A/N: Today is Remembrance Day. If you visit British Google (or any of the Commonwealth nations), you'll see a red poppy below the search. If you visit French Google (you may need to choose French language), you'll see a blue cornflower instead. It commemorates the end of WWI, at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918. The first Remembrance Day was observed 11 November, 1919, and was preceded the evening before by dinner between the King of England and the President of the French Republic. France would never fully recover from WWI before WWII began. I suggest listening to "Be Still" by The Fray or "In the Dark Places" by PJ Harvey with this fic.
Be Still (Nov. 10, 1919), a FrUK fic
by crashedtimemachine
Buckingham Palace, 10 November, 1919
"Do you need any help up the—"
"I've got it..."
"But the top step's a bit tricky an—"
"Angleterre, I can manage."
His firm tone gave England pause, and he stepped back to watch his old friend-what a funny word, that, when it can be used between them as easily asenemy could one hundred years before. France still bore a limp. He hadn't smiled all day, his face was pale, and his hair stringy and pulled back into a messy tail.
When he had arrived in Paris that morning, England had found France lying face down on the floor beside his bed, tangled in filthy bedsheets and stinking of cheap, sour wine. The ash tray on the bedside table was overflowing with soot and cigarette butts; some were stained red with lipstick, most were not, and England merely eyed it in disgust before dragging France into the bath without bothering to undress him. While he was being yelled at and insulted from the bathroom, he tried to make some kind of order out of the chaos of France's rooms.
It had been a year since the war ended, and yet he knew it still haunted France in his dreams. He awoke in the night from the terrors of phantom pains and inherited memories, and when England was nearby, he would sit up with France for hours, holding his hand in the darkness and speaking soft nothings beside his ear (and promising with every breath to never tell a soul). With so many lost and wounded, and whole swathes of land still in ruins, there wasn't much anyone could do but watch and wait. And so a few nights a month, England watched and waited from France's bedroom rather than his own across the channel.
At least there he felt as though he were helping; at home, he merely felt like a war widow cast into mourning.
Not that he was.
A war widow, that is.
Or mourning for that matter.
France would recover—their kind always did—and until then, well...until then, it was England's duty to carry on to the best of his abilities and help France to keep up appearances. So he had dried France's body and forced him into a suit, and then the two of them had set off for London. Tomorrow, they would attend a ceremony of remembrance together (on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, and blast them all for wanting it to be so damned dramatic when there were lives on the line).
Downstairs, the king was having dinner with France's president, discussing recovery plans and dedicating themselves to new partnership in maintaining the French economy despite the costs and damages of the war.
In England's rooms, they had dinner together in near silence. It was all right; everything worth saying between them could be expressed with a glare or a smile or the bold reach of England's hand across the table and his fingers tucking a lock of France's hair behind his ear.
No words were needed.
They left their dinner half-eaten and England blew out the candles in the centerpiece as they retired to bed.
Lying side by side in the darkness, their shoulders aligned in tangent despite England's very large bed in which they certainly didn't have to touch. Sure that France would have already fallen asleep, England stared up into the darkness of the ceiling, searching for answers to questions he didn't know how to ask.
And then, France laced his fingers with England's.
And England rolled a bit to his side and pressed their foreheads together.
And he found all of the answers he needed.
..