AN: Wow, so this is my first published fanfiction. Please let me know what you think by leaving a review, constructive criticism is welcome but please no flames. On the subject of France and England, I have quite a solid head!canon of their relationship so you may find they act quite different to how they are portrayed elsewhere. I own nothing but the words on this page :)
Power is the great aphrodisiac
- Henry A. Kissinger
Just like stars, nations wink out of existence from time to time. Power changes hands and new faces replace the old, the balance shifting like the ocean's tide. France and Spain pass the chalice of hegemony between themselves for centuries, each taking a sip of dominance before handing it back. It's a simple system, and it works just fine.
But as the years pass they become aware of a shadow in the corner of their eyes as they drink; a hushed whisper in the quiet of the night; a slender hand that seizes the Grail they hold and throws them down from grace.
Stripped of their might, all they can do is plot and hope in their dizzying descent from power. They murmur that she too will one day lose her now vice-like grip on the world, that one day she will know the ashes of defeat.
Yet even as they fall England rises ever higher, clawing her way to the top, leaving blood and carnage in her wake. She builds a throne from the skulls of her enemies and it is from there that she whispers to France in sweet, honeyed words.
"Come up."
And God help him, he does.
Perhaps that is France's greatest weakness. He is attracted to power, naturally. All nations are, though most will not go to his lengths to obtain it. France is unique in that he will do anything to be close to that power, bend the knee if he must, just to sip from the Devil's wine.
And England knows this all too well.
He is drawn to her and the power she radiates, like a moth to a flame, circling the fire in the hopes of reward.
But this flame burns too hot, even for him.
He makes the ascent alone, feeling the eyes of the world on him with every step. England looks radiant above him; golden hair tumbling down to her waist, green eyes flashing with the heady rush of victory. She is intoxicating, and France fears that he is becoming addicted to the sight of her like this.
Her arm snakes out to encircle his hips as he stands before her, the other hand raised to cup his cheek as she brings him down for a kiss.
And oh… because in the months since he last saw her he has forgotten what she tastes like. As a child her kisses were sweet, like apples and cinnamon and honey. Now they are rich and dark, whiskey and tobacco and the cloying hint of opium.
After all these years, France still has to remind himself that she has grown up now, and that that thin veneer of innocence that once sheltered her from the horrors of humanity has been stripped away. France supposes that he can probably take full credit for that too.
The sudden addition of pain to the kiss brings France back to the present, where England (as always) has been the first to draw blood in their battle of tongues and lips and teeth. His lip stings where she has bitten it and she sucks it straight into her mouth, lapping up the fallen blood. If he wasn't becoming shamefully aroused, France would worry that England has started to like the taste of it a little too much.
She takes him to her bed to prove a point he thinks, although the nagging feeling that he is being toyed with is left at the bedroom door, along with most of his clothes. Pushing him down into the sheets, England straddles his waist, a wicked smile on her face that brings out her dimples and sank a thousand ships.
He should know, they were his.
Hands tear at garments and then she is beneath him, a flush creeping across her face as he reaches down to stroke her. She is so very pretty when she blushes. If he didn't know better, France would assume she is innocent, untouched, a maiden in his bed. If he didn't know.
England learnt long ago how to wield sex like a weapon, turning the perceived disadvantage of her gender into a deadly armament that she was perfectly willing to point at anyone. France will happily admit that she aimed it at him several times before realising that he actually wanted it. Her disgust upon discovering that France enjoyed her attentions had been rather amusing to watch.
A hand slipping down to his groin breaks him from his musings and he shakes his head slightly to clear his thoughts.
He finds his mind wandering more times than he would like in her presence, as England's clever fingers touch and grasp and caress and drive home the fact that she is in charge here. Her constant need for dominance is a hallmark of her troubled youth and if he wasn't finding it difficult to follow a single thread of thought he would laugh at the childishness of her actions.
But it bothers him slightly, her inability to let someone else take control.
He sinks himself inside her before she can take him over with her hands and mouth, reminds her that however powerful she may grow he has this, has had it ever since he took it from her in the rain and the mud on that field in Hastings centuries ago. She shrieked and sobbed then, but now she writhes and moans and slips into his language as she climaxes, screaming for a god she no longer believes in and a man she has every right to despise.
In the morning he will roll over and bare his stomach like the defeated empire he pretends to be, and England will go back to ruling a quarter of the world. But now, in this room, where his limbs are so entangled with hers that he can't tell where he ends and she begins, France finds a balance. Because night after night she gives him this, and that is a greater declaration of trust than she will ever utter in words, even in the solitude of her own head.
For England may spread across the globe like a pestilence and gather all the lands under her until she reigns as a goddess supreme…but France will know that this part of her will always belong to him.
Always and forever.
Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none; be able for thine enemy rather in power than use; and keep thy friend under thine own life's key; be checked for silence, but never taxed for speech.
- William Shakespeare