Prompt: Sound

Characters: France, England

Notes: Before you ask, this is set in the mid 90s (hence the landline call).

England raised an eyebrow when the phone rang; he never got calls at home in the evening. He hesitated. He'd just taken his last sip of peppermint tea and dog-eared the page in his copy of Lewis' The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. His pajamas were laid on his chair, his bedspread turned back, the embers in the fireplace crackling their last. A light drizzle had begun to pelt the windows of his London flat.

And now someone was calling him.

And he had to get up and check the caller ID, at least, because he might unwittingly let the Queen roll over to voicemail.

Not that it was likely. The thought horrified him nonetheless.

England set his book down on the coffee table with a thump, picked up his empty mug of tea, and walked into the kitchen. He wondered exactly how polite he had to be toward officials of state. For a heart-jerking second, he thought that something might have happened, but then he remembered he had felt nothing but bliss in his bones all evening, with his tea and book and general self-satisfaction with finally getting to go to bed early. He supposed that this call could not, then, be an urgent matter, which permitted him to be at least a little short with his evening's interloper.

Especially when that interloper happened to be France, as his caller ID so kindly pointed out in faded, blocky black letters.

So much for politeness.

"And just what do you think you're doing calling me? Surely you have more important things to attend to, such as, I don't know, being a showoffy wine freak?"

No answer.

"What, do you have Prussia or Spain on the other line? Getting ready to pull a prank? Because, let me tell you, you will simply not succeed tonight. I will not fall for something so stupid on a lovely night as this—France?"

Still no answer, but a soft noise in the background.

"France, you're not crying, are you? Because that'd be really weird—okay, look, I'm going to hang up if you don't say anything—oh, hell, you really are crying, aren't you?"

England ran a hand through his hair. No one ever called him in tears, least of all France. He stuttered a little, trying to think of what in the world was going on and what he could do to make it stop, or at least figure it out. He was horrible at this whole feelings thing, and even worse at trying to console people (again, least of all France).

"Well. Let's see. I guess—look, are you even okay? Francis? You're not, you know, hurt or anything?"

Of course he was hurt, England thought as he rolled his eyes at himself. He'd have to have lost his mind one way or another to have thought to call him when he was crying late at night.

Then it hit him.

"This is a joke after all, isn't it? You're just faking so you can record me acting flustered about the whole thing and then use it against me. Well, fuck off, because I'm going to bed and you are deleting this—"

"Please, Arthur."

England blinked and clutched the receiver a little tighter. Not a joke after all. Now he really was lost. The embers in the fire seemed to crackle louder, and the temperature in the kitchen to increase a fraction.

"What's going on?" Tell me.

As if he'd heard England's silent demand, France said, "I can't."

England switched the receiver over to the other ear. He sat down and deliberated. Again, if this were truly serious, he'd have heard about it already, unless it had just happened, in which case he had no idea why France would be on the phone with him. And then there were some serious things he didn't hear about. Secret things, personal things.

He really didn't know how to deal with those hidden, buried, pieces of information. He couldn't just dig for them. He'd just cause damage without uncovering anything.

France apparently couldn't say anything, and England couldn't think of what to tell him or what to ask or how to make it better.

What an impasse.

Canada would have known what to do, England thought as he played with the coiled cord. He would have said the right thing at the right moment and had France laughing five minutes ago. But here he was, sitting in his kitchen in an awkward chair that creaked with every movement and only half-formed and entirely unhelpful thoughts coming to mind.

Except for one.

"It happened again, didn't it."

Another terrorist attack. Another bombing.

England took a breath.

"What do you want me to do?"

"Stay."

And despite his rising protests that this was an international call and that it would cost a lot, England knew he couldn't argue with that voice. It wasn't his enemy on the other line: it was his companion for a thousand years. And he'd just been hurt again.

So England made another cup of peppermint tea and stepped away from the phone to snatch up his book and hurry back, in case France needed him while he was gone. He came back to complete silence on the other end, but he stayed sitting there all the same, in his awkward chair with his tea and book and the embers sputtering out in the fireplace.

At some point, he fell asleep there, the receiver still to his ear, his pajamas still over the back of his chair and his bedspread still turned down, both completely forgotten.

France had a series of terrorist bombings in 95-96 at some of Paris's busiest and most popular metro stations. That's what's being referenced here (and definitely not the attacks last year; it's way, way too soon, guys).