Law of Attraction

by moonlighten

August 2010: Although Scotland would rather not think about his brother's love life at all, it's clear Wales' is long overdue for some improvements. He's not the best person for the job, but he knows someone who probably is. (Wales/various nations; background Scotland/France.) One-shot, complete. Part 57 of the Feel the Fear series.

22nd August, 2010; Edinburgh, Scotland

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Back when they all lived together, Wales seemed content to lock himself away in his bedroom, with nothing more than a large stash of strong alcohol and a mountain of writing supplies to sustain him whenever one of his relationships broke down.

He would emerge several days later, pale and drawn and a little swollen around the eyes, laden down with some new multi-part epic poem about the transience of beauty or something equally dreary, and silently settle back into his normal routine. Occasionally, in the weeks and months that followed, he would suddenly pause in whatever he was doing and tear up over some seemingly innocuous object such as a certain brand of cereal or particular piece of clothing, but Scotland and England would simply steer clear of him for a while – 'giving him a bit of space', they'd always called it, whilst carefully not looking each other in the eye – and he'd pull himself together soon enough.

Since devolution, however, he had seemed to want to actively seek out their company in such circumstances, and, following England's rather spectacular meltdown after being imposed upon one too many times, Scotland and Ireland had reluctantly agreed to setting up a rota to share the burden of dealing with Wales' all too frequent relationship crises.

The latest of which, Scotland presumed, had led to Wales turning up on his doorstep, pallid, unshaven, and stinking of cheap vodka.

"Could I stay with you for a few days, Yr Alban?" he asked, his voice thin and wavering. "I don't like to impose, but I don't fancy being on my own at the moment, and Lloegr's out of the country, so…"

Wales' voice trailed off into a loud sniff which sounded suspiciously watery, and Scotland took a hasty step backward, fearing an explosion of tears which he was ill-equipped to deal with at the best of times, never mind when he was faced with them unexpectedly first thing on a Sunday morning when he hadn't even had his second cup of tea. Wales scrubbed at his bloodshot eyes with his knuckles as though they irritated him, but, thankfully, the sniff seemed to be a one-off and didn't escalate further. Scotland relaxed slightly.

"Aye, I suppose so," Scotland said, even though he'd like nothing better than to send Wales straight on to Ireland, who had always been better able to cope with Wales' more melancholy moods. But a promise was a promise, even if it was made to England – whom Scotland suspected was more than likely not out of the country at all and merely screening Wales' calls – and Scotland had promised to take his turn, just like the rest of his siblings.

Wales looked pathetically grateful, and he started sniffing again, so Scotland hooked an arm around his shoulders and dragged him inside the house before he did something that would embarrass Scotland far more than it ever seemed to embarrass Wales.
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Scotland and Wales had polished off at least half of Scotland's cheapest bottle of whisky before Scotland worked up the mental fortitude to actually start a conversation with his brother.

"So," he said, staring fixedly at the glass in his hand, "I guess thing's aren't going so well with…"

Although Scotland could remember several things about Wales' latest boyfriend – he'd been studying for a Master's in Clinical Engineering and worked part-time at the Cardiff Roath Tesco Metro where their eyes had met over a display of half-price Jaffa Cakes or some such, Scotland hadn't been listening particularly attentively by that point – his name hovered around the periphery of Scotland's normally eidetic memory but consistently eluded his attempts to grab hold of it and pull it to the fore.

"Adam," Wales supplied helpfully after a moment or two of awkward silence. Scotland couldn't tell if the slight sneer in his voice was directed towards Wales' (presumably) ex-boyfriend or Scotland himself, due to his forgetfulness. "He's fucking bogging off to Australia. Apparently, he needs some time away from everything to decide what he wants to do with his life next. And whatever that's going to be, it won't include me."

Scotland wished he hadn't said anything, or, at least, had said something different. It used to be that he and Wales were more than capable of spending long periods of time in each other's company without once talking about anything even remotely connected to their personal lives, but that all seemed to have gone tits up recently. Somewhere amidst Scotland's brief split with France and the whole debacle with England, things had become a little too caring-and-sharing between them, and Scotland wasn't sure either how they'd got there or how to deal with it.

He definitely wasn't sure what he should say next. Before France, there had been a few human lasses, but Scotland had never expected anything lasting to come of those relationships, not in the same way Wales appeared to, and so he had never had any advice to give on that score. It was tempting – it was always tempting – to tell Wales to just suck it up and deal with it, though, because a boyfriend going off on a sodding gap year wasn't anywhere near on the same level as finding yourself on the opposite sides of a war or church schism when it came to ripping your fucking heart in two, but he couldn't be that cruel. Not when it came to Wales, anyway.

"Maybe it was for the best that it happened now rather than later," he said instead, quietly and cautiously, peering up through his lowered lashes to gauge Wales' reaction. "Before you got even more attached. We can't stay with humans long-term, Wales. You probably know that better than anyone."

Wales' face crumpled in on itself a little, his eyes screwing shut briefly and his mouth twisting awry at the corners. "I know, but what's the alternative? I don't really know any nations outside of the family anymore, and I never get the chance to meet anyone else."

"There was that EU meeting we went to back in April –"

Wales interrupted Scotland with a snort. "You mean the meeting where you and Lloegr started a knock-down fight that ended up dragging in half of Europe, and I accidentally head-butted Yr Eidal – the nice one at that – so hard he needed stitches? The meeting that very nearly caused an international incident, and made our bosses seriously consider revoking all of our travel privileges for the foreseeable future? Yes, that was a fantastic opportunity to meet new people, Yr Alban."

He glared at Scotland, eyes suddenly sharp and one brow arching upwards as if daring him to make a rebuttal.

Scotland didn't have one. Instead, he refilled their glasses.
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Several hours later, the bottle of whisky was finished, they'd started making inroads into a bottle of rum, and Wales had moved through the slightly belligerent stage of his drunkenness and straight on to the maudlin, weepy stage, which usually came much later in the proceedings, typically just before he passed out.

"I don't understand why I keep doing this to myself," Wales said morosely, wiping at his damp cheeks with the back of one hand. "I know always turns out the same way, but I can't…"

Wales sighed, and took another swig from his glass rather than finishing his sentence. Scotland made a low, wordless noise that he hoped sounded suitably sympathetic, and hoped against hope that Wales' mood did herald an immanent loss of consciousness, even though that seemed increasingly unlikely as time wore on.

Scotland just didn't know how to cope with Wales when he cried. He never had. Back when they were all children, he had smacked both Wales and England at the first sign of tears with the nebulous, unsubstantiated hope that it'd work as some sort of aversion therapy and toughen them up enough that they wouldn't complain, and wail, and generally bother him quite so much all the time. He gave it up as a bad idea when England became big enough to hit back, and all it appeared to have done in the long run was make England resentful and even more vicious, and yet still prone to spraying tears like a burst pipe if he was drunk, embarrassed or angry enough. And Wales had continued on much as he'd started out – which was far too soft to live, in Scotland's opinion – albeit with the tendency to flinch even now whenever Scotland raised his hand too quickly.

Scotland leant over the arm of his armchair and clasped Wales' shoulder for lack of any better ideas. Wales seemed to deflate under the contact, and his eyes welled up, bottom lip quivering. Scotland instinctively tried to pull away, horrified that he'd apparently somehow triggered another bout of weeping, but Wales grabbed hold of his wrist and held him firmly in place. His other arm snaked around Scotland's back, dragging them both into a tight hug before Scotland had chance to react.

Scotland stared stolidly at the wall behind Wales' head and rued his mistake as Wales clung on to him, mumbling incoherently and soaking the front of Scotland's T-shirt. In the future, he would do best to remember that all forms of physical contact were inadvisable when Wales got himself into this sort of state.
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27th August, 2010; Edinburgh, Scotland

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Scotland had no idea how the hell England had managed to put up with Wales like this for three weeks last April. Scotland had started to crack after three days. He'd eventually tried ringing his brother for some advice, but England was apparently screening his calls, too, and remained incommunicado.

Wales had barely moved from the sofa all week, steadily working his way through all the alcohol in Scotland's cupboards (they were down to a half-bottle of some mysterious, sticky pink liqueur that tasted a little like melted strawberry Chewits which Scotland didn't remember possessing, never mind buying), by turns morose and uncommunicative, then sobbing and uncomfortably oversharing.

It wasn't just the incessant drone of the miserable Eighties music that Wales had on constant fucking repeat all hours of the day that was sending Scotland to the end of his tether, or even that Scotland knew far more about Wales' sex life by now than any brother should ever have to, though that was something he would have gone to his grave immeasurably happier for not being enlightened about.

It was the fact that Scotland could see that Wales was getting worse whenever this happened – getting more upset, and staying so for longer – and that this really wasn't a healthy way for him to live. Scotland had an idea of how he could go about remedying that, at least, but also knew that he definitely wasn't the best person for the job.

He did, however, know someone who probably was.
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28th August, 2010; Edinburgh, Scotland

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Wales was roused by the sound of someone moving around in Scotland's kitchen; the steps too light to be Scotland's – who had all the grace of a drunk rhinoceros anywhere other than on a battlefield – and yet too heavy to be those of Scotland's fae.

In the confused, hazy space between sleep and wakefulness, Wales feared it could be an intruder, but the shock of adrenaline that shot through him at that thought cleared his head sufficiently that he could recognise the idea as ridiculous. The ùruisg would have kicked up a fuss fit to wake the dead if someone with ill intent so much as looked at Scotland's house, and the gwyllgi which had followed Wales from Cardiff and installed itself in the hallway – where it snarled and snapped at Scotland every time he tried to use the downstairs bathroom and relieved itself on his shoes – would have had their leg off in short order if they'd somehow stepped foot inside.

Scotland hadn't mentioned he was expecting a visitor, but then he was about as forthcoming as a lump of rock about most things, even when Wales could have done with the warning because he hadn't changed his clothes for two days, or had a shower for three, and had fallen asleep face down on the sofa with his head lovingly cradled by an open copy of the Radio Times and a half-full ashtray.

Empty ashtray, he amended, as he cautiously sat up and it upended itself all down his back. The world pitched and swirled around him when he moved, as did his brain inside his skull, and the – late morning? early afternoon? – sunlight flooding in through the window opposite him, which some inconsiderate sod had drawn the curtains back from, made his eyeballs feel as though they were about to come to a boil in their sockets. Wales groaned, heartfelt, and buried his face in his hands, mostly to block out the unrelenting light, but partly also because it simply felt like a fitting reaction towards the whole situation.

"You're awake."

The voice wasn't Scotland's, and if Wales had had to make a list of people he'd rather not see him looking like something a dog wouldn't even touch for breakfast, then its owner would probably be pretty close to the top of it.

He groaned again. "Morning, Ffrainc."

"Afternoon," France corrected, and there was an odd note to his voice that could just as easily be mild revulsion as amusement.

Wales risked a squinting glance upwards. France was standing in the doorway to the kitchen, incongruously wearing a pair of bright yellow washing up gloves and a shiny apron emblazoned with the cartoonish torso of a woman in her underwear, something which Scotland's mate Sarah had bought him as a Christmas present several years ago, but to Wales' knowledge had never been pressed into use before.

"Are you doing Yr Alban's dishes?" Wales asked, somewhat incredulous.

France snorted, and shook his head. "I was attempting to make myself a cup of coffee."

Wales grimaced sympathetically. Scotland didn't exactly keep the tidiest house at the best of times, but seeing as though he and Wales had been drunk more often than sober over the last few days, and Wales dimly recalled some rather disastrous experiments with the oven on Scotland's part when they'd become peckish past the closing time of the local take-aways, he presumed the kitchen was fast becoming something of a health hazard.

"Here, I'll give you a hand," Wales said, feeling a little ashamed on his brother's behalf as well as his own now.

He pushed himself unsteadily to his feet, trying to ignore the way his stomach felt as though it were rising upwards in a bid to escape out of his mouth, and took a couple of lurching steps towards France. France took two equally large steps backwards, quickly raising his hands up in front of his chest, palms outwards, as he did so,

The gesture seemed involuntary, as though France wasn't aware of making it, but it drew Wales attention to two more things that were discordant and wrong with his already pretty crappy day. The first was that France hadn't greeted him in his usual way, with exuberant kisses and a sneaky squeeze of his arse that had always seemed slightly perfunctory and not arising from any real appreciation of Wales' behind, the second, that the stale, musty smell which Wales had presumed was emanating from Scotland's grotty old sofa had actually followed him across the room and therefore was more likely emanating from himself.

It seemed reasonable to suspect that the second state of affairs had led to the first, and Wales could feel a blush rising to his cheeks at the realisation. "Though, I think it's best if I go have a shower before anything else," he said, and despite not being able to bring himself to look the other nation in straight in the eye, he still noticed that France looked quite relieved.
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"We're going out for coffee," France announced from the bottom of the stairs as Wales descended them.

"We are?" Wales paused, reaching out one hand to clutch defensively at the banister. He wasn't sure he felt up to the outside world, despite the fact that his ablutions had successfully chased away most of his hangover and left him smelling rather more like Tesco's cheapest own brand shower gel than alcohol-sodden lethargy thus rendering him more fit for it. "Why?"

A heavy sigh coupled with a quick glance over his shoulder was France's only answer, and Wales guessed that the condition of the kitchen had proved itself an obstacle that no amount of protective clothing could overcome.

Not wanting to come between France and his caffeine fix and thus cause him to risk the chance of coming down with something virulent, Wales reluctantly acquiesced, trudging down the rest of the stairs to join France in the hallway.

The hallway which contained a large, spectral black dog that was closely following France's every movement with piercing red eyes, but held no sign of Wales' brother besides. "Where's Yr Alban, by the way?" Wales asked, and the small, grateful smile that France's lips had been lifting towards collapsed half-formed.

"He had to go into work," France said, a little stiffly.

"Work," Wales repeated, disbelieving. "He went into work on a Saturday? Without the threat of imminent death hanging over his head? Scotland?" he added, just in case France had been thrown by the name.

France nodded even more stiffly. "Apparently so."

A worm of suspicion began to wriggle at the back of Wales' mind even as he obediently followed France out of the house. Normally, when Scotland said he was going into Holyrood at the weekend, it was simply an excuse to avoid any actual paperwork that England was trying to shove his way, and in reality he'd just pass the day playing football and drinking as he usually did. As Wales could not conceive of a world in which Scotland would be making excuses to get out of spending time with France, he couldn't help but begin to think that there might be something untoward afoot.
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The café France chose to take them to was one that Wales hadn't even known existed, though one look at the blackboard menu hanging behind the counter explained why Scotland had never patronised it, no matter how pleasantly it was situated or how much France raved about the quality of the coffee (which he did, at length): the prices were steep enough to make Wales blink, never mind his more economically-minded brother, and the closest thing to ordinary tea on offer was Twinings English Breakfast. France shot Wales a faintly pitying look when he ordered it, and Wales had to wonder how he managed hold his tongue when he was dining with Scotland, who thought food wasn't worth eating if it didn't have at least one frying step in its preparation, and harboured a deep suspicion of all things green and leafy. Perhaps he didn't.

He certainly didn't waste any time in revealing the real reason for inviting Wales out on this little Scotland-less trip, saying, "Your brother tells me that you're having some romantic difficulties," before Wales had even finished settling himself into his seat.

"Fucking hell," Wales said, surprise making the words far too loud, which earned him withering looks from the pair of old ladies seated at the next table over. He smiled apologetically at them, and took care to pitch his voice slightly lower as he continued with: "Why the hell would he do that?"

Scotland might be crap at giving advice about anything even remotely connected to matters of the heart, and was far from the most empathic listener, but Wales had always felt comfortable discussing such things with him, anyway, because he knew that his brother would never mention anything they talked about with anyone else, if only because he would be too mortified to ever bring the subject up.

France shrugged, loose and nonchalant despite Wales' discomfort. "He thought I might be able to help."

"Jesus Christ." It had been quite some time since France had suggested his particular brand of 'assistance' in the context of Wales' private life, and Wales hadn't expected the offer to ever be repeated, given the recent change in France's circumstances. "Look, as I've said before: I'm flattered, but there's no power in heaven or on earth that could persuade me to shag any of my brothers. Or my sister, come to that."

France blinked and frowned at Wales for a moment, obviously confused. Comprehension, when it did come, heralded by a slow-spreading smile, made him chuckle throatily. "Contrary to popular belief, I don't think that every problem can be solved by a threesome." He briefly looked thoughtful. "Most of them, but not all."

"Oh," Wales breathed, slow and shaky with embarrassment. He concentrated hard on stirring milk into his rapidly cooling tea in an effort to avoid France's warmly amused attention. "Right. Okay. So, what are you suggesting, then?"

"It was Aly's suggestion, actually," France clarified. "He mentioned you might be happier dating… people who share our particular situation, but that you seldom have the chance to meet any. He simply asked that I help introduce you to interested parties."

So, Scotland wanted France to play matchmaker, then. It was better than the alternative Wales had imagined, he had to admit, but he wasn't entirely sure he was any happier about it, nevertheless. His experience with any sort of relationship beyond the platonic with their own kind was limited to the one he'd shared with the nation sitting opposite him, and the way that had panned out hadn't exactly filled him with confidence regarding the prospects for more.

Scotland and France had been having one of their off centuries at the time, and Wales had always suspected that, despite his apparent aim to bed all of Scotland's siblings by any means necessary, France had only made a move on him because any attempt on England's virtue meant taking his life in his hands, and more than likely sparking yet another war if England had any say in the matter. Looking back, Wales could recognise that France had probably seduced him with the intention of it being nothing more than a moderately diverting way of putting England's nose out of joint if he ever found out, but that realisation had only come to him many years after the fact. Instead, he'd made a complete fool of himself at the time with screeds of love poetry, earnest letters, and even some frankly quite awful paintings, which he'd produced in a fit of fevered inspiration and been quite proud of, despite his lack of talent for the undertaking.

The glorious love affair that Wales had imagined for himself had been as short-lived as it was one-sided, and ended before a year was out. Thankfully, France had returned all of the turgid outpourings of Wales' misguided affection, and in fact appeared to have forgotten that the whole thing had ever occurred. It had left Wales disillusioned with the concept of becoming involved with another nation for quite some years afterwards, and a hint of that old nervousness still seemed to have clung on somewhere, making Wales' chest tighten a little at the thought of trying it again.

However, he'd yearned for a relationship which didn't come with a built-in expiration date right from the start for so long that he said, "Thanks, Francis," regardless of his misgivings.

France smiled momentarily, but then he levelled a considering look at Wales. "We shall have to do something about your hair first, of course." His eyes narrowed as his gaze slipped lower and they took in Wales' worn, but extremely comfortable, corduroys and plain grey T-shirt. "And your clothes, too."
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29th August, 2010; Edinburgh, Scotland

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Barring his spells in the military, Wales had not changed his hairstyle for over a hundred years.

At some point during the late eighteen hundreds, he'd decided to sod whatever the prevailing men's fashions might be and keep his hair at the exact length he'd discovered to be perfect over the course of his many centuries of life. Too long, and it was forever getting in his eyes and would tangle itself into knots with the slightest breeze, too short, and it was nigh-on unmanageable.

"How did I let him talk me into this?" Wales said as he looked through the photographs the stylist had given him, experiencing a growing sense of fear. He was certain that his hair couldn't possibly ever be persuaded to conform to any of the styles sported by the men pictured without an internal support structure. Perhaps a wire frame of some sort.

Scotland's only reply was laughter. A not unsurprising reaction, as not only was he finding Wales' entire situation amusing, doubtless due to distinctly unbrotherly schadenfreude, but the question was mostly rhetorical, anyway. France could be just as stubborn as Scotland in his own way, and Wales had learnt a long time ago that sometimes it was just easier all around to capitulate.

"You won't be laughing if he makes you get yours done next." France had been talking to the stylist for quite some time, and there had been a number of pointed glances from them both that had been directed at Scotland instead of Wales. "Can you imagine how much a haircut costs in here?"

Wales had been trying very hard not to imagine just that himself. Given what France considered a reasonable price for a cup of coffee, and the sleek, minimalist aesthetic of the salon's decor, he guessed it would be rather more than the fiver his neighbour Janine charged for his usual monthly trim.

"He's already given up on me," Scotland said smugly. "Realised it's not worth it."

Although Wales' hair was a little unruly, being fine with a tendency towards frizzing in anything other than completely arid conditions, both Scotland and England's was the sort which destroyed the less robust kind of combs, brushes and even the occasional pair of scissors: thick, coarse and utterly untameable.

"You could always have some lowlights done," Wales suggested with a thin smile.

He wasn't even sure what lowlights were, exactly, or how they differed from highlights, but France had made encouraging noises when the stylist suggested them because, apparently, Wales' natural mousey brown wasn't nearly eye-catching enough.

Scotland glowered at him. "Don't you dare give him any ideas."
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Wales' legs ached. And his neck. In fact, every single part of his body which could ache did.

He arched his back in an effort to stretch out his tense muscles, and accidentally dislodged the pair of trousers that France had draped over his shoulder earlier, telling him that they were a definite 'possibility'. As the trousers were a rather alarming shade of purple, Wales surreptitiously hung them on a nearby rack instead of keeping hold of them once he'd picked them up.

Scotland raised an eyebrow him, shaking his head in mock disapproval.

Wales glared back, unrepentant. "Would you want to wear them?"

"No," Scotland admitted readily, "but he does know his stuff. They might be okay for you, even though they're…" He made a face that suggested that there weren't enough words in the English language to describe just how hideous he considered the trousers to be, never mind the lip service paid towards France's good fashion sense.

Wales could concede that France probably did have a decent idea of what would look good on him – the hairstyle he'd suggested actually suited Wales better than his old one, and the stylist had even managed to convince the chunk of hair which persisted in waving contrary to the rest to lie flat – but, if he were honest, that was beginning to matter less and less, anyway.

He hadn't realised just how many clothes shops there were in Edinburgh. A seemingly endless stream of them, in fact, and France found something that Wales just had to try on in every single one of them. Quite apart from the tired muscles caused by trudging up and down the city's steeply sloping streets, and the dry throat that was desperately in need of a pint to soothe it, Wales found that as time wore on, all of the clothes started blending into one another, rendering him unable to offer an opinion on any of them save the most egregious. He had to wonder whether this slow erosion of defences by means of endless shop-hopping was how France had managed to persuade Scotland to part with the cash for his few recent sartorial upgrades.

"I do not suit purple trousers," Wales said firmly, because even though he could also concede that his wardrobe was probably due an update and a touch more colour, purple trousers were a step too far for his liking.

"Suit yourself," Scotland said, smirking. "Or not, as the case may be. It's no skin off my nose either way."

Wales almost asked Scotland why the hell he'd tagged along with them anyway, as he was neither use nor ornament when it came to this sort of thing, other than helping to carry a portion of the many bags they'd amassed over the course of the day, but the question was pointless because he already knew the answer: France had asked him to. That much, at least, didn't seem to have changed even after their break, and Scotland's subsequent, admittedly drunken, reassurances to England and Wales that 'everything was different now'.

It seemed an overreaction to disbelieve him on the basis of one shopping trip, never mind how arduous. France had certainly appeared sincere enough when he'd come to Wales out of the blue for advice on patching up their relationship the year before, and perhaps Scotland had actually learnt to enjoy this sort of thing, although Wales thought that the least likely of all possible scenarios.

Something about Wales' expression must have given Scotland a clue towards the direction his thoughts had taken, because he asked, "You remember what you said about how you deal with England when he's being really annoying? That you nod along with whatever he's saying, but really you're thinking about something else most of the time?"

Wales nodded.

"I do the same when France's shopping," Scotland said, voice dropping to almost a whisper, as though he were worried that France might overhear him even though he was at the other side of the shop looking at a display of – to Wales' horror – vividly-coloured paisley-patterned shirts. "Sometimes they even have a sofa tucked away in a corner, so I bring a book with me."

"That's very crafty of you," Wales said, grinning; amused and a little surprised that Scotland would follow his advice about anything. Or admit to it afterwards, at least.

"I'm sure he does the same when I take him hiking."

"You do know an awful lot about rocks. I wouldn't blame him if he does."

"Cheeky bastard." Scotland's smile quickly faded as he too noticed the shirts France was taking an inordinate amount of interest in. "Jesus Christ. You know what; I think you've got more than enough clothes by now, don't you? I think it's well past time we all called it a day and went to the pub if he's started seriously considering crap like that."
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Before France left for Paris, he handed Wales a flyer advertising some posh London bar. There was a date and time written on the back of it, deeply etched so that it stood out against the dark red card.

"What's this for?" Wales asked.

"Your first date, of course."

"My first…" Wales checked the date again, hoping he had misread it the first time. He hadn't. "Fucking hell, that's this Friday, Ffrainc!"

France seemed a little taken aback, but recovered almost instantly. "Is that a problem? There didn't seem any reason to wait."

Wales would have liked a little longer to grow used to the idea, to prepare for it, but he supposed he it would also have given him more time to worry, and possibly take himself out of it, too.

"I guess not," he said, grudgingly. "So, which poor sod have you managed to rope in for this, then?"

"Now that, mon cher Cymru, is a surprise," France said, his grin positively devilish.

"What the fuck?" Wales managed to choke out after a stunned moment wherein his mind simply refused to acknowledge France's words and stubbornly remained completely blank. "Ffrainc, I can't –"

France cut him off by pulling him close and planting kisses that lingered just a beat too long on his cheeks, something which never failed to make Wales completely lose his train of thought.

"It will be a good surprise," France said as he drew back, hands still clasping Wales' shoulders. "I promise you."
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3rd September, 2010; London, England

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19:00

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"Which one, Lloegr?"

England continued staring.

Wales huffed irritably. "Jesus Christ, you're not on bloody Mastermind; it's not that difficult a question. The purple one" – Wales waved the tie clutched in his left hand under England's nose – "or the black one."

England took a deep breath, eyes darting between the two items of clothing in question, but they remained simply ties; nothing to chose between them as far as he could tell save for their colour, and hardly worth all the consideration Wales' was paying them.

"They're both perfectly serviceable," he ventured nevertheless, because Wales was watching him with a sort of quiet desperation in his eyes, as though the very fate of the world hinged on England's reply.

"Serviceable?" Wales repeated, his voice going high and thin, cracking on the final syllable. "I should hope they're a little better than 'serviceable' considering how much they fucking cost."

He threw the ties down onto the sofa – a little over-dramatically to England's eye; complete with clenched fists afterwards and angrily narrowed eyes – and then grabbed the shirt that was hanging on the back of the lounge door. This, too, he shook in England's face.

"Which do you think goes better with this?"

England supposed Wales might hold his opinion on this particular subject in higher esteem than he seemed to with any other because the classic lounge suit and accoutrements were, after all, England's outfit of choice. England had, however, discovered the best combinations of colour and style only by trial and error, and then stuck to the ones that worked rigidly throughout the decades. Wales' shirt was of a hue and pattern which lay far outside England's own limited expertise, and he could only blink stupidly at it, feeling more than a little hunted.

"Why don't I put the kettle on?" he asked, hoping that the question might deflect Wales' attention away from matters that he was woefully ignorant about, and also give him an excuse to go and hide in the kitchen for a while. "Nothing better than a nice –"

"Bloody hell, tea does not solve everything, Lloegr," Wales snapped. "I know we like to think it is, but it's not a universal fucking panacea."

Wales' chest hitched as he sucked in deep, ragged breaths, and his hands tightened around the coat hanger he was holding, crumpling his shirt so badly that it would doubtless need ironing again before he went out. England's feet, schooled by millennia of familiarity with the shifting of his brother's moods, moved on instinct, stepping backwards until he was out of striking distance. Wales' temper was long, but it was not infinite, and a sharp downward twist of his mouth and rising flush to his cheeks usually signalled that it was close to snapping.

Wales' nostrils flared and he snorted, but the noise was tinged with more amusement than anger. His shoulders relaxed fractionally.

"Bloody useless, you are," he muttered, shifting the hanger so that its hook was curved over one hand, and pulling his mobile out of his trouser pocket with the other.

A warm wave of relief washed over England. "Who are you calling?" he asked, grateful for the chance to change the subject of their conversation even if he didn't have any real interest in the answer.

"Ffrainc," Wales said, awkwardly tapping at the phone's keys with his thumb. "Seeing as though he made me buy the damn things in the first place, he should have a better idea about what works together than either of us ever will."
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20:00

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When England returned from the kitchen with a fresh cup of tea, Wales was still loitering in the hallway, bottom lip caught between his teeth as he stared at the front door with such fearful intensity that it might as well be the gates of hell.

"You're going to be late if you don't get a move on," England observed offhandedly as he passed behind his brother.

Wales jumped like a cat whose tail had just been stepped on, whirling around to fix England with wide, wild eyes.

"Jesus," he pressed one hand briefly to his chest, "you shouldn't sneak up on people like that. If it was physically possible, I think I'd probably be having a heart attack right now."

"I wasn't sneaking anywhere," England said abruptly, not caring for the insinuation that he should be loudly announcing his presence in his own house, just in case he might otherwise take his guests unawares. "You're just a bag of nerves tonight."

"I'm not nervous," Wales said, far too quickly to be anything close to believable. He laughed when England looked at him with all the incredulity the statement deserved. "Okay, I am. But… But this is a big thing for me, Lloegr."

England glanced longingly towards the lounge, where a comfy chair, Eastenders, and, most importantly, a distinct lack of deeply awkward conversations awaited him. "I don't understand why you're so worried. You've been on plenty of dates before," he said, hesitant and desperately hoping that this wasn't going to turn into one of those situations which resulted in him feeling duty-bound to hug Wales at some point.

"Loads," Wales agreed, "but they were with humans, never with another nation."

England, who had never been intimate with a human, and could count his dates with a nation on the fingers of one hand, was completely at a loss as far as advice was concerned. "

I presume they're probably very similar," he offered, because it really was the very best he could do. "Drinks, food, stilted conversation, that sort of thing. I'm sure you'll be fine."

"Conversation," Wales held up one finger to emphasise the word, "that's exactly my problem. What the hell are we going to talk about? I mean, I'm completely out of the loop nowadays because I don't go to any of the big meetings, and I doubt whoever it is will be in the least bit interested in fishing quotas, rural development or anything else that gets discussed in the Senedd."

"Don't talk about politics," England said, horrified. The first couple of times he and America had gone out had ended spectacularly badly because he had failed to follow that most cardinal of rules. "Honestly, Wales, normal rules apply, pretty much. No politics, religion, or history. It's probably a good idea to steer well clear of sport, too, especially early on. Best stick to simple, uncontroversial topics." England cast around for an example of such, but, put on the spot as he was, could only come up with the perennial: "The weather, for instance."

"The weather." Wales looked crestfallen. "Yes, there's always the bloody weather, isn't there. Fuck's sake, it's no wonder everyone thinks we're all crap at small talk. No doubt the evening will simply fly by."
-

---

-
20:45

-
Wales had walked up and down the street in front of the bar three times before he summoned up the courage to step inside it.

The walls in the small entrance vestibule between the inner and outer doors were mirrored, and he took a moment to check his reflection before carrying on. His hair, he noted with a sinking heart, looked like complete shite. He'd been rather taken with the new style initially, but had discovered upon washing it for the first time that he had neither the skill nor means to work whatever magic the stylist had wrought, and now it had the tendency to quadruple in volume as it dried, and stick out at strange angles that no amount of gel or determination could flatten down.

The new suit, he could admit, did fit him well, and the tie France had picked out for him over the phone (neither the black nor the purple) contrasted nicely with the shirt, but Wales still felt as though he were dressed in a costume. He very rarely wore anything other than the casual, comfortable clothes that he'd owned for years and which had shaped themselves to his frame so neatly over time that they were almost like a second skin. France had vetoed the idea of him wearing any of them, however, with the explanation that he'd never seen Wales clothed in anything that wasn't more suited to farming than dating.

There was little he could do about it now, though, neither the clothes nor the disaster that was his hair. He was already quarter of an hour late, and his only other option was to skip out on the whole thing altogether. The tense, heavy feeling that he'd barely even noticed was constricting his chest loosened a little at that thought, but he discounted it almost immediately. Quite apart from being unforgivably rude – he had no way of contacting his mystery date and hated the idea of leaving them hanging around on their own in a strange bar in a foreign country for however long it took them to realise he wasn't going to show up – England would no doubt take the piss for months if Wales were to slink back to his house with his tail between his legs, and France would more than likely take it as a personal insult.

So Wales steeled himself, and pushed open the second door.

The bar was, it turned out, exactly the sort of place that Wales and his brothers avoided frequenting, but that France doubtless considered the ideal venue for Wales' first foray into the unfamiliar world of blind-nation-dating. Everything shone, from the glass table tops to the chrome-edged seats and deep red walls, and there wasn't a horse brass or faded sporting print in sight. The small knots of people crowded around the shiny tables were all dressed in businesswear, sharp and well-tailored, talking and laughing loudly as they celebrated the end of their working week.

None of them, however, was a nation. Wales didn't know whether others of their kind could sense each other, or if that was simply a skill that he and his siblings possessed because of their connection to magic and the fae, but they always tugged at his mind slightly, seemingly half a beat out of step with their surroundings. Somehow simultaneously existing both more and less in the material world than everything else.

Thinking perhaps he'd got the time wrong, and France had actually said nine and not half-eight, he decided to buy himself a pint to give himself something to do whilst he waited, and make it look less like he had been stood up and more like he just wanted a quiet drink after work in the event that his date had done what he hadn't dared to and chickened out.

As he approached the bar, however, his stomach twisted itself into a tight, sickly knot.

There was no mistaking the slightly off-kilter feeling of 'nation' as he drew closer, and no mistaking, either, just which Nation it was standing there.

"Fuck," Wales said, and not quite as under his breath as he'd been aiming for, clearly, as everyone who was lined up trying to catch the barman's eye turned to look at him curiously. "Fuck, fuck, fuck," he continued, because it felt like the only rational response, and he couldn't seem to stop himself, anyway.

New Zealand's thick eyebrows disappeared beneath the shaggy snarls of his slightly too long fringe as they shot upwards. "Dylan?" he said, sounding shocked, incredulous, and more than a little amused.

"Fuck," Wales finished emphatically, because, really, there were no other words equal to the circumstances.

New Zealand hurried over to Wales, and grabbed his arm, steering him towards a small, unoccupied table near the back of the room. A table which had no doubt been shunned by the other patrons of the bar because it apparently had one leg shorter than all the others and canted alarmingly to one side when Wales leant over it, putting his head in his hands.

"What the fuck was Ffrainc thinking?" he said, when he felt capable of saying something other than a bare expletive.

"I have no idea." New Zealand chuckled. "And, before you ask, I didn't have a clue who I was supposed to be meeting, either."

"I used to change your sodding nappies," Wales said to the tabletop, not feeling up to looking New Zealand directly quite yet.

"No, you didn't," New Zealand countered. "I was older than that when you first met me."

"Maybe not that, exactly, but the principle's the same. I mean, you're family, might as well be my son, and Ffrainc thought…" Wales couldn't even bring himself to allow what France had probably been thinking and New Zealand to share the same head space. It made him feel like a dirty old man.

"I suppose it probably seemed like a good idea on paper," New Zealand said, sounding as though he was actually giving the matter the serious thought it didn't deserve. "I mean we both love rugby, and sheep, and most people seem to think we love them the wrong way, and –"

"Jesus Christ," Wales said, his head snapping up. Was New Zealand actually suggesting…?

New Zealand was smiling, and he burst into delighted-sounding laughter when their eyes met. "Don't worry," he said, patting Wales' shoulder comfortingly. "I feel exactly the same way as you."

"Good," Wales said, relaxing slightly. "It's good to know you're not… Good." He sighed. "Tell you what, seeing as though we're both here now, for whatever reason, we might as well have a couple of drinks and catch up. I'll get the first round in."

New Zealand caught hold of Wales' elbow as he stood up. "No, you stay there. Drinks are on me tonight."

When Wales started to protest, New Zealand flashed a credit card at him. "What's that?" he asked.

"Well," New Zealand grinned, "France said that it was imperative I give my date the best night possible, so he gave me this."

Wales grinned back. "Ffrainc lent you his credit card? Fantastic. I guess we're getting wasted then," he said, feeling a little spiteful and, for the moment at least, not particularly guilty about it.
-

---

-
4th September, 2010; Paris, France

-
03:00

-
"Ffrainc? Ffrainc?"

It took France a moment to place both the voice and the name, but then he wasn't at his best at – he glanced at the clock on his bedside table, but his eyes were too tired to focus on the numbers – in the early hours of the morning. It took him another moment to puzzle out a reason why Wales might be ringing him at such an hour, but when he did, he smiled indulgently. He presumed the date must have gone well if Wales had, it appeared, yet to go to bed.

"Cymru," he began, but Wales cut in before he could continue.

"Seland Newydd said I had to ring you before I sobered up and bottled out," Wales said, his voice slightly too loud, and very much too slurred to be easily comprehensible. "So here I am, not bottling out. If we're going to keep on doing this date thing, please, please don't set me up with any more of the weans. I know you don't see it the same way, but I would never, I could never want to…" Wales' next word was bitten off halfway through, so that all that remained was a shrill half-choked sound. "I won't ever want to go out with any of them, not like that."

Scotland held exactly the same strange views about blood and family that made absolutely no sense to France, given who and what they were, but: "England and America –"

"England's England," Wales said; firmly, as though the statement should mean something profound. If it did, the nuances escaped France and he remained none the wiser. "And America's a special case. Believe me, he feels the same way about the rest of them as I do."

France sighed heavily. New Zealand had been his first choice from the start of this, given how close he and Wales already were and how much they had in common, but if Wales truly was so uncomfortable with the idea that he could never countenance changing the nature of their relationship, then so be it. France was nothing if not adaptable. "All right," he agreed, "I won't ask any of the other… weans."

"None of my siblings, either," Wales saw fit to remind him, as though he, Scotland and Ireland hadn't repeated that particular sentiment innumerable times over the many centuries of their acquaintance whenever France had tried to suggest they all get to know each other a little better together instead of separately. "And not Mannin, or Jersey, or…"

Wales continued in the same vein quite some time, naming what sounded like every Crown Dependency, British Overseas Territory, and most of the Commonwealth. France tuned him out eventually, after he spotted the pattern. It didn't leave him a lot to work with, admittedly, but he was still confident that the task he had set himself was not an impossible one.
-

---

-
14th October, 2010; Paris, France

-
The first call came as France was settling himself back at his desk after an extended lunch break.

He glanced at the phone's display for just long enough to register the caller's name, but Wales interrupted him before he could even finish his greeting.

"She has a knife, Ffrainc," Wales said, quick and hushed, drawing out the sibilants. "In her handbag. A fucking knife."

France grimaced, rubbing his eyes with the thumb and forefinger of his free hand. He had had some doubts about this particular date from the outset, feared it might prove even more disastrous than Wales' last, but when he found out that Belarus would be visiting Scotland's country – for reasons she refused to divulge – it seemed like too good an opportunity to pass up. Even though he was still confident he would ultimately succeed, it was nevertheless more difficult than he had suspected to find nations who might be a suitable match for Wales and a comprehensive approach seemed the only viable option. A conversation with the nation in question regarding his preferences had proved completely fruitless as he'd professed not to have any, and Scotland's only suggestion had been, 'He seems to like complete weirdos.'

"Has she threatened you?" France asked, guessing from the way Wales' voice was echoing – stark and robbed of all its inflection – that he was probably hiding in the men's toilets of whichever restaurant he was lunching at.

"No," Wales admitted, "but she's still got a bloody great knife in her bag, and this sort of steely look in her eye like I make one wrong move and she's going to introduce me to the business end of it." He paused, breathing quickly, and then: "Why do you ask if she's threatened me? Does she do that a lot?"

"Just try not to do anything to alarm her," France said, sidestepping both questions entirely. Wales was most likely perfectly safe, but a degree of caution was probably advisable.

"Don't alarm her?" Wales let out a quavering sigh. "That shouldn't be a problem. I'm not a very alarming person by nature. In fact, I have it on good authority that I'm actually rather dull, so –"

"If the date isn't going well, you can always cut it short," France suggested, because Wales was beginning to babble, and it seemed prudent to step in before he worked himself up into an even greater state of agitation.

In the small silence that followed, France imagined that Wales was contemplating making a swift getaway through a bathroom window, but eventually he said, "I can't, Ffrainc. That would be incredibly rude. Look, it was just a bit of a shock and I'm probably overreacting. No doubt we'll be fine."
-

---

-
The second call came at the end of a rather unproductive hour for France in which he hadn't quite been able to concentrate on his work for half-expecting it throughout.

"She's in love with her brother," Wales said without preamble.

France sighed. "Other nations are not so –"

"Bothered about that sort of thing?" Wales finished for him. "Yeah, I understand that. Well, academically I understand it, even if I don't actually get it, but it does mean that she's not exactly looking for romance elsewhere at the moment. I think she just wanted some company for the day because she's here on her own."

It had been little more than a wild shot in the dark born by circumstance, so France couldn't feel too disappointed. "I'm sorry, Cymru."

"It's fine," Wales said dismissively. "It's probably a good thing for me to get to know some other nations, regardless, an she's a bit… abrupt, but we're not getting on too badly, I think. She hasn't tried to stab me yet, anyway."
-

---

-
There wasn't a third call, which France chose to see as a good sign, if only so that he could finish his paperwork.

---

-
14th October, 2010; Edinburgh, Scotland

-
"So you're sure you didn't do anything weird?" Scotland asked.

"Of course I didn't do anything weird," Wales said, sounding affronted. "I simply touched her arm to draw her attention to something and, well." He nodded towards his bandaged and splinted left hand, which was held curled in his lap like a wounded animal.

Scotland opened a can of lager and handed it to his brother before taking a seat next to him on the sofa. "I guess you won't be seeing her again, then?"

"Probably not, Yr Alban," Wales said, rolling his eyes. "I don't think spending five hours in A&E is generally considered a successful first date, so I doubt she'll be beating down my door for a second. She's interested in someone else, in any case. I'm not sure why France thought it might work out, unless he's trying to kill me, of course."

"Why on earth would France want to kill you?"

"He's received last month's credit card statement?" Wales mumbled cryptically before taking a sizeable gulp from his can. "Do you mind if I crash here tonight? I don't think I'm really in a fit state to drive back home right now."

Scotland doubted Wales would be fit to drive in the morning, either, but he sure as hell would be well enough to catch a train, even if Scotland had to carry him onto it himself. He suspected that Wales' eyes were watery because of pain, but he couldn't be too careful. If Wales was more upset than he was letting on about the whole thing, then it was Ireland's problem; Scotland had paid his dues already.

"I suppose not," he said reluctantly, "but you'll have to amuse yourself. I've got plans tonight."

Said plans involved watching crap telly and getting wankered, but after an extremely trying day at Holyrood pretending to be interested in dense and impenetrable policy documents, he felt as though he'd earned it

"If it's a problem, I can go." Wales was already moving, awkward and clumsy as he tried to get to his feet without putting any weight on his injured hand. "I can check into a hotel, and –"

"Jesus," Scotland said, grabbing hold of his brother's right wrist and holding him still, "stop playing the fucking martyr. I just want a quiet night, you ken, so as long as you can keep your trap shut, we'll be fine. Just sit down and drink your sodding lager."
-

---

-
Wales seemed to have taken Scotland's suggestion literally.

He hadn't said a single other word, and simply drank his way, slowly and methodically, through all the lager in Scotland's fridge and a good measure of the spirits that Scotland had only just finished replacing following his brother's last visit. His silence, Scotland had discovered, was actually quite creepy, although not as creepy as the way he was staring.

Scotland had tried to ignore him at first, keeping his attention fixed rigidly on the completely nonsensical film that was little more than a series of explosions strung together by car chases that ITV had inexplicably deemed worthy of taking up a couple of hours of airtime. It didn't help, however, because he could still feel Wales' eyes on him somehow, like a physical weight on the back of his neck which made him feel unbalanced and on edge.

When the film ended, Scotland risked a sidelong glance at his brother, and discovered that he was still in exactly the same position as he had been when it started: legs drawn up underneath him, head cocked to one side, and his gaze, albeit hooded and more than a little unfocused, fixed firmly on Scotland.

"What the fuck are you doing, Wales?" Scotland asked eventually, when he found he couldn't concentrate on the slightly more coherent programme that started up after the film, either.

"Just thinking," Wales replied quietly.

"About?" Scotland prompted after a moment's further uncomfortable, silent staring.

The question remained unanswered, but before Scotland could ask it again – more vehemently this time as his patience was well and truly close to snapping – Wales suddenly lurched forward, and kissed Scotland before Scotland's brain had even finished processing that he'd moved.

Distantly, Scotland noted that Wales' lips were dry and chapped, and close to, he smelt fresh and slightly damp as he always did, like a meadow after a sudden downpour (with a slight undertone of sheep). He didn't register anything beyond those few dazed impressions until the tip of Wales' tongue tentatively touched the crease of his lips, and every inch of his skin seemed to cringe violently away from the contact as though it were trying to tear itself away from his body. Presumably in an attempt to crawl off in search of some disinfectant.

He shuddered and pushed Wales away as hard as he could. "What the shitting hell was that, Wales?"

"That," Wales said firmly, eyes crossing as he tried to look down at his own mouth, "was disgusting."

"Fucking horrible," Scotland agreed, wiping his lips with the back of his hand. They still felt soiled afterwards, so he scrubbed them vigorously on his shirt sleeve. "Which I could have told you beforehand, so why the fuck did you do it?"

Wales shrugged and shook his head, as though he didn't really know the answer himself. "Belarus told me she wants to marry her brother, and you know France thinks we're all really strange about that sort of thing. I guess I wanted to see if there was something I was missing."

"Jesus," Scotland sighed, burying his face in his hands. "Look, France is… You know I love the very bones of him, but he's probably not the best person to be giving you advice about… sex stuff. If not wanting to shag each other makes us strange, then I've no fucking problem with that."

"Neither have I," Wales assured him. "I just thought… Well, it'd make everything a lot easier, wouldn't it."

Scotland felt as though he wanted to lie down, perhaps for a week or two, or for however long it took for the world to start making sense again. "Let's just chalk this up to the alcohol and forget it ever happened, all right? And, don't tell him I said this, but stop listening to France when he goes on about that sort of thing. It's not going to lead anywhere good."

Scotland tentatively patted Wales' shoulder as Wales nodded morosely, and then swiftly made his exit, heading for a long, hot, and above all scouring, shower.
-

---

-
26th November, 2010; Cardiff, Wales

-
"Sorry, Ffrainc," Wales said, squinting up at the large sheet of paper France had pinned to his living room wall, "I'm not really sure what I'm supposed to be looking at."

"It's a map, you numpty." Scotland's voice was equal parts amusement and affected helpfulness. "Come on, if you think really, really hard you might be able to recall seeing one before."

"Yes, I am well aware of that, thank you, Yr Alban," Wales said, twisting his shoulder out of reach when his brother leant across the sofa to squeeze it in a show of mock sympathy. "I'm just not sure what it's supposed to represent. The colours, I mean," he added hurriedly to pre-empt the reply of, 'The world,' that Scotland's sly grin was heavily suggesting he'd make.

France frowned slightly, as though he too considered Wales either woefully slow on the uptake, or perhaps even deliberately obtuse. As though he hadn't just sprung all of this on Wales unawares, with no further commentary than, 'Well, what do you think?' to help him try and make some sort of sense out of the hodge-podge patchwork quilt of a map he'd been presented with.

"The blue," he said slowly, waving his hand towards the bottom right hand corner of the map and a navy Australia and New Zealand, "represents nations you have told me in no uncertain terms are completely off limits; yellow, nations who are too young for…"

It was a dating map, which was… It was deeply, horrifically embarrassing, actually, to think of the time France must have spent on it; hours, surely, spent scribbling away with coloured pens to cover the whole thing. To think that the proposition of finding a nation who might perhaps consider more than a single date with Wales demanded such careful planning that it required visual aids.

He was so flustered by the thought that he only managed to catch the very tail-end of France's explanation, tuning in again as France said, "And green represents nations in closed, committed relationships."

France was shaded green, Wales noticed. As had Scotland, judging by the sickeningly soppy look he was lavishing on the back of France's head.

Jesus.

"So the blank ones are single, then," Wales said, mostly just hoping that the sound of his voice might distract Scotland from any thoughts he might be entertaining about bending France over the coffee table or some such.

"Do any of them catch your eye?" France asked, turning away from the map to beam at Wales.

Catch his eye? It was a map. Wales wondered if he was supposed to find Peru's coastline arousing, Serbia's borders aesthetically pleasing.

"Um," he said, stalling for time.

Was this the real reason he'd gravitated towards being romantically involved with humans? Was there something he was missing that other nations understood?

"I'm not sure that…"

Did Scotland get hot and bothered looking at pictures of the Alps? Did England have to go and have a lie down if he watched a documentary about the Mississippi delta or Algarve beaches? They'd never mentioned anything, but, then again, it wasn't as if they'd ever sat down and had an in-depth discussion about their wanking habits, either, so –

France sighed heavily, sounding irritated. "Out of the ones that are left, have you any preferences for your next date? Perhaps someone you know a little better than any of the others?"

"Oh, right," Wales said, smiling with relief. Picking a nation on the basis of perhaps having spoken to them at some point in recent history did make slightly more sense than the alternative, and he chose to believe that that was France had meant in the first place whether it was the truth or not. There was less chance he'd be tempted to have ill-considered conversations with his brothers at some point that way.

Wales scanned the uncoloured countries quickly, and the only ones that stood out, the only ones he saw on anything like a regular basis were the Italies. And 'saw' was the operative word, at least when it came to Grumpy Italy. Even before Wales broke his brother's nose, he'd gone out of his way to avoid talking to Romano. Dodging conversation with him by any means necessary had become something an annual tradition for Scotland and Wales since Italy started competing in the Six Nations. Endless angry complaints were marginally tolerable coming from England, but only because he was family, and they'd become somewhat inured to them over the millennia.

Nice Italy was pleasant enough company, but the fact that he needed reminding who Wales was year after year was hardly encouraging. Nor was the thing he'd had with Germany for the past century or so. Wales wasn't exactly sure what the thing entailed – no-one was – but it was obvious that whatever it might be, it left no room for him.

"There's not. Sorry, Ffrainc."

France screwed his eyes shut, and rubbed at the bridge of his nose as though he had a headache coming on. "There must be some way you can help me narrow this down, Cymru. Even something as simple as height, hair colour, anything."

Wales shrugged helplessly, but Scotland chimed in with, "I've told you time and again, mo chride: wierdos. That's who he goes for."

"And I've told you countless bloody times that that's not true," Wales said, scowling at his brother. "Granted some of them were a little… eccentric, but…"

But Wales didn't really have a leg to stand on, because he had always been attracted to people who marched to the beat of their own drum. It wasn't something he was ashamed of, but countless years of Scotland taking the piss out of the handful of Wales' partners he'd even bothered enough about to take an interest in had made him more than a little defensive. "You liked Cerys."

Scotland's brows knitted, no doubt annoyed that he couldn't dispute that. Back when Cerys and Wales were going out, he had, on occasion – when he was drunk and England was out of earshot – urged Wales to ask her to marry him. "Yes, fine, I thought she was a lovely lass. Or at least I did, right up until she ran off with that wanker from her pottery class."

The admission startled a snort of laughter from Wales. "So, let me get this straight," he said, barely fighting back a delighted smile, "the only reason you think she was weird was because she dumped me?"

"Fuck off, that wasn't what I meant, and you know it." Scotland's face rapidly turned a violent shade of crimson that served as a clear warning to Wales that he shouldn't press any further no matter tempting it might be to do so. "She was an exception, anyway. The rest of them have been awful. The recent ones especially."

"How recent, exactly?" Wales asked tersely. "I was under the impression you liked Aly, too."

France, who had been watching them with the pained grimace of one who knew from long experience that he was witness to the start of a lengthy argument, visibly brightened at the name. "I remember him well. What was it about Aly you liked, Cymru?"

No-one had ever asked Wales that before, and although he'd always thought he could write a sizeable book on the subject, put on the spot for the first time, he found the words did not come easily. "He was kind. And clever. Brave, too. Far braver than me, anyway, and I had much more reason to be. And he was…" Out of the corner of his eye, Wales noticed that Scotland was cringing slightly, obviously embarrassed, and the sight irritated him enough to say, "He had absolutely amazing stamina. Practically no refractory period to speak of."

"Shitting hell, Wales!" Scotland clamped his hands firmly over his ears, moving so quickly that the sudden lurch of his body nearly propelled him clean off the sofa. "What the actual fuck?"

France, however, merely looked thoughtful. "I know first hand that several of the unattached nations fit that description to a tee, at least."

"Jesus Christ!" Scotland yelped, turning wide, betrayed eyes from Wales on to France.

"All in the past, mon coeur," France assured him, but in such a breezy tone that it only served to make Scotland look even more distraught.

"You two are…" Scotland leapt to his feet with a low growl of frustration. "I need a fucking drink." He paused in the doorway in order to glare at both France and Wales with an intensity that suggested he suspected them of having conspired to steer the conversation in the exact direction that would be most distressing to him. "You know, I'm starting think this whole thing might have been the worst bloody idea I've ever had."

Given the debacle it had all been so far, Wales was inclined to agree, but, somehow, he still felt strangely compelled to see it through to the end, wherever that may be, regardless.
-

---

-
9th December, 2010; London, England

-
Scotland always fucking sprawled wherever he sat, regardless of how bloody inconvenient it might be.

He was currently taking up far too much room in the passenger seat of Wales' Renault Clio, legs spread so wide that Wales kept knocking his knuckles against his brother's right knee whenever he changed gear. His right elbow was propped against the corner of Wales' seat, his left against the window beside him, fingers tapping against the frame. There was no discernable rhythm to the tapping – Wales kept thinking he'd caught the pattern, but then the tempo or timing would change, throwing him off-guard again – and it was accompanied by a sound that wasn't quite humming and wasn't quite whistling, but was entirely irritating.

"Would you please stop doing that?" Wales growled, when, a couple of miles into their journey, it finally slipped past the threshold of irritating and became infuriating.

The drumming didn't pause, but the droning at least did when Scotland asked, "What?"

"That fucking noise." The traffic lights ahead turned red, and Wales braked rather more heavily than necessary. The car lurched to a halt with a jolt that, unfortunately, wasn't strong enough to force Scotland to reposition himself in any way. "The one you're making with your nose."

"Breathing?" Scotland laughed, shaking his head. "Can't do much about that, Wales. Well, I suppose I could –"

"I wish you'd stop that incessant bloody tapping, too." Wales hadn't been planning on saying anything further, but found he couldn't seem to open his mouth without ever more words spilling out, too quickly to be easily dammed. "And I don't believe for one second that your bollocks are so big that you can't possibly sit so you're not getting in my way all the sodding time.

"And why the hell did I let you persuade me that it'd be a good idea to take the car, anyway? We could've taken the tube, but, oh no, you've forgotten your Oyster card, and can't possibly shell out for a day pass. 'It'll be cheaper if we drive, Wales'. Cheaper for you anyway, but I guess that's all that really matters, right? I'm going to be paying though the nose for the bloody petrol we're wasting sitting around in fucking traffic jams, and we're probably going to end up being late, to boot."

As if on cue, the traffic lights turned green, but they only remained so long enough to allow one and a quarter cars through. Wales burned through every single Welsh, English, and Gaidhlig profanity he could think of in response. Screaming at the top of his lungs at an inanimate object was strangely cathartic, however, siphoning off enough of his anger that he didn't immediately punch Scotland on reflex when he quietly observed afterwards, "I'm starting to think you're not really looking forward to this."

As it was, the understatement merely made Wales roll his eyes. "The last time we went somewhere with the entire EU, hardly anyone knew who I was even after I told them my name, and we ended up in the middle of a huge brawl. So no, it doesn't exactly fill me with giddy anticipation that we're going to be stuck in a restaurant with them for the next few hours. Added to which, Ffrainc hasn't seen fit to inform me who my date's going to be yet again."

"If it makes you feel any better, he hasn't set one up. I think you're just supposed to mingle," Scotland said, twirling a finger around in demonstration.

Mingling sounded… surprisingly okay, actually. Lower pressure, and with significantly less chance of being as awkward as the last two dates France had arranged for him, in any case. "I guess I can manage that."

"Get a couple of pints down your neck, you might actually enjoy it," Scotland said, lightly cuffing Wales' shoulder.

Wales doubted that, but he supposed there existed the outside chance that it wouldn't be actively dreadful. Stranger things had happened.

They lapsed into silence for two cycles of the lights, and a few crawling feet of forward movement, and then Scotland said conversationally, "By the way, if England asks, I'm calling myself Nathraichean at the moment."

Wales snorted in surprise. "Can England even pronounce that?"

"Not without a great deal of difficulty." Scotland grinned, broadly enough that all of his teeth were bared. "Which is exactly why I chose it."
-

---

-
The private dining room the maitre d' showed Wales and Scotland to contained three long banquet tables covered with red tablecloths, a veritable forest of gold and silver tinsel, and only two nations.

England and Ireland were seated opposite one another at the table furthest from the door, sharing a bottle of red wine, and apparently engaging in a fairly convivial conversation for once, given that it was being conducted at a normal volume. Perhaps the decorations had filled them with some premature holiday spirit, although that seemed unlikely as Christmas itself had never inspired the same effect.

"Good job we rushed; looks like we would have missed the party otherwise." Scotland nudged Wales into sitting beside England, and then took the next chair along for himself. "Where's everyone else?"

"Probably still at the conference centre, arguing about how best to get here," England said, tilting the half empty wine bottle towards Wales and Scotland in an offer they both readily accept. "It's like trying to herd bloody cats with that lot sometimes."

"We decided to make a break for it, because…" Ireland's words were swallowed by a short burst of laughter when she looked towards Wales. "Jesus Christ. What the hell happened to your hair, Dylan?"

"Francis tried straightening it," Scotland said with some relish before Wales had chance to reply. "He still smells slightly singed."

Scotland had documented the entire ineffectual process with a series of pictures he'd taken on his phone and then sent on to Northern Ireland so he didn't miss the chance to have a good laugh at Wales' expense. He even managed to capture the exact moment France had given up in disgust, hurled the straighteners at a wall, and left Wales with hair that was no less wavy than usual, but a great deal crispier.

"Is that a new suit, too?" Ireland asked, her gaze dipping a little lower. "I don't think I've seen you wearing anything that wasn't brown for about twenty years."

"Francis picked it out for me," Wales said, suddenly feeling both self-conscious and over-dressed. He tugged nervously at the knot in his blue silk tie, wondering if he should perhaps take it off.

"I've never understood why, but he's never been able pass up the chance to play dress up with you. Do you remember the fucking ridiculous hats he made you wear when you were a kid? Looked like you had a fucking chicken roosting on top of your head." Scotland held a hand over his head, and then wiggled his fingers towards Ireland. "And the bright yellow hose?"

Ireland's agonised expression suggested she remembered the yellow hose very well. Wales had been very enamoured with them for a few years, partly because they were a gift from France, but mostly because he'd loved the colour. In retrospect, however, they'd been too long, too tight, and likely made Wales look like a particularly dumpy wading bird.

England's looked faintly disgusted, perhaps due to his own memories of the hose, or simply the reminder of France's continued existence. Most likely, it was a melange of both. "Well, all his efforts are going to be for naught at this rate," he said, briefly redirecting his glare towards his watch. "We're probably going to be chucked out of here if the rest of them don't show up soon."
-

---

-
Maybe pints would have worked better, because two glasses of wine certainly hadn't done anything to increase Wales' enjoyment of the evening. He couldn't even have a third to see if that might help, seeing as though he'd stupidly allowed Scotland to guilt trip him into being their designated driver.

To his left and right, Scotland and England were ignoring him in favour of their respective significant others – or perhaps other significant other in England's case? Wales didn't know exactly what's going on with his brother and Portugal, and he sure as hell wasn't going to ask – and Ireland was deep in conversation with Belgium, leaving Wales' only two options: silence or talking to Grumpy Italy.

He hadn't got the faintest clue why Romano had decided to plonk himself down next to Ireland, particularly when there were plenty of free seats left at the other end of the table, where he'd be near people who might possibly, for reasons that escaped Wales, want to spend time with him. Wales' best guess was that he'd done something to piss one or all of them off and was making himself scarce; a scenario which, although it seemed infinitely plausible, still didn't explain why he had chosen to sit opposite Wales when there were so many other empty chairs available even after everyone had finally arrived.

It was a conundrum, but not one Wales cared enough about to bother trying to puzzle out an answer to. He concentrated instead on his carrot and coriander soup, which was thick, delicious, and decidedly better company.

He supposed he should feel glad that Romano didn't seem disposed towards making conversation – or, at least, the endless grumbling which appeared to pass for conversation with him, judging by the few occasions Wales hadn't avoided him assiduously enough at the rugby – preferring instead to glare sullenly at his own soup as he pushed his spoon around and around the bowl.

Wales didn't feel glad, however; he felt uncomfortable and on edge, torn between two warring desires. On the one hand, he thought he should just be grateful for small blessings and hope he continued to be overlooked for the rest of the meal, but on the other, ignoring a dinner companion himself, no matter how objectionable, ran counter to everything he'd ever learnt about good manners.

"How's your soup?" he forced himself to ask when the need to be polite eventually revealed itself to be the stronger urge.

All the question netted him was a small shrug – hardly a surprise, really, as he didn't think he'd seen Romano actually eat any – which left Wales at a bit of a loss on how best to proceed if discussing the starter wasn't going to be sufficient to tide them over until the main course (whereupon they could discuss that). He quickly wracked his brain for another suitable topic, something he already knew interested Romano, but the list he managed to cobble together was discouragingly short: rugby, shouting, Spain and Nice Italy.

Painful though it had been at the time, he'd pretended indifference to rugby in the past to explain his seeming absence whenever Wales played Italy, and, for all he knew, Spain was the very nation Romano was trying to avoid, and mentioning him might lead to the aforementioned shouting, which Wales was eager to bypass if he could.

Nice Italy it would have to be. "And your brother? Is he okay?"

"His nose set a little crooked in the end," Romano said, pausing in his stirring for a moment.

"Oh." Wales cursed himself for forgetting that Italy was also a very poor choice, at least for him. He quickly attempted some damage limitation. "I'm really am very, very sorry about what happened."

Romano didn't hurry to reassure him that he knew it had been an accident, and all was forgiven, but Wales hadn't really expected him to. He did, however, concede that: "He liked the fruit. And the poem."

Wales couldn't remember now what he'd written in Italy's card, only that he'd agonised over the wording for hours the night before he visited him in hospital, hoping that if he managed to convey his good wishes perfectly, it might help assuage some of his guilt. "That's good," Wales said, his guts churning slightly in sympathy with the remembered sentiment. "I'm glad."

It wasn't a feeling that was conducive to eating, and Wales decided his best course of action would be to have a cigarette, which would both settle his stomach and give him an excuse to leave the table for ten minutes or so.

"Well, I'm going to go and have a fag," he announced, loudly enough that he was certain Scotland must have heard him.

Whatever France was whispering in his ear was obviously more compelling than cadging a free smoke, however, even though Scotland would normally jump on any chance to do so. He didn't move, but Romano appeared to take the announcement as an invitation, getting up from his seat and slipping on his coat, which was a fucking horrifying development as far as Wales was concerned, because smoke breaks were usually his best refuge against someone he'd rather avoid. He'd spent many of England's parties hiding out in the garden, slowly and methodically working his way through a packet of cigarettes – if he paced himself well, he could make them last for the duration – but it was a ploy that only worked if said person had the decency not to be a smoker themselves.
-

---

-
Wales admitted defeat during dessert.

He had persevered through yet another halting attempt at conversation during the main course – turkey proved to be just as incapable of engaging Romano's interest as soup – because he still held out some hope that he'd eventually manage to hit on something that would make the experience even a trifle less excruciating.

He had thought pulling their crackers might help, but upon discovering that Romano could remain impassive in the face of a cracker joke – a classic of the genre, at that: Who was England's first chiropodist? William the Corn curer – it was clear that any and all of his efforts were going to be futile.

So Wales gave up, put on his purple paper crown, and tucked into his Christmas pudding, savouring every mouthful because each one brought him closer to the end of the meal and subsequent freedom.
-

---

-
Wales didn't precisely flee from the restaurant like a startled gazelle the second the dessert dishes were cleared away – he hadn't really got the build for it – but he managed the best approximation of such a thing as he was capable of.

Once outside, he ducked behind the meagre cover afforded by a lamppost and nervously watched the restaurant's front door. After a couple of minutes had ticked by with agonising lassitude, and there were still no obvious signs apparent that he'd been followed, he allowed himself the small comfort of a cigarette.

As the jolt of adrenaline that had sent him running in the first place faded from his system, and his heartbeat finally slowed towards its normal resting rate once more, Wales began to feel incredibly foolish. The rapidity of his cowardly retreat had been better suited to a risk to life and limb rather than an uncomfortable dining experience, even though his body hadn't seemed able to tell the difference at the time.

Wales was aware that he had his shortcomings as a companion, but he'd always prided himself before that facilitating conversation, at least, was not one of them. It may not often be the most interesting conversation, but he was never normally at a loss for something to say.

Normally, though, he wasn't trying to talk to someone who was seemingly so determined to perfect their impression of a brick wall in response. Even Scotland at his most taciturn would give some sign that he was listening: the odd grunt of acknowledgement, raised eyebrow, or 'shut the fuck up, Wales'.

But Romano had given him nothing, and though Wales had thought himself long past his childhood abhorrence of silence, it had started rearing its ugly head once more, leaving him feeling restless, claustrophobic and absolutely desperate to escape, the imminent arrival of cheese and biscuits notwithstanding.

Partway through his second calming cigarette, the restaurant door swung open, and Wales nearly choked on the huge lungful of smoke he inhaled along with his panicked gasp at the sight. He cupped one hand over his mouth in an attempt to muffle his coughs, pressed himself even closer against the lamppost, and then peeked cautiously around the side of it.

His relief at seeing his brother emerge from the restaurant lasted for only as long as it took for Scotland to open his mouth and call out at the top of his voice, "That's a shite hiding place, Dyl. There's –"

"Far too much of me to fit behind a lamppost?" Wales finished for him wearily, because the particular sharpness of Scotland's grin made the conclusion of the observation he was about to make an obvious one.

"If you knew already, why are you even bothering?" Scotland asked, giving Wales a pitying look.

"There isn't exactly an abundance of handy cover out here," Wales says. "It was either this or crouch behind the wheelie bin."

"It was shitty luck that you got stuck with Grumpy Italy." Scotland was clearly trying to sound sympathetic, but too little and far too late for Wales to believe that he was anything approaching sincere. If he'd truly been concerned, then he could have wrenched himself away from France for a little while, or at the very least taken Wales up on his offer of a smoke break when he'd made it. "He was that bad?"

On reflection, Wales had to admit that: "He could have been worse." After all, he had been able to restrain himself from breaking Wales' nose in retribution for his brother's, as he'd threatened to do when they parted company after the last time they met. "I'm glad it's over, though. I presume everyone's finished their food by now?"

"Aye, but they've started arguing about how best to split the bill. France told me that sort of thing can take hours to sort out sometimes, so I should get out whilst I still could, and go and save him a seat at the pub."

Whilst Wales wouldn't usually expect England to pay his way for him, the prospect of returning to the restaurant, even for the short time it would take to hand over the money he owed to his brother, was so unappealing that Wales couldn't bring himself to entertain it.

"I'll come with you," he said.
-

---

-
Wales had presumed that dinner was a mutually unpleasant experience, but the very moment he found himself alone at the table he'd been sharing with Scotland, Ireland and France, Romano did the unthinkable and plonked himself down in the chair next to Wales that Ireland had recently vacated.

Even though it had been entirely of his own making, he looked unhappy about the situation; his brow beetling and lips pursed together in a tight pinch that had, to Wales' eye, more than a passing resemblance to a cat's arse.

"Hello?" Wales ventured warily, once it became clear that pretending he hadn't noticed Romano's arrival wasn't going to encourage him to piss off back the way he came any time soon.

Romano glowered at him with a ferocious intensity better suited as a riposte to an inappropriately personal remark than a slightly uncertain pleasantry.

Wales could only conclude that his input was actually unwelcome, and Romano had drifted his way in search of someone else, instead.

"France has just gone to freshen up, apparently," he said, trying, therefore, to be helpful. "And Scotland and Ireland are at the bar. They shouldn't be long."

His encouraging smile was met with further glowering and, to his horror, the slow curling of Romano's fingers towards his palms.

This was going to be it then: the promised punch. Wales supposed he deserved it, really – though he couldn't vouch for his temper holding if Romano happened to decide that his brother's honour wasn't satisfied by a single one – and it was long overdue, so he simply closed his eyes and braced himself.

Expecting a sudden jarring impact, he girded his shoulders and his neck, but neglected, as it turned out, the most vital part of his face. Because when it came, Romano's attack didn't land on his nose or jaw but his unprotected mouth, with a sudden savagery that made their teeth clash together and snapped Wales' head back so hard that he wouldn't be surprised if he ended up with whiplash.

In the time it took Wales to reopen his eyes, the bruising excuse for a kiss ended and Romano scooted his purloined chair away to a distance that might, perhaps, be judged safely out of reach of any instinctive retaliatory violence on Wales' part.

Wales' instinctive reaction, however, was simply to check that none of his teeth had been knocked loose. He touched them gingerly, one by one, with the pad of his thumb. Thankfully, they all still seemed to be firmly in place, though there was a faint taste of blood at the back of his tongue which was a little worrying.

By the time he'd finished his crude dental check, some of the anger he felt he should have been feeling all along finally caught up with him. "Why the hell did you do that?" he asked.

For a moment, Romano just stared at him blankly in return, but then his eyes flickered, very briefly, towards Spain. It answer was enough, but such a ludicrous one that it made Wales laugh despite himself.

Wales could barely believe it, but there didn't seem to be any other explanation that would so neatly fit the facts as they stood.

He might not be as connected as he once was to the nation grapevine, but there were so few of their kind – and England was such an incorrigible gossip – that it was difficult for much of anything to stay secret for very long, even from him. And the rumour that Romano's feelings toward Spain had taken a romantic turn was one that had been circulating for a century or more.

"Are you trying to make him jealous?" Wales asked, even though he was both certain he was right and that Romano would fail to confirm the supposition. "If you were, then, sorry to say, you're doing a piss poor job of it Firstly, you really could have chosen better, and secondly, he doesn't appear to have noticed."

Honestly, Spain looked as though he wouldn't have noticed if Romano had instead decided to cut out the middleman and thrown himself naked on top of him, so engrossed was he in the conversation he was having with Belgium at the cosy, two person table right behind them.

Romano blanched. "I wasn't –" He cut himself off by biting down hard on his bottom lip, and then subjected Wales to a fiercer glare than any other he'd mustered up over the course of the evening thus far. He pushed himself unsteadily to his feet, and then took his leave with a barked, "Fuck you!" that Wales thought was a bit out of line, given how understanding he felt he'd been about everything which had just transpired.

In fact, he thought it might have been karmic retribution for his own, woefully misguided and equally badly launched kiss back in October, and was quite willing to push it to the back of his mind and try to forget about it in the same way he had that one.

Scotland, on the other hand, did not seem inclined to be half so forgiving of Romano's lunging attacks on Wales' person, judging by the flinty cast of his eyes when he returned to the table with Wales' orange juice not long after Romano's departure. "I saw what that fucker just did to you," he snarled.

He could only hope that Romano would manage to make himself scarce until Scotland calmed down a little, otherwise he feared that he might have to add yet another broken Italian nose to his conscience.
-

---

-
29th January, 2011; Cardiff, Wales

-
Over the past month, Wales had been on dates with Thailand (handsome; great sense of humour; utterly uninterested in going on a second date), Monaco (beautiful; wonderful company; utterly uninterested in going on a second date) and Russia (handsome; vaguely unsettling in a way Wales couldn't quite put his finger on; had taken to bombarding Wales with an endless string of text messages that were both ambiguous enough in content that Wales could not be sure whether or not Russia actually wanted a second date and yet intense enough that Wales certainly didn't).

Next week, he had a date with Brazil lined up, but given his track record so far he was not holding out any great hopes for its success.

"Japan's not available until March at the earliest," France said, pausing in his perusal of the dating map.

Since September, grey – the shade France had picked out to represent those nations who Wales had already failed to connect with, or who had pre-emptively sought France out and told him they had no wish to take part in his little experiment – had seeped across more and more of the map, and it seemed to leech the brightness out of all the other colours France had originally filled in as it slowly but surely surrounded them all.

It was, Wales thought, very fitting, and neatly echoed his own fading optimism when it came to his romantic prospects.

"I'm sure we can sort something out for then, though," France continued. "Are you free on the nineteenth?"

There seemed little point in begging a need to check his schedule. Wales very rarely had anything to fill his weekends nowadays other than idled away evenings at the White Hart with his neighbours, and the odd visit from Scotland or Northern Ireland if they happened find themselves with a lack of anything better to do.

"I should imagine so," he said.

France nodded, and then started tapping away at his phone, presumably informing Japan that he could now look forward to a wasted Saturday a few weeks hence.

As Wales watched him, the low, sinking feeling he had been experiencing fairly frequently of late grew heavier in his belly. He'd never been particularly enamoured of France's plan, but at the start, at least, there had been some sense of anticipation; of new avenues to be explored.

His experiences since then had made each new date feel increasingly like an exercise in masochism, and he could not contemplate them without an accompanying sensation of dread. The only thing he anticipated now was fresh embarrassment and yet more demoralisation.

To be frank, Wales had had more than enough of that for the time being.

"Maybe we could give the whole thing a rest for a little while after that? Recharge my dating batteries?" he said, in a carefully neutral tone.

The suggestion appeared to go down like a lead balloon with France, judging by the swift downward trajectory of his eyebrows and the corners of his mouth.

"It seems a shame," he said stiffly, "to waste the momentum you've built up."

Which Wales interpreted to mean that France, quite rightly, suspected that, if Wales were to stop now, he would likely never gather sufficient stamina and resolve to start the whole disheartening process back up again; a state of affairs that France was apparently reluctant to contemplate.

Such were the perils of being France's pet project, Wales supposed, and especially one which made him feel – Scotland had postulated – as though his entire reputation as the 'country of love' would be put at stake if it proved itself to be a failure.

He was like a dog with a bone, disinclined, or perhaps even unable, to give it up, and Wales had never been able to match him when it came to strength of will.

No matter how much he might protest, he'd doubtless find himself capitulating to France's desires in the end anyway, so there seemed to be little point in saying anything other than: "I suppose so."

France smiled approvingly at him. "And in the interests of momentum, I'm going to be hosting a small gathering next month, which I hope you'll be able to attend."

Wales knew that France wasn't 'hoping' anything of the sort. The vague invitation was as good as a summons, and one it would be wise not to ignore.

"I'll be there," he said despondently.
-

---

-
In bed later that night, when sleep had been elusive for hours and there felt to be an acre of cold mattress beside him, Wales began to wonder what might happen if all of the uncoloured parts of France's map became covered in grey.

It was a possibility he'd long avoided contemplating, because there was such a terrible finality inherent in it.

Once, the earth had practically teemed with their kind – one for each kingdom, each tribe, each and every place that their people made a home for themselves that they felt was special and distinct from the small huddle of dwellings over the next hill or down the next valley – but they've dwindled so much in number since those days, and new nations are born so very rarely, that Wales would very likely have resign himself to perpetual celibacy if that eventuality were to occur.

Despite all of the heartbreak he'd experienced, he couldn't help but think that maybe he'd been wrong; maybe he shouldn't have decided to stop looking to humans for love.

There were probably more people living on his street in Cardiff than there were nations left in the world entire, and…

He reached, desperately, for the small book that he had placed in the drawer of his bedside table a few months back, with the intention of using it to strengthen his resolve in the event of a crisis of faith such as this arising.

He folded his fingers around the familiar rough edges of Aly's small notebook of poetry, held it against his chest, and then made himself to remember everything he had trained himself to forget about the man over the last near-hundred years.

Not the good things – his ready smile and quick wit and the way he touched Wales' body with a particular sort of reverence that Wales had never experienced before and never has since – but the things that truly hurt; that had torn his heart in two with such violence that Wales had never quite been able to patch it back together again properly afterwards.

The things that he'd only had to endure because Aly had been human. Mortal.

Wales hadn't just lost Aly himself to No Man's Land, he had lost the future he'd wanted to live in.

They'd made so many plans, he and Aly, about what they would do together when they finally got to go back home again.

They had fully intended that they would have been returning to their home, for a start, but Wales forced himself to open a door in his mind that he had firmly closed and barred in 1915, and admit to himself that it was doubtful that that would have ever come to pass, even if Aly had survived the Great War.

Times and laws were very different then, and as a human, Aly would have been bound to them in ways that Wales' nature protected him from.

It was entirely probable the strain of peacetime lies and concealment would have been too great and they wouldn't have lasted.

Very faintly, Wales could hear the low murmur of France's voice drifting through the spare bedroom's thin walls and then the deep rumble of Scotland's voice answering it, and recognised – because it seemed to be a night born for belated revelations – another long-ignored truth.

He was never going to be able to have what he really wanted, because what he really wanted was what France and Scotland had.

Not the many years of doubt and distance and misery they'd had to live through, to be sure, but the centuries upon centuries of intertwined history that, he had always imagined, would lead you to know another person just as completely and intimately as yourself.

There had only been two nations that Wales believed he could ever have come to experience such a thing with, both of them lost to him (and both lost to Scotland, in their own ways).

The past was impossible to regain, but, he centuries still ahead of him, if his luck held, in which to build something new; something closer to what he craved.

He would never be able to do that with a human. That too was impossible, and so no matter how bleak things seemed at the moment, he had to persevere. As long as blank spots remained on France's map, so did hope.

He slowly relinquished his tight hold on Aly's notebook, and then, some time later, carefully returned it to its place in the drawer. It had served its purpose well, though he suspected it probably wouldn't be the last time he'd have need of it, nevertheless.
-

---

-
26th February, 2011; Paris, France

-
Wales had spent just as long on picking his outfit for the evening and taming his hair as he had choosing a bottle of wine suitable as a host gift, but when he arrived at France's apartment – an hour before the party was due to start, as he'd been instructed to – only the wine passed muster.

His tie and shirt, he was quickly informed, clashed dreadfully, but France seemed at a complete loss to describe the state of his hair, which was surveyed to the accompaniment of the type of noise mechanics made when faced with a car whose engine sounded as though it was on the verge of exploding: a thin hiss of air sucked between tightly clenched teeth.

Wales was immediately hurried into France's bedroom, handed a tie of a more suitable hue, and then directed to make himself comfortable on the chair beside France's bed whilst France gathered together his instruments of tonsorial torture.

"It looked okay when I left the house," Wales eventually felt obliged to point out, lest France otherwise thought he hadn't bothered to make any sort of effort.

"I assume the wind was at fault," France said, stepping towards Wales with a compassionate smile on his face and a stiff bristled brush of ominous size in his hand.

"Probably," Wales said, even though he knew it had been nothing of the sort. His hair had a touch of the Medusa about it – a mind of its own – and didn't require the aid of any outside forces to start tangling itself into impenetrable knots when it was in need of a trim, as it was now.

France accepted his own explanation without further comment, and after spraying Wales hair liberally with something that smelled like artificial flowers and burnt plastic, set about the long, arduous process of bringing order out of its chaos.

Having been subjected to such untender ministrations from France on a semi-regular basis since his childhood, Wales had long since learnt that the resultant pain was best ignored if he found something else to concentrate on in its stead.

His eyes wandered over the artwork hung on the walls – tasteful, doubtless expensive, but too abstract to hold his interest – demurely skipped past France's bed, and then, seemingly inexorably, he found them drawn to the full-length mirror set at the opposite side of the room.

Wales had been very self-conscious in his youth, and avoided his reflection whenever possible, but age, experience, and the simple realisation that nothing was going to change the fact that he'd likely be stuck with his own face for millennia so he'd better get used to seeing it, had helped him reach a comfortable level of equanimity regarding his appearance.

Usually, he would concentrate on his eyes (which he'd always thought were a quite striking so long as he didn't dwell on the fact that they were the exact same shade as England's) and his mouth (he'd been told many times that he had a lovely smile) but right then, they might as well have been invisible.

Perhaps it was the low emotional ebb he'd been suffering from lately, compounded by his recent romantic disappointments, but all he could see were his chubby cheeks and their irregular splattering of freckles, the way his belly bulged over the waistband of his trousers, and the drab, frizzy, fucking disaster of his hair.

Glancing upwards, he could also see the frustration evident in France's expression as he fought with it; his bitten bottom lip and blotchy complexion.

Wales sighed, and reached up to take gentle hold of France's wrist, stilling the brush. "You know it won't get any better, Ffrainc," he said. "It's not worth the effort. You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, after all."

"Cymru," France started, but then he cut himself off abruptly with a sigh of his own; slow and weary.

He ran the fingertips of his free hand with feathery softness down the side of Wales' face before trying to speak again. "Cymru, I know you're probably feeling discouraged by how things have worked out so far, but you're such a generous, kind-hearted man, and I know you'll find someone who appreciates that eventually."

And Wales appreciated the compliment, he really did, but he still found himself pettily disappointed that France hadn't told him that he also thought him a handsome man, even if it was very likely he would have had to lie to do so. Wales had, he suspected, been waiting to hear that from France for nigh on six hundred years; since the day he and France had found themselves in a very similar situation to this and Wales first discovered that he wished to hear the other nation say such a thing.

A quiet cough from the bedroom doorway attracted Wales' attention, and deepened his sense of déjà vu. Scotland was standing leant up against the jamb – Scotland with his regularly cut features, square jaw, and broad fucking shoulders – watching them with a vaguely amused smile.

His thoughts temporarily drifting a little unmoored in his own history, Wales forgot for a moment that neither he nor his brother were the same person that they had been in the fourteenth century, that their relationship had changed a great deal over the intervening years, and he found himself feeling just as deeply, horrifically embarrassed by Scotland's notice as he had then.

He didn't, however, forget himself so much that he slunk back, cowed, in the face of it as he had as a child. Instead, he barked out, "What the fuck do you want?"

Scotland gave him a puzzled look. "To tell France that one of his pans is bubbling over." He inclined his head slightly towards France, and said, "Mo chridhe, one of your pans is bubbling over."

France cursed loudly, threw down his brush, and then rushed off in the direction of the kitchen, leaving Wales and his guilt alone with Scotland.

"Sorry for snapping, brawd," he said, shifting uneasily in his chair. "I'm just… in a bit of a foul mood today."

"I didn't know you were capable of that sort of thing," Scotland said, his smile broadening into a grin.

Wales matched it. "It has been known on occasion."

Scotland nodded, and then slumped down on the edge of France's bed, legs splaying wide. After a moment's silent knee drumming, he tentatively asked, "Are you nervous about tonight?"

That seemed to be as good an explanation as any other Wales would be able to fabricate on such short notice. "A little," he said.

"Well, at least you don't have to worry about Grumpy Italy now," Scotland said. "I doubt he'll come sniffing around after that black eye I gave him last time."
-

---

-
The black eye, it turned out, did not protect Wales from another overture by Romano.

Leaving aside his disinclination to 'put himself out there' as France had exhorted him to, Wales had no desire to subject the undeserving to his foul mood, so he helped himself to a brimming glass of wine once the party wound its way up to full swing, found a secluded spot in the far corner of France's living room, and proceeded to try and make himself look as unobtrusive as possible.

Even so, he'd not even moped there for ten minutes before Romano emerged from the small crowd of nations gathered at the other end of the room, and then marched towards him.

Before he spoke, Wales' best guess was that he wanted to complain about Scotland's treatment of him back in December, but, surprisingly, he opened with, "You were right, I was trying to make him jealous," as though last few weeks had served as nothing more than a slight pause in their conversation.

"Oh," Wales said, and then, because the concept still baffled him even though he'd thought from the start that it was the most rational explanation for Romano's behaviour, added, "Why did you pick me?"

A faint blush crept across Romano's cheeks. "I'd heard about that whole dating thing you were doing with France, so I thought…" His mouth pinched closed, lips curling around the edges of his teeth as he swallowed back the rest of the sentence, and he finished instead with a lazy flip of his hand.

A flip of his hand, Wales was certain meant that he'd believed Wales must therefore be lonely and desperate enough that he'd be willing to forgive, or maybe even welcome, unsolicited lunging.

Yet another depressing thought to add to the pile of them he seemed to be collecting that night. "Right," he sighed out. "Have you ever thought that, maybe, you should just tell him how you feel?"

As he was predisposed towards distant, useless pining in nine out of ten cases of attraction himself – perhaps genetically so, taking into account his brothers' past conduct – Wales was aware that his advice was hypocritical, but hypocritical didn't mean that it was wrong. Knowing and doing were two entirely separate things, after all.

For a long moment, it appeared as though Romano wasn't going to say anything. His face crumpled in on itself, and he just glared at France's beautifully lacquered coffee table as though it represented everything that was wrong with the world.

Wales was just about to give up on him ever opening his mouth again, to make his excuses and his escape, when Romano finally and angrily blurted out, "You think I haven't tried? He just squeezes my cheeks, calls me cute, and sends me on my way again!"

Scanning the room beyond the stiff line of Romano's shoulders, Wales soon spotted Spain, next to the doorway to France's kitchen. He was, once again, engrossed in conversation with, and standing in extremely close proximity to, Belgium.

"He has always struck me as being a bit obtuse," Wales said. "Maybe you should just try a bit harder. Or," he added, after giving the matter a little more thought, "set your sights elsewhere. On someone you actually like this time. Things would probably just work out for the best on their own that way."

Romano huffed loudly, rolling his eyes, giving the impression that he considered the suggestion the stupidest one he had ever heard in his life. Stupid enough, in fact, that it sent him stomping back off the way he had come once more, as though he feared for the safety of his own brain cells if he kept on breathing the same air as the person who made it.

Almost immediately upon his departure – and whilst Wales was still attempting to process what the hell had just happened – France sidled over to take his place at Wales' side. He linked an arm with one of Wales', and then urged him forward with gentle but inescapable persistence.

When Wales reluctantly gave in and started moving, France leant in close and asked, "What were you talking about with Romano?" his voice so low that it was little more than a warm tickle of air against Wales' ear.

Before he had chance to reply, Wales noticed two things that changed the tenor of his eventual answer completely. One, that France hadn't intended for them to meander around the room as they talked but was in fact steering him quite deliberately towards Switzerland, and two, that Switzerland looked completely and utterly horrified to see them drawing near.

Wales' stomach and heart both sank to their absolute nadir, which, as it turned out, felt to lie at some point several feet below the highly polished floorboards.

Six months ago, before France's plan swung into loathsome action, most nations would have been hard-pressed to recognise Wales, much less remember his name. But now, it would appear, they actively dreaded his approach, even before exchanging any words with him.

Suddenly but very decidedly, he had enough. He didn't want to suffer through a single other awkward conversation, never mind another rejection.

In extremity, he could only think of one thing that might prevent France from inflicting him on poor Switzerland as he intended.

"We were talking about us," he said, rough and desperate. "About our relationship. What happened last year was just a misunderstanding. We worked through it, and now we're together. You know, dating."

Delight dawned over France's face, as bright and warm as the rising sun. He bracketed Wales' face with his hands and then kissed him soundly on both of his blazing cheeks.

"Ah, I'm happy for you, Cymru," France said, the same warmth threading through his voice. "Though," his smile twisted slightly awry, "I'm not sure Scotland would share the sentiment."

Wales was entirely sure that he wouldn't. ""We decided that it was probably if he doesn't find out for the time being," he said, lowering his voice in pretence of a secret shared. "Once he's calmed down over the whole Christmas party thing, I'll pick the right moment and let him know."

"You can trust that my lips will stay sealed until then," France said, just as quietly.

And Wales did trust him, because they had been bound in a conspiracy of silence before and Wales had kept his word then, never breathing a word of what they'd discussed regarding Scotland. France would probably consider it a favour returned to hold his peace now.

"Well," France continued in his normal tone, "I'm certain that there's other company you'd rather be keeping than mine. I'll leave you to it."

Watching France retreat with a broad, beaming smile and a spring in his step, Wales felt a pang of guilt for his deception, but it was a small one. He'd not only lifted France's mood along with the weight from his own shoulders, and he really couldn't have continued on the way he had been for much longer. He really was so very tired.

If he'd continued pushing himself to breaking point, he probably wouldn't have been able to satisfy both himself and France with so little ease, and no hard feelings on either side.

It took him only a handful of seconds, however, to realise that there was a huge flaw in his hastily-constructed plan; one that was likely to bring it crashing around his ears in short order.

He had to tell Romano about it before France had chance to – quietly and discreetly, no doubt – congratulate him too.

Knowing Spain's current position thankfully made Romano easy to find, and Wales quickly discovered him a few feet away from the other nation, lurking by a small sculpture that looked somewhat like a deconstructed food processor and trying to look like he wasn't eavesdropping on Spain and Belgium's conversation.

"If France asks, we're going out," Wales said without preamble as soon as drew near enough that he could reasonably be expected to heard at a whisper, because he didn't have a second to spare. France had already reached the drinks table and was almost within earshot himself. "You can consider it payback for attacking me with your lips at the pub last year, if you like."

Romano blinked confusedly. "Why would he ask that?"

"Because I'm sick of being set up on dates, and told him we were. I'm hoping he'll give me a bit of breathing space now."

Romano's expression turned speculative. "Can I tell Spain the same thing?"

It seemed only fair that he could, and also more likely that he'd make sure to play along with France if he were getting something out of the arrangement, too. "If you want, but only if you tell him to keep it to himself. I don't want my brother getting wind of anything." Romano's wince suggested he fully understood the reason for that stipulation. "And," Wales added, very firmly because he wanted to be sure that there definitely wouldn't be any future misunderstandings, "just so long as you never kiss me again to try and prove it."