Disclaimer : I own nothing except these words on the screen. La! Also, kink meme de-anon. Shush.

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Of Norwich and Birmingham
(Other Names Not Accepted)

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England likes America. America likes him. They have terrific sex, and England generally makes up for America's lack of expertise in the art of kissing by being indescribably good at it. Their professional relationship is going as well as can be expected in their line of work; that is to say, they don't have any wars scheduled for the next two hundred years, the trade deficit is mostly tolerable, and England only settles for throwing America's toothbrush out with the bathwater whenever he catches one of the latter's more obvious political gaffes (he is rather good at pretending not to notice the less obvious ones, in the name of being an understanding boyfriend). All in all, their relationship is splendid. Special, in fact. Just like what they call it on TV, for once, and if America tends to give his movie villains British accents, he'll accept it on good faith that the most people likes pairing off heroes and villains in this day and age, anyway.

Everything is great, really. Except for one niggling tidbit that may or may not be great, From a Certain Point of View. The sort of tidbit that England is experiencing right now.

"Ennnglaaaand, pleeease?" America whispers, a whine present in his voice that is eerily reminiscent of puppies sitting in front of food. Very innocent, exactly the sort of whine that England finds difficult to resist. The placement of his hands, however, is noticeably less innocent.

England sighs. "No, Alfred." He also rolls his eyes, quietly asking sympathy from Henry VIII in heaven. "And for the last time, it's either 'Arthur' or 'Kirkland' when we're on the goddamned Tube."

He accidentally raised his voice a little bit too loud on that last part, and some of the their fellow passengers are glancing their way. Most pretend not to notice the two young men standing much too close to each other for the relatively empty carriage. It's one of the things he likes about his Londoners, and possibly one of the few nice things about the Tube these days.

"You're complaining about what I call you instead of what I'm doing," America breathes. The sheer wonder in his voice is annoyingly undisguised. At the same time, one of his hands makes a slow, circling, tracing motion, which makes it difficult to decide whether to gasp or to punch America in the face.

"I'm capable of learning from the past. Also I believe I said 'no' at one point," he says, trying to wiggle free, or at least as free as he is likely to get (and would like to get) in these kinds of situation. It doesn't work so well. His throat decides on a gasp. "Y-you may also try listening to instructions. I hear that it solves a lot of problems with ADHD and only requires the intellectual quotient of molluscs."

At this point, there are only about two things that America is likely to do : argue back in defense of Phylum Mollusca and the cleverness of mankind's eventual octopus overlords, or pout. The adorkable act or the classical spoiled younger lover act. (America is capable of putting on a suave lover act every once in a while, but he tends not to. Apparently it reminds him of France and pisses him off for some reason.)

Today, he pouts. Dammit, the boy is getting dangerously better at figuring out which mechanism works best on which buttons these days.

"But that's cruel, England- - -" Oh, dammit, stop whispering in his ears already! "- - -you know I'm really good at concentrating, right? So I can't possibly have ADHD." And stop wiggling those fingers! "See, Washington and Alamo agrees- - -"

- - -and therein lies the problem.

"Stop," England says, gritting his teeth and trying pretty damned hard to hold back a moan. "Stop naming people's nipples after your fucking cities, for God's sake!"

The problem is this, to be exact : America has for whatever reason started this creepy obsession with his nipples. He has lost count of the times they were subjected to ice-cream, cheese, whip cream, ice cubes and whatever else America came up with. It could've been cute. It would be cute, really, what with how America tends to press his face close to his chest enough to hear every little decibel of his heartbeats and then tenderly caress one of his nipples with his warm, soft tongue, nibbling it softly as if it's some sort of treasure. And then he'd flick his eyes up to look at England's face, and even in those hazy, hazy moments it'd be so obvious that his eyes are saying I love you- - -

- - -but not on the Tubes. Not on the goddamned Tubes.

"Well, you never told me their real names, what else am I supposed to do?" America's fingers were tracing the area around his nipples again, playfully brushing against them but not quite giving them the satisfaction of really being touched. This also has the effect of completely derailing his train of thought. "I could call them Pinky and Brownie, if you'd like- - -"

"Don't you dare name those like I'm some sort of two-toned mutant! Fuck, don't name them at all!"

Like hell he is going to tell what geographical features those things stand for. He just knows that America is just going to drag him over there and perform unspeakable (although probably not unpleasant) acts on him, which considering his luck would be overheard and retold over the next thousand years as a ghost story. And all just because America, that stupid idiotic imbecile, just can't. . .

"It's not my fault you keep wearing these shirts in this weather," America whispers. He actually sounds guilty, oh God. "How on Earth am I supposed to keep my hands to myself when you keep doing that! Don't you realize how perky and cute they get?"

England feels himself shivering. Though he isn't sure if it's entirely due to that statement, he's willing to bet that it mostly does. "Please don't use those adjectives in my presence. Actually, please don't talk to me about this at all. And for the love of God, Al, this really is no location to be discussing this subject!"

"But we can't get to the Kew Gardens without taking the train!"

"You're missing the point- - -"

As luck would have it- - -and Luck seems to be with him for once, that perverted voyeur- - -the train comes to an abrupt halt at that moment, sending him tumbling into America (which isn't too bad) and opening its doors to a bunch of Orkney schoolchildren, who probably are in London to see the Queen, or something (which is kind of bad, considering the growing bulge in his pants). The kids stream into the train, still too young to put two and two together and come up with 'illegal lewd acts' as the conclusion. As their chatter grows louder, however, Alfred finally sighs and give in.

"All right," he says. "Let's hail a cab, then. It'll cost a fortune in this traffic, but it'll have to do."

England breathes a sigh of relief. There, they'll just go out of the train, go out onto the streets and grab a taxi somewhere. Then they can properly have their date among the golden autumn leaves, and it'd be the most romantic thing ever- - -

- - -and then America pulls him into one of the bathroom stalls he stupidly put on the corners of the streets back when public bathrooms were new.

England almost yelps out of sheer surprise, but America quickly covers his mouth with one hand and raises an index finger to his mouth with the other.

Shh.

He does his best to glare backwards at America, who has settled on burying his face in the nape of his neck and muttering something like 'sorry' while doing exactly the opposite with his free hand. Once again, he's reached inside his shirt and begins to slowly, gently massage his chest in repeated circular movements, sliding his fingers back and forth on England's already erect nipples and pinching them, pulling and twisting them upward as if they're supposed to do anything. There's a dull sense of pain, but at the same time there's also a very much not-dull sense of something else feeding straight to the growing fire at the bottom of his stomach. Without thinking, he bites down on America's fingers to stifle his own voice and the git, apparently taking this as some sort of cue, slides said fingers into his mouth and runs his tongue down the back of England's ear.

"Sorry," he breathes. "It's my fault, I know. I'll make it up to you later, I promise."

Before England could initiate some kind of retort- - -he isn't exactly sure what, maybe elbowing the bastard in the ribs or something- - -America sidesteps away from him in one smooth flowing movement and proceeds to check the door. In this abrupt swing of things England feels- - -feels, before he can summon the currently vacationing Spirits of Coherent Thought- - -suddenly empty and disappointed, and he almost says, don't mind the fucking door, come back here and hold me, you twit, but he doesn't have to. In the same smooth flow of seconds the twit is back in front of him and looking into his eyes with an intense, halfway adoring, halfway scrutinizing look, and before he knows it America's hand is on his shoulder and his shoulder is pushed back up against the wall.

"There're people walking outside, I think," America said, stating the obvious with a heat that drips with beautiful secrets. "If we make any loud noises, they're going to hear."

"I know that, Sherlock. So sorry I didn't build these things with soundproof walls," he quips. With America's breath on his ear and his hand once again beneath his shirt, back on his already-hard nipples, it's hard to sound nonchalant. At least he's been keeping his public bathrooms clean since the Drunken Incident of '05, and he isn't wearing anything irreplaceable. "Are we done pretending to be health service inspectors now, or are you going to get us arrested for public inde- - -"

The sentence turns into an audible grasp that he has to silence with one hand, as it's the point where America bends down and bites the nape of his neck, sucking hard to make a publicly noticeable mark. Smart-aleck answer, some part of England's brain says, but with the nibbling, the push of America's knee on his crotch and the rhythmic kneading motions on the top of his nipple, that part of the brain is becoming awfully difficult to hear.

"Just a little," America says. "Just a little, okay? We're not doing it all the way. I just- - -look, you know I can't stand just looking when I see you like that. Please?"

And just because America sounds needy and desperate and full of pleading and there's a note in there of long-lost skies where no airplane has ever flown and hundreds of autumns and winters full of empty seas and empty roads leading to empty cottages, and because there's a ghost of an altogether unique kind of despair in the hand on his shoulder that says things he'll never hear in words and his eyes are hazy and his thoughts are clouded, England nods.

For that one second, he sees on America's face a truly happy, beautiful smile, but then he ducks his head somewhere and he's gone. England's starting to complain, all manners of curses and swears and unhappy needy things appearing in his head all at once, and then it all disappears when he feels a tongue on his chest and he has to stifle another cry.

"If you don't want me to name them after your cities," America murmurs, swollen nipple between his lips and brushing lightly against his teeth. "Can I name them Pinky and Perky? Because they are. The pinkiest, perkiest things ever."

Despite his relatively incoherent state, England manages to knee his boyfriend in the ribs once, weakly, between gasps, and he was sure it doesn't hurt America at all. The git doesn't slow down, for instance, and the teasing only intensifies and he swears he hears America laughing. Oh America laughing. His beautiful, beautiful laugh. If he isn't breathing heavily in the public bathroom with America sucking on his chest it'd be so much better right now, but that laughter alone almost makes him not care. And there he goes, sucking and nibbling the tender flesh of his left nipple with all the tenderness and wonder of a man holding a lost Michelangelo, and his other hand is playing and pinching with the right. It's always like this with America and his ridiculous fancies, he always liked such stupid things like hamburgers and aliens and who the hell knows what else, but he's always like this, like this-

Then quietly, soundlessly, America murmurs 'I love you' as he sucks once more, and he doesn't hear but knows the invisible syllables are breathing in the air around his heart, and the next thing England thinks of for the next five minutes is, Well, looks like I'll be soiling my pants.


"So how are you going to deal with this, pray tell?"

America looks at him sheepishly. "Um, you can take the sweater off? Not that I want other people to se-"

"In this weather? Over my dead body, America. You know this is going to happen."

"I wouldn't necessarily-"

"I'm not about to believe that you forgot all about statistics just because you're horny. I want you to reflect upon your actions and think about the future, right now."

"Perky does look like he's hurting," America agrees sadly while dodging an elbow to the ribs. "I can try kissing him better, maybe?"

...

"Ow, that hurts!"

"What did I tell you about naming parts of my geographical features!"

"You didn't have to poke me in the eyes!"

"Shut up! What would you think if I go on and on forever about how wonderful Florida is or decide to call it Mr. Footlong!"

...

"...you think Florida is wonderful?"

"...Er. It's a figure of a speech. A method. Of proving my point in an argument! Seriously, America, you need to listen to things instead of picking out the parts that fit you."

"But you like Florida, don't you?"

"It's a pretty enough place, all right! And the trip we took there was kinda sweet…"

"…would you let me call them Pinky and Perky if I let you call him Mr. Footlong?"

"..."

It'll be a long, long time before they manage to get to the Kew Gardens.