"All love shifts and changes. I don't know if you can be wholeheartedly in love all the time."
Julie Andrews
The meeting between the European nations had finished sooner than expected, so France and England took the chance to come back to their hotel room to clean up and change before heading to dinner.
As soon as he crossed the threshold, Arthur rushed towards the bathroom, claiming to have the divine right par excellence to have the shower first, so Francis just sighed and went to choose the clothes he would have worn that evening, and by the time Arthur got out of the bathroom, wrapped in a cloud of stream and a big towel, Francis had already put them on.
"What do you think about today's meeting?" England asked him, falling down on the bed feeling slightly fatigued, but relaxed, after having soaked in the hot water.
"That we have you to thank for managing to get something done. If you hadn't separated Greece and Turkey, we would still be there." France said, only to cast a glance to the English.
"But the next time you decide to scare the crap out of us by behaving like you're still a pirate, please warn me before, understood?"
"How come?" Arthur said, with a smirk not much reassuring that echoed what had happened before. –I thought you found pirates to be sexy!"
"Not when you're surrounded by that sadistic and murderous air. You made Antonio burst into tears!"
"Right… Spain hid under the table blubbering!" Arthur laughed maliciously, thinking about that really fulfilling show.
"Sometimes you make me wonder how the hell we managed to get together when you did nothing but rob me and my best friend." Was France's baffled comment as he combed his hair, every of his gesture observed greedily by the other.
"'Cause we were simply too violent for anyone to match us." Arthur whispered as he rolled on the bed, leaving the towel behind, until he laid on his back with his naked front facing Francis; he stretched his arms towards Francis, who bent diligently, and carried on: "I was honest enough with myself to do what I wanted to do, while you tried to save the appearances… Do you remember when we used to get drunk and spend the night in some dodgy tavern?"
Arthur darted out of France's reach, smirking at his expression of open disapproval. –How it was to let yourself go and be yourself?"
Instead of reply, Francis looked out of the window and at the sky behind it, and asked, as much to himself as to the other: "How is it possible that we, who were so ferocious and greedy for power, ended up like this? Look at us! It's like we're living on our memories and nothing more! Once we would have been at each other's throat, while now we don't do anything else than tease and mock the other!"
The answer he got showed that he wasn't the only one who had thought about it: "We simply changed, that's all. Back then I wouldn't have trusted you enough to let you come near me... If not for bending you over the closest surface and fuck you senseless."
France thought about it, and he laughed: "Call me masochist, but I miss that time."
" You know what then? Dinner be damned! We'll go straight back to London and jump on my boat, and we'll disappear on the high seas for some time in honor of good old days!"
Francis stared at Arthur, diligent, serious old Arthur, who was proposing him to run away from everything and everyone, but then a smirk twin of England's one deleted his dismayed expression: anyway, that had been the last meeting, so they could get a little holyday, couldn't they?
He laughed again, a lustful glow in his eyes: "I can't wait to see how English pirates treat their prisoners, Capitan Kirkland."