…Wow, I'm not sure about this FFNet overhaul. Why now, after all these years, are they aligning everything to the centre instead of to the left? O.o And as for "book covers"… well, thanks but no thanks, FFNet. I'm so over your gimmicks by now.

So this… is none of my multi-chapters, hahaha. It's just some thing I wrote because I wanted to recycle some ideas from a few other stories I've written and develop them a little more, I suppose? One is an idea that I use a lot, the notion that nations are immortal in the sense that they can die but will revive again, undamaged, after a certain amount of time; however, this fic borrows most heavily from Crossfire, where nations changed a little bit every time they revived - it's taken to a more extreme level in this, however. Also borrowed is the idea of nations eating objects (though it was more like jewels/weaponry) from Solitaire and blood carrying language/history from Le Morte d'Arthur and Pangaea. I swear there was something from 1912 but I can't seem to see it now - or remember what it was - so maybe I didn't put it in. XD Also in here is something that isn't mine, though I have seen it floating about in the USUK fandom quite a few places and wanted to pilfer it: the idea of Arthur and Alfred wearing one of each other's dog tags with their own. I don't know who came with it originally but it's lovely and I hope it's okay that I borrowed it~

Nylon

It is all well and good to wrap Supermarine Spitfires in grease-proof paper and bury them in bits like so many bones of dead men (putrid remains in foreign soil to match the fates of generation after generation of Englishmen), after all, there must be many corners in many fields by now that are forever England and be glad, at least, that they are deep enough to give rest to stinking bones and Rolls Royce engines.

This has been the decision, more care given over those Rolls Royce engines lest they fall into the small, cruel hands of Honda Kiku; but fret not for the men, for they are expendable. Once more unto the breach, though they carry not the Cross of St George upon their breasts - but with England's name up on their lips all the same. He remembers Agincourt like a bloodied wash, layered through lifetimes, glory and frilled steel and those scarlet crosses, the upturned mud of boots and hooves, not tanks and machine guns, no, that came much later, they are only ever happy when they have Francis Bonnefoy by the throat gasping merci for mercy.

Ah, he muses as he turns over on his back, he does entertain some strange thoughts at the height of these fevers - it is well indeed to marry Shakespeare with shrapnel and Harry with hot, humid, hateful Burma, trying to knot all of himself together. Never before has he missed Britain quite as he does now, aches for the damp and the dreary and the sun's shy smile, the cobbles and old bricks and the moss between them, the need for the chill and thick tweed to shut it out, hot Oxo and wool and umbrellas. It is wet here, of course, but of the kind that means you are never dry, that makes equipment and shirts and skin rot away when you need them most.

"I think you have a fever." Alfred says it from the doorway of their shared tent, dripping sweat and bleached sunshine from glossed skin. He is filthy from the back-breaking work of performing the last rites of dismantled Spitfires. "Where the hell are the nurses?"

Arthur doesn't answer, squinting up at the nylon ceiling of the battered tent. He exhales and it rattles, labouring in his lungs.

"Are you thirsty?" Alfred sighs though his nose as him, throwing his shirt back on as he crosses the small tent to Arthur's bedside. "You need to keep hydrated, baby." He takes up the jug at the bedside, fumbling for the steel mug, too, which is hot to the touch. Kneeling, because he knows that Arthur cannot sit up, he gently loops his arm beneath his shoulders and lifts him enough to swallow; though Arthur drinks only a little of it before coughing and it comes back up, rust-tinted.

"Blood," Alfred says, and he pinches the bridge of his nose over the arc of his glasses for a moment. "…Is that what you need?"

"No, no," Arthur sighs gently, pressing his forehead to the crook of Alfred's elbow. "It… it doesn't help."

"It should." Alfred's tone is a little petulant, a little desperate, as though willing his faith into the words, begging Arthur not to upturn what he has been told. "It's… I mean, the blood of another nation-"

"Y-yes, of course, but…" Arthur smiles weakly. "I am so… so badly injured, Alfred…"

"Now stop talking like that, okay?" Alfred says sharply; he winces at his tone in the aftermath. Then, softer: "You'll be alright. Hey, Arty." He kisses Arthur on the forehead. "I'll look after you. You'll be fine."

"Of course I will. I'd… I'd like t-to see Death… try to carry me off for good." Arthur exhales shakily as Alfred gently lowers him back to the thin mattress. "But please… don't f-forget that-"

"No, I know." Alfred gives him a paper-thin smile, touching his cheek. "I would never forget that."

What he means is that there is less of Arthur still intact than there is of him missing. A human wouldn't have lived two minutes in this state; literally half of him, or something like it, with stiff coils of gleaming, dying entrails like grotesque confetti on the stained hospital sheets. It was a mine, probably. Arthur doesn't remember and everyone else with him was killed, blown into smaller bits still, and the salvaged eyeballs didn't see a thing. This is Burma - and it's bloody awful.

It is taking a very long time for him to die because his body - his immortal body, with skin stained in old inks that sing of prettier wars - can't believe it. Immortality is arrogant like that. Arthur isn't eating, perhaps trying to starve his body into rebooting, and Alfred can't make him, not even a handful of raisins. They both know he isn't worth saving, not like this. He drinks, though, because it's so hot that he can't help but open his mouth when Alfred guiltily tips the jug towards him. He takes a small offering of blood from Alfred's palm once, which gives him strength enough to roll over, but refuses the plea of a single drop more.

It is a gruesome game, waiting and waiting for his proud body to at last admit defeat, and Alfred is exhausted with nursing Arthur even though he does not demand much; it is tiring because he loves him and it hurts to watch him die, knowing what he knows. He sleeps on the floor in the empty medical tent at Arthur's side. There are no other injured men, not any more.

Nonetheless, Arthur's body insists that they cannot be losing.

Some days later, the British are dealt a crushing defeat in Cyprus. Arthur coughs out his relief as he at last expires and Alfred, teasing moths into his candle flame, leans across to throw the filthy sheet over him completely.

"Took you damn long enough," he says, going back to his body count; eight moths and counting, here comes another, they are like a ghostly little Luftwaffe.

His voice trembles as he says it. He knows the feeling.

These George Washingtons, these Winston Churchills, they are simply too good at their job.

It's a new thing, made on machines; strong enough to carry pilots to safety if the wind is right and cheaper than silk. It shelters their men and binds wounds and shrouds bodies. They invented it together so it bears both of their names, gold-dust in a war which bears both of their names, too. A shame, then, to have muddied London, to have bloodied New York, to have borrowed them for the battlefield. At this rate, there will be nothing to go home to.

Alfred has a scrap of a parachute for a blanket, not that he needs it in this heat. It's more for comfort and to keep the mosquitoes away. Mosquitoes die when they bite nations, an occupational hazard, but it itches all the same; Alfred wakes every morning with dead bastards not two inches from where they drank of him. Serves them right: some chemicals just aren't for drinking and history is one of them.

Not for mortal beings, anyway.

For three nights he has kept vigil over Arthur's corpse because soon enough it will be nothing of the sort and he will be blind and hungry and ignorant. His body breathes and repairs beneath a shroud of old-new-nylon and doesn't have the sick-sweet stench that the other gravesites do. Alfred wonders vaguely one night, watching a mosquito die-trying to get out of the tent, what Arthur would do if he woke up buried. It has happened before to more nations than would care to admit it because humans are so set in their ways. It's good to have another nation, better yet two or three, around if you're in a war so that someone makes sure you're not chucked into the dead pit.

Alfred gathers for him, wondering how long it will take. The Allies are winning but the damage from the shell was horrendous. It could be a week, maybe more. They haven't moved in so long, not even an inch into Burmese brush, that all the days and nights blend into one anyway. He isn't sure how many nights, in the end, but at some dark sticky time in the morning, over the buzz of tiny kamikazes, he does eventually feel Arthur on top of him. This is usual: in the way of revived nations, Arthur will not know who he is, will not even know his own name, but he will sense others like him and go to them. He can barely move - he needs strength, of course, and language, too.

Alfred runs a red smile over his palm and lets him drink without death, lying very still. He has the stash ready for the occasion because he can't risk Arthur smelling those Spitfires and digging them up. Arthur rolls off him, though, and slithers away before he can catch him, slipping boneless into the night. Alfred throws off the sweated nylon and fumbles with his uniform, still wrestling one leg into his pants as he scrambles out of the tent. He can't be too loud, he knows, but he hisses for Arthur across the camp. Arthur, bee-lining for the Spitfire graveyard, stops and looks at him with suspicion.

"I have food for you," Alfred says urgently, approaching him. He takes Arthur's wrist. "Come on, back this way." Resistance. "Arthur, come on."

"Arthur," Arthur repeats warily, testing out the word.

"Your name." Alfred knows he cannot get impatient or lump-throated yet. "Like… like the king."

"Hm," says Arthur, as though he doesn't think much of this king or his Round Table.

Well, Alfred soothes himself, perhaps it is too early to assume the worst. He unearths his treasure trove, this too wrapped safe in nylon, and presents it to Arthur, who looks it over in disinterest. There's a little bit of a Spitfire wreck, a battered old copy of Hard Times belonging to a soldier dead two weeks, a torn photo of Winston Churchill cut from a newspaper and a badge unpicked from another dead man's uniform, this one embroidered with the lion and the unicorn.

"No meat," Arthur says with conviction.

"You are the most recent to die," Alfred replies tersely. "In this heat, it would be more maggots than anything else. Besides…" He swallows angrily, the newness sharply-honed already. This Arthur seems unpleasant. "The men are not meat."

"Two bites of a countryman's flesh would do a better job than this souvenir collection - that much I know."

"I don't care - this is the best I could find." Alfred throws the book at him. "Eat it. Don't eat it. The first would be more useful."

Arthur does eat, though not with much relish; every now and then he looks towards the buried Spitfires with longing.

"You told me to bury them," Alfred snaps. "To stop Kiku getting them."

"I don't recall," Arthur says lightly, chewing the burnt tail scrap he has to satisfy his appetite instead. "I want one."

"You're not having one."

Arthur gives him an ugly look and falls silent. His history fills him up again as he eats, cluttering every inch of him with memories that aren't really his, they were experienced by other Arthurs of other times who have long since died in old wars.

[Two days before Arthur died, Alfred knelt beside his bed and took his limp hand and pressed it to his cheek.

"I'd rather you didn't die, Art," he said in a tiny voice. "I really… Can't you just… get better?"

Arthur smiled weakly at him, squeezing his fingers.

"You won't lose me, Alfred."

Alfred only closed his eyes.

"God, Arty, you can't promise that at all."]

He's gone, Alfred realises. He looks at Arthur - or, rather, at England - and knows that his Arthur is gone. This new-birthed one will have the memories, of course, of everything that England has ever experienced now that he has eaten of his history; but his personality will be different and so will his emotions.

It is likely that he will no longer love Alfred.

Alfred himself has died four times; two of his personalities have loved two of Arthur's, the child and the bomber pilot who emerged after the bitter reclusive Civil War vet finally met his maker over the Rhine in 1942. Arthur has had more deaths and personalities than Alfred can keep track of and they have only been compatible twice, once with a maternal bond and once rather more intimately, war and close-quarters making lovers out of them once they'd died in a trench in 1918 and the burning wreck of a B-52.

It is very rare indeed for a nation to revive with the same personality and Alfred knows, despite Arthur's feeble promise, that he has indeed lost him, that wonderful muck-in, black-humoured, irrepressible man that Alfred couldn't help but be smitten with only five minutes after bunking in with him at Duxford. That Arthur had been Churchill's favourite, too - because he had been the one to stand up to a certain unpleasant version of Ludwig. Other greedier or more complacent Arthurs, both of which have existed, might not have bothered.

Arthur finishes his sparse meal of scraps and lies back on the dusty ground to look up at the clear sky; his new-healed skin is starting glisten with sweat already. His uniform is the old one, grubby and tattered; Alfred has watched it get worse for wear over the past six months, felt its fraying seams beneath his hands. The lump bobs in his throat again.

"Art," he whines softly, lying down next to him. "Arty."

"Don't call me that," Arthur says icily, closing his eyes. "He's gone, you little prick, and I shan't be shagging you in his place."

Alfred closes his eyes, the sigh seeping out of him; it is crushing, this realisation, and exhausting - but not unexpected. He does his best to swallow. His eyes sting and he squeezes them tight for a moment. His Arthur, his lover, has vanished, a casualty of Burmese guerrilla like so many others and his body inhabited by someone else so that it would be poor form for Alfred to mourn him. He bites his bottom lip and exhales, the dust pluming under his sticky cheek.

"I'll still love him," he says quietly. "I can't… I can't not just because-"

"I know," Arthur interrupts sharply. "I suppose I can't stop you." He holds up a hand above his head, flexing his thin fingers to watch the bones dance, centuries-old and yet new to him. "But this is my body now and I don't want any of it."

"Yeah." Alfred breathes out. There is nothing else he can say to persuade him otherwise, he knows. He cannot force him to be the one before him. "Okay."

"Good." Arthur sits up, fishing inside his torn shirt collar. "I'm glad that's settled - I wouldn't want there to be any confusion. You can sodding well take this back while we're at it." He pulls out his dog tags with a merry jangling, unclipping the lower one on its smaller chain and tossing it carelessly towards Alfred. He holds out his open hand. "Give me mine."

Alfred is quiet for a moment, reaching for the little shard of metal and turning it over to see the words slither in silver: his name, his blood type, his army serial number, all the little details that go with the adopted human name of Alfred F Jones. Arthur has had this around his neck, clattering close alongside his own, for two years. It was a stupid thing like sweetheart rings, something to look at when another day was drawing to a close and they had survived, a way to be together that didn't really work. Alfred, admittedly, hadn't even expected Arthur to agree to it, surprised when Arthur hurriedly unclasped his own and pressed it into his palm that morning he was leaving for his first day raid over Berlin in April '42. He knows all of Arthur's information by heart now, all of the letters and numbers that won't change no matter how many times he dies.

"You don't need it," Alfred says forlornly. "It's all I have left of him." He can feel both of them clammy against his chest. "Let me keep it, you heartless fucker."

"What if my head gets blown off?" Arthur asks idly.

"I hope it does."

Arthur seems amused for a second or two before giving an impatient huff.

"Fine, I'll get another - I suppose I don't want it if you've been wearing it for twenty-seven months straight, anyway." Arthur rises. "But I'm not wearing yours." He stretches out, his reformed bones popping; Alfred opens one eye to watch the arch of his thin back with longing as he closes his hand around his own tag and slips it into his pocket, retreating.

"Thank you for the museum exhibition," Arthur goes on dryly. "I know who I am, at least."

"I prefer who you were," Alfred mutters. He rolls onto his back. "You'll never wear that skin the way he did."

Arthur simply snorts.

"Don't be pathetic," he says icily. "Pining after a lover like a bloody human - I'm still alive, after all. Can't you just be satisfied with that, you stupid bastard?"

Alfred smirks, though there is absolutely no humour in it.

"I can never be satisfied with you now, Arthur. I'm afraid I've seen the best of you."

"A shame." There is a pause - and then Alfred feels Arthur's dry dusty boot press against his throat. "Shall I just put you out of your misery, then?"

Alfred opens his eyes and looks up at him; at this new man in an old man's body, newborn into an ageless shell, with those familiar green eyes and thicket of wheat-blonde hair and hands that cradled him when he was small and have since grown more intimate (though they sit at his hips now).

Arthur is dead. There is no denying it, not in a war like this. He could be dead again by this time tomorrow and some other cocktail of a personification wearing the corpse instead; and the same can be spoken for Alfred. Nothing is safe anymore.

"You can't win this war without me," Alfred says, meeting his gaze. "You know that, too. Science, baby. That's how we're gonna do it and the harsh truth is that you're nothing without me. You haven't a hope in Hell of winning."

Arthur rolls his eyes.

"This isn't my war," he replies blithely, uncharacteristically, "so I don't care."

"Well, god damn," Alfred says cheerfully as he steps down from the Jeep, tugging at his shirt collar, "it's hot as Hell here, isn't it?"

"Ha," Arthur answers dryly, "I've been here three months."

Alfred beams at him and pulls him in for a kiss; it's only eleven in the morning, or thereabouts, and already Arthur is damp with sweat, Alfred can feel it through his issue shirt. Arthur drops his clipboard to wrap his arms around Alfred's neck and Alfred grins into the kiss, their first in almost four months - little x's on the bottom of letters just doesn't do the trick - lifting him a bit to sit him on the edge of the Jeep's passenger seat.

"Ah, no, wait a moment, Alfred-" Arthur pulls back with a short little laugh which aborts into something of a yelp as Alfred tips him to sprawl ungracefully across the front seats of the Jeep. "Alfred, no… Alfred!" Arthur pushes half-heartedly at him as he clambers on top of him. "Get off me - I need to take down the inventory and make sure you stingy buggers brought us everything I asked for."

"I brought you everything you asked for and more, baby," Alfred coos sweetly; he props himself up on one elbow and reaches over the front seats to the open back, grabbing a handful of white and tugging it through the gap. "Check this out - brand new parachutes!"

"Silk?" Arthur reaches up to touch it curiously. "Oh, wait… it's-"

"Nylon," Alfred says happily. "It's stronger and cheaper - and think of all the silk we'll save for stockings! That oughta keep the girls happy, right?"

"I think winning the bloody war might keep the girls happier," Arthur says flatly.

"Well, we're working on that too." Alfred grins, stressing the clean new material in his fist. "But seriously, we're making everything outta this stuff - parachutes, tents, tires, ropes, waterproof gear, you name it! Science is gonna win this war, Art, you'll see!"

Arthur grins up at him.

"Not history?"

"I think we're a little past that, huh?" Alfred pushes up his glasses, which are slipping down his nose already. "Christ, it's freaking hot! How do you stand it?"

"Not very well," Arthur admits. "I get very irritable in the afternoon, as a fair warning. The nights aren't much better - too hot to sleep sometimes."

"Ughhh." Alfred lays his head on Arthur's chest. "Good thing I can think of plenty of other things to spend our nights on, huh?"

"Might be too hot for that too, I must tell you."

"Nuh uh." Alfred exhales; he can feel Arthur's mismatched dog tags against his cheek through the thin shirt. Arthur pats fondly, though roughly, at his hair. "…Didja miss me?"

"What a silly question," Arthur sighs. "I miss you, of course I do - I miss everything. God, what I wouldn't give for Duxford in the pissing rain, you and I in that tiny shared room with those bloody bunk-beds, they shook like it was the Blitz every time you breathed and it was freezing in the January, do you remember? We'd wake up with frost on the insides of the windows and icicles on the taps." He exhales. "Lucky we had such novel ways of warming ourselves up, hmm?"

Alfred grins.

"I brought us a new tent," he says. "Nylon, still smells like new plastic. We'll be sharing it. New York and London spun together in a factory - will that do, baby?"

"I suppose it'll have to."

"Then it's a date?"

"Yes." Arthur gives him another little push, more committed this time. "But let me see how generous you've been for the men and then we'll see how generous I'll be tonight, hmm? I've a duty by them to see they have this little part of Hell we call Burma well-furnished."

Alfred lets him up with an amused smirk, watching him hop down from the Jeep and pick up his discarded clipboard.

"How… democratic," he says. "Whatever would His Lordship The British Empire say?"

"I don't think he'd be very happy," Arthur admits; though he gives Alfred a wry up-and-down. "And I do so wonder what Mr Isolationist United States would say to you coming out here to bring me nylon tents and parachutes made in your factories, all at no charge whatsoever because you're up to the neck in it, too."

"He'd spit blood," Alfred chirps. He swings down from the Jeep and loops his arm around Arthur's shoulders. "What can I say, Arty?" He gives him a kiss on the cheek as he begins to lead him round the back of the Jeep to show him the haul. Arthur smiles; he won't say much more than this, Alfred knows, but he's delighted to see him.

"You and I bring out the best in each other," Alfred goes on, pulling off the canvas sheet to let the blazing sun glitter over the spoil of new nylon. "Together we are strong."

I thought the idea of them literally getting a new personality every time they die/revive was interesting in a historical sense given that some of the characters in Hetalia, in accordance with history itself, have very different personalities depending on the time period; England in particular, even in the canon, has a very erratic character which ranges from grumpy anti-social child to pirate-who-torments-Spain-for-fun to surrogate parent to little America to twentieth/twenty-first century tsundere. It almost is as though he's had at least five different personalities over the course of the series - and I think America is an interesting one, too, given that he seems to have... regressed, almost? He seems more intelligent when he's younger than he does in the moderner segments, bless him. XD Oh, well, thank god for Romano's consistency, at least: he's always angry.

'Nylon' is indeed a portmanteau of 'New York' and 'London', or at least that's one of the most famous rumours; it was first developed in 1935 and though silk was more in use at the start of the war, by the end almost everything was made from nylon!

In Burma during the war, the Allies stationed there received twenty brand new Supermarine Spitfires, which they then wrapped in greaseproof paper and buried, still in their transport crates, to stop the Japanese from getting them. Notably, it was Americans who seemed to do most of the burying - the reason we know about the Spitfires at all is because some American veterans mentioned having buried Spitfires towards the end of the war. They were recently discovered thanks to the work of a determined British farmer, though apparently there is a bit of a dispute over ownership since the RAF just dumped them in Burma and the Burmese government isn't the easiest to negotiate with and blah blah blah… It would be cool if the UK could reclaim them, though, as there are very few WWII-era Spitfires that remain airworthy and the buried ones should still be in working condition with a bit of TLC!

Duxford was one of the main flying bases during the war, a sector station during the Battle of Britain and later host to the large influxes of American airmen after the USA joined the war, serving as a fighter airfield for P47 Thunderbolt squadrons. The airfield still remains for air shows and there is a branch of the Imperial War Museum, geared towards war aviation, on the site (worth a visit if you're in the area!).