Adding some lemon flavouring, we mixed it even more to finish the deal, by which time the cake had FINALLY finished. We spread the icing across the top of the cake, and made it look all fluffy, and threw some tiny chocolate stars to finish.
"Freakin' sweet!" America called as we looked on the product.
"Not as bad as usual, I'll admit…" I chuckled, scraping the remaining icing out of the bowl, and licking it off my finger.
"It nice?"
"Decently, and use proper English, stupid!"
"Hey! I speak American!" We laughed, but I don't think that America was using sarcasm… There was a brief silence, then I sighed.
"If only David could see me now…" America looked up into… err… space.
"David? Don't tell me you're cheating already?" I said, making up for his lack in sarcasm before.
"No, no… David's my cooking, and in fact Guitar Hero, instructor! He taught me how to do both! I mean, I wasn't successful in either endeavours, but…" I laughed at him, hysterically, "Hey! David is awesome!" America glared at me.
"Never mind, love, I think we're too tired to continue this any further…" I began to pick the cake up, and put it in a tin where we'd store it until needed later this day, when it swivelled. I dropped it. Oh god, no.
"I GOT IT!" One quick manoeuvre too late, it would have been ruined. Luckily, I have a Hero to save me. America dived onto the kitchen floor, and caught our hard work seconds before it hit the ground. We both sighed in relief, as my Hero stood up, and placed it in the tin where it was originally intended.
"Whew! That was close!" he laughed nervously at me. I placed the lid on the tin the cake was in, and started to drag America upstairs, turning off the lights as I did so.
"Well, I'm gonna go to bed, Iggy~" he said, seductively. I was still in costume, so I took the most perfect opportunity.
"Mind if I Slytherin?" we both giggled at my fail of a joke, and in fact, collapsed on my bed upstairs.
The next day, I was eagerly awaiting the surprise America said he had gotten me. Noticing he was already up and out of bed, probably downstairs, I headed that way, and noticed the tree above countless gifts. The only thing I cared about was the Santa Claus who spun around to meet my eye contact. Taking to account my arrival, his eyes flared, and he got down on one knee, to take from his pocket a small black box. He opened it to reveal a silver-gold ring, with a diamond in the centre.
"Iggy, will you marry me?"
Best. Christmas. Ever.
I offered the Christmas cake me and America made to France later that day, he choked and went to hospital.
END
My friend David was at my house while I was writing this. And he wanted in on it.
THIS WAS BASED ON TRUE EVENTS. ME AND MY MOTHER STAYED UP UNTIL 3AM TO MAKE A CHRISTMAS CAKE. But unfortunately, the closest to Alfred F Jones I got was my cat, who I named after him XD
Thank you for reading, MERRY CHRISTMAS MY LOVELIES! xxxxxxxxxxxxx