So I finally rock up a week late with this, haha. This was due partly to having internet problems and also to being crushed to death by my back-burner of unfinished fics. Somebody please send help. T.T
So this is my annual horrible 4th July fic, which will be in two parts (ahahahahaha... ha). The title is one of the many repeated lines/themes from the incredible musical Hamilton. I am not late to Hamilton itself but I am surprisingly late to the APH-Hamilton mash-up scene (although UKUS parodies of 'You'll Be Back' write themselves). The title seems fitting given that: a.) this is a 4th July fic (or that was the intention); and b.) this story includes not only George Washington but also the $10 Founding Father himself. They are meant to be their historical selves, powdered wigs and all, but please feel free to imagine them as Lin-Manuel Miranda and Christopher Jackson if you wish. :3
...If you can stand to see America being so goddamn rude to them.
How Lucky We Are
[I]
Red makes him invisible.
He pushes through the doors of the inn and plunges into the crowd, breathless from the bitter wind beyond. The place is heaving, a favourite haunt of the Redcoats since the British took the town. England should know better than to lure him here.
Nobody pays him any heed as he passes by the bar. The dead man's coat, a little big in the shoulders, is a second skin, a reversible loyalty. England is the one who gave it to him, suggesting he use it for precisely this purpose. George Washington has no idea he has it.
He slips around the side of the bar and through the door, coming to the back stairway, poorly-lit with slanted beams. Another soldier is out here, his rifle propped against the wall, his attention decidedly elsewhere; America having to step quite delicately over the prostitute's skirts as he clambers up the staircase. His boots, thick with frozen mud, are heavy on the crooked wood. England will hear him coming a mile away. The landing is lit by a single blown-glass lantern, hanging by its leather sling from a hook in the ceiling. It flickers overhead like a dying sun, stretching out his shadow, his head halfway up the door at the far end. Here is his prize – and yet, as ever, he hesitates, hangs back, suddenly too afraid. Their meetings are arranged in letters, alluded to in vague detail for fear of interception, and he is always worried that it won't be England awaiting him.
He steels himself, stifling a breath behind his teeth, and strides towards the door. They'll know he was here, if it comes to it, he's left a trail of Boston-bred blood in his bootprints – they can follow them to the foot of the bed, traitor that he is. He's ready for a bayonet or a gun barrel. He doesn't even bleed.
His fingers barely brush the wood before the door creaks open. He sees the glint of green beyond, smells the bitter kick of European-branded tobacco. Must be something about all that going back and forth across the Atlantic.
"It's me," he breathes. "Just me."
"You are later than expected." England opens the door a little wider, just enough for America to slither through. "I was growing worried."
"My apologies. I came the long way around." America points to his boots as England shuts the door and locks it. "I could not risk being followed."
England nods, turning to him. "We are safe now." He draws him close, wrapping his arms about him. "Behind closed doors, where no prying eyes may judge."
America nods, cuddling close into his embrace. He misses this more than anything – the feel of his arms around him, the sound of his heart, the way he rubs at his hair. If he closes his eyes, he can forget about the war. It can be 1770 again, when everything was but a distant rumble and he was not a cause.
"You're trembling," England says close to his ear. "Cold?"
"A little bit." Truthfully, his fingers and toes are still numb from the walk. These wretched coats, red or blue, are sweltering in the summer and not nearly warm enough in the winter.
"Come here." England pulls away, leads him towards the fire. "Warm yourself."
America gratefully sinks to the floorboards before the flames, kicking off his boots to ease his frozen toes. England settles next to him.
"You have grown again," he says, observing America's long gangling legs in their muddied breeches. "Honestly, boy, you're akin to a weed."
"It must be all the fighting," America replies. "Perhaps it means that you are going to lose the war, England."
"Oh, don't talk such rot. Your lot haven't a hope between them."
America exhales, putting his head on England's shoulder. "I do hope not. What a mess."
"Fret not, poppet. You know how savage I can be."
"Do France and Prussia know?"
"Rather too well, I assure you. They are simply being opportunists about all this."
"I do fear that they suspect, you know," America says. "...You and I, I mean."
"Even if they do, it is not in their power to do much about it. It is almost impossible for one nation to harm another, at least with permanent consequences."
"And what about Washington? I think he might know, too."
"Well, it is even more difficult for a human. The best they can do is threaten, in my experience."
"In your experience? Who in their right mind would ever threaten you?"
"Oliver Cromwell. He told me he would have me beheaded alongside the king."
"He would not have dared. Surely he hadn't the authority."
"I did not care to find out, all the same. Humans are afraid of us, when it comes to it, and they will often resort to foolish measures to conquer what they fear."
"...Perhaps we are the ones being foolish." America watches the fire spit and curl. "There is no doubt... that this is treachery."
"That is what the humans would call it, yes."
"Well, we speak their languages, do we not?" America turns his head to look at him.
"Indeed." England takes his chin, tilts it up, kisses him. America leans in, aching for him, breathless for more when they part. "...In too many ways, one might argue." England rubs at his cheek with his thumb, affectionate, but America can feel the grit of dried mud beneath his touch.
"You really are lovely, you know," England goes on quietly. "It is no wonder that they are all so ready to die for you."
"I don't care." He's seen too many of them do it, perhaps. It no longer matters. He sheds his scarlet skin at last, tossing it aside. "Yours is the only devotion I want. Their petty grievances over tea, over taxes..." He takes England's hand, forcibly, no is not an answer, pulling him towards the bed. "What care I for that?"
"These are the petty grievances that make up this world, I'm afraid," England says. His coat is already discarded, sagging like a bloodied cloth on the back of the door. Sometimes it's hard to know what side he's on, either.
America wraps his arms about his neck, sinking backwards to the mattress, pulling him with him.
"Then shall we forget it all," he says savagely, "and go back to being earth and mud–"
"Oh, I think you're quite muddy enough as it is," England laughs, kissing his dirty cheek. "Enough of talk like that." Now a kiss on the mouth, lingering and gritty, America hanging around his neck. "Hush."
"I haven't got long to spare," America whispers against his mouth. "They will wonder where I am."
"I know." England unknots his cravat, undoes a few buttons, his mouth peeling over chilled bone. America turns his head aside to allow him the arch of his neck, sighing against his mouth. He can sense the heat of him already.
"France and Prussia fuck," he says, feeling him move down his body. "I can hear them at night."
"That is old news to me," England says. He begins to undo America's breeches, stiff with dried-in filth. "Did you fall on your arse?"
"Right in the mud, yes." America squirms, lifting his hips for England to pull them down. "I know you know. I was just saying."
England kisses the inside of his thigh, watching him tremble. "Why?"
A beat. "I-I envy them."
"Hm." Now a smile, locked in the heat between his legs. "They're not happy either, you know."
America looks up at the ceiling. "But what is it like," he wonders, "to not even care...?"
England takes him in, his arms wrapped about his thighs to anchor him so that he can't thrash. This all by the book – this is how he remembers it. He arches his back, pushing as far as he can into that wonderful wet warmth, that mouth he knows – that knows him, knows what he wants. This is something to hang on to for all he's worth. It almost makes him forget the hardness of the bed, the creak of the sagging wood, the scratch of caked mud pushed to his knees. If only he could. If only it was over – or never begun. If only they were home.
England lifts his head. "You're crying," he whispers. He pulls away, moves up, his eyes clouded with concern. "You are in pain? Injured?"
"N-no." America wipes fiercely at his face. "I-I am perfectly well, please... please don't–"
"Sshh." England gently kisses his forehead. "It's alright, it's..."
America begins to cry. "I don't want this," he sobs. "I don't want anything to do with it. I don't want to fight you, England." He clings and England gathers him up, holding him tight, aroused, half-naked, stinking of mud and dead men.
"I know you're afraid," England whispers in his ear. "Of course you are. You're so young and these men parade you like a flag for their own gain."
America clings to him, his face buried against his shoulder. "Please," he begs, "let us just run away – we can go to London, no-one need ever know– "
"We cannot run from this," England says. "Neither of us can."
"But I did not ask for this!"
"I know. That is the burden of what we are." England pulls back, holding him at arm's length, studying his blotchy face. "Listen – you may cry before me but you must never allow the humans to see you do it. Do you understand? They cannot be permitted to see how weak we truly are. They think us born of war, gluttons for it. Perhaps they think they're showing us a kindness."
"Th-then... is that all we are for? To stand in mud up to our knees and watch it happen–"
"You said that you did not care."
"I don't want to," America says, clenching his fists in England's shirt. "I don't want to."
"Then think not on it." England pushes him back against the bed – the mattress is hard as a board and there's a bit of a thud. "Remember what you came out here for."
They kiss; and America exhales and lets go, his fingers trembling, England moving down his body once more. He turns his head on the sour pillow and looks at the fire.
"I want to go home, England," he says.
England kisses his knee. "We will, America, I promise."
They both know, of course, that the house was burned to the ground in 1776.
He goes back the long way, too, crunching alone between the tall naked trees, the red coat bundled in his arms. There isn't much of a moon and there is no sound but for the crackle of his boots on the frigid ground. He isn't afraid – for what has he to fear from the land they would have him inherit? Bears, wolves, men in red coats... They wouldn't stand a chance.
The remains of their house is little more than a black skeleton of bricks and archways. He stands before it, his breath clouding in front of his face, watching. He cannot even begin to describe how much it hurts to look at it. For him, this was the beginning: not the massacre, not the tea party, not the declaration but this, the night he was dragged forcibly from his childhood home and made to watch as it went up in flames. England had been away fighting in North Carolina, oblivious, returning a month later to find America gone and the house destroyed. Cruelty for cruelty's sake.
He hides the red coat beneath the once-splendid doorway, now burned away to matchsticks, and takes out the blue one from its place instead. This is the best hideaway for the coat, really. Nobody ever comes here, not anymore. Sometimes at night he dreams that the war is over and he and England are rebuilding it, side-by-side in the sun. They are just as dirty as they are now, thick with mud and dust, but it's the good kind, the sort that doesn't come from destruction.
He gets back to the camp late. Most of the men are in their tents already, makeshift canvas things that don't keep out the rain. He doesn't have one to himself – he shares with Prussia and France, who screw loudly and obscenely barely three feet from him when they think he's asleep. He hopes that's what they're doing now so he can get in and undressed without them paying him much heed.
He doesn't get as far as the tent, however. A young soldier stops him with his rifle barely ten steps inside the camp.
"General Washington wishes to see you," he informs him.
Annoyed, America steps past the weapon. "It is late. I will go to him in the morning–"
"No, he insisted that it is quite urgent." Now the flash of a bayonet in his face. "He will not wait."
America scowls. "So be it." He stalks away towards Washington's tent, right at the back of the camp. This will not be good. He'll want to know where he's been, what he's been doing–
Who he's been doing, perhaps, which won't go down well at all.
The tent is still lit. Washington is waiting for him, even at this time of night. America clenches his fists and braces himself, stepping within. He finds the general with his back to him, poring over a map spread out on the desk. He isn't alone: Alexander Hamilton is at his own desk in the corner, writing. They both look up at his entrance.
"America," Washington says crisply, politely. "How kind of you to come."
"I was informed that it was a matter most urgent," America replies. He stops himself from bowing. It wouldn't do to be too sarcastic already.
Washington smiles coldly at him. He's had more than enough of him at this point, it is obvious. He idly runs his fingers over the trigger of his pistol, discarded on the desk. America rolls his eyes. Washington doesn't catch it but Hamilton does, watching him like a hawk. America doesn't like him much – he's too keen, too observant. He notices things. He's aware that America could kill him.
"I suppose I wouldn't call it urgent, as such," Washington says, arresting America's attention once more.
"Then you wish to know where I was."
Oh, wouldn't he like to know: being fondled, fingered, fucked by the enemy, lord, it'd make his powdered wig curl–
"I was not aware that you had even left the camp."
America says nothing. His eyes dart towards Hamilton again, daring, desperate, but the man looks down at his work. Aren't these the men so ready to die for him...?
"I was out scouting for Redcoats," he says flatly.
"There are men assigned to that duty."
"Yes," America agrees, "but I cannot be killed. There is no point in wasting good soldiers."
Washington nods. "That may be," he replies, "but I have need of you elsewhere. Your exceptional skills ought not to be wasted on keeping look-out." He beckons America to the map, pointing out a spot along the river. "I would like you to go on ahead to join Colonel Prescott's forces here. They have lost a lot of men already."
America exhales, giving a terse nod. He knows exactly why Washington is sending him away from Boston.
"When?" he asks sullenly.
"Tomorrow morning."
"You said it was not urgent."
"Well, I am not worried about you dying on the way there." Washington nods towards his aide. "Hamilton will be accompanying you."
To ensure that you don't run away.
America smiles coolly between them. "Well, it will be a change of pace. I look forward to it."
Washington seems guarded. Clearly he expected him to fuss and fight, wail that he wouldn't go. He has done it before but it doesn't bear much fruit in the end. He is smarter about it now. Besides, Hamilton will be easy to get away from (one way or another).
"Will that be all, general?" he asks politely.
"For now, yes. I will see you off myself on the morn." Washington's shrewd eyes narrow. "Oh, and... do make sure you are wearing the correct uniform. It would not do at all to have you in the wrong colour." A pause. "What a waste if you were to be shot."
Hamilton looks startled, looking to the general. "Sir–"
"If you mean to threaten me," America interrupts, "then you had better make good on it because you will not find me forgiving when all this is over."
"Threaten you?" Washington stays Hamilton with his hand, turning fully to America once more. "I think you are mistaken in your understanding. It is you who threatens us." He glances at Hamilton, straining out of his seat. "Alexander, I am sending you out into the wilderness with this creature. Perhaps I am sending you to your death."
Hamilton frowns. "Sir, with all due respect–"
"You think us monsters," America says savagely. He can feel the tears beginning to prick at his eyes and wipes fiercely at them. He must not let these men see. "You think us undeserving of the things you take for granted–"
"Perhaps so," Washington agrees coldly. "And you have yet to convince me otherwise." He turns away. "Goodnight."
America stands there for a moment, unable to speak, to move. He doesn't know what to do, watching Washington's back. He sees Hamilton get up at last. He doesn't know what he's going to do – come to him, comfort him, sidestep him completely, congratulate Washington on sentiment well-expressed, it's how they all feel, he'll never be one of them, he's better off on his back in England's bed after all–
He dashes out of the tent and sprints across the camp, running blindly to put as much distance between himself and Washington as possible. If Hamilton follows then he soon outruns him, darting between tents and trees until at last, breathless, he comes to his own quarters. It's already lit from within and he can smell wine and burnt meat. He pauses, panting, calming himself down, wiping at his face. He realises belatedly how wild his hair is. He forgot to comb it before leaving England – or, to be more precise, usually England does it for him. They are becoming sloppy, careless, complacent.
France and Prussia are entangled under twisted sheets in the same cot, almost asleep. Now he can smell the sex as well, stronger than the smoke. He scrunches his nose in disgust as France stirs and lifts his head from Prussia's pale shoulder.
"You have come crawling back at long last, I see," he drawls. "It is about time."
"I was with General Washington, if you must know," America snaps. He pulls off his coat and begins to undress. He aches in every way possible and can't wait to crawl into bed.
"All this time?" France smiles lazily at him. "You little liar."
"I hardly think it's any of your concern."
"I know where you were, Amérique. I am not an idiot." A pause, watching America take off his filthy shirt. "...How is dear Angleterre? I do hope he was not too miserable to, ah, attend to you–"
"Well, it is quite alright for you to make such comments!" America snaps, throwing his shirt at him. It lands on his head, covering him like a shroud. "Steuben personally sent Prussia here to help with the training of our troops and all you can think of doing is... is...!"
"Is what?" France pulls the shirt off, dangling it by one finger. "Precious boy – you can risk your life sneaking away to England for it but you cannot even bring yourself to utter the word. Those with Puritan hearts are always the worst." He smirks. "How delightful you must be beneath him. ...Of course, I need not go to him for details. I stress again that you are welcome in our bed at any time."
America recoils in revulsion. "I would never–"
"What the fuck is going on?" Prussia growls, at last raising himself, still half-asleep. He is unbelievably pale in the flickering light, a void in the dirty blankets. He is one of the borderline ones – he looks like he isn't human. "I am trying to sleep."
"Amérique has come back," France says. He kisses Prussia's shoulder, using teeth. "We all know where he has been."
Prussia snorts, putting his hand to France's matted hair, scrunching his white hand through it. There is genuine affection between them, plain to see. It's surprising, unsettling. They are both such opportunists, it doesn't seem right that they know how to love. They feel just as alien to him as Washington.
"You have a nerve to show me such disrespect," Prussia says, his scarlet eyes narrowing at America. "I came here to help you win this war. What secrets does he pry out of you when he's got your legs open? What plans, what positions–"
"We do not talk about the fighting," America says fiercely. "I go to him to forget all this wretchedness. We had a life here before all this."
"I had a life here, too," France says. "With Canada – before Angleterre took him from me. Perhaps you will recall that when we see Canada on the battlefield in red."
"That is not my fault!"
"Indeed." France tosses his shirt back at him. It drops in a bundle at his feet. "You stink of him."
"Unsurprising." Prussia sinks again and France goes with him. "Get into bed, you little slut."
America feels his face flush. "That is rich coming from you. Where is Spain tonight?"
"You misunderstand me," Prussia growls. "You think I mean promiscuity. Your problem is quite the opposite. You keep going back to England even though you really should know better by now." He buries his face against France's chest. "You are too stupid to be helped."
America looks at the back of his head for a moment – at his strange silvery hair matted with sweat and mud – and then his eyes drift upwards to meet those of France, who is unmoved.
"I thought you were kinder than this," America says, a little bit desperate. He sees how gently he holds Prussia – who doesn't need such tenderness.
"There is no point in being kind to you now, Amérique. You are more than glutted on it already. Now war does not come naturally to you." France shakes his head. "Such damage Angleterre has done to you, and with you so young... Perhaps this was his intention all along. That is why you go limping back to him again and again–"
"I love him." Defiant.
"Nations do not love." Dismissive.
"Well," America says hotly, "I am not a nation. I am a colony – his colony – and no piece of paper can transmute me from one to the other!"
"But a victory can," France says, settling again. He closes his eyes. "I think you are difficult just for the sake of it. You have learnt that from Angleterre, at least. ...Still, you should pay Washington greater heed."
America clenches his fists, feeling the grit of mud against his palms. "I will die before I will kneel to Washington."
"Oui," France sighs against Prussia's hair. "Perhaps you will."