My first published fanfiction. It's based of F. Scott Fitzgerald's masterpiece The Great Gatsby, and all the characters are paralleled beautifully with the characters from Hetalia. Hopefully you enjoy it.

Now read.

Under the Red, White and Blue

Chapter 1

I was on a boat, heading across the bay, when the words that my father had told me fluttered across my mind.

"Whenever you feel like criticizing any one," he told me, "just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had."

I suppose that in a way, he was talking about Jones. You'll meet him later, but he was so vibrant, so wonderful. He was charming, funny, handsome, and had more hope for the world than anyone else out there. He really was American, despite his flaws . . . He was a great man. The people who took advantage of him however. . .

I come from a small town in Canada. And when the war broke out, I was of the age for picking, and served my country- alongside the Americans. After the war, I went to Yale, and today I managed to persuade my father into letting me go to New York, to try to make my big break in the bonds business.

I made my home in a small house, on the property of this huge mansion. It belonged to Jones! It was huge, with French gates, and German cars, and all sorts of things from all over the world. It was almost too showy for the people who lived near us.

You don't know about the people who live near us? Well, Jones and I happen to live on Long Island, in this neighborhood called Veneziano. All the Broadway stars lived here. All the fabulous people from Hollywood would visit their friends, and the heads of famous new companies would come and dine with the newly prestigious. People from everywhere in America would come to live here. It was a New World for the elite. It was glamorous . . . and gaudy.

But across the bay was the more elegant neighborhood, Romano. The American nobility, the rich of lineage lived there, in Greco-Romantic mansions, with French chefs, with British tailors, with Italian wines to sip every day, sunbathing in white clothes and light hair. These families were old, tracing their lines back years and years; some say to the Mayflower, others to the Roman Empire itself. Their Old Money stayed in their vaults, sitting, waiting until a youngster would come and spend it all frivolously, make the error, shame the family, and then go on the quest for renewed honor. History to repeat itself.

Now, I told you I went to Yale, right? Ah, yes I did. When I was at Yale, I became good friends with a man named Francis Bonnifoy, a wealthy young chap from Paris, who later on married my cousin. Today, he simply happened to invite me over to his home for a visit, which happens to be across the pond that is Long Island Bay, and given that I have all the permission in the world to the free boats, I took one from the dock on my side, and started navigating the damn thing across the Bay to the Bonnifoy's. I was downright soaked when I finally reached the Bonnifoy dock.

"Ah, welcome, Matt!" Francis said as a servant tied up the boat. He took my hand and helped me onto the dock. "Haven't seen you since Yale days." He handed me a towel.

"Yes, I'm rather sorry about that," I replied, drying my hair. "It has been rather hard finding work that is interesting. You know, since the war was. . ." I drifted off.

"I understand," Francis said, leading the way to the mansion. "When I found out you were in town I wanted you to come to visit. And Arthur has been dying to see you."

"I can't wait."

"His friend Gilbert has also been waiting."

"Who?" I asked. He ignored me, walking steadily on.

I took this time to notice the changes in my friend. His blond hair reached his shoulders in wavy locks, and a bit of stubble lined his chin. His body remained gorgeous, fit, thin, and sexy as hell, yet threatening underneath, as though Francis was hiding something. He did a little bit of work in the modeling industry, is what I knew, but other than that he couldn't have done it for much else. . . His strength showed through his tight suit in tight muscles.

"Checking out my ass?" He asked, noticing the stare.

"What? No! Of course not! It's not like I'd want to have an affair with you or something!" I paused. "Oh, never mind."

He smirked. "Sure." He opened the huge oak doors into a long hall. "Just down this way, Matt." We walked down, and another set of doors was opened- by the servants this time. He gave me a little shove, and I practically fell into a soft, white room, with open windows from which wind blew in and made the curtains billow. Francis suddenly slammed the windows shut, and the curtains floated down, revealing what they had covered. There were love seats centered about a glass table in the middle, and on two of the love seats were a pair of gorgeous men.

"Matthew," Francis said. "I'd like you to meet Gilbert Beilschmidt." The silver haired man glanced over at me, and gave a wicked smile, a mischievous grin that should have warned me of who he is. His eyes were scarlet, almost blood red, and his messy hair was a silver quarter upon a face as pale as a vampire's.

"Hello," he said, turning onto his side. His body curved with the sofa, as though he was deliberately trying to look like a beach babe on the cover of a magazine. His face was seductive, and I felt myself blush with a feeling I had hardly known before. It was mania, and I had only felt it once before, with a Cuban man long ago. Gilbert was to be a man of future romance, in the least.

"And, of course, you know my spouse," Francis reminded me of everyone else's existence. I glanced down to see another young man on the sofa in front of me. My cousin glanced up at me with his emerald green eyes, and smiled.

"Matthew?" Arthur asked, stretching up a hand. "Oh, it's so good to see you!" He gave a glittering smile, and I leant down, letting his hand brush against my face. "Oh, how long has it been since I've last seen you?"

"It's been four years, Arthur," I said with a smile. Arthur beamed back, and I leant down to kiss his cheek. He smelled like winter cherries, and his lips looked like them.

"Four years!" He gasped, and sat up. "Why, we have to celebrate this happy reunion." He glanced up at Francis.

"Well it's nearly dinner time," Francis said. "I thought that was why we invited him over."

"Oh, yes, of course," Arthur said. "I must have forgotten." He shrugged and got up. "Well, come on, Matt. Let's go outside. It's a beautiful spring day. I'd certainly hate to see it be wasted."

I must have forgotten the vitality that seemed held down by the life Arthur led. Always relaxed, but still there; at ease with the situation, but still always alert. Arthur held a facade of aloofness, but still remained elegant. He led the way outside, sashaying sensuously.

"Now where do you live again?" Gilbert asked me on our way outside.

"West Egg," I told him.

"Oh?" He said. "I think I know someone who lives there."

"I don't know anyone who lives there, or at least anyone that I've met."

"You've at least heard of Jones, haven't you?"

"He's my neighbor."

"Jones? What Jones?" Arthur demanded suddenly.

I didn't get the chance to reply before Francis led me outside by the arm. We all arrived outside on the large patio with a glass table. Light reflected off the water on the bay, blinding me. I glanced back at Francis. Arthur and Gilbert had sat down.

"So, what shall we do?" Arthur asked. "Go for a swim? It's nearly Memorial Day, the water is gorgeously warm, and we may as well celebrate it."

"Not warm enough!" I exclaimed. "I was soaked a few minutes ago, thank you boat!" I said with disdain of the awful vessel that had carried me across the bay. Everyone chuckled heartily.

Gilbert leaned back, disappointed. "Aw Mattie," he said, lighting a cigarette. "I wanted to take a dip. And if you didn't have a suit on you, we could have simply gone without." He continued to smirk at me. My face grew hot at what he just implied.

"I-! I-!" I stammered, when suddenly a butler walked in and whispered in Francis's ear.

"Excuse me," he said, standing up and walking away. Arthur's face fell immediately.

"What's the matter, Arthur?" I asked with ignorance. Arthur waved his hand.

"Oh, it's nothing. Nothing," he remarked lightly, but he was clearly distressed. "Don't you worry about me." He got up from the sun deck as though to follow his husband.

Then his eyes widened with a sudden thought, his forehead furrowed in thought. He gasped suddenly and leaned toward me across the table. "Matthew, oh how I've missed you," he said in his light voice, placing his hands on either side of my face and rubbing his nose lightly against mine with affection. "Everything about you! Your curly hair, your handsome face, how you smell like roses."

"That's not true," I interrupted. "I happen to smell like white trillium and fucking moonwort." Arthur laughed.

"Oh that's simply not true," Arthur insisted. "Gilbert, smell his hair. Doesn't he smell like roses?" He asked, but suddenly neglected his question as he got up and ran inside, his face panicked.

"So my neighbor is this Jones fellow-" Gilbert interrupted me.

"Shush and be quiet," he told me, leaning across the table, very close to my arm. "I want to hear what's going on."

"Well, what is going on?" I asked, confused as all hell.

"Shush!" Gilbert said. "Francis is having an affair, and I want to hear what Arthur thinks of it."

My face surly paled. It's rather distressing to think of your old friends being unfaithful partners, but when you come to say hello and they're arguing about it as though they don't care about you knowing . . . Good God!

"Well, who is it?" I asked.

Gilbert looked at me with his dazzling red eyes. "Some chap in New York," he said. "Kind of rude of him to fucking call during dinner, though, don't you think?"

I was still quite appalled when Francis and Arthur returned to the dining table.

"Well it couldn't be helped!" Arthur exclaimed with tense gayety. He sat down and looked around at us. He continued to deliberately change the subject from darker matters. "There's a lovely spot by the shore we could go to. Spend some time there. It's awfully romantic. You'd love it, Matt."

The telephone rang again. Everyone sat still in intense pause, as though the first one to move would be shot dead in a cynical game of Russian roulette, but God was the judge. No one came to get anyone, so everything must have been okay. No butler arrived, and finally after a bit of time, we were able to breathe again in relative peace.

We ate dinner in relative calm, and afterwards, Arthur and I walked down the patio steps to the tiny forest on their property. Old flora grew everywhere, moss on the northern side of every towering cottonwoods and pine trees. There happened to be this beautiful little swing, where we sat down and started chatting.

"I'm rather sorry we don't know each other so well," Arthur apologized. "But you didn't even come to my wedding!"

"I'm sorry, but you know I was still employed in Europe at the time," I said.

"Oh, I know," Arthur said sullenly, sitting back, slouching in a rather undignified manner. We finally approached the subject of his son.

"He's a bit too young to do much yet," Arthur explained.

"But he's a cute little tyke, ain't he?" I asked.

"Sure." Arthur stared into my eyes, a rather sad expression on his face. "Matthew, do you want to hear what I said when he was born?"

"Yes, absolutely," I said without a doubt.

"It'll show you how I've gotten to feel about- things." Arthur looked toward the house. "Well, he was less than an hour old and Francis was God knows where! Probably with some whore! Well, I woke up out of the ether with an utterly abandoned feeling, and asked the nurse right away if it was a boy or a girl, alpha, omega or beta. She told me it was a boy, but an omega, and so I turned my head away and wept. 'All right,' I said, 'I'm glad it's an omega. And I hope he'll be a fool- that's the best an omega boy can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.'"

He stared back at me. "You think I'm a heartless asshole now, don't you? But how can anyone have a heart in this cold world anyway. Nothing is worth it. I've tried everything, but it seems the best thing now is to simply be a fucking trophy. Gawd, I wanted him, but you can't be everywhere and do everything now, can you?" Arthur turned away and wiped his eye. "Sophisticated- gawd, I'm sophisticated!" He mumbled sarcastically. Then he scowled. "Bloody hell," he mumbled before smirking. "It's better than I think sometimes."

I felt scared, as though he held the secrets of the universe in that single thought he just had at that moment. That he and Francis were better than myself, and that I can and never will make it to such greatness as theirs.

The night progressed without much more trouble. Eventually everyone started turning off lights in the mansion.

"Good God!" Arthur exclaimed. "Ten o'clock! Well I must be going along. You too Francis. We need our beauty rest, you know." I rolled my eyes.

"Well, either way, I need to get home," I said. "Got to take the fucking boat, you know."

"Oh, no," Francis said. "You don't have to do that. I'll have one of my drivers take you home, and get the boat back in the morning."

"No, no," I assured. "It doesn't belong to me. I need to return it to Jones' dock before morning."

Arthur whipped his head around again. "Who is this Jones?" He asked. Everyone ignored him.

"Well, I'm be off," I said again. "Good to see you folks." I shook hands with Francis and gave Arthur a kiss.

"You are going to come back in a few days," Arthur said dramatically. "Gilbert is playing in a golf tournament in a few days, and I won't have anyone to talk to." I shrugged, containing a chuckle.

"We'll see," I said. "Nice to meet you, Gilbert."

"A pleasure," he replied, grinning brightly so that all his teeth could be seen in the shadowy night. I tipped my hat and left.

It was wonderful to leave that house. They were all so lovely in the dark, where blond and silver hair was accentuated by the shadows, and dark lips popped against pale skin. But their attitudes made me feel ill at ease. Living without a purpose except to continue to enjoy life and everything in it, all without a care to the people on the streets.

As for the boat ride home, it was much easier this time. The winds and waves had calmed down to the point where I could sit in my boat without feeling sick, and the ride was made in far less time.

I arrived on the dock and got out, and feeling a presence, I looked up toward the property my cottage was located on. A man stood out on his balcony, a silhouette of a figure in the night, but still looking magical and powerful, like his time hadn't come, yet if had already passed. He reached out a hand, yearning for something behind me. I looked back and could only see the green light that was the Bonnifoy's own dock, a replica of Arthur's very eyes. I glanced back toward the man on the balcony but he had vanished, not to be seen again that night.

"Jones," I mumbled. It had to have been. Who else owned where I had bought and could afford the luxury of staring across Long Island Sound in the middle of the night upon his own balcony is a suit made of cashmere while air conditioning pumped out the arctic into the humid night? It had to be the man of Arthur's inquiries and Gilbert's friendship. Right?

I finally went inside, feeling my stomach turn with the events of my friends, of their dishonesty and sorrow, and knew in my own heart that this would not be the end.