Chapter 2: England Wrapped in Duct Tape, Dean Praying and Other Unnatural Disasters
Arthur Kirkland, also known as The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, awoke in the dark, tied up, and hungry enough to eat a cow, hooves and all. But before he could commence his hunt for an edible bovine, he needed to get out of the trunk of this car.
"France, if this is another one of your pranks I will kill you in your sleep with a dull spork and force-feed your remains to the kraken!" England snarled, ramming his bound feet into the trunk lid. "Just see if I won't, you bloody, insufferable, nudist Frog!"
The last few words of that sentence made England pause and check himself over, making sure he was still dressed, which he was. However, if was not in the clothes he remembered wearing… A little bit of contortion allowed him to peer at his chest. The miniscule amount of light which leaked in through the crack between the trunk lid and the car's bumper allowed him to see… Dammit. Dammit, dammit, BLOODY HELL DAMMIT! He was wearing a white toga, hemmed in gold embroidery. And the wings… they were rather uncomfortably pinned against the trunk's lid in this position, the feathers falling forward and tickling his face.
He was in Britannia Angel form. In a car's trunk. But… how? When he let Britannia Angel take over, he took the backseat in his own mind. But if he still had wings and a toga, why was he the one in control of his body? Panic began to trickle into his mind as he realized just what he had gotten himself into. His mind in Britannia Angel's body could only mean one thing, after all… He had been captured by hunters.
England returned to bashing his feet against the door, ignoring the creak of his sandals' leather straps as they protested the rough treatment. His wings fluttered behind him, straining against their bonds, the duct tape which held them pinned to his back pulling painfully at the feathers. The car, which, he realized, had been moving beneath him all this time, slowed to an abrupt halt. England, not being secured in any way other than the duct tape holding his ankles together and pinning his wings and arms to his sides, slammed into the trunk's lid with a painful crunch.
Outside, England could faintly hear the sound of two car doors opening and at least two pairs of feet tramping over to the trunk imprisoning England. Several voices conferred, seeming to grow more and more irritated with each other as the conversation went on. Finally, one voice cut the other off with an authoritative bark and with a click of a lock, the trunk was wrenched open.
England suddenly realized just how much he didn't want to be outside right now. The sun was positively blinding in this form. How the hell did Britannia Angel stand it? No one deserved to have senses this sensitive. The glaring sunlight outside the trunk was like being lanced in the eye, the sounds of cars on a distant road an unbearable racket, not to mention the god-awful smells clinging to the salvage yard his captors had parked in the middle of.
His captors… Hoping to distract from the horrible pain of the sunlight, England focused on the two young men staring down at him. Well, one was staring, the other was glaring. Suspiciously. As if England didn't already realize that they were hostile from the copious amounts of duct tape attached to his body, which was currently occupying a trunk. This was worse than that time he let the Americas drag him to Las Vegas… Right, he needed to learn as much about his captors as possible if he was going to escape this incredibly irritating situation, and get back to his regular, wingless body.
The shorter of the two men was certainly the most hostile. He had short, slightly scruffy brown hair, though not nearly as unruly as England's own mop. "You one of Raphael's flunkies?" he demanded, "Or are you a demon? Cuz I really don't like demons."
"Dean," the taller man, with long-ish light brown hair chastised the short, hostile one, "I'm pretty sure he's not a demon. That's not a human body."
'Dean' cocked an eyebrow at his companion, reached forward, and without preamble, grabbed one of England's wings and yanked on it, dragging England's torso upwards in the process, as the wings were pinned to his back by copious amounts of duct tape.
Suppressing a yelp of pain or indignation (that would have been embarrassing), England settled for glaring his harshest glare at the duo who had captured him. The tall fellow was now poking at the wing grasped in Dean's fist. "Are these real?" he asked inquisitively.
"Of course they're real, you bloody American gits," England growled, "They're attached to my body, aren't they?"
Neither hunter seemed all that interested in England's input. "What about this thing, it real too?" demanded Dean, grabbing England's halo, which always floated above his head while in this form, and shaking it. Something akin to full-body static shock flashed through the core of England's being at the feeling of a human manhandling his halo.
"BLOODY HELL!" he cursed, "Get your hands off my halo!"
His eyes must have glowed or something equally strange, because Dean dropped the halo quickly and jumped backward as if scalded, shaking the hand that had seconds ago been wrapped around the golden band. "Holy crap on a cracker! What the hell are you?"
England narrowed his eyes at this irritating human. "I am…" hmm, perhaps shouting his true identity at this pair of idiots was not a well thought out plan. He thought fast. "An angel of the lord." It was sort of true… After all, his boss was his lord, just not The Lord. He hoped he wouldn't get smited for this. He hadn't run into an angel since Elizabethan times, and the last encounter hadn't been pretty. Apparently the heavenly host thought England to have been mentally unstable. He thought this was massively unfair considering that he hadn't asked his boss to break with the Vatican and give him a religious identity crisis in the process. Honestly, Anne Boelyn was not that hot. But no one ever seemed to ask England's opinion on the matter. They just ran around wreaking havoc. It was extraordinarily irritating.
The dimwitted duo in front of him did not appear to be buying his 'angel of the lord' excuse. Huh, maybe they were smarted than they seemed. The tall one looked at the Dean, "Could he be?"
Dean looked almost as irritated as England felt. "Dude, how the hell would I know?"
The tall one shrugged, "You're the one with an angel on speed dial."
Wait, what? England did not like the sound of this. A pair of hunters who had actually seen an angel in person. They couldn't be… the next words out of Dean's mouth proved it.
"Fine, I'll call up Cas."
England couldn't resist his incredulity, "Cas? As in-?"
"Yup, Castiel, angel of the Lord and royal pain in my ass."
England flopped back into the trunk. 'Just bloody kill me now.' He thought. 'I got myself captured by the Winchesters and they're about to call down an angel that Britannia Angel managed to piss off the last time I let him take over.'
"You two almost ended the world," England growled, "You almost ended the fucking world. Do you know how hard you made my life the last few years?!" his voice climbed in volume as he continued to speak until the last few words were a roar.
"Yeah, about that…" Dean was rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly.
The tall one, who so far had remained nameless, sighed a long suffering sigh, "Dean, just call Cas."
Dean shrugged and slapped his hands together in a rough parody of a praying position, "Our angel, who art occasionally slumming in heaven, Castiel be thy name, thy feathery ass come, our will be done, here on earth instead of heaven. Forgive me for this stupid-ass prayer, as it was not my idea. Amen."
With the sound of muffled wingbeats (not so muffled for England, who still had Britannia Angel's heightened senses), a slightly scruffy man wearing a trenchcoat appeared behind the two hunters. "Dean. Sam." He said, voice low and gravelly.
Both hunters jumped in surprise and whipped around to face their heavenly guest. He simply stared levelly back at them. "Dean, your prayers border on the sacrilegious. You should attempt to curb your apparently innate urge to mock beings who far exceed you in power and strength."
"That takes all the fun out of it, Cas," Dean grinned and clapped the angel on the shoulder.
"Indeed," the angel deadpanned, a hint of reproachful sarcasm tingeing the words. He looked at the nation currently occupying the trunk and raised a single expressive eyebrow. "What is that thing in your trunk and why do all of you reek of witchcraft?"
England sighed. This was going to be long afternoon. "Castiel," he acknowledged the angelic visitor, "The Three are back."
The trenchcoat-wearing angel's gaze sharpened, "The what?" he asked; voice harsh and urgent.
"Yeah, the what?" Dean echoed, sounding less informed, but just as wary.
"The Three," England repeated himself. "Enter three witches. Double double, toil and trouble."
"Fire burn and cauldron bubble." Castiel's voice was grim.
"Something wicked this way comes?" the tall one, who must be 'Sam', finished, tone questioning, "Why are we quoting Shakespeare?"
"Because a few hundred years ago, Shakespeare sealed some nasty-ass stuff in his plays," a new voice commented from behind a pile of scrap. The crunch of heavy boots on gravel heralded the approach of one Bobby Singer, salvage yard owner and occasional fighter of evil. "And if the freakish thing in your trunk is any example, they're coming back with a vengeance." He rounded the corner holding a thick ancient book in both hands.
England furrowed his brows at the offensive comment. Sitting up in the trunk he leveled a harsh stare at Bobby, "Who the bloody shodding hell are you calling a 'freakish thing', you wanker?" he demanded.
Bobby raised his eyebrows a tiny, ironic fraction, "Well, lookie here, Dean, you've managed to catch something with a worse mouth on it than you." He turned his attention back on England. "What the hell are you and why the hell do you have wings? Don't you know that went out of style months ago? The angels these days wear trenchcoats and bad attitudes."
Castiel glanced at Dean, "Should I take offence to that?" he asked mildly.
Sam shook his head, "No more than usual, Cas."
The angel looked placated.
England sighed. "I may have mislead you. A bit. A lot. I lie. It happens. Ask my handful of friends. I'm not an honest person."
"So, you're a demon?" Sam asked.
Cas spoke at the same time as his human companion, "So, you're a human?"
England raised his eyes heavenward, belatedly realizing that praying for patience wasn't worth much when an angel was standing in front of him. Oh well, he had no freaking clue if he was Protestant or Catholic anyway. Any prayers he made would probably be nothing but gibberish. Dropping his gaze back to the quartet standing before him, England announced, in as level a tone as possible, "I'm a shodding country. I am the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. I am the one who trapped the witches in Shakespeare's writing to begin with. I am the only chance you have to catch them again. So, for the love of tea, scones and all else that is holy, would you get this bloody duct tape off my wings and let me out of this damn trunk so I can change back to my normal form!"
The three humans in front of him blinked in surprise in nearly the exact same instant. Castiel was the only one who managed to articulate anything, "I am fairly certain that tea and scones are not holy," he said, completely seriously.
England wondered how far he would make it if he rolled out of the trunk and started hopping toward Washington DC. As it was, negotiations with this group did not look promising.
Author's Note: I just realized that I haven't been doing author's notes on this story. I am very sorry, I will make more of an effort to talk to you in the future! First off, I am so sorry that it took me so long to update this. What can I say? School and life and craziness got in the way and I turned around and realized that I hadn't updated this story in over two weeks.
So how about that plot? It's starting to appear… right? Have no fear, the lovely Amelia will be making an appearance soon, and the connection between Britannia Angel and the angels as well as the story of the Three Witches will soon be explained. Anyone guess what play I got them from…? (I tried to make it as obvious as possible). If any of you have read my (as of yet incomplete) fic 'Rust and Pixie Dust' you will know that I like my Shakespeare references, so look forward to the witches. I just hope I can do them justice…
Please REVIEW! I love, love LOVE to hear from readers, so please review. I'll try to make chapter updates closer together in the future… See you next chapter!
