A/N Important! Please Read!
**This is a sequel to "Welcome to the World." I highly recommend you read that first, because otherwise several things in here won't make much sense.**
To those of you who have read WTTW: welcome back! This is that USUK (not necessarily in that order) sequel I mentioned in the last chapter. It's a direct continuation of the events of WTTW, but I made it into a new story because a) it's a completely different genre, b) WTTW ended so nicely, and c) "Forever" decided that it wanted to be multi-chaptered instead of the tame little alternate ending I had originally planned.
Warnings: I don't think it's quite an M, but it's a considerably more mature T than WTTW was, mostly because I was just a tad gory in my depiction of World War I. (Is it just me, or do I geek out over guns in just about every chapter of, like, everything? 0_o) Also, here there be gayness, but you were expecting that, amirite? :P
This is my first attempt at writing for a pairing and I don't think I'm doing too well so far, but please enjoy anyway! Reviews are welcome and appreciated. ^^
April 1921
It's been a long time since I've stood in front of this massive oak door. Despite all of the Empire's wealth and prosperity, a thin border of inevitable rust tarnishes the tawny mane of the lion's head door knocker and I note the few trailing cobwebs in the corners of the doorframe. A wild wall of English ivy clings to the ancient red bricks of the house and the window panes are warped with ripples and rivulets of glass from the days before mass production. Even after all these years, England is the same. I know he likes his house this way- a little aged, a little rustic. He's the kind of person who would use ragdolls as legit house decorations and have a "Bless This Home" welcome mat if he didn't know the rest of the world would never let him live it down.
He invited me over for what he'd carefully termed a delayed debriefing, which it can't possibly be. For one thing, the war's been over for a while now, and for another, if it were really military-related he would have told me to go to a military base, not his cottage in the countryside. The soggy countryside, I add to myself as my muddy, squelching shoes ooze water onto the porch. I sigh and rap a few times on the door, shouting England's name at it for good measure. There's some scuffling from inside, then a click, and the door swings open.
"Oh! America! You're… early?" He fumbles with something in his waistcoat pocket for a moment, eventually drawing out a pocket watch and looking from it to me incredulously.
"Yeah, dude! Debriefing, right? Military stuff. Important."
His lip curls as he slips his watch back into his pocket. "Couldn't you at least use one verb…?"
"You gonna invite me in or stand here and correct my grammar all day?" Without waiting for an answer, I considerately slip off my muddy shoes and step past him into the house.
I scan the place just in case, but I already know what I'll find: still no electricity. This house is the one that England uses to express his hatred of change: everything, down to the pictures on the mantelpiece and the china in the Welsh dresser, is the same as the last time I've been here.
Wait… not everything…
I meander into his living room as he closes the front door behind me. He asks if I'd like coffee and I mumble out a sound of affirmation with my attention fixed on the new addition to the mantelpiece. It's a photograph of a day not so long ago—over two years already, is it?—when England and I returned to Britain from the trenches, shortly before I flew back home. We're dirty, bloody, skeletal, and exhausted, but we're grinning like a couple of kids.
Up until this point I've been unable to remember much of the war. Consulting my boss about it, he said that the horrors I witnessed were too terrible to have weighing on my mind and my subconscious erased my memories as a means of self-defense. Now, though, a torrent of events comes rushing back to me, and I squeeze my eyes shut from the sudden onslaught.
Feeling the mud sucking at my legs and torso, the smoke stinging my eyes, the roaring rattle of the M1917 Browning in my hands. Watching waves of my troops fall to machine gun fire, or zeppelin bombs, or mustard gas, or artillery shells— sprawled out, the life being leeched from them by the cold merciless mud. Holding a pair of bloody pliers in one hand and propping the other against England's bare chest, not so much to steady myself but to hold him down as I dug for the bullet buried in his flesh and, for the first time in my life, I heard him scream in agony. Sitting on an upturned crate in the bunker, feeling more than hearing the dull thud of bombs exploding in the distance as I made a pot of weak tea for England because his own rations weren't sufficient to satisfy his addiction. Holding him close and listening to our combined heartbeats in those moments when we both needed to be reassured that there was at least one other person alive in this world of death. Finally receiving the letter from the home front that a ceasefire had been arranged and looking over at England in time to see his thin, pale face break into a smile for the first time in months. Relishing that first blissfully quiet night, with no alarms, no gunfire and no exploding shells. Climbing up to the top of the bunk bed I shared with England knowing that I was leaving this godforsaken wasteland tomorrow. Hearing that whispered "America, are you awake?" just as I was drifting off to sleep. Opening my eyes to see England standing on the bottom bunk and leaning his elbows on my mattress as he beckoned me to come closer. Tasting sweat, blood and gunpowder as England pressed his lips against mine—
My eyes fly open. No. That hadn't actually happened, had it? That brief, chaste kiss in the dim light of a sputtering oil lamp that last night in the bunker had been a dream, right?
The clink of dishes in the kitchen alerts me to England's presence, and once again I find myself wondering why he invited me here.
"America?" he says, coming up alongside me with a steaming cup of coffee. The words Are you awake? echo in my ears, but instead he asks, "Is there a problem?"
"N-no," I reply shakily, gratefully accepting the coffee.
England eyes my face with concern. "You look… unnerved."
I shake my head dismissively. "It's nothing; I'm just a little tired. Jetlag, I guess."
"Well, if you're quite sure. Please, sit down."
I fold myself into a creaking leather armchair. England remains standing, thoughtfully sipping at a cup of tea he produced seemingly from nowhere.
"America, I—" He cuts himself off, biting on his lower lip.
"You what?" I lean forward and smile reassuringly. I want to take his hand, but I don't know how the various military and state officials watching us from a distance would interpret that. His eyes meet mine briefly before returning to stare at my feet on the asphalt runway.
"I just wanted to say thank you. For joining the war, that is. Don't get me wrong, you were infuriating as always, b-but I... I'm not sure if I could've done it without you." His breath catches and he looks up at me again, a faint blush tinting his light complexion, before leaning up on his toes and kissing me quickly on the cheek. I feel my face heat up, and now it's his turn to smile reassuringly, if a little ironically. "For once, I'm glad I'm European and can get away with that. Goodbye, America." He takes a step back and bows, then turns and walks away. Only when the plane bound for the States is taxiing down the runway does he turn around again. Among the hundreds of assorted officials who salute the United States of America as a war hero, England alone stands there waving to an old friend.
"I suppose what I want to say," England continues, jolting me out of the past, "is that I don't want you to take what happened during the war too seriously. That is, what happened… between us. There were extenuating circumstances and I don't think we were quite in our right minds. We—"
"That last night," I say, my voice coming out rather more hoarse than I was expecting. "That… was real?"
England takes a deep breath and, looking pointedly at the wall, nods. "I…"—he says the next word as if it pains him to pronounce it—"apologize for my overly hasty actions. I wasn't thinking clearly."
No, I think—although really it's more like a prayer. Don't apologize. Don't explain it away, damn you! I grit my teeth, wanting to punch him for the measured and rehearsed way in which he's clearly lying through his teeth. He's forgetting how well I know him again. When he speaks slowly and calmly you can't trust a word. When he gets angry and flustered, then some of the truth is revealed.
"Tell me why you did it."
Finally he looks at me, shocked and disbelieving. Good, there's some emotion. "I just said that I don't know, didn't I?"
"You said that you weren't thinking clearly. You didn't say what you were thinking."
"Isn't it obvious?" He's pacing the room now, his hands clenching and unclenching. "I expect I was thinking that you weren't half bad-looking and I'd been at war for an awfully long time—"
"That wasn't a come-to-bed-with-me kiss, England." That much I'm sure of. I have the image solidly cemented in my head now of England leaning on his folded arms to stabilize himself, backlit by the lamp somewhere below him on the floor next to the bunk, smiling shyly and looking gentle and honest and real for the first time since before the Revolution.
"Alright, you want the truth?" He stops pacing abruptly and shoots me a defiant, challenging glare. "You want to know the real motive behind my actions?"
I rise to my feet, just to remind him that he wasn't dealing with a colony anymore. "Yeah."
His eyes narrow, but I can still see the tears shining in them. Maybe this'll actually be the truth then. "You're quickly becoming a major world power, and all things considered there wasn't much of a chance of you being anything but an enemy in the future. We knew the Great War was coming, and We couldn't afford to have any more nations against Us. We did it to secure an alliance for the sake of the Empire."
Sadly enough… I think that is the truth.
I fall back into the chair behind me. I don't care about appearing imposing anymore; no matter how tall I am he'll always look down on me. Of course. How could I have been so stupid as to think…?
I should've known he was just manipulating me again.
The image of that innocent smile in the lamplight disappears from my mind immediately, replaced by another memory: a tall mast, black against the Boston sky, crowned by a Union Jack waving majestically in the salty breeze.