Title: Resurrection Insurrection
Fandom: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Author: Me and my Awesome
Genre: Romance, fluff, supernatural, adventure, sci-fi, horror.
Pairing: USUK, AmeRus-love-hate, GerTalia, PruCan (with past Franada and Pru/Bran) and Giripan, SuFin, LietPol, AusHun, Spamano and Chi/HRE bringing up the rear. Oh, and Sealand's kicking around too. And China. And the rest of the canon characters too, probably. Side pairings that are mentioned but never really shown; UkrCan, BelaAm, Bela-Rus, RoChu, FrUK, NorDen, Rome/Germania is hinted at as a major pre-end-of-the-world pairing, and IDEK, some other guys too.
Rating: T
Warnings: Post-apocalypse human AU, scientific experiments gone awry, some language, mentions of drug/alcohol (mis)use, sexuality, violence. The usual. This is Hetalia, do I need to give warnings? Are you even reading this?
Summary: The year is 2027, and the Company now runs the world. Alfred F. Jones – freedom fighter, ace-driver, pilot, shot and all around hero – becomes part of the last stand when, after 5 years missing, his British cohort is found. USUK/Britannia Angel.
A/N: I should be writing the Moulin Rouge! AU. But I got distracted by the sky whilst out being an awesome pillion. If you read that and understood it, congratulations. If you read it and didn't have a clue; I'm a biker. Pillion is the term for passengers. Now that that impromptu lesson's out the way; ONWARDS. Notes at the end. Enjoy, my lovelies!
Chapter 1: The Eagle Lands
It's five AM. No, it's five-sixteen AM. The sky is black and there is fog rolling in. Fog? Or smoke? It's hard to tell these days. The fires are always burning. Endlessly, they burn. A house. A village. A city. A country. It doesn't matter to Them. As long as rebellion is crushed, any measures can be taken.
"Al – America, we need to get out of here, before They find us." The voice is low, muffled by the gas-mask hiding the long, battle-hardened, emotionally-weary features of a friend that's become a brother. It doesn't matter where they came from. They're all family at the end of the day. They're all they've got left in the world. There is a slight accent, but it can barely be heard. It's too risky to have anything regional on your tongue these days. They can track it; trace it through your genes. Find your family. Hurt them.
They learnt that lesson quickly. But it was already too late.
"I know." It's a defeated whisper that replies. Likewise, there is the rattle of the filter in the gas-mask, the echo of the two words, but it is the tone that gives the first speaker pause. For too long now, there's been – not happiness – but it certainly wasn't depression. It wasn't defeat. It had been bearable, a brave face in a coward's world. But now… There was a catch in there, as though the second speaker was about to cry, and the sirens have already begun. They're already alert to the unidentified, living presence in the ruins.
"America! Come on!"
A hand grabs a wrist, tugs once, twice, and then there are steps, and they're full out sprinting, leaping over rubble and smouldering fires, and they're running, faster, faster, faster, gasping for air left inadequate from the oxygen stolen by the flames, swamped by the smog. There is gunfire, the screech of tires, and the wail of sirens as They pick up speed, begin closing in.
"America!"
A rifle thrown his way. He rips it from the air, already chambering a round with the bolt-handle, and spinning to a stop. A split-second passes in which he's blinded by the ash that swarms in a cloud in front of him, pulled from the ground by his feet, but the butt of the rifle is already in his shoulder, he's already taken aim and fired. Three shots in quick succession, and then as his companion lets loose his own volley, he flips a switch, barely catches it with his glove, stops holding the rifle as such and utilises its semi-automatic capabilities.
He'll be chewed out later for wasting the ammo, but he's a good-enough shot that each bullet counts. Overkill is better than underkill, and the voice that whispers it in his ear doesn't bother to hide its accent. It's British. English. From that bit that used to be North Yorkshire. It's a broad accent, and it nearly floors him, but he's battle-hardened enough not to falter.
America hasn't heard that voice in five years.
The last time they spoke, it had been over the communication lines hidden deep underground, a left-over of a better time, a time America didn't know, a time none of them knew. They'd argued, America for his right to fight, Britain for his right to keep America's pretty little nose out it. Part of America, after the first time of many in which his nose was broken, wondered whether he'd think it was pretty now. But such thoughts were scarce.
After the argument, he hadn't heard from Britain for days, weeks, months. It wasn't unusual; power couplings were temperamental bastards at best, especially over the Sea. And besides, it wasn't unlike Britain to hold a grudge.
But the days, weeks, months passed, and there was no word to anybody. Nobody heard anything from him. Eventually, word spread from the North, from the icecaps, and it eventually reached them that Britain had vanished, kidnapped.
He wasn't the first one, and he wasn't the last.
He was, however, the only one to not be found.
Part of America's lost hope, he's lost faith that Britain might still be alive, that they might yet find him. Part of him still holds out, of course, because the idea that Britain's out there, waiting for them to find him, withstanding Their torture and cursing Their names as he laughs his psychotic little head off… Sometimes, it's the only thing that keeps him going.
"Hey!" his companion shouts, and though America's been firing with deadly accuracy, he's gone into his own little world, a world where there isn't constant fire and constant death. A world that's before. "Pay attention, we need to get out of here!"
"Right!"
So they provide each other with sporadic, lethal cover fire as they work on tearing up the manhole cover they'd discovered on their last visit to what had been a thriving community, and laying the bombs. America is grateful for that jab, because otherwise his muscles would have deteriorated beyond use by now, and it's only been five years.
It's a hard life, but someone has to do it. The Company can't go on.
The other job, once they've switched places, is for his companion to rig the explosives to blow the manhole to kingdom come and prevent it being opened again. Once it's rigged, America is grabbed by the ankle to tell him to cease fire and retreat. He does so willingly and they're barely at the other end of the tunnel before the makeshift bomb goes.
And then they're laughing, tearing off their masks and laughing as though they might never get another chance. They might not. They don't know.
"Jesus," America wheezes, slumping against a dry wall and wiping tears from his eyes. His eyeglasses are smudged with ash, fogged with smoke from the gunfire and the explosion, but he can't bring himself to clean them. Not dressed in these clothes anyway. "That was close."
His companion is still chuckling as he pulls his own mask off, running his free hand through the long locks atop his head. America will tell him it needs a cut because what man has hair that reaches his shoulder, and Canada will punch him. They'll have a scuffle, and they'll laugh some more, and they'll head back to their stronghold across the once-border, and they'll send the message out that another town's been obliterated.
There is no scuffle today. America doesn't comment on Canada's hair, and Canada doesn't bring it up. Instead, he mentions something else.
"That was too close."
America looks at him from where he's now sprawled on the ground, legs splayed, picking at a stray thread on his cable-knit sweater. France made it him, made one for all of them. Long sleeves with thumbholes to keep the wrists protected under abrasive protective gloves, a high collar, a hood. It's almost too long, too wide on the shoulders, but it's warm, and it's been well-worn. Well-worn enough to merit leather patches on the elbows, anyway. "What do you mean?"
"I mean," Canada begins, pacing a little. His boots are falling apart, but he's patched them up, enough to last for the next supply run, anyway. "You're starting to lose focus. You're letting your mind wander, and you might think we were safe, but you were nearly caught by the Company."
"Was not."
"You were," Canada insists. "You let them get close enough whilst you were off in wonderland that I had to waste my own ammo keeping them off you. You're good, Alfred, we all know that. We all know what drives you. But you can't let him linger like that. He's gone. When Pete's old enough, he'll take his place."
"I can still hear him," America whispers, thrown for a second by the use of his real name. Alfred. Alfred F. Jones. That's his full name, and it's one he very rarely uses. He's just America most days, just as Matthew Williams, stood across from him with concern on his face, is Canada. It's the ultimate defiance, to take the name of a country that no longer exists. There are no state borders anymore, no flags and no anthems. But they linger, and Alfred has taken the name of a once great nation to keep that memory alive.
One day, one day America will return, just as Canada will, just as Britain and France and everyone else will. One day, the world will be free again.
"What?" Matthew whispers, and he stops his pacing to crouch in front of Alfred with wide eyes. There is a crack on his eyeglasses, and Alfred makes a note to send them to Germany to be repaired.
"Britain. I can still hear him sometimes. In the very back of my head, like we're on the communication lines. And it just… I don't expect it. I should, it's my head. But he sneaks up on me."
To which Matthew spares a soft, nostalgic smile. "He was good at that, ever since we met him, he was good at sneaking." He puts his hands on Alfred's shins, rubs his thumbs across the knees above them, and says, "Come on, we'd best get back."
He gives Alfred a hand, and, gas-masks hooked onto their belts, they meander back to base, near-miss pushed to the recesses of their minds, and jokes about Matthew's hair coming to the fore.
It's seven-forty-three AM. Alfred has been awake for thirty-six hours and twelve minutes. He has seen former allies burnt to death, he's buried their charred remains, he has been shot at and, apparently, nearly died. He is desperate for a drink, but the supply run he and Matthew had intended to go on had been abruptly cut short by the destruction. He is furious and he's tired, more tired than he usually is.
He feels like he could do with some kind of morphine shot, but he knows if he voices such a thought to Matthew, he'll get thrown across the Sea to Austria and have his brain niggled at and he's in no mood to be put through the Psyche-Analysis Program again. He doesn't want to be in that chair again, plugged back into that machine. He's seen what it does, knows personally what it does. How it scrambles your brains until you don't remember what the problem was. Instead, he settles for sprawling on his makeshift bed and groaning.
"Oh, stop whining," Matthew says automatically, and damn him for actually being able to sleep like a normal human. "I sent a message to China asking for some more of those sleeping pills again. You really ought to break that habit, you know. It's not good to rely on them the way you do. I mean, I know it's spells. Sometimes you sleep better than anyone I know, but when you can't… Well, you shouldn't rely on them."
"Then why do you keep sending for them?"
When Matthew bitches him out, Alfred groans some more, flings an arm over his eyes and uses his other to flip the Canadian off. He promptly goes on to ignore Matthew's tinkering and key-clacking as he goes about checking their Intel.
"Uh… Alfred?"
He starts to groan, but the tone sinks in, and he's on his feet, crossing the den in three long strides, one hand braced on the table, the other on the back of Matthew's chair, peering at the screen.
"What is it?"
In the middle is a small video feed. A blond man with his hair worn long in a style not too dissimilar to the seated man opposite him, looking dishevelled and in need of a shave, salutes them in that vague way of his. His end of the feed is dark; what time is it over there? Shouldn't it be early afternoon? Where is he this time?
"Alfred, Matthew," he says, and he sounds like a wreck. There is an accent on his voice that Alfred remembers from his childhood, one that's rare these days. This man is French. He's always been French and he refuses to give it up. He combs half-gloved hands through his hair and sighs. "I've got some news for you."
"Well, go on," Alfred says. "Spit it out, man. It's eating you."
"I just got word from Germany," France whispers. "Apparently, he uncovered a few files that'll make for interesting reading. He's going to forward them to me, and if he's right about them, I'll forward them to you."
Matthew shakes his head a little. He's pulled his hair back, but a shorter strand frees itself. "I don't understand. What files? What are they for?"
It's not unusual to find Company files whilst on infiltration missions; their German ally is good at such things, especially when teamed up with that scientific experiment he had been calling a brother – whether he was or not, Alfred didn't know, whatever happened to turn him into what he'd become, which Alfred understood to be a freak of nature, because he was, no matter how Matthew felt on the matter – and occasionally they'd come across something of value; trade routes, convoys, training exercises. Things they could use to undermine Their efforts at world domination. But whatever it was Germany had found this time, it was big. It was something beyond the report of damages in the Hub. It was something personal to them.
Alfred didn't even dare let himself hope.
France takes a breath, licks his lips. He looks away from the screen for a second, and then looks back at them. There's a tear on his cheek, and it catches in an old scar there. "If Germany's right about the files, right about what they contain…" He swallows. "If he's right, Britain's alive, and we have his location."
++END CHAPTER++
NOTES:
This is what happens when you spend a day listening to the FFVII soundtrack, watching Assassin's Creed trailers before bed (don't ask, please dear God, don't ask about that dream, it was just. Yeah.) and generally making a nuisance of yourself.
Believe it or not, France, as of 2009, has the best medical care in the world. I can't see America giving himself a jab. I was going to give it to Japan, but he's got the technology. I was tempted by China as well, because for some reason, everybody always gives him the medic's role. I don't even know why, I mean, I tried googling.
Oh, Mattie, you stereotype-breaking explosives nut you.
America's wearing this: http:/ cache. gawkerassets. Com /assets/images/9/ 2010/ 11/ 500 x_
I don't have much to say about this other than, I hope it wasn't too boring? Hope you enjoyed my lovelies! ++Vince++