Rivalry

Part 14

He'd finally noticed.

Key word in that sentence being 'finally'. France had been starting to think that he'd have to not-so-subtly exclaim, "Hey look, isn't that England over there right now? What a not-at-all-planned coincidence."

Thankfully, America had finally noticed the two of them. Probably because Canada's eyes hadn't left them since he walked in.

"Shit." And he apparently was not happy about it.

"Quoi?" France had always been rather proud of his acting skills. He now feigned complete confusion. "What is it, mon ami?"

America's expression had twisted into a furious grimace. "They're sitting right over there."

France made a great show of turning around to glance at them, catching Prussia's eyes in the process and receiving a rather annoyed glare. He just smirked back before returning to the table. "So they are, mon cher. What an odd coincidence."

Anyone else would have probably been suspicious at this point. However, most people were not an incredibly jealous America, who was nowhere close to being in the state of mind to pick up on suspicious circumstances. Actually, he looked, quite frankly, as if he'd love to stand up right now and wring Prussia's neck.

Hmm, it probably was good that Canada had come along. He might need assistance in restraining the American if Prussia did everything exactly as he'd written in the notebook.

France leaned forward slightly, distracting America from his angry glares at the albino. "Don't forget, mon ami, what I said. You must rescue the damsel-in-distress."

America paused, hesitated, and then nodded. "Yes…"

"Now, how should we go about this?" He tapped a finger against his chin, over-exaggerating his pensive expression. Unfortunately, England hadn't seemed to notice them yet, so he couldn't really start his side of the plan.

Still, at least Prussia had noticed.

And he was now leaning closer to England, refilling his wine glass while murmuring something under his breath that apparently amused the other nation, as he started to laugh.

And America steamed.

"They seem to be having a good time," France pointed out unnecessarily. "It almost seems like a shame to break them up."

"Iggy is way too good for that freaky sadistic bastard."

He seemed to have said it automatically, without realizing what exactly he was saying. As further evidenced a few seconds later, when he seemed to finally think about what he'd said. He turned about five shades of red and hurriedly began stuttering, "I—I just meant that since he's the damsel-in-distress he should be going out with someone not so creepy and..and…"

"Like who, mon cher?" France practically purred. "Who would be a better choice for Angleterre to date? Perhaps Kiku? I know that he and Angleterre are quite close."

"No!" America hurriedly exclaimed, catching the eyes of a few random people in the restaurant. Although not England's, as he was still talking with Prussia and not really paying attention to anything around him. "I mean…Kiku is cool and stuff, but he and Iggy would just spend all their time talking about tea and books and boring stuff like that…"

France's grin only widened. "You don't think Angleterre would enjoy dating someone who shares interests with him?"

America was definitely flailing now. It was actually rather cute. "I didn't say that, but—but—he needs someone more…more…"

"Hey, you ready for me to take your orders, bas—I mean…valued customers?"

And that effectively cut off that conversation. France and America both turned toward the interruption, Canada ignoring everyone in favour of tearing his napkin into shreds while staring at Prussia and England's table.

A waitress was waiting at the end of their table, scowling slightly as she eyed them, her notebook open and pen poised over the blank page.

"Ah—" France glanced toward the menu that neither of them had even bothered to open. "We'll just have the house special?" Whatever that might be.

"Appetizer? Wine?"

He glanced toward America, who just shrugged. "Ah…" Might as well turn on that infamous French charm. He leaned forward, grabbed the hand not holding the notebook, and then brushed his lips against the soft wrist. "Why don't you surprise us?"

He glanced up to see that she had turned a shade of red that could almost rival one of Antonio's tomatoes. She also looked as if she were considering hitting him over the head with her notebook.

"How about," he continued, refusing to release her hand, even though she was tugging back on it, "you come back with me to my place when you're done with work? You're looking qui—Ow!"

And she had decided to hit him over the head with her notebook. Not that it hurt too much, but she also kicked him in the shin in the same motion. "Drop dead!"

And then she'd spun around and marched back towards the kitchen.

Wow…she had a lot of power in those legs of hers.

Now that had managed to capture England's attention, as well as the attention of most of the other restaurant's occupants. And they were now all staring at France, who was rubbing at his leg and wincing slightly.

"What the hell is that frog doing here?" England muttered, staring at France in a mixture of horror and confusion. And he was with America… What the fuck? Why were America and France together? Especially somewhere like here.

Prussia pretended to have just noticed him as well, groaning slightly as he focused on the man. "Oh fuck, don't tell me that he decided to show up to actually make sure I did it?"

Now England turned back to Prussia. "What are you talking about?"

Prussia sighed, rubbing at his silver hair with a hand while shaking his head. "Okay, so I didn't tell you about the whole bet. The bet was actually that I'd—well—not only dress up like this, but that I'd actually—well, take a date here…"

"A date?! You didn't tell me that this was supposed to be a date!" He moved to stand up, but Prussia hurriedly stopped him by grabbing his arm and tugging him down.

"Hey, don't go. If you walk out on me, then I lose and I'll have to do something even worse than this. I didn't think that France would actually show to make sure I did it."

England continued to stare at Prussia for a few more minutes, thinking. So France was here with America to make sure that Prussia actually went through with taking him on a date. So…that meant that France had decided to take America on a date too?

Since when were France and America together? He'd thought America had more common sense than that…

Unless that was why he'd been acting so strangely?

Ugh, why in the world had they suddenly shown up? He'd actually been having a good time. It wasn't often that someone took him out to a nice restaurant (usually he'd get dragged against his will to McDonald's by America) and he'd actually been enjoying himself. Prussia was always an entertaining person to spend time with…it was easy to forget about anything that was bothering you when you were around him.

And now his two biggest headaches were sitting together, right across the restaurant from him.

"All right," he sighed, settling back in his seat. Fine, if they wanted to try to ruin his nice dinner, then he'd just ignore them and show them that he could have an enjoyable time, even if they were trying to sabotage him. "Now, what were we talking about before we were so rudely interrupted?"

A/N: Wow, so I really don't have anything to say right here. Ummm…

So everything is starting to go a little bit crazy. And Romano is adorable in a skirt. If I could draw, I'd totally draw him in his outfit, but alas, I cannot. Sigh.

Reviews are lovely :D