II – Born On the Fourth of July
Years before it turned to desire, America was a tiny child who fit perfectly within England's arms, clinging to him and cuddling him delightedly. He was all white frills and gold hair and azure eyes and England had loved him more than anything, cradling him to sleep against his chest.
His hands had trailed time and time again over the tiny wings folded at the child's shoulder blades.
Never before had he ever treated anything as so precious, with so much care, as if his own life depended upon the welfare of the strange little boy – the eaglet – he had one day claimed as his own.
As if he had known what he would become.
—
"Hold still now..." England huffed irritably, wrapping his arms around America in a different manner to keep him from wriggling loose. "America, pray contain yourself for a moment! Kindly allow me to dry you, you silly boy."
"I am dry!" America protested, his voice a little muffled from the towel over his head as England rubbed roughly at his hair.
"You most certainly are not," England replied shortly, briskly running the towel over the back of America's neck to soak up the water that had dripped onto it from his hair. "Good Heavens, why it is always such a chore to first get you into the bath so that you will wash and then get you out of the bath and acceptably dry? If you hate one state of affairs as much as the other then how are you ever content, hmm?"
America muttered something to himself – which England did not pursue – and squirmed impatiently.
"Am I acceptably dry yet?" he asked, ducking under one of England's strong arms only to be barred by the other. "Englaaaand—!"
"Just your wings to go," England informed him, wrestling him still again. "Come now, stretch them out for me."
America rustled the appendages at his shoulders for a moment before spreading them out to their full length. They grew very fast – at present they seemed slightly smaller than usual because they were wet and the feathers were dark and stuck together, but when they were dry and he ran about with them outstretched, the wind caught them and arched them into huge feathery bows at his back.
Eagle wings – all shades of mahogany and chocolate and caramel. He was an oddity. England had never seen wings on a nation before.
"I thought I might fly today, England," America chirped conversationally as England carefully dried his wings. "The wind was very good. I saw some birds and I tried to copy them but..." He trailed off, his tone suddenly undertaking a trace of disappointment, of frustration. "...I-I could not lift from the ground no matter how hard I flapped my wings or how fast I ran."
England faltered. America suddenly sounded as though he was about to cry. He wrapped his arms about him and cuddled him from behind comfortingly.
"Poor boy," he murmured. "Perhaps one day."
America sniffed, but he looked over his shoulder at England, his blue eyes hopeful.
"Do you think so?"
England smiled at him.
"Well, perhaps," he said again.
He lifted the towel and began to dry the other wing; and, as he did, his fingertips brushed over a few feathers with straight, blunt edges, tucked unnoticeably beneath the layers.
Ones vital for flight carefully cut short when America was asleep.
If I ever decide to let you.
—
"My soldiers!" America protested suddenly as England tucked him in.
England blinked at him.
"What of your soldiers, dear boy?" he inquired mildly. He supposed that the child meant the elaborate set of hand-made toy soldiers in the red coats of the British Army that England himself had made for him some years ago – America had been playing with them after supper, only leaving them at the promise of a story before bed if he came quickly.
"Leave them as they are, please," America said, snuggling down beneath the bedsheets. He moved his wings restlessly for a moment or two before settling them. "I wish to play with them tomorrow when I rise."
England rubbed at his hair in a gesture of fondness.
"Very well, I shall leave them as you have done."
"Thankyou." America closed his eyes with a smile. "Goodnight, England."
"Goodnight, America. May all your dreams be pleasant ones, my boy. God shed his grace on thee."
He closed the door quietly behind him, not wanting to disturb America – already half-asleep – and went back downstairs. He found the soldiers standing to attention outside the pantry door, lined up in absolutely perfect regimental formation; an entire miniature army of Redcoats, arranged with the preciseness of a child. America in particular was very meticulous about certain things – it was almost strange that he ran riot most of the time and yet sat in near-silence for hours on end, measuring the exact space between each of his soldiers as he lined them up.
It was almost uncanny.
England supposed that America was merely copying the formations that he had often seen England's army in, doing it as best he could from memory – as it happened, his officers weren't in the correct place and neither was his sergeant-major. Still, the strange seriousness about the arrangement of the toys was nonetheless slightly unnerving. England wasn't quite sure whether to be proud of the child or be worried that he paid so much attention to the formations of the armed forces.
America was much, much too young to be thinking about war – and besides, he had England to look after him, to protect him. He would never need to fight for himself if England could help it.
He was almost tempted to take apart the formation to ease his nerves; but no, he'd promised America that he would leave them as they were, and so he would.
As he returned to the kitchen, leaving the soldiers standing straight and still in the dark, guarding the pantry, he hoped that that would always be the case.
That things would be left as they were.
I look up at you.
You say nothing else. In the muted silence of our fray even the rain seems distant and I suffer that I can still feel your words echo over the empty lands we have torn apart. In the end, it seems it made no difference whatsoever. You are determined to leave me.
America, oh, America, how could you do this to me?
(I had always hoped you would never inherit my cruelty.)
You pause a moment longer, and then you reach to your breast and begin to unbutton your coat. It looks like mine but it is not red. Blue. You chose blue. I never knew you liked that colour.
You shrug out of your coat and allow it to fall into the mud at your feet. From beneath it you spread out your wings – out to their full length, and I confess that I did not realise that they had grown so large.
Well, do not stand there above me with your wings spread as though you fancy yourself as some kind of angel of redemption; you naïve, silly, foolish little boy. No wonder I cannot shoot you – you would have no idea what to do with the bullet.
"You used to clip them, did you not?"
You speak again. Your tone is not particularly angry; but you are accusing me nonetheless. I meet your gaze. My tears have stopped but I do not rise. If you think that you are now bigger than me, that is fine. I shall allow you believe that for now. I am truly too exhausted to do anything else.
"Yes," I reply. "Yes, of course I did. How else was I to prevent you from flying away on your own before you were ready?"
You give a cold little laugh.
"Ah, England," you murmur, "you were never going to let me fly away on my own. You shared with me your language and yet words mean nothing to you. I cannot speak, cannot argue, cannot be understood if I only use words. You have forced me to use war instead."
I remember your soldiers. I remember how the night before you begged me not to touch them, to leave them as they were; and that on that morrow, you were so excited in your hunger for breakfast that you knocked them all over.
Perhaps I should have known then. You have no care for the destruction of what has been carefully built, lovingly cultivated – even those things which you yourself have achieved. But what was I to do then? They were merely toys.
I look aside. I cannot help the bitter, half-amused smile which paints itself across my face. I have a strange sense of humour, do I not? Even in my position, even knowing that I am upon the very brink of losing you – this merely the suspended moments before the fall – I cannot take this entirely seriously.
My fledgling, my eaglet, my America, shall we not see how far you can climb before you plummet out of the sky and break your neck and end up shattered on the ground in a thousand pieces?
"Yes," I agree softly. "I suppose that is probably the one thing you learned from me. I had always hoped that it was not to be so."
You smile and it honestly looks rather genuine.
"You are a good teacher," you say. "Goodbye, Great Britain. God save."
You flap your wings – once, twice, powerful strokes to gather momentum. I feel the air pressure, half-shield my face from the mud that you kick up, but although I want to suddenly scream at you not to leave, want to grab at you and stop you, I admit that I am also somewhat fascinated.
I have never seen you fly.
Your wings lift you in a sudden flurry of feathers and movement and then you're gone, soaring upwards into the grey sky with easy, graceful motions. I watch you shrink and disappear against the canvas clouds as a few under-feathers shaken loose from your wings in your haste to leave, to show me what you could do, float around me, spiralling gently into the mud next to your coat and both of our guns.
You are gone.
"God bless," I reply gently as I look up at the empty sky still.
Oh, America, do not break your neck too soon.
I was surprised that he came here – that, in all honesty, he had the nerve to come here.
I did not rebel against him in order to hurt him. What I took out upon him back then was not hatred but resentment, frustration, anger. I did not hate him.
When he dropped his musket in the mud and fell on his knees before me and wept, I knew that I could never hate him. I do not think that I have it within me to hate, for even anything that he did not make me despise him, only recognise that he was trying to hold onto me with everything that he had and therefore try to escape him even more.
He cut my wings night after night and I did not hate him for that.
However, he thought that I hated him, and I know him to be bitter. I have no doubt that by the time he wiped his eyes dry and retrieved his gun, he most likely hated me. I thought it was unlikely that he would ever come near me again.
Still, to call him to arms is to call him by name. As before, I declared war on him. I broke away from him because he insisted upon imposing whom I might and might not trade with – what on Earth made him think that I would turn a blind eye when he chooses to do the same thing when I am no longer his to control? I am perfectly aware that he and France have been at war with each other for a while now, and still I maintain that I will trade with France if I desire to and, furthermore, that the great British Empire really has no say in the matter.
That, and that my brother is my brother and I shall annex him if I want. Well, I suppose that that might be considered to be more of a minor quibble – my brother, his colony...
England, of course, did not take kindly to me standing up to him and left me no choice but to declare war on him again. It seems to me that that is the only language he understands, anyway.
I still do not hate him, but I hate his arrogance. How dare he come here? How dare he appear annoyed by the disgusted look I am giving him? What else can he expect when he chases me down within my own sanctuary and throws my torn flag at my feet?
"America," he says calmly, stepping over the threshold of the office, "I have won this battle. What say we call it my victory and discuss this like gentlemen?"
"Discuss what, exactly?" I spit back at him.
I have no weapon. I ran out of bullets and the flint jammed and eventually I rid myself of the musket that had become a burden to me. I came in here to recover, for security, for sanctuary – as in a church – whilst I gathered myself.
Nothing is sacred to him. He simply followed me in here. Dragging my flag behind him to throw at me as though it were a mere rag.
"Why, the conditions of your surrender, of course," he replies with an air of exaggerated patience. "Surely it is clear to you that I have you outmatched. It would be better for you to accept your loss with grace."
He steps ever closer towards me as he speaks; I back against the desk, feeling blindly behind me upon its surface in the hopes that my hand might come into contact with something that I might use to take his eye out. I find nothing and have only my bare hands to act as a shield between myself and him as he closes in upon me.
He raises his hand towards my face: although I consider that he is about to hit me, I do not flinch, staring him down with as much courage as I can muster. He does not, however, strike me; instead he touches my glasses, gently at first, and then in a decidedly firmer manner as he pulls them off my face.
"I need those!" I burst out, trying to snatch them back; he is too quick for me, snapping them out of my reach. Once they are over a foot away from me I can barely see them anymore; everything has at once become blurred and indistinct, even him in his proximity.
"I disagree," he says thoughtfully, examine what must be my glasses from quite a distance.
I frown at him. What in the world can he possibly mean, he disagrees? Of course I need them – why would I wear them otherwise? They are hardly fashionable; in fact, more often than not they are nothing but a nuisance to me. They dirty and break easily and in the rain they are quite useless.
I often wonder if perhaps he cursed me – my eyesight only worsened after I left him. Now I cannot read or see anything in clear detail if it is between a foot and two from me. It is quiet inconvenient and I wish that I could disagree too but the fact is that I do need them and I do not see what difference it makes if he likes them or not.
(He blinked at me, clearly taken aback, when he first appeared in my lands to answer my beckoning of war and saw me looking at him through them.)
"Please." I reach blindly for them. "England, I need them."
I know it is probably more psychological than anything, but I feel vulnerable without them; I feel that he has robbed me of more than a weapon by taking them from me. I have become reliant on them.
"Short-sighted, are you?" he suddenly asks, glancing at me sharply.
I nod, opening my hands for them.
"Yes," I huff, trying not to sound too angry with him while he still holds them hostage. "Give them to me, if you please."
"That," he says with conviction, "is something that I will agree with you on."
He opens his hand and I hear the clatter of what can only be my glasses hitting the floor of the White House. He smiles at me – that awful, sickly smirk of his that I have seen him turn upon others but never myself.
"England—!" I begin, infuriated—
There is a crunch. I freeze; his smile widens. I follow the source of the sound to the floor. I already know what made that noise – what has become of my glasses – but I still squint enough to bring the sight of his heavy uniform boot crushing them into as clear a focus as I can manage. The frame twists and the glass cracks and splinters and when he lifts his foot they are irreparable.
I look up at him, shocked. I cannot believe that he would be so spiteful. My fists clench of their own accord and my body coils and I throw myself at him before I can think the action through; I am impaired by either my eagerness or my eyesight but he sidesteps me with very little effort, grabs hold of me by the front of my uniform coat and uses the fact that I have thrown myself out of balance against me. The room is a whirl of blurred paintings and white walls and suddenly I am being slammed face-first into the desk that was a moment ago at my back.
I gather my breath, somewhat-winded, and make to push myself up; but then I feel him press himself up against me from behind. I pause again, sucking in a breath, wondering what he is planning as his hands spread over my shoulders and upwards.
He pauses, then takes hold of the collar of my blue uniform coat and tugs it downwards and off me, twisting my arms painfully behind me as he does so. I hear him throw it aside without further thought and suspect that his attention is no longer on it but rather on my wings, which were tucked beneath it. I keep them tightly folded, not wanting him to inspect them.
As usual, he pays little heed to what I might want and takes hold of the right one by the bone, pulling on it to manipulate the joint into opening; he hurts me quite a bit by doing it, although I bite at my bottom lip to keep from making a noise. With my right wing spread, he holds it open and I hear him go to his belt – and there is the telltale sound of a sword being drawn across its scabbard.
"Are you going to cut the feathers again?" I ask breathlessly, half-mocking. "To prevent me from flying away once more?"
He laughs, but it is entirely humourless.
"Nothing of the sort, boy," he replies.
And I feel the blade at the root of my wing.
My breath hitches. Is he... is he really going to...?
"This is what I should have done to begin with," he says lightly.
I feel the sword sing against my feathers. He runs it back and forth with the gentleness of a skilled violinist, never quite touching me. I am too terrified to move even an inch, for I know how skilled he is with a sword, how well he cares for his blade. It is so sharp that if I so much as try to pull my wing back I might end up losing it.
"To think," he goes on, his voice deceptively gentle, "that you would have the boldness to declare war on me. I rather thought I had raised you better than that."
I can feel my nerve beginning to fail me. I have defeated him before but he was weaker then; weaker and stunned that I had dared to stand up to him. Thirty or so years have bred bitterness in him and now he is honestly terrifying. I do not know if I am strong enough to defeat him again, as he is now – and if victory cannot be mine, then would it not be better to go down as a hero should?
"If you are going to take them," I say, willing my voice not to shake, "then do it. Likewise, if it is my life you will take instead, so be it. I am not afraid of you, England."
"That," he sighs, "would be British Empire to you; and I am not impressed by your words of grandeur. Did you rehearse them before your mirror, boy?" He laughs coldly and does not give me a chance to respond (although I cringe because he knows me too well). "Either way, I shall not take your life. It would teach you nothing." The sword brushes my feathers again. "And as for your wings... they would make nice trophies, it is true. However, again, the lesson would not be quite right..."
I think to open my mouth to ask in sarcasm if he intends to whip my behind as if I were a child instead; but then his free hand reaches beneath me and I feel his fingers deftly unlacing the cords fastening my breeches. I stiffen in horror, my breath coming faster and shallower, and even my heart-rate begins to accelerate. What does he intend to do to me?
"Poor boy," I hear him hum, almost like a lullaby. "If France was kind enough to keep his filthy hands off you during your little Revolution, then I daresay that this is most likely the first time that anyone has ever touched you here."
He brushes his hand firmly over my most private area as he mutters "here"; I shudder, unnerved by the sensation, at the feeling of someone else's hand. Does he intend to make me uncomfortable? I do not understand his way of thinking – most particularly since he has never touched me like this before. When I was a child, he never said or did anything that might be regarded as inappropriate to me. Why now?
Because this is inappropriate. And granted, yes, France never touched me either. Nor did Prussia. Nobody has – I am isolationist. I have no interest in the world.
I struggle to control my breathing as I feel him hook his hand into my breeches and sharply tug them down so that they are about my knees. I dare not move too much in protest, for the sword is still pressed against my right wing. I do not like to admit that what I said earlier was merely talk but the truth is that I do not wish for him to relieve me of my wings if I can help it.
My underwear joins my breeches and I still, wondering of his intention. Perhaps he really does intend to beat me. He never did that when I was a child either, but then I suppose I did not declare war on him back then as I do now.
I feel his hand on my behind and bite at my bottom lip as I bow my head, looking firmly down at the desk. Give me your beating then, British Empire. Give me your best or your worst, however you would like to word it. I can take whatever you give me and I shall rise up taller than you. I am not afraid of you.
He does not strike me. Instead, faster than anything I could have done to stop him had I known his intention, he has slipped his finger inside me.
I am uncertain how to entirely describe the sound I make, but a moment later it becomes a hiss of pain; I could not help but jump at the sensation of his invading me and his sword finally sliced into my wing. It was unintentional on his part but that changes nothing as I feel it begin to bleed, clotting the feathers together. I cannot fathom which hurts more, the sharp sting of the wound or the blunt intrusion of his finger within me.
He merely tuts, sounding impatient, and adjusts his grip on his blade.
"You are going to have to hold still," he reprimands me; and I dare not move again. Out of the corner of my eye I see the blur of blood splashing onto the surface of the desk. I am lucky enough that it did not hit the bone.
I do not like either the feeling or the idea of him touching me so deeply inside at all; I won my freedom from him and thus I and my lands are no longer his to explore or exploit. It is a highly unpleasant sensation, painful and obtrusive and unnatural. He is, however, going about it in an odd manner. It feels as though he is looking for something—
The feeling intensifies as he forces another finger within me. It most certainly hurts now and it is all I can do not to buckle beneath him. I draw a shaky breath as I feel him twist them; they squirm like something alive and the sensation makes my skin crawl. There seems to be no stopping his exploration and I begin to wonder exactly how far and how deep inside me he can go – surely only as far as his fingers can reach—
He touches something and I truly do crumple beneath him with a gasp. I hear him laugh, clearly pleased with himself, as he angles his hand to find the spot once more. I do not desire for him to touch it again—
He does, and this time he does not draw back from it, rubbing at it, tickling it until I am almost sliding off the desk. I have no idea what he is doing to me but I cannot help but fancy that he is somehow touching the absolute core of my being, reaching beyond what is physical about me and grasping some part of my soul or my consciousness or something.
Stop, stop, please stop—I cannot find the words, cannot catch my breath or wrestle a proper hold over my voice. The feeling of it is indescribable; I do not like it and want him to stop but I cannot help the sensation that is knotting itself in my belly as he mercilessly torments that spot deep inside me, making my knees sink together as the pressure mounts. I want it to ease more than I want him to remove his fingers.
A moment later, however, he does exactly that. I exhale deeply, relieved – until I feel him suddenly thrust himself inside me with no warning whatsoever. He slams against me and the movement makes the sword cut into me again; I cry out on both counts and he grasps hold of my hair.
"What did I tell you about holding still?" he growls low beside my ear. He twists my hair in his hand tightly, building up a rough rhythm as he does so.
"England...!" I cannot act any longer. "You're—h-hurting me—!"
He gives a laugh that makes me flinch. My wing is bleeding very badly and all I can do is quiver underneath him as he violates me, afraid of losing my right wing altogether beneath his unkind blade and his unkinder behaviour.
This hurts far worse than his fingers. Why does he have to do this to me? I have never been invaded before – why did it have to be him, like this? Why could it not have been an alliance? I admit to having thought, wistful in my meandering, that perhaps if he came to see me as an equal, someone worthy of standing side-by-side with, I might have chosen him as my first – since I owe him so much, since I know him so well.
But it would not have been like this.
He is as manipulative as he is cruel. Even if it is only an act, I am certain that he has it in him to be a kinder lover than this. Even if I was the one to declare war on you, can you not at least take me to your bed and lie about loving me?
(If ever our positions are reversed, that is what I will do for you.)
He releases himself within me, riding it out with a further few sharp thrusts against me; I clench my fists on the desk at the feeling of it. It is disgusting, my insides awash with it, his seed within me as is my blood.
After a moment of listening to him catching his breath, I feel him step back and suddenly I am unoccupied again. The sword swings away from me and I hear him slide it back into his belt as he puts his clothing back in order. I try to fold my injured wing as I hear him step away from me and can only give a little sound of pain as I make the attempt, letting it fall limply back against the desk I am still bent over, sagging considerably.
"You are not impenetrable." England finally speaks up, his voice icy. "Do not think even for a moment that you are, you snot-nosed little brat."
I finally slide completely off the desk and collapse onto my knees as I hear him walk away, his stride calm and even. I hardly put up much of a fight towards him, it is true, but I cannot even begin to formulate a response. How did it come to this? Once I was a child – his child, more or less – tucked up safe and warm in bed, half-asleep as I listened to his stories of how he had tortured and tormented those weaker than him – Spain, France, Austria, Holland, Italy. Even listening to the lilt of his voice as he recounted his cruelty with too fond a look in his eye, I had never felt afraid of him, because he had always leaned in afterwards to stroke my hair or kiss my forehead goodnight when he was done.
I had never been on the receiving end of his wickedness, nor had I ever considered myself in danger of being so.
So how did it come to this?
(Hours later I came to realise that his cruelty and spite knew no bounds and that I – if I had ever been special to him – was definitely not so anymore. I wrapped a bandage around my cleaned wing as I sat on a hillside and watched the White House burn to the ground. There was nothing I could do.)
In the War of 1812, the British captured the original White House and burned it down. You know, I am not really sure who even won that war in the end...
Prussia – The American army in the War of Independence were trained by some Prussian dude whose name I don't remember...