A/N - Hi again, guys~ Ready for some more America in your daily dose of Cuba/England?


15 July 2009, Hotel Inglaterra

It was late afternoon, and England had been sitting in his hotel room staring at his mobile phone for fifteen minutes straight now, biting his lip, hand hovering over the call button. The screen had turned off a long time ago, but England knew that once he pressed the button, America's name would appear on the screen, selected in his contact list. He wondered if it said something about him as a person that he had never hesitated to lead his soldiers into battle, but it was taking him a considerable amount of time to get up the nerve to make one single phone call.

Earlier, after the sun had risen above the horizon, Cuba had walked England back to the hotel, accompanying him all the way to his hotel room before leaving to go to work. England had promptly gone back to bed, and it was only after he had woken up at a reasonable hour that he had started to suspect that the real reason why Cuba had woken him so early was so that they could spend some time together before he buried himself in paperwork. He had also given England a kiss goodbye, and the easy familiarity of the gesture played on England's mind, making him wonder not for the first time about the nature of their relationship.

He had spent the rest of the day hanging around with a group from the ballet company as they explored the city. None of them knew who he was, of course, but somehow the rumour had got round that he was a friend of the director of the company, which England played up to because it was so much easier than being bombarded with questions about the past, many of which he knew he wouldn't be able to answer. Honestly, people seemed to think that just because he'd been around for two thousand years he'd known everyone and been everywhere, and he swore that if one more person asked him what it was like to be immortal, he would show that unfortunate soul exactly what it wasn't like...

But all that had been avoided, and so now here he was, practically alone in the hotel as the company had already left for the Gran Teatro to prepare for tonight's performance. England stared at the phone in his hand and sighed. He wasn't even sure why he was putting himself through this. He didn't need to speak to America. He just, well.

He just couldn't get the look in Cuba's eyes after their quick kiss goodbye out of his head.

England pressed the call button and prayed that he wasn't inadvertently starting the world's first nuclear war.

"Hey, England!" America said as he answered the phone, but his chirpy mood did little to ease the butterflies in England's stomach. "'Sup?"

"Hi," England replied, and hoped he didn't sound too nervous. "Um, you're not busy are you?"

"Of course not," America said. "I'm never too busy to talk to you!" It would have been sweet if England hadn't known that America was probably just using him as an excuse to procrastinate on whatever he should be doing right now.

"OK. Well, I sort of, um..." England tried to pull himself together enough to stutter out a sentence. "I sort of wanted to ask you a question."

"Shoot," America said, and if he suspected what England was going to ask, his tone didn't give anything away.

"Hypothetically speaking," England started slowly, "what would you do if I, uh, dated a Communist?" There was a beat of silence and England felt himself start to sweat.

"If you did that," America finally replied, and his cheerful tone was still intact, even if it had taken on a more dangerous edge, "then, hypothetically speaking, I would nuke said Communist so fucking hard that his whole goddamn island would sink to the bottom of the ocean." England heard the smile at the end of that sentence. It was a smile with sharp edges.

"I see," he replied, and paused, mind working quickly to try and save the situation. It turned out that he didn't have time to remedy it, however, as America continued speaking.

"Now I'd like to ask you a question, England," he said, and England almost wished that he would sound angry, because his resolutely cheerful attitude was positively terrifying.

"Go ahead," he invited, dreading America's next words and wondering if he had doomed the whole world.

"What are you doing in Cuba, England?" And ah, there it was: the sharp, almost threatening tone that both relieved England and gave him the mental image of America standing with his phone pressed to his ear with one hand and the index finger of his other hovering over a big, red and thoroughly ominous button.

"You already know what I'm doing here." Was it really America who was making England squirm like this? What was the world coming to? "The Royal Ballet Company-"

"Yes, I know your excuse, but what are you really doing there?" England closed his eyes and tried to think happy thoughts.

"I wanted to see him," he said quietly, staring unseeingly out of the window. There was a short pause and then a rush of static over the phone as America sighed.

"Are the two of you already in a relationship?" he asked, and it sounded slightly less like an interrogation now, but only slightly.

"No," England said, lying down on the bed, legs still dangling off the edge from where he'd been sitting. "I haven't even discussed this with him. I just..." America waited for him to continue. "He makes me happy, America," England finally murmured.

"Don't say that," America groaned. "You know I can't argue with that!" He seemed to be struggling with himself for a minute, but then he sighed again as he came to some sort of conclusion. "OK, look, I'm prepared to compromise. How about this? I promise not to blow him up if the two of you hook up, but only on the condition that he treats you right. Oh, and that the two of you use protection, because I don't want you catching something gross like Communism." England spluttered, face heating up.

"Communism isn't an STD, America!" he managed to say.

"How do you know?" America shot back. He paused as if suddenly realising something. "Wait, you're not already sleeping with him, are you?"

"Well..."

"You are, aren't you? And you didn't tell me? How long has this been going on for?" England held the phone a little way away from his ear to distance himself from the outrage coming out of the device.

"You know, I think I've kept you from your work for long enough, America," he said hastily, deciding that it was probably wise to end the conversation before America changed his mind about nuking Cuba into the seabed. "I'll talk to you soon. Have fun! And remember that weapons of mass destruction are never the answer!" He hung up on America's incoherent rage and sighed.

All in all, that had gone a lot better than he'd thought it would.