Done Nothing Else But Smile
Genre: friendship/romance
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Canada, Holland, Ukraine, America
Warnings: fluff?
Disclaimer: don't own Fast as I Can or Hetalia
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He pushes the bouquet into his arms, profusions of white, red, and yellow filling his vision until all he can see are glad good feelings.
"Thank you so much," he tells him, and lowers the flowers so he can see the other better, pale eyes and shock of straw-blond hair, tan skin and old scars. He's never met him before, but he knows him. He came up out of the sea, long, long ago, and plowed the empty seabed until it grew verdant and fertile, and himself strong enough to leave and search for other, drier shores. All that was long ago, though. Now, he smiles warmly at him.
"No," Holland insists. "Thank you." Once-strong arms grasp at his, tight and insistent, and Canada is a little overwhelmed by the intensity in a face normally lacking any serious motivation, these days. "My people were dying, they were starving. You have made yourself my most important friend. I will never forget you."
Canada has to hold back sudden involuntary tears. He doesn't think Holland has the slightest idea how much that promise is worth to him, if he means it.
It seems he means it. Every spring, there are tulips by the thousands, and Holland comes to stay in Canada's house, a laughing, friendly presence that brightens Canada's spring as much as the flowers, and he doesn't know how to deal with it, how to deal with a person who likes him so much and never forgets his name. He thinks maybe he would do anything to make Holland smile, to have him return again the next year.
"You are Canada," Holland says, when he shows that trepidation, the fear that he won't come back. As though that explains everything. "I like you very much. I'll always be back."
America doesn't believe him when he tells him there's someone who never mistakes him for anyone else (and by anyone else, he means America). Canada just smiles, and arranges tulips in vases. It doesn't bother him as much as it normally would, now.
He smiles at most people who forget him, now, because he knows there are people who will not. He smiles a lot more, and not always self-deprecatingly. Ukraine catches him one day after a meeting and says: "Who's this person who's doing this for you?"
Canada's not sure how to answer that.
"It's wonderful," she says. "You're definitely more yourself than you've ever been before." And she hugs him close, smiling, eyes shimmering a little, and she was the first to know who he was, always, and he won't forget that either, he's so grateful for her affection, but the truth is that even when she bakes him sweet hot bread made from wheat of her wide fields, to tide him through the winter, his thoughts are already bending towards the spring and not on the months of ice and snow.
Holland is pleased when Canada embraces him warmly, for the first time, before he leaves in late May. Canada's been emboldened by years of shared understanding and warm smiles and bright blossoms, and Holland holds him like he doesn't want to let go. "I love you, you know that," Holland says, and Canada's throat almost locks itself shut involuntarily.
"I -" he begins, because they're not words he'd thought of before, not words he's ever said to anyone, and he feels it, he feels truth moving through him like a brook leaping towards the sea, and it shouldn't be hard to say welcome truth. "I - I also - it's - you - well, I -"
Holland smiles, fondly, at his stammering attempts until he finally gives up, humiliated and somehow ashamed, but there is no scorn in that smile and Canada just doesn't know what to do anymore. "Don't strain yourself, geliefd. In time. All in good time."
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