The Green Fuse Drives the Flower
By: TG
Summary: We must cultivate our own gardens.
Disclaimer: I don't own Hetalia
Warnings: Off-screen sexytimes, musings of an immortal soul.
AN: Written ages ago for the USUK Anthology, which can be found on the USUK Comm on LiveJournal (usxuk. livejournal. com). I haven't had a chance to look at all the lovely art and new fics yet, but boy am I excited!
Enjoy!
He finds comfort in the cycles of flowers. In the spring, blossoms and shoots burst open to bring forth a sea of colors, leaves unfurl and become thousands of emerald dots among the sky, the soil is fresh, warm, and fertile. In the winter, the plants wither. The leaves curl in, become brown, and die. The soil becomes nourished by the dead plant matter and freezes into an inhospitable landscape.
The first blush of spring is what Arthur looks forward to the most. It is a sign of rebirth, and, inevitably, a sign of the death that follows. As a nation, he is always aware of deaths and rebirths–a constant cycle of spring and winter. The inevitable winter makes the spring colors brighter, somehow more stimulating.
Time is short for both Arthur's flowers and his people, their lives blooming bright and wilting out of existence in a blink of Arthur's eye.
It is these cycles –cycles of life and death, cycles of mortality—that comfort him most. It's something that has existed since he began, and something that will continue to exist until the day England is no more. Even amongst the stars and planets, there are cycles. But he is set apart from them, othered by his own immortality.
Most of the time he is not bothered by his…condition –it is just what they are, what they have always been and what they will always be. Nations are immortal. They will live on as their people –their children— are born and die in a continuous cycle of life and death that Arthur will never be party to. That is why Arthur prefers flowers –though they die just like any living thing, he knows that with enough care they will return again to keep him company in the spring. That is why he diligently works in his garden, kneeling on kneepads with his fingers joint-deep in the loam. Gardening is more than his hobby –it is his anchor and his only constant.
Nowadays he has another anchor in the form of a beautiful boy with sunflower hair and clean blue eyes.
He plucks a few rotted petals off a blood red rose and smiles. Relationships between nations are continuous cycles of alliance and strain, but what he has with Alfred –that's special. Alfred may be a complete wanker sometimes (okay, perhaps most of the time), but Alfred provides Arthur that brightness in his life that immortal beings don't even realize they're missing, gives him the chance to experience what living and dying feel like within the whiteness of his smile and the soft pink of his lips. With Alfred, he feels like he has reasons to exist beyond the duties that bind him to his island.
Arthur shakes his head, dismayed. He really has no time for such sap and romance (or maybe he has all the time in the world?). He shrugs and indulges himself, wrapping gentle fingers around the rose he'd just been picking. He finds it ironic that roses in full bloom –the most beautiful of all, with their petals open and vulnerable—are the ones nearest death.
His thoughts distract him, but the pair of warm arms wrapping awkwardly around his shoulders brings him back to reality with a jerk and a snap. On the ground lays the bloom of the rose he just accidentally beheaded –a cycle cut short.
It is a depressing thought, something that occurs in all living beings except those like himself. The only good thing about immortality is never having to worry about the strings of fate being cut too early.
Arthur cradles the delicate rose bloom in his hands and turns to lecture his assailant, whom he assumes is probably the frog with no other agenda but to piss him off, but he catches sight of sky blue eyes and blond hair the color of wheat ('all wrong for the frog') and a voice that is decidedly not France's croons in his ear.
"Shhh, baby I'm sorry, I just wanted to surprise you, I didn't mean to scare you…"
For a moment he considers being angry but pushes the thought aside; he hasn't seen Alfred in far too long and now is not the time to be petty. Instead he turns around in Alfred's embrace and gently tucks the dead rose into one of the unoccupied buttonholes in the American's plaid button down.
There are tons of things he wants to say to Alfred –something sweet like "I missed you more than you know" or even something simple like "hello, love"—but what ends up coming out of his mouth is "Alfred Jones, you killed my fucking flower."
He can feel the embarrassed blush creep up his neck as soon as the words are out of his mouth. He wishes he could snatch the words back, he wishes he could be more romantic, but Alfred just throws his head back and laughs and Arthur has to smile with him because his love's laughter has always been contagious.
Alfred lets his laughter die out, but the joy on his face remains. Arthur knows he is staring and he knows that Alfred knows, but he finds that he doesn't really care. It's been months since they've seen each other, and even longer since they've been alone and all Arthur wants to do is study him, refamiliarize himself with his love's every dip and curve, the flecks in his eyes, the unexpected wit curled on the edge of his tongue.
The hands resting on his back shift slightly and Alfred tilts them back to lie among the flowers. The garden is different from this perspective –he sometimes forgets that his garden is more than just flowers and grass, but lying on the ground he is reminded that it's teeming with life. There's the grass and the flowers, but there are also bugs and small animals and the sunlight and the soil and the sky.
He idly wonders what it's like to lay among the roots, but he supposes only the dead get to find out.
Alfred sighs sleepily against his neck, lips pressing against the skin behind his ear. "What're you thinkin' about?" He asks. The sound rumbles through his chest and into Arthur's.
"Nothing important," he replies. Alfred holds him closer.
"I missed you."
"Oh? Well I didn't miss you." Arthur pulls back and smirks down at his love. The pout that pulls at Alfred's lips is both ridiculous and adorable, and Arthur doesn't bother to fight the urge to kiss it away.
"Liar," Alfred murmurs against his lips.
"Mm."
These are their first kisses in months. Arthur's missed the way Alfred tilts his head to fit their mouths together, the way his chest rumbles almost like a purr, the feel of his sunshine hair as it threads through his fingers. Arthur soaks them up, opens his mouth for more. He can feel Alfred's hands pressing gently against his back, encouraging him to lower his body flush against the American's. He can feel that they're both aroused, but there's no sense of urgency –just slick tongues, shedding clothes, and wandering hands.
Arthur knows that he doesn't get to experience the true beauty that death lends to life –there is no climax, no denouement when one is immortal—but being with Alfred is its own bright bloom of color in a monotonous world.
AN: Thank you for reading, and a very special thank you to my artist Shoe (egnladn. tumblr. com), who worked really hard on the lovely drawing for my story in the anthology!
Follow me at trumpet-geek. tumblr. com!
TG © September 2012