AN: Does anybody know the name of this pairing? Because when I was trying to think of what it would be, I came up with AmeriCan XD

Pairing: America/Canada

Prompt: Love the Step 1 - Lose the gun. Yes! Makes me super proud to be Canadian! +gunnarolla Next time you make a Canada song, include that we spell things differently and we always say sorry. I am from Vancouver and bumped into the door of an elevator and apologized to the door... so 'Canadian ' (Super Yogagirl youtube comment "Canadian Please" music video)

Sub-prompt: Malcolm Gladwell: "[…] an awful lot of my ideology, it's just Canadian. Canadians like small, modest things, right? We don't believe in boasting. We think the world is basically a good place. We're pretty optimistic. We think we ought to take care of each other. And it so happens that to be Canadian in America is to seem quite radical."

Sorry

Matthew really should have been looking where he was going.

He was usually he was a very aware and perceptive person (part of why he'd gone into Psychology). It wasn't like him to so caught up in thinking about the attractive guy in his Statistics course that he wasn't paying attention and walked straight into a closed door, even if the door had been open every single other time Matthew had take this exit out of the building.

So as it was, Matthew walked straight into the door.

"Oh, I'm so sorry!" he exclaimed as he stumbled back a step, hand on his forehead where he'd hit the wood, looking at the door apologetically. "I didn't see you there."

But before he could open the door and step outside, he was distracted by a familiar loud voice echoing down the hall.

"I gotta go get some burgers now, cuz man am I starving!"

Heartbeat quickening, Matthew turned around to see Alfred walking down the hallway backwards, yelling across a steadily growing distance at his two other students. If Matthew recalled correctly, their names were Francis and Arthur, and like Alfred they were business majors.

"Careful you don't give yourself a heart attack, eating that junk food," Arthur shouted back at Alfred as he and Francis walked in the other direction.

"I'll be fine!" Alfred yelled cheerfully. "I have a high metabolism! Don't worry, I'll still be there to sit next to you two lovebirds in Econ later today!"

That earned a squawk from Arthur and laughter from Francis, and the two disappeared around the corner bickering.

Laughing brightly, Alfred had just started to turn around to start walking forwards when he walked straight into the door—the same one Matthew had walked into, and the one he was currently standing beside, watching the scene.

Matthew really should have warned Alfred that he was about to walk into a door. But sometimes, when he was watching people, he became so absorbed as a viewer that he forgot that he had a body in this world and could actually interact with the people he was watching (whether this tendency was the cause of most people treating Matthew like he didn't exist, or the result, Matthew didn't know, but it always surprised him whenever any of the people he was watching suddenly turned and started talking to him, reminding him that he existed—and maybe that was one of the reasons why he liked Alfred so much).

So as it was, Alfred walked obliquely into the door.

"Fuck you!" Alfred exclaimed, whirling and kicking the door. "What the fuck was that for?!" he demanded, glaring at the piece of wood and gesturing wildly with his hands. "I was walking that way, y'know!"

With all his wild gesturing, Alfred accidentally grazed Matthew in the face.

"Sorry!" Matthew said, hand to his cheek where he'd been scratched slightly by Alfred's nails.

Alfred just stared at him for him a few moments, jaw open, before he said, "Dude! What're you apologizing for! I'm the one that accidentally hit you!"

"And I accidentally got in the way of your flailing hands," Matthew answered, smiling slightly.

Alfred stared at him.

Still with that small smile on his face, Matthew opened the door that they'd both walked into, holding it open for Alfred.

Only, Alfred didn't move.

"Coming outside?" Matthew asked, still holding the door open, sunlight on his back and a soft breeze in his hair as he looked at Alfred, tilting his head. "I thought you were walking this way."

Slowly, Alfred walked through the doorway, and Matthew closed the door gently before turning around to find Alfred still giving him that look.

"What?" Matthew asked, suddenly feeling worried.

"You are so nice!" Alfred blurted. He began gesturing with his hands again. "How are you so nice?! Are all Canadians so nice?"

Matthew just shrugged, trying not to blush, even though there was really nothing to blush about.

"I mean, not only do you apologize when I'm the one who hit you, but then you hold the door open for me! Who the hell holds doors open for anybody nowadays?!" Alfred said, shaking his head.

"I also apologized to the door when I accidentally walked into it," Matthew said, because he wanted to see Alfred's expression.

Alfred's face did not disappoint. Wide eyes, gaping mouth, looking at Matthew like he was crazy—but he was looking, and he was looking at Matthew, not through him, which was more than could be said for most.

"That's, like, radically nice!" Alfred exclaimed finally.

Matthew's lips tugged upwards. "I'm not radically nice, actually. I'm just Canadian. We always say sorry, and we think the world is basically a good place. We're pretty optimistic. We think we ought to take care of each other. It just so happens that to be Canadian in America is to seem quite radical."

Alfred kept staring at him for several moments, and then he looked away, rubbing a hand through the dirty-blond hair on the back of his head. "Dammit, you're so nice that you make me feel bad."

"Sorry," Matthew said automatically.

Alfred looked back at him, blue eyes wide behind his glasses, and then suddenly he threw back his head and laughed, loud and bright.

It was a lovely sound, and Matthew couldn't help but smile.

"So," Alfred said, grinning, jauntily, a hand on his hip, "how 'bout I take you out t'lunch and make it up t'you?"

"Yes," Matthew smiled, feeling lit up from the inside. "I'd like that. Thank you."

Alfred beamed and grabbed Matthew's hand, beginning to pull him along excitedly, like some kind of adorable puppy. "Awesome! Let's go!"

END.

AN: I'm not Canadian. The only Canadian I know is one of my dance teachers, though, and she's super nice.

As an American, I can say that cursing and kicking the door would probably have been my response. Once, I was running alongside my mom's car, and it tried to run over my foot, and I ended up cursing and kicking it, and broke a piece of plastic off. And my mom was just like, "You broke the car!" and I was just like, "It was just a piece of plastic! And besides, the car tied to run over my foot! It deserved it!" (I'm nicer to people and other living beings, I promise, lol.)

We do apologize in dance class, though, when we hit each other—both the person who did the hitting and the person who got hit. Though admittedly, when dancing, it's hard to tell exactly who hit whom.

The part about Canadians holding doors open I got from a youtube video "AMERICAN TRIVIA ft. Will Carmack" by Joey Kidney, as well as the video "TOP 10 TRUE CANADIAN STEREOTYPES!" by MissFenderr. Apparently the niceness and over-apologizing is true.

My dance teacher said that, because it's so cold in Canada and it snows so much, that communities are really tight-nit because living in snow is difficult, so everyone helps each other out, like getting out to help someone who's car got stuck in the snow or something.

If our car breaks down on the side of the road here in America, for whatever reason, you're basically on your own. Although from what I've heard, sometimes motorcyclists will help each other out, and bicyclists will help each other out, because they're kind of a community, in a way.

Anyways. Stereotypes. Stereotypes are… interesting. I don't know. Obviously, different cultures have different values, which result in general cultural differences that affect behavior, and it's good to be away of cultural differences. However, it's when these ideas of cultures are oversimplified and fixed that they truly become stereotypes. Because yes, there may be a general culture thing, but not everyone is that way (take Americans loving American football, for example—it's true that many Americans are obsessed with football, but I don't care for it). And then of course there are those stereotypes that stem from prejudices and people trying to justify feelings of superiority over others, which are are just stupid.

Look up 'the stereotype song' on youtube. It makes fun of how ridculous stereotypes are. It's great.