If this was a songfic, though, it'd totally be 'Seaside Rendezvous' by Queen. Or 'Mr. Jones' by the Talking Heads.
...I'm joking.
...a little.
SakuraMoriChan: Thanks! =) Well, what's fan fiction for but to extrapolate ridiculous suppositions about characters and have too much fun doing it! Ah, but is it only a friendship fic? Only if you want it to be~
Zeplerfer: Thank you! :D Your reviews always make me so happy.
"Susurrus" is a swift, silent, sneakily sibilant word, and one of those beautifully onomatopoeic words one cannot help but use.
You make some excellent points-I've been eyeing that summary askance but without anything better in mind, and your idea is much better ^^ As for the strolling thing, I would agree that "stroll" is a bit too slow for America-but "race" to me sounds a bit too fast (if such a thing is possible with him). How about "dance" instead? Swift yet merry, ja?
The poor (not) TSA gets so much flak that I had to give them *something* nice to do-even if it's obstructing proper paperworking. ^^
He quickly shook such thoughts from his mind like muddy water from a dog's coat. America was a cheerful person by nature, and his occasional bouts of melancholy were less depression than compression, springing him back easily to his natural good humor. Angsty, artsy-fartsy flicks were really more a European kind of thing; he much preferred explosions and cheesy romance and—above all—happy endings.
America wouldn't be America if he couldn't ignore, compartmentalize, or outright forget things he didn't want to think about, to persuade himself to get bored of them just that little bit faster. He just gave his natural cycle a push; even melancholy got tedious after a while, after all, and before long even a well-deserved moping would begin to feel a bit silly. He couldn't comprehend how England managed to be so grumpy, so gloomy, so…Byronic all the dang time.
Sometimes America thought it was because he couldn't grow bored like America could. That he kept clinging on in sheer bloody-mindedness to the scarlet tatters of his past and his over-darned shreds of dignity, fighting in the streets and beaches and hills and fields beyond the point of rescue or hope or sanity, grasping grudges and anger and revolutions long past their expiration dates.
What a pair they made, England clutching too tight as America released too soon.
~o~
"What are you grinning about?" said England, breaking him out of his thoughts.
America tilted his head back to look at the back of his fair head where it bent over his book. "What makes you think I'm grinning? You can't even see me from there. For all you know I'm thinking about burgers with E. coli or the transient nature of life or how boring you are or something equally depressing."
"Because, you impertinent git, I can feel it from here," came the unruffled answer. "Feels like a sodding second sun. Do try to dim it down, will you? I'd prefer not to get too sunburned today."
"If you deigned to venture out of your gloomy mansion and into the sunlight once in a while, my dear vampire, you wouldn't have this problem," America drawled, attempting to mimic England's accent. He sounded rather posh, if he did say so himself.
"I should think not. I'd hate to sparkle tastelessly and have teenage girls throw themselves at my immortal feet."
America pouted. "Hey, man, I thought we agreed never to mention those. You pinky-swore and everything!"
"Indeed. You promised not to try to speak in any of my accents, and I promised not to mention those-books-that-are-not-to-be-named."
America sighed. "Fine, fine. You're no fun."
"Yes, I'm no fun and old and fusty and boring. Just don't try Cockney."
~o~
But despite all evidence otherwise, he wasn't. And that was annoying beyond belief.
America had been overwhelmingly relieved when Russia finally broke eye contact and ended their chilly half-century staring contest, because—despite the fact that the fate of the entire world was at stake—he'd been bored stiff by the whole business by the second decade in.
It'd been the same with Korea, Vietnam, even the current Middle Eastern brawl; bored even as he fought, killed, died, and killed again. Even the new toys his military gave him sometimes got old fast.
But England…England had fascinated him for centuries, and it made no sense at all.
It wasn't as if England was objectively all that interesting, which made it even worse. With say, Prussia, one could never quite predict what hilarious lunacy the guy might pull out of nowhere, and Russia was the same in his own…special…way. But England? No. By all rights England should have been boring as France always said he was.
He had England's morning and afternoon tea rituals timed down to the second (and, sheesh, he said America was overly religious). He could write a dictionary on the seemingly hundreds of different British synonyms for 'idiot,' and when the other's temper snapped America could recite in harmony his many rants against Americans, the French, the E.U., the U.N., the universe, and the vastly inferior alcohol one got these days.
He could identify what type of tea England had for breakfast just by the way he smelled, and boy had that been a weird discovery to make at six a.m. when England had taken his chair next to him at a meeting and his bleary mind had commented Huh, Darjeeling today. Must have dreamed about sailing again. Especially considering he'd never touched the stuff himself after 1773.
By all that was deep-fried and smothered in chocolate, he was pretty sure he had England's jousting technique pinned down, and he'd never even seen him so much as pick up a lance (despite many Renaissance Faires spent full of entreaties on his part).
Not that this was creepy or anything, jeez, it's not like he stalked him like some kind of Belarus or anything, okay? This was a matter of national security. Admittedly, it hadn't made America feel any more secure, but he was sure it was only a matter of time before his reconnaissance paid off. In the meantime, he had an excellent view whenever England attempted to program his DVR, and if that wasn't worth popcorn and an upload to the internet, he didn't know what was.
He'd memorized—almost without meaning to—every cynical brow-raise and gentlemanly snort of disbelief, every drunken flush and disapproving look, every barely-restrained snarl of fury or hidden smile, every finger-twitch in search of a neck to throttle or bottle-neck to smash against a bar-top. Hell, when it came down to it he thought he might know England's face better than his own.
America knew just how he'd pretend to relax his shoulders when he was in pain and refused to show it, the way he'd tilt his head when he was listening to his magical hallucinations, the slight difference in how he resettled his tie that was all that distinguished between America's being an annoying git and America's being an amusing git, the way when someone was trying to press him his left hand would angle ever so slightly inward towards the hidden knife he used to wear in his belt buckle.
He knew—
—and that was just it, wasn't it? He knew. And by all rights that should have been enough. He should have gotten bored ages ago, mentally wandered off on his itinerant way in search of new entertainment, new horizons, new Englands.
Yet in a complete reversal of all that was natural, here he was, not bored out of his mind and completely driven out his mind about it.
He'd tried everything, over the years. He kept within his own hemisphere for a century, and not only because he was of the firm (and not unsubstantiated) opinion that all Europeans were complete jerks. When that didn't work, he—through a series of completely unsuspicious coincidences—managed to trap himself and England in his Montana home for over two months in the dead of winter in the hopes of overexposure dulling his interest. While that particular experience had been very intriguing in a number of ways (for example, he discovered what happened when an Englishman got cabin fever), it hadn't made England as boring as he rightfully should have been.
It was—not terrifying, not in the least—unsettling to have such an anomaly in his life, and if he was smart he should've just stayed away until whatever-it-was died or, better yet, got bored itself and left.
But England was an exception, always was, and America had the not-as-horrifying-as-it-should-have-been feeling that he always would be.
And, really, there was only one conclusion a red-blooded American male could reach from that.
~o~
America's eyes snapped open as the shocking realization dawned.
He didn't know how, he didn't know why, but England was doing it on purpose.
"You!" he shouted, bolting upright.
England jerked up from his book, blinking in a way that betrayed how he'd actually been dozing. "Wha…?" he managed to get out, wiping away something that looked suspiciously like drool and squinting up at him through the sunlight.
America was not to be distracted by his devilish wiles. He thrust a stern finger in the other's face. "You! Stop being boring and not being boring!"
England stared at him.
America stared right back.
England blinked.
America refused to be cowed.
Finally, England broke. He gave a polite little cough, quirking one shaggy eyebrow hesitantly. "I…beg your pardon?"
"You heard me. Stop being boring and not being boring! Don't think I'm not onto your little tricks."
"Yes, I suppose I did hear what I thought I heard. It didn't make any more sense this time either. What are you on about?" And England must have been a much better actor than America thought, because he looked honestly confused.
Oh, he was good. But America was better.
America grinned the grin he used to wear when shooting down enemy planes, the one that got him into more scrapes than he could count and out of even more. It meant he was about to do something incredibly, stupidly risky but had every possible ounce of confidence he'd come out on top. The grin was rarely proven wrong.
England clearly found it familiar as well, because his seaglass-green eyes narrowed. "I know that look, what are you planning?"And before he caught onto America's ingenious plan, America seized his chance and threw England bodily over his shoulder.
"What—what the bloody hell are you—" his load sputtered, bright red, as America sprinted down the pier with a swiftness borne of desperation.
Realizing his goal all too quickly, England started yelling in earnest, struggling fruitlessly to escape. "No no no no I just got dry you idiot I'm wearing clothes put me down this instant or so help me I'll—"
America finally, blessedly reached the end of the pier and heaved.
And with a long, drawn-out cry of "Giiiiiiiiiit!" England flew out in graceful, flailing arc, hitting the water with an enormous splash.
He rose out of the water like Venus from the sea-foam or Halle Berry in that one Bond movie —if either of the ladies in question were clothed, sputtering, and looked like they couldn't decide whether to be stunned, amused, or utterly infuriated. So, no, not like Halle Berry or Venus at all. America felt vaguely cheated.
Nonetheless, he looked out sternly at the soaked, spluttering Englishman. "I hope you've learned your lesson, England!" he called. "I trust you'll be properly boring in the future." And with that he strode back to his towel, mission accomplished.
Oh yeah. Classic American ingenuity saves the day again.
~o~
"…the bloody hell just happened?"
I'd apologize for the excessive italics in this fic, but America just feels like he emphasizes stuff a lot, okay? That's just how his awesome mind works, dude. Dude.
The Boston Tea Party was in 1773.
Halle Berry is in Die Another Day, with Pierce Brosnan as Bond. Roman/Greek goddess of love Venus/Aphrodite was born from sea-foam in some myths (after some of Zeus's semen fell in the ocean…er, yep), and there's a famous painting by Botticelli called The Birth of Venus depicting it. Er, the rising out of the water bit, not the Zeus bit. Thank goodness.
It's a headcanon of mine that America enjoys trying to talk in various British accents—as with American actors trying to play British characters—but is really, really awful at it. It's another—for even less reason—that England is left-handed.
The inspiration for this fic was, unusually for me, nothing all that dramatic. I was simply driving home one day, mind drifting as mildly bored minds do on such trips, and it occurred to me that while in canon America clearly gets easily distracted and bored with just about everything, he never seems to tire of messing with England despite his insistence that the other nation is unutterably boring. After that, everything just fell into place—his character as a person, his character as a nation, even his crazy plans.
Like The Rain, Again, this is very much a character study and a relationship fic. What kind of relationship you'll have to decide for yourself, though, because I have an unhealthily codependent relationship with ambiguity-I MEAN-I'm very artsy and unknowable.
Anyway, thanks for reading!