VI – I Don't Wanna Live in the Modern World
The service is over. The casket has been taken elsewhere for a more private funeral with only the great man's family in attendance and nothing of the grandeur just witnessed, flags and marches and drums and cannons and television crews with colour cameras. The war ended twenty years ago and the people have still not forgotten how he led them in their most solemn hour and in their finest.
America sees England duck out of the church, unseen by the crowds, almost shielded by them in the way that his plain grey suit washes into the similar shades worn by a hundred others.
He follows, edging through clusters of people, statesmen and citizens and nations, avoiding Russia like the plague and being waylaid by his own boss, France and Canada briefly along the way. By the time he's clapped Canada reassuringly on the shoulder ("You're not going to go and upset him by saying something insensitive, are you?") and gotten out of the church, he thinks England might be gone—
No, there he is. Standing with his back to the church doors, looking up at the grey London sky and smoking. With the crowds still shut inside the church and the hearse itself having pulled away, the churchyard is very quiet; so much so that America expects that England can hear him approaching even though he doesn't turn to him.
"I still say he was crazy," he says.
England looks at him over his shoulder. His face is completely expressionless.
"Yes," he agrees absently. "Yes, I suppose he was. Half-American too, mind."
America grins.
"Yeah, I noticed... one of the hymns was one of mine. 'The Battle Hymn of the Republic'."
"One of his favourites. He had a lot of admiration for you. You and all of your bosses, give or take a few."
"Mm."
America doesn't say anything else; he wants to ask "And what about you, England?", but he is learning to hold his tongue these days. So powerful himself, he resents England's weakness, the rut he seems to have fallen into, and often can't help being cruel, abusing him verbally and mentally without really meaning to.
It's easier to be kind by simply being quiet.
"I expect you noticed that China isn't here." England breaks the silence himself; he's gone back to looking up at the overcast sky.
"Oh." America blinks. "Yeah, I did. Couldn't make it?"
Not that I want to see him, the filthy Communist—
"It's more that he wouldn't. He refused to attend." England shrugs. "I don't know why. Russia came. For God's sake, even Germany came."
"Maybe it's because he knew I'd be here," America suggests.
England shoots him a scathing look, taking another drag on his cigarette.
"The world doesn't revolve around you, you self-centred twat," he bites out.
Actually, it kind of does now, but sure, whatever you say.
"It was a nice service," America says, more to fill the silence than anything.
Of course, it was a nice service, but America can't help but feel that something irreversible has now happened; whatever of the English Lion that was left within England has died with that man and now it seems as though there is no hope that he will ever awaken from the near-comatose state the Second World War left him in. Perhaps it is merely a facet of his still-existent naïveté – he is, after all, still very young – but America just can't understand how the world's largest empire has become... this. Tiny, fragile little England in his boring grey suit, his hands shaking as he smokes in a graveyard and wills himself not to cry.
America wants to be kind to him but more than that, much more, he wants to bang his head against something.
"Yes," England agrees. "They've gone to have the private funeral now, and then they'll bury him."
"You know, if you're quick and run after them," America drawls, unable to stop himself, "you can probably get there in time to fold up what remains of your faded legacy like a flag and put it in the coffin." His eyes light up and he snaps his fingers as though he's just had a brilliant idea. "Or, better yet, get him to shift over a bit and you can probably fit in there with him!"
England gives a sigh.
"I might have known your apparent sympathy was too good to be true." He turns away. "However, if it's not too much trouble, please refrain from being so disrespectful before he's even in his grave. Your boss wouldn't be happy about it."
"Wait!" America catches at him as he tries to leave; suddenly thinking that what he said might have been a bit over the line. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean... well, I didn't mean to... to insult him."
"I know." England gently disentangles himself from America's grip. "You meant to insult me."
"Well, of course I wasn't going to be satisfied with only the skies!" America replies conversationally. "I claimed those years ago – 1903, remember? That rickety little plane? It only got off the ground for about a minute, but it still flew! The skies have been mine ever since!"
"I recall," I say tiredly, "you saying that you were going to claim the skies for all of us."
"Well, I did," America insists. "Don't you all have airplanes now? Look at you, right, with your Royal Air Force? They saved your ass in the war – well, before I showed up, anyway. Although..." He pauses thoughtfully. "You could say that since I invented aviation, I technically saved your ass then too—"
"One of Italy's greatest thought of flying machines and primitive aeroplanes before you were even conceived," I snap, just to try and outwit him into silence. I might have known it would be a lost cause. He is in far too good of a mood at present to be subdued by anything I might say, cruelty notwithstanding. "The skies might very well have been Italy's."
Indeed, all he does is stick out his tongue.
"Not space, though," he says. "That is no more Italy's than it is Russia's."
"Yes, yes." I sigh. He seems to thrive on being downright hateful at times. "I do not need to be reminded of your achievements – it has been all over the news, every paper that I pick up utterly saturated in it. Please, spare me, America."
He grins.
"Jealous," he hums.
Jealous? I do not think that that is entirely true. He has staked his claim to a piece of rock floating hundreds of thousands of miles away – upon that silver orb which lights the way of the lonely in the dark of the night, America has placed his flag, his garish stars and obnoxious stripes. "One giant leap for mankind", eh? Perhaps, perhaps, but more than that it was another game with Russia. I am glad he won – I do not think I could stand seeing him sulk for a month, for him to clench his fists in pale anger every time he looked up at the night sky.
Jealous. Hmm. That is interesting. Even just a hundred years ago, yes, I agree, I would have been jealous – although, without meaning to sound arrogant, it is unlikely that one hundred years ago he would have beaten me in anything. He needed a war to make him, a war to break me so that he might take my place. Neither of us are as we were a century ago. A century ago, had I had the means of claiming it, the moon would have been mine.
And yet I am not jealous. How different a mere century can make one.
America stands and offers me his hand.
"Come," he says. "Come with me a moment, England."
I hesitate, but I recall that he is in a good mood and reason that, for now, it is probably safe to trust him. I rise and put my hand in his and allow him to lead me outside into the Virginia night. I look up and see his claim – his silver dollar moon, or a quarter or a nickel or a dime.
It could have been a silver shilling moon instead, or a crown or a sixpence or a half-crown.
He reaches up, high above his head, and closes his hand; I suppose that, from the angle he is standing at, it appears to him as though he has enclosed the entire moon within his fist. I give an irritable sigh. I had, after all, asked him to spare me.
"Hey," he says suddenly, dropping his arm, "I have space, so I'll give you the sky, alright?"
I open my mouth to note that I have no idea as to what he is talking about; but then his arms are around my waist from behind and I feel his body coil against my back and before I can utter even a sound of protest we are airborne, his wings driving us upwards into the sky with powerful, effortless beats.
I have never much liked flying. The sky is not my specialty – give me the sea over it any day. He, however, is as comfortable up here as he is on the ground, which I surmise is natural given that he was born with wings. Feeling his calmness, I am myself eased; his arms are strong and firm about me and, although I know that he could easily release me and let me fall and break my neck and shatter into a thousand pieces, I am assured that he will not. He has always liked to have the world within his hands and he has never once dropped it – not yet, anyway.
We ascend higher and higher and I begin to think that he does not intend to stop until we have passed the clouds and the skin of the atmosphere and broken up into the realm of his newest frontier; does he intend to show me his moon in person, to show me his Stars and Stripes on its surface so that I might touch it and be assured that it is real?
But then he pauses and darts off at a different angle and suddenly we are touching down upon something; something hard, stone, it feels like. We are extremely high up and I would think that he has taken us to the side of a mountain or something but for the acute flatness of the stone beneath my feet. He lets me go but keeps one hand at my waist as I survey our surroundings.
Ah, I see. A church. One of the oldest existing within his lands – high and spiked and turreted, a mix of Spanish and Italian and French and German and English Gothic. This is not American – it is European, one of his first scars that we bore upon him. It is like any that you might see in Germany's towns or Spain's hills or through the mist beyond my moors. It is exceedingly high – we are at the topmost part of it, upon the gargoyle-decorated platform beneath the final stone spike.
I look at him, although he does not meet my gaze. I understand, America.
Once upon a time, when we were all great, when we were strong and brutal conquerors, when I was the worst of all, this was the highest we could go.
I was the world's largest empire and yet I never so much as touched the clouds.
He sits down, uncharacteristically silent, between two gargoyles, his wings curved out behind him like his eagle, looking up at the moon; he isn't smiling as I had expected him to be, but I can see the opal orb of it reflected on his glasses.
I look at his precious piece of space-rock myself and do as he did, raising my arm and spreading my hand until it obscures the silver shilling moon. I fold my fingers around it without hesitation.
Oh, America, had I had but a means of claiming it, had I only had the technology my century could never have envisaged, the moon would have been mine.
Something stirred.
Something stirred in you. It wasn't the first time he had asked you – but every time before that you truly did acknowledge his request with disinterest, and anyway, it wasn't as though he was asking because he really thought you would say yes. Honestly, he was almost mocking you.
This time, however, had been different.
He paused at the door on his way out. He still didn't know his enemy so he was lashing out at anyone and everyone. Korea then. Vietnam now. Russia always. That uniform wasn't so flattering on him, probably because nothing about this war was. He wasn't even winning it, really – and television, radio, the whole static age had done its duty in killing off any remaining glory still clinging to the narrative, the legend, of war.
But he paused and hitched up his glasses, looking at you through them.
"There's still room in the jeep," he said casually. "You sure I can't tempt you?"
You opened your mouth, not looking up from your newspaper; but you hesitated, because something in you honestly stirred.
Something that hadn't so much as flickered for years now.
You didn't rise to his bait, however.
"I'm afraid I'll have to pass still," you said at length. "As always, however, thankyou for the invitation."
He grinned and shrugged and shouldered his backpack.
"Well, you know where I'll be," he said, and off he went, banging the door behind him.
"God bless," you threw after him; although you're not sure if he heard.
Were you ever the way he is – what he has become? He treats war like a work day, like the whole thing has a strange sense of normalcy about it to him. Surely... surely that's not—
No. You shut your paper and leaned your head back, closing your eyes. Of course that's alright. It's better that way. It's better for him to treat it like an ordinary day-job than to treat it like a glorious game the way you once did. He's become increasingly warlike, even unhinged by paranoia when it comes to Russia...
But he's not like you were. He may go about it the wrong way, but he fancies himself – and always has – as a hero. Some little working-class hero who tries to do the right thing. Not like you – you never proclaimed to be anything of the sort. All of your wars have been fought out of either greed or hypocrisy.
Then you stopped fighting and he took up your mantle and went on without you. He invites you to join him from time to time, though. You always refuse because you insist that you're past all that now. You're not young like him anymore.
You opened your eyes.
Still, something stirred.
—
America, halfway through stretching his arms and his wings and still in his pyjamas, stopped dead at the kitchen door.
England, his back to him, was busy at the counter making himself a cup of tea. That wasn't surprising. The time wasn't, either – in fact, this was early for America to be up these days. England generally wasn't a late riser, so to see him in the kitchen at the ass-crack of dawn wasn't unusual.
However, he wasn't in his pyjamas or his flannel robe or even in slacks and a shirt and some kind of cardigan or sweater-vest.
England must have heard him because he turned to him, sipping at his tea.
"Good morning," he said pleasantly. "There's still plenty of hot water. Would you like some coffee?"
"Uh..." America couldn't get much further than that; instead he gave a mute nod and drifted to the kitchen table, sinking silently into a chair.
He didn't take his eyes off England. He couldn't. It had been so long since he had seen him in uniform that he was almost fascinated by it.
England, as usual, was a hypocrite about the whole thing. He was so very precise about the exact way his tea was made but he didn't bother with any trivialities about the manner in which he spooned instant coffee granules into a mug, splashed in some milk and barely let the hot water settle before he put the whole ensemble down on the table with so much force that a little slopped over the side and America jumped.
Ah. America winced inwardly. England wasn't in a good mood at all. That airy tone of his was a sarcastic act – America could tell by his very body language that he was, in fact, royally pissed off.
Oh, and there was the whole uniform thing.
"So, um..." America sheepishly pulled his messy coffee towards him. "Is, uh... is this about... Argentina?"
England had the good grace to smile at him, at least.
"Am I that easy to read?" he asked over his tea. His eyes were very dark and his tone was dismissive. "How is the coffee?"
"How...?" America blinked, then glanced down at his mug. "Oh, it's... I haven't—"
"I expect it's awful," England interrupted absently. "I'm afraid it's not my strong point." He looked at the clock on the kitchen wall. "Bugger. Look, America... I'm—"
"You're going to go kick Argentina's ass," American finished for him glibly. "I know. You're making it kind of obvious." He lifted his mug and took a sip. It was awful but he managed to refrain from shuddering. "You know, though – it's kind of nice to see you finally snapped out of your funk."
"That's an interesting way of putting it," England murmured. He drained his tea and went to rinse his cup. "I'm not going to ask you to come. It wouldn't be fair."
"And you're not going to call me a selfish prick?" America feigned surprise.
"You are a selfish prick," England hummed, "but I have my standards and I promised myself that this is one war I'm not going to drag you into."
"Well..." America looked at his poorly-made coffee for a while. It reminded him of the trenches. "...Just remember that I've still got your back, okay?"
England faltered for a moment, turning to him.
"...I know," he said after a moment, his voice very quiet. "You're always at my back – sometimes in a rather more disconcerting manner than others, but still."
America grinned; rested his chin on his hand and looked at England appreciatively again.
"New uniform?" he asked.
"Yes. New regulations. It's been a while, you know."
"Yeah, I know." America nodded towards England's chest. "No officer's belt?"
"Only for decorative purposes these days – dress uniforms and the like. They are rather impractical, I have to admit."
"Huh." America arched an eyebrow. "Well, either way, I'm really thinking about dragging you back upstairs to give you a proper fond farewell."
"As delightful as that sounds, I'm afraid you are going to have to put such thoughts on hold for now," England replied briskly. "I really need to shove off if I'm going to get anything done this morning."
America was honestly a little disappointed despite having known that he'd be shot down.
"Can't blame a guy for trying," he sighed.
"Oh, you're very trying, believe me," England replied. He had put his cup away and was starting out of the kitchen. "Make sure you wash out your mug when you're done drinking that mud of yours."
"It's only mud because you made it," America muttered, taking another mouthful of it nonetheless.
England gave a noncommittal snort as he passed him. His mind was clearly elsewhere – most likely on what the biggest gun he could get his hands on was. This, America could tell already, was England's kind of war. Nothing ideological, nothing apocalyptic, just plain old scrapping it out with whatever was to hand. It was odd but there was really nothing gentlemanly about the way England liked to fight – which made it a little disconcerting that England had the nerve to call him heavy-handed and barbaric in his methods.
After all, even all these years later, America had to admit that he and Russia had still yet to actually lay a hand on one another.
England was out of the kitchen. America watched him over his shoulder, past his wing; that uniform was pretty flattering on him, really. Not quite as much as the one he'd worn during World War II (that one had honestly fitted him slightly better – despite the rationing, he still seemed to have had a little more weight on him back then), but it looked good. It was a nice change.
"God save," America said.
England didn't answer.
Maybe he hadn't heard him.
—
You looked at the blood on him.
He came in the door and you looked up from your radio and took off your headphones – you were listening to Michael Jackson or AC/DC or something – and saw the blood on him and it was all you could look at.
He wasn't swaying, though; wasn't staggering. In fact, he looked alright. Better than alright.
He smiled at you.
"It's not mine," he said.
You sprang up and descended on him; you were a jumble of bones and feathers and glasses half hanging off as you gathered him close and laughed. You were so happy to see him.
He felt different, too. Everything about him. He smelt of someone else's blood and his grip was strong as he wrapped his arms around your back. Different because he was suddenly the same. How wonderful. You wouldn't have to despise him anymore.
"Welcome back, England," you said, squeezing him tightly, burying your face in his shoulder and trying not to cry. "I missed you."
"Did you shake hands with him?"
"Yes."
"Nicely?"
America gave a snort.
"Look, it's over, okay?" he said irritably, looking away. "No more Cold War, no more me and Russia glaring at each other across the UN table or sending explosive stuff in the mail or threatening to plunge the entire world into Nuclear Armageddon." He looked at England sidelong. "Isn't that enough?"
England rolled his eyes and shared a sceptical look with Canada, who was standing at America's other side.
"It's good enough, I suppose," he muttered. "As long as it really is over, America."
"It is," America assured him gently. "Look at that."
He tapped England's shoulder and then used the same finger to point in the direction of what had previously been the Berlin Wall. Russia was standing with his sisters and the Baltics on what had once been one side of it – his side. On the other side – the Western European side – stood Germany, closely flanked by Italy, Austria and Hungary.
Prussia, who had tried to jump the wall before but never succeeded, was giving his brother a hug that was somewhat aggressive but still somehow genuinely heartfelt. Germany looked embarrassed but was returning the embrace nonetheless.
"Yeah," Canada agreed softly. "It's over."
At that exact moment, as though sensing the topic of their conversation, Russia looked up and met their gazes. His face was expressionless. England and Canada both glanced nervously at America, wondering how he would react.
He turned away as though nothing had happened, put his arms around his companions and began to lead them away.
"Hey, let's have pancakes!" he babbled. "Canada, you make them, okay? Let's go to France's house, he'll let you use his stuff!"
Canada protested in his usual mild manner and America argued him into submission with altogether far too much ease and England smiled at his effort.
It wasn't going to be easy, but America seemed to have recovered from yet another sickness (his worst yet) and now the world could go forward again without the promise of destruction to hold it back.
"So, yeah," I say, "it's completely worth investing in computers, right? I mean, almost everyone has one it – it's 1996, for God's sake—"
"Ah," France purrs down the line, "I bet I can think of one person who hasn't lifted his cute little nose from his six-inch-thick book long enough to have even noticed that computers exist, hm, dear Amérique?"
I know exactly who he's talking about, but I'd used the opportunity of him talking to take another bite of my burger so I can't speak for a moment.
"Well," France sighs, taking advantage of my inability to answer due to my having my mouth full of Big Mac bought from the Drive-Thru on the way over, "I suppose I cannot think what Angleterre would do with a computer anyway besides search the internet for fellow deluded individuals also convinced that fairies live at the bottom of their garden." He pauses thoughtfully. "Or perhaps look up porn. He can be surprisingly perverted at times, non?"
"Yeah, more like that's what you do," I say, swallowing. Not that I'm totally springing to England's defence or anything – a fact is a fact.
France doesn't try to deny it; he just laughs.
"Why of course, mon cher," he agrees. "Is that not what the internet is for?"
"No," I reply firmly. "It's for investing stocks and sending emails and creating online businesses and buying stuff."
France gives another sigh.
"So level-headed all of a sudden, Amérique," he mutters. "So business-minded. It is quite unbecoming of you."
I'd stick my tongue out at him if only I wasn't talking to him on the phone. He doesn't give me time to come up with a hilarious and awesome reply, however.
"Well, I must be going. The meeting starts again in ten minutes and I was hoping to get myself some coffee."
"Okay," I reply airily. "I'll see you in ten, then. Ciao!"
"Au revoir, faire le pitre," France replies smoothly, and he hangs up.
Huh. Guess I messed that up. I always thought 'Ciao' was French. It must be Spanish, then.
"Please tell me," I hear that clipped, stuck-up accent of his from behind me, "that you were not just doing what I think you were doing."
"What do you think I was doing?" I ask, turning to him. Or, at least, I tried to ask. I don't think it came out sounding quite like that.
His green eyes narrow at me.
"Don't talk with your mouth full," he orders; "and I mean to say that I sincerely hope you were not having a phone conversation with France on that construction block you like to call a mobile phone."
"Cell phone," I correct, "and so what if I was?"
"America, France is down the hall by the vending machines. I just saw him. Talking, I might add, on his construction block of a mobile phone."
"Cell phone," I correct again, "and yeah, he was talking to me. What's the problem with that?"
"Tell me," England sighs, kneading his forehead, "what part of "France is just down the hall" don't you understand?"
"I know he's down the hall," I say irritably. "He told me when I called him."
"Called him?" England drops his hand from his face and stares at me. "Good lord, America, you could just raise your voice a little and he would hear you perfectly clearly. In fact, I expect he can hear every word of this conversation—"
"So right, Angleterre," France hums gleefully, appearing around the open door. "Come now, mon ami, when are you going to haul your old-fashioned little backside out of the Middle Ages and catch up with the rest of us? No computer, no cell phone—"
"Mobile phone," England corrects icily, "and I think I shall keep my "old-fashioned little backside" rather firmly away from anywhere in which you are within groping distance."
"A wise decision," France concedes with a slow nod.
"He did invent punk," I point out, finally pushing down the aerial on my cell. "That's not exactly old-fashioned."
England smirks, giving me a satisfied, appreciative nod; but France simply pulls a face.
"But still, so unattractive, non?" He laughs. "I never thought I would say that I prefer you the way you normally look, Angleterre, but take it from Big Brother that all those piercings did nothing for those monstrosities you like to call your eyebrows—"
That's it. They're fighting again, completely ignoring me.
That's fine. Five minutes until the meeting starts up again, which means I have enough time to check on my tamagotchi and make sure that the little guy hasn't chirped himself to death again.
Last time he died, England kicked me out of the bedroom because I wouldn't stop crying—
Actually, come to think of it, this isn't even the same tamagotchi. England threw the other one out of the window (which is totally rude for someone who frets about his fairies and potted begonias whenever we go away on conferences like this).
He claims to hate almost every kind of "stupid, infernal, utterly pointless gadget" Japan and I like to make these days, but I can't help thinking that he wouldn't have thrown my tamagotchi out of the window to meet a cold concrete death if only he'd known that I'd named the little fella Winston.
"I wanted to be together with you for this."
"I know." Wedging the phone between his chin and his shoulder, England looked absently at the clock. Seven minutes until midnight. "But it can't be helped. We're nations. We have duties, and this... this is one of those times where duty comes first."
"I know, but..." America huffed deeply on the other end of the line. "...I've never seen a millennium before. I'm barely half a millennium old. I wanted to be with you, I wanted to kiss you when the clock struck eleven, in the year 1999, and hold it until the twelfth chime had died away. I wanted to have you in my arms at the end of one century, of one entire millennium, and still have you in them at the beginning of another."
"...I know." England cradled the cordless phone, rocking it like one might rock a child to sleep. "I wanted... I wanted that too. I wanted to hold your hand through your first millennium – I wanted to open the door for you. I wanted... no, I want to be with you, I do, but—"
"I know, I know," America interrupted, half-laughing. "Duty as a nation first. We have to be in our respective lands with our own bosses and our own people to welcome in the Year 2000."
"I'm sorry," England said quietly. "I am. Part of me still says I should have told the lot of them where to stick it and booked a flight to Washington DC anyway."
"No, not Washington. Virginia. James Town. Or... or maybe Plymouth Rock. Massachusetts. I don't know. But somewhere. Somewhere new and old all at once. Old and new. Just us."
"That sounds lovely," England sighed, going to the office window and looking out at the jam-packed area around the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben. Everything was lit up and people were jostling and shrieking and waving things that glowed neon around. Less than five minutes to go.
"...Well," America said on the other side after a long moment of silence, "I should probably let you go. It's four minutes to seven here, which means it's almost midnight there, right?" He gave a little laugh, a genuine one. "Man, that's pretty freaky. You're going to see Y2K a whole five hours before me!"
"Yes," England said absently, putting his scarf back on one-handed as he held onto the phone. "Listen, America... I'm going to go outside, but stay on the line."
"How're you going to do that?"
"It's a cordless phone."
"Ha." He could practically see America's smug grin. "Modern technology, right?"
"Shut up or I shall hang up on you and not speak to you until the next millennium."
"Very funny, England. You wouldn't do that to me."
"It would only be for two minutes." England went out of the office and down several flights of stairs, praying the line didn't get too bad or cut out; even at the best of times transatlantic calls weren't always entirely reliable. "Can you still hear me?"
"Loud and clear, Houston."
"Enough of that," England said fondly. "Must you brag even on the phone?"
"All the time."
"How about a New Millennium's Resolution?"
"What's that?"
"Stop it."
"No can do. I'll be just as awesome in the Year 2000 as I am right now."
"I was afraid of that." England looked up at Big Ben just as the Westminster Quarters began to sound. "Can you hear it?"
"Yes. Guess this is it, then."
"Mm." England observed his boss and several of his subordinates glancing about, presumably in search of him; he was suddenly struck with the desire to ignore his duty and ducked behind a telephone box as the chimes began to strike. "Still there?"
"Yeah." America sounded puzzled. "Um... what are you doing?"
"What I should have done yesterday." Still clutching the phone, England ventured half out from behind the red box as his people began to chant in unison the countdown from ten.
"I can hear them!" America cried on the other end of the line. "England, why aren't you counting?"
"Oh," England said absently, looking up at the great round yellow face of Big Ben, "I've decided to wait. This is good enough, being immersed amongst my people, but..."
The clock struck twelve and the entire crowd seemed to explode in a mingled cheer of "Happy New Millennium!". Streamers flew and people embraced and fireworks soared into the sky, millennium colours of purple and silver and British colours of red, white and blue.
"England, England!" America chirped down the line. "Happy New Millennium! I heard them! It's 2000 in Britain now!" He hesitated, noting the lack of response. "...England?"
Red, white and blue.
England hung up the phone.
—
"Well, I'd have liked a little warning," America said. "I thought the line cut out or something, but..."
He glanced down at England, who was trying not to let the jet-lag get to him. God only knew how many strings he'd had to pull to get himself here in less than five hours.
"It's nice to know that you still do crazy stuff every now and then," America finished.
England looked at the clock. Seven minutes until midnight. He pulled at America's arm.
"It reminded me of that day," he said. "Victory – everyone celebrating a great achievement together. We celebrated that together."
"Yeah, against the wall in the map room."
"So lead the way." England ran his hand over America's wings. "Let's celebrate the new millennium with a memory of the old one."
(It wasn't a map room but it was beautiful, white marble arches and red carpet and a huge window. Upon the mantelpiece sat a mounted globe crafted of various precious stones and with rivers and country names picked out in pure gold.
Inside him, America kissed him on the eleventh chime and held it until the twelfth had been lost to the cheering of the crowds and the roar of fireworks in red, white and blue.
"Happy New Millennium," England replied.)
"Are you ready?"
America looked up at me, blinking owlishly behind his glasses. Even as he gave me his (supposed) attention, his fingers still moved over the grease-smeared touch screen of that infernal contraption of his, that blasted iPhone, his apparent pride-and-joy-and-love-of-his-life. One of these days I truly expect him to come in with photographs of his wedding and subsequent honeymoon with the thing.
"For what?" he asked.
I sighed in utter exasperation.
"Your speech?" I reminded him scathingly. "The one on the recession doing a fine job of robbing us all blind? The one that you will be giving in less than fifteen minutes?"
"Oh!" An awful look of sudden comprehension dawned on his face. "Yeah, yeah, I got it covered. No worries, okay?"
I wasn't convinced.
"Define "covered"," I impressed testily."Please don't tell me that I just reminded you about it. You've had three weeks to prepare."
"No, no," he says breezily. He held up his iPhone and waved it practically in my face, forcing me to step back. "It's all on here. I totally wrote it all out and everything. With bullet-points, even!"
I sighed. iPhone front and centre, as usual. It is, of course, painfully ironic but oh-so-typical that he would give a speech about the damage of the recession to all of our economies whilst reading his notes from a three hundred dollar gadget.
I really would like to throw that blasted thing out of the window sometimes. He is enslaved by it – controlled by media so readily at his fingertips. Not only does it distract him during meetings with all of its games and applications and instantaneous access to Google (yes, I saw you looking up what a "hustru" was during Sweden's last speech) and not only does he clog up my phone with pictures and postcards that he sends me, followed by another twelve text messages asking if it went through, I have honestly lost count of the times during which I – often half-undressed by this point – have been made to play second fiddle to The Sacred iPhone when it rings with Japan's personalised tone and America more or less physically drops me in order to answer it and squeal down the line about some new Nintendo DS game, the purpose of which is to collect jewel-encrusted vegetables for some banal reason or other.
(While we're at it, I am going to ring Japan's neck if he doesn't stop sending America that wretched excuse for music he likes to call "Vocaloid" – I and Austria both, I think, given that America doesn't seem to understand the basic concept of headphones.
I don't think I want to live in the modern world sometimes. It wears me out.)
"What?"
His voice snapped me out of my pleasant daydreaming as to what I would like to do to that iPhone if only he would leave it unattended for the three seconds it would take me to steal it.
"Hm?" I replied, looking at his fingers. They were still at work on the screen. He didn't even need to look at it.
"You're not going to be all pissy about this, are you?" he asked. "At least I actually wrote a speech this time!"
"Well," I said, trying my hardest not to sound too "pissy", "yes, I will give you that, but honestly—"
"Hey, faggot America!"
Romano, his usual rudeness firmly in place, cut me off as he approached, dragging his hapless brother by the sleeve. Spain, I noted, was not far behind them, smiling that usual vapid, brainless smile of his.
(It is, of course, merely another instance of irony in its most perfect form for Romano to observe America and I in conversation, deem it therefore acceptable for him to address America as a "faggot", and all the while have his Germansexual younger brother and his own shag-buddy, my favourite Spain the Brainless, in tow. I have never really been able to decide if Romano is actually fairly witty beneath his idiocy or is, in fact, merely comprised of idiocy.)
"Lend me your iPhone for a second," Romano demanded, already holding out his hand to receive it.
This, again, is typical of Romano; there is little substance to his brashness and, if America had refused, I highly doubt that Romano would actually have put up much of a fight. Now Prussia, on the other hand, would demand the use of America's iPhone in an identical manner, but he would be in complete and utter earnest.
(In fact, let's be honest: Prussia would have snatched the thing out of America's hand by that point. ...Which might be an idea. I could probably easily persuade Prussia to make off with the wretched thing and drop it from the tenth floor window into the car-park—)
"I want to show these idiots something," Romano grudgingly went on by way of explanation when America just blinked at him. "You have internet access, right?"
"Sure," America replied, smiling as he handed it over. "But be quick, I need it for my speech in ten minutes."
Romano took the iPhone and Italy and Spain gathered around him to look at the screen as he searched for whatever he was looking for. America and I shared a look; I must have appeared slightly bewildered, for he grinned and shrugged at me.
Romano was fast in finding what he wanted, pointing to the screen and declaring something first in clipped Italian to his brother and then in more irritable Spanish to Spain, who merely tilted his head and beamed wider before leaning towards Romano and whispering something in his ear.
Romano flushed red and coughed in an attempt to compose himself as Italy, who had apparently heard what Spain had said but not understood it, gave the pair of them that usual clueless look of his before wandering off, presumably in the direction of Germany.
(As an aside, it must be noted that both Italy and America seem to share an uncanny knack for finding Germany and myself no matter where we happen to be. I would say the same of France, although I rather think that what France possesses is instead merely an ability to sense body warmth within a one hundred mile radius. It is unfortunate for Germany and I, then, that neither of us are ever more than one hundred miles away from him.)
Romano made to hand the dratted iPhone back; I saw my chance as I observed the languidness with which America reached out to take it and seized the thing from Romano's slack hand.
"Hey!" America was immediately indignant, finally leaping up from the chair in which he'd been rocking with the air of a bored schoolboy. "England, I need that!"
I swayed out of his reach as he tried to snatch it from me, putting it behind my back. Romano and Spain seemed somewhat intrigued by this exchange, but I ignored them and so did America.
"I disagree," I said levelly.
His eyes narrowed dangerously but he didn't speak.
"Let me ask you something," I went on, "and give me an honest answer."
He raised his eyebrows and folded his arms.
"Go on, then," he said coolly.
I took the iPhone out from behind my back again and held it up, just out of his range.
"Can you do your speech without this?" I asked.
He looked at me for a long moment, meeting my gaze. I knew he was on the verge of throwing himself on his knees to beg for the safe return of his beloved iPhone and probably offer some kind of ransom; but I also knew that he was seriously considering my question. I was, after all, not inquiring as to whether or not he desired the thing.
I was asking if he really needed it.
Let it never be said that I do not believe in him when it counts. I have seen enough of him over the course of his history to know that he is not as much of a fool as he likes to play.
"Yes," he said finally; confidently. He pushed up his glasses and smiled at me. "Yes, I can."
YES THAT WAS TOTALLY AN OBAMA REFERENCE
The first segment of this is, of course, the funeral of Sir Winston Churchill in the January of 1965. For some reason, (Red) China refused to send a representative to attend. Nobody is really sure why.
1903 – The Wright Brothers fly their first plane for about a minute somewhere in Ohio.
Shilling, crown, half-crown, sixpence – Old forms of British currency that went out of use in the 1970s when the system shifted to the decimal. Since this segment is set in the 1960s, those are the coins England would be familiar with. All are silver.
The section where England gets his war gladrags on, much to America's surprise, is the Falklands Wars of 1981, fought between the UK and Argentina over some menial dispute or other. The Argentineans got massacred.
Also in here is, of course, the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.
Faire le pitre – French for "fool" or "idiot"
Hustru – Swedish for "wife"
(Who Googled it?)
iPhone? I should have made it the iPad... Seriously, though, isn't it just a giant iPhone? What's the point...? O.o