Pangaea

by RobinRocks

*Manifest your destiny* On the eve of the outbreak of the Second World War, England and America disappear. From history. UKUS/USUK with GerIta, RussPruss, Franada et al. Cowritten with Narroch.

4. England Expects

So, to be honest, it took us a while longer to pull this chapter together than we were expecting simply because of... eh, that annoying distraction called Real Life and also just because this chapter is pretty ridiculously long. Our sincerest apologies in advance for the agony your eyes will be in when at long last you crawl over this chapter's finish line.

We won't keep you too long up here. Thanks to: DesktopNeko, Grayrainbowninja39, SeungSeiRan, rae1112, TheWonderBunny, Nickel Xenon, Details, Divadcreator, DetectiveLinky, Genki-angel-chan, Cheese-kun, sacredpools, suzako, dryeyes, hoshiko2kokoro, Synonymous Brian, andthenshesaid, CigfrainSol, Chibiaries and jesusofsuburbia2o2o!

Two other things:

One: The title of this chapter, England Expects, is a shortened version of the Royal Navy "slogan", 'England expects that every man will do his duty', which is a polite way of saying 'Don't jump ship, ye scurvy dogs'. It was notably in use under Admiral Nelson.

Two: OC ahoy! Except not really because Portugal is a real freaking country and for some reason Himaruya totally ignored it even though it's like right there next to Spain. o.O Our Portugal is as "canon" as we can make him, his description based as close as possible on a rough concept sketch Himaruya released of the character, although we had to be rather more inventive with his personality. His inclusion is important because Britain (well, the England-Wales bit) has the world's oldest military alliance with Portugal – the Anglo-Portuguese Alliance was first forged in 1373 and is still in effect today! We (the UK, I mean – not Narroch and I!) have never gone to war with Portugal; and Portugal allowed Britain to send battleships in and out of its ports during WWI and WWII even though it was neutral. Of course, nowadays the UK is too busy being military allies/bffs/uke with the USA to pay much attention to poor old Portugal but the alliance is still there! =)

Just be like the USA and UK and don't let Portugal's presence distract you too much from srs bzns. XD

Pangaea

England Expects

America exhaled deeply, the water sloshing at his collarbone as he shifted in the bathtub. It was warm and clean and refreshing, clearing his head as he tilted it back against the porcelain and looked at the ceiling of England's bathroom. As odd as it was, perhaps, to bathe so early in the day, he couldn't deny how much better he felt for it, having allowed England to entice him out of bed and lead him half-stumbling along the landing to where the bath had lay waiting for him, steamy and smelling of bath salts. Given that he'd spent the majority of the past thirty-six hours asleep and drenched in sweat with crudely-wiped smears of blood tracked up his arm, there was no welcomer relief than an antique griffin-legged tub full of hot water in which for him to rinse the last of the shockwave symptoms off his skin and out of his system.

He was hungry, he realized as he looked shortsightedly about the humid bathroom – so hungry, in fact, that he didn't care how cremated England's breakfast offering was this morning. He felt his stomach would happily macerate even charcoal. Ah, and speaking of coal, he hadn't had a smoke in a few days. A cigarette would be nice. Maybe he could pilfer one from the wooden box on the dresser.

It was quiet. Very quiet, in fact, considering that they were balancing precariously on the edge of war. He hadn't been anticipating any more gentle hazy mornings like this after signing the war declarations to make this entire mess official. He had half-expected gas clouds or shrapnel rain to follow them from France's house, to come home and find the trenches already neatly dug and ready to be cowered in. And, while he couldn't really remember exactly how they had gotten home last night, he still thought the morning would reflect those differences. The milieu would be eerie and bullet-ridden, the bath would consist of cold swipes of a wet cloth and the food would be a dense tasteless ration block. But, even though they were now at war, it was just like any other morning, where he slept in late while England got up early just to make a pot of tea since he couldn't go without his finely crafted infusion for more than a few hours.

If he closed his eyes and listened as carefully as he could, he could hear England faintly singing in the kitchen – and he recalled, dazedly, asking England to sing for him last night, though he could not remember what he had requested, nor indeed even the words or the tune of what England had trilled. It didn't matter. America loved, and had always loved, hearing him sing; he was not exactly Judy Garland but the rough slurs and hard, short bites that littered his voice when he spoke all disappeared when he wrapped it instead around a tune, around lovely words that were not his own, and becoming strangely pretty particularly when there was a story in the song. He became sweetly immersed in whatever legend or rhyme or warble of wisdom he was trying to convey, focusing on the rise and fall of notes rather than on correcting America's slouching posture or complaining about France's latest perversion; even the near constant frown he entertained lifted as the melody flowed up over his brow.

But another shift in the bath, stretching out his long legs over the porcelain rim, and America couldn't hear him anymore. Perhaps he had stopped.

America looked at his arm for a long moment. He had peeled away the bloody gauze before stepping into the bath and rinsing away the copper crust in the water; now, again, there was only the tiniest of bruises to signify that a needle had gone into his vein at all. The bleeding seemed, at long last, to have finally stopped, even when England laid a hand upon his bare skin.

Even so, America recalled with a scowl, for all England's airy excuses and highbrow explanations, he had still received no satisfactory answer as to why England seemed to have a memory of being beheaded that insisted upon its new host with such utter violence and inclination that it struck back at England himself in the form of a ghost mark in his own blood, spattered suspiciously across his neck as though the memory itself refused to be denied.

Curiouser and curiouser, in Alice's words – or Lewis Carroll's, at least, yet another of America's new quiet prides.

Unable to stand the hunger pangs much longer, America grudgingly pulled up the chained plug to the drain and got out of the bath feeling much purer; he toweled himself off quickly, pulling on his camel-colored uniform trousers and a new sleeveless white military-issue under-vest, throwing his white shirt on over the top of it and leaving it unbuttoned. He roughly rubbed his hair dry on his way back to the bedroom to forage blindly for his glasses for five minutes because they were never where he left them because England kept moving them to somewhere he couldn't see them—

He found them on top of the cigarette box, swiped two of England's cigarettes to get him back for what surely had to be Round 57 of the morning Hunt-for-the-Corrective-Lenses game by now and went down to breakfast barefoot.

England was in front of the stove top when America entered the kitchen, his back to the doorway and fully dressed but for his jacket and officer's belt, leaving his braces as two stark black lines crisscrossing down his narrow back, one of them slipping a little. He was prodding absently at something sizzling in a pan whilst his attention was quite clearly on one of the half a dozen or so maps spread out on the sideboard; then left off tending the food completely in order to pluck up a pen in his hand, trailing gently just-so along the curves of the River Inn on an battered map of Germany, Austria and Switzerland. His old trench knife-bayonet, scuffed but sharp and shining, was sitting perpendicular atop another faded diagram of Italy.

America took a step towards him, his bare feet barely making a muffled sound on the wooden floor, but England noticeably tensed nonetheless; his hand froze, hovering over the Rhineland, and then moved deliberately, openly, towards the bayonet.

"It's just me," America said quickly, setting him at ease again. "Jeez, what are you all jittery for?"

"I wonder," England replied smoothly, coolly, not turning to address him. "Besides, this is merely war-time caution against a slit throat – not jitteriness, necessarily."

America shook some of his wet hair out of his eyes.

"Remind me not to sneak up on you from here on out," he muttered.

"If you like your innards being firmly within you, that would probably be for the best," England agreed mildly. He brought his pen up for a moment, poised over Germany, and then made a decisive mark on the map.

"Is this why you burn everything?" America asked languidly, sticking his hands in his pockets and approaching him from behind to ascertain what he was attempting to char. "Because you're too busy being your little strategic genius self to notice the smoke when you cook?"

"Mm." England barely answered him, still distracted by his map even though—

"England, that wasn't rhetorical; your pan is smoking right now." America reached around him and turned down the gas. "You have to pay attention to these things." He left off the dial and let his arm settle around England's middle instead, squeezing him warmly. "Oh, and look at that. I snuck up on you."

"Then I shall have to take the corresponding action," England said, dropping his pen and closing his hand instead around the hilt of his battered, beloved bayonet.

"And have my guts for garters, right?" America hummed, putting his chin on one of England's shoulders and reaching up towards the other to slip his forefinger beneath the skewed brace and pull it up, letting it snap back into its proper place.

"Something like that." England shifted in his grasp. "I say, could we not do this before a spitting pan?"

"Oh, you've had worse injuries." America took hold of England's wrist and lifted his arm, making it bend up towards him; his shirt cuff slipped back a little, revealing a few tiny nicks and scars on England's forearm, the raised marks on his skin reflected the light differently, made the scar tissue stand out – rather like the ones on the dull steel bayonet clutched tightly in England's hand as though it was a mere extension of his limb, so well did it blend into his battle-scarred extremities. "I can feel them all prickle on my skin when I breathe you in."

He pressed a kiss flush to the underside of England's wrist, to the dip in the base of his palm where the skin was translucent and defenseless, right next to the hilt of his bayonet that was solid and guarded. The thin blue pulse jumped under America's lips but England didn't say anything, barely even reacted, though America could still sense him contemplating the barrier of his arms, he could almost feel the simmering heat of his blood, his hunger to destroy—

Hungry. Yeah. America's own stomach growled and he winced. He'd almost forgotten.

"I expect you're starving," England said dismissively, taking the opportunity to untwine himself from America's arms and go back to his now thoroughly-blackened pan; he gave a flick of his wrist and did some very decorative and impressive twirling with his bayonet as he slid it easily back in his belt without even looking at the holster as he did it. "You only had that bowl of broth yesterday. Go and sit down. Breakfast is almost ready."

"Fine, fine." America sidled away to the kitchen table and sank heavily into one of the chairs. His chair; his favorite with the funny little groove in the left arm that he liked to run this thumb over distractedly while he was waiting to be served. "But hurry up or I'll be forced to take a bite of the damn table."

"As impatient as always." England came to the table in question a moment later with a plate of customarily-charred toast. "Here, you may begin."

"Gee, thanks," America drawled, grabbing four slices and arranging them strategically on his own plate so that he could spread jam on all of them at the same time to at least create a barrier of sweetness between the sooty toast and his tongue. He piled them up in a four-layer stack and took a massive bite out of one of the corners, making an appreciative noise as he chewed.

"Is it good?" England asked, perhaps somewhat-hopefully, as he brought tea to the table and then went back for his pan.

"Nah," America said on swallowing. "It's even more burnt than usual, actually – but you know what they say! Hunger is the best spice."

"And the most valuable in times of difficulty," England agreed irritably, scraping the burnt-yellow-mess out of the pan onto a plate. "Eggs?"

"Is that what that is?" America whistled sarcastically. "Jesus, England."

"Shut up. I thought you said you were hungry."

"I am." America held out his plate. "Sure. Eggs. Whatever you say."

"There are grilled tomatoes, too. I did those first."

"Those too. Whatever you got, pile it on. I'm fuckin' starving, seriously."

"Hm." England smirked as he sat down opposite him and passed across the cauterized tomatoes. "Well, say what you like about my cooking – you always eat it nonetheless. Besides, you can't ever argue that I don't feed you."

"True," America agreed breezily, smothering his eggs in pepper to try and kill the taste of burnt pan. "You've never let me go hungry. Sometimes I feel like those kids, you know, from that creepy old fairytale Germany used to tell – and the witch in the gingerbread house, which I could seriously go for right about now, kept feeding them to fatten them up because she was gonna cook them."

England arched an eyebrow as he stirred his tea.

"You've no fear there," he replied levelly. "As if I'd eat you – you'd be all gristle and fat, I expect, with no sweetmeats to spare."

America swallowed his mouthful of eggs indignantly.

"Oh yeah?" he replied. "Well… well, like I'd eat you! You'd be all bones and… eyebrows and… and Shakespeare!"

England laughed.

"I suppose I deserved that," he said pleasantly over his tea.

America stared at him for a long moment, bewildered by the mirth England had displayed at his own expense, and then gave a snort and went back to shoveling his eggs into his mouth.

"You're in a good mood," he muttered around a mouthful. "…Wait! I got it. We're officially at war, right?"

England shook his head, slathering butter on a particularly-cremated specimen of toast.

"Not yet," he replied. "Soon, though, I expect. There has been no word from either Germany or Russia about a retreat."

"Is that your bated breath I hear?" America replied, sarcasm oozing as visibly as the strand of runny egg on his chin. How England managed to both burn and undercook eggs in the same pan, he would never know.

"Oh, hush. I'd rather there wasn't a war, you know."

"I dunno," America replied thoughtfully, shrugging and mopping his mouth with a napkin. "You've been pretty antsy lately – all twitchy-like, you know?"

"Because I knew there was going to be a war, you fool," England sighed; he shook his head and took a bite out of his toast, chewing thoughtfully for a moment. "At any rate," he went on almost as soon as he'd swallowed, "I'm glad to see you back to your healthy obnoxious self, America."

America grinned.

"Ain't no ailment can keep me down!" he trilled agreeably. "Right as rain, that's me! Jeez, aside from Wall Street, I don't even remember the last time I got sick." He frowned. "Did I even ever get sick as a kid?"

"Not that I recall," England replied absently, nibbling daintily at his toast.

America paused in demolishing his own breakfast to watch England; it was ironic, really, that he was so delicate, so deliberate, about each of his actions in a domestic setting like this. Everything was just-so and by-the-book, the way he sipped his tea with a single raised pinky, the way he held cutlery with his index finger extended politely over the stem, the careful near-nibbling way he ate – his utterly flawless way of presenting himself. It made him seem curiously high-maintenance, like a spoiled little prince who couldn't bear to get a lick of mud on his shoes.

Ironic, when England was perhaps at his happiest in a muddy battlefield, an apathy – even a love – of war bred into him for centuries. This was how they got things done in Europe. This was how England had gotten his Empire. Even when he looked at England in peacetime – over strong shimmering drinks in crystal glasses during the Roaring Twenties, over barely-stronger-than-water drinks in lead tumblers during the Depressed Thirties – America could never quite shake that feeling off—

That one of the old colonial monsters lurked even now behind England's domesticated smile.

"What?" England asked, looking at him pointedly, noticing the dazed once-over America was giving him.

America blinked, snapped out of his reverie.

"What?" he replied stupidly.

"You were staring at me."

"Was I?"

"Ever so much."

"Oh." America looked back at his breakfast. "Sorry."

England rolled his jade eyes and lifted his teacup. Down the hall in the drawing room, the telephone began to ring, brash and demanding in the otherwise silent house.

"France?" America inquired as England put down his teacup again with a decisive clack before even taking a sip.

"Perhaps." England rose. "Stay here. I shan't be long."

America leaned back in his chair and finished his own tea as he listened to England's footsteps in the hall, growing fainter as he reached the drawing room. There went the door; just a few steps more and England would be at the desk and the phone.

"Hello?"

America had to listen quite intently but he could hear England well enough if he tried and didn't move a muscle. It had to be France again; no doubt the pair of them were beginning to get very excited about all this—

"Ah, bom dia."

America sat up. England's voice. But not English. That was odd. England never spoke anything other than English, so proud of the language named after himself that he didn't bend to the ways of other nations, arrogantly expecting them to instead talk in his tongue. America had, in fact, always assumed that England couldn't even speak any other language, having never bothered to learn one just as America hadn't. And yet here he was, chattering away fluently in what sounded like…

America listened again, straining towards the hallway. …Spanish? Now of all the languages that England might have learned, America would never have thought it would be Spanish – maybe German, thanks to his friendships, at various times, with Germany, Austria and Prussia; or Japanese, even, from the Anglo-Japanese alliance; hell, even Chinese so that he could bully China out of his tea more easily—

Or French. Perhaps. America had always felt that England probably did, in fact, know more French than he let on, given that he always seemed to know when France was insulting him even when it went over America's head.

But Spanish wasn't on that list. At all. All England had ever done to Spain was rob him blind and that didn't seem like the kind of thing you needed to speak Spanish for – the piracy sort of spoke for itself, really.

And then, suddenly, his mind supplied him the answer – déjà vu perhaps fed from a memory that wasn't his of a boy with tanned olive skin, brown curls and chocolate eyes. A boy who looked very much like Spain but wasn't, sharing only his blood. His brother.

Portugal.

America drained his tea in a single scalding gulp and got up, slipping out of the kitchen and creeping quietly down the hall towards the drawing room; the door was slightly ajar and he could hear England much more clearly now, his accent odd and jarring around another language. He was fluent, though – America could tell from the way he didn't pause or hesitate at all, talking in musical Portuguese as naturally as he did in English.

It made him feel strangely… jealous. England had taught America English himself, broadening his vocabulary by showing him things and telling what they were called, reading to him with his fingertip trailing beneath every word as he spoke it, bringing him books back as presents from trips to Europe, sitting him at the oak desk when he was tall enough and helping him to write his name that first time. God damn, England wasn't meant to speak anything other than English!

America moodily nudged the drawing room door open with a bit more with a little kick, leaning against the doorframe with his arms folded. England hadn't noticed him, his back to the door as he pored over the big map paper-weighted down on the desk; he was playing idly with his bayonet, turning it this way and that, America watching it flash in the morning light streaming in as dusty golden columns through the large windows.

It made him think twice about sidling up behind him, at any rate.

England finally straightened again, turned to lean against the table, and America saw him smile.

"Muito obrigado," he said warmly. "Até a vista, Portugal."

He put down the phone in its cradle and leaned over his map again. America didn't say anything but remained against the door, scowling.

"I know you're there, America; I heard the door," England hummed, not looking up. "What's the matter, eh?"

"Nothing." America stepped into the drawing room. "So, aren't you the little dark horse? I didn't know you could speak anything other than your precious King's English."

"Don't be a jealous brat," England replied shortly. "You're far too old for that sort of behavior now, don't you think?" He shot America an irritated look. "And don't pretend that you didn't know about my military alliance with Portugal, either. For goodness' sake, that pact is older than you!"

"I guess it slipped my mind." America juggled a nonchalant shrug as he came to the desk. "So, what's the deal with Portugal? Is he joining in? Selling you stuff? Coming to tea? What?"

"I'm not sure of the exact details," England replied. "As far as I know, he'd prefer to stay neutral, a wish that I respect – he has, however, agreed to meet with me today so that we can discuss some sort of military arrangement, at least."

"I'm coming too," America said immediately.

"No you are not," England answered coldly. "You barely even know him – and I know for a fact that you just want to come and glare at him across the table if he dares to so much as smile at me."

"Not at all!" America grinned a little too broadly at him. "Your ally is my ally, England!"

"Be that as it may, we'll be conversing in Portuguese. You won't understand a word being said."

America shook his head, still smiling widely, showing too many teeth.

"I don't care, I want to come too!" he insisted; because hell if that didn't make him all the more determined to sit in Portugal's immediate sphere as a physical, glaring reminder to him to keep his hands to himself. ...Maybe. America had to admit that he didn't know what Portugal was like – his shared memories of him were difficult to bring to the fore of his mind, buried so deeply in England's history – but he could only assume that he was somewhat like his brother and had little knowledge or care of the notion of personal boundaries. Like how it wasn't okay to slip his hands up under Romano's shirt in public.

England huffed irritably at him.

"Fine!" he snapped. "Come if it makes you happy – but don't sulk when you feel like you're being left out or ignored."

"Jeez, I'm not a kid," America retorted. "And hell, even if I was, it's not like I don't know how to sit quiet and let the adults talk."

England actually laughed at him.

"It always amuses me when you blatantly lie like that, America," he admitted, finally turning to him. "God knows you never like to be anything less than the center of attention at all times – and my attention, specifically."

"Oh yeah? And how'd you figure that?" America took another step towards him, noting that England adjusted his grip on the bayonet ever so slightly – holding it properly, tightly, as though he felt that he might need to use it. It made America hold off from pushing him back any further, not wanting to make him feel that he was being cornered when he was wound all tight and dangerous like this and with a favored weapon in his hand, no less.

"You're proving my point right now," England bit out. "I told you to stay in the kitchen whilst I took the telephone call. No doubt you heard me speaking Portuguese and decided that you didn't like it—"

"And why did I have to stay in the kitchen anyway?" America interrupted; annoyed that England had seen right through him and now trying to redirect blame, to put England on the defensive. "What didn't you want me to hear?"

"Nothing!" England looked exasperated. "For God's sake, you can't speak Portuguese anyway so it's not as though I was trying to hide anything from you—"

"So why did I have to stay in the kitchen?" America pressed, inching a bit closer.

"Is it too much to ask that I not have you tangled about my legs at all times?" England exploded. "There is no call for you to be so downright possessive!"

America blinked at him, taken aback by the outburst. England paled a shade the moment the words were out of his mouth.

"No, that's not… th-that's not what I meant…"

"Possessive, am I?" America asked coldly.

"That isn't…" England reached for him. "I didn't mean it—"

"That's a little rich coming from you, isn't it?" America cut in blithely, pulling his arm calmly out of England's reach. "You know, what with the whole empire thing you got going on, the whole—"

"America, I didn't mean it—"

"They were still the worst words you could have picked!" America snapped, pushing him against the desk, pinning the hand holding that wretched bayonet to the surface to stop England from acting on any wild desperate ideas; the blade glinted coolly against the old map, over a third of the globe picked out in glorious red and labeled smugly with 'B.E.'. "You have no right to say something like that to me when you're still happily seated on your little throne of great cultural and intellectual supremacy over all these uneducated ill-bred heathens or however you like to fucking justify yourself when you're nailing up a picture of Empress-Queen Victoria in some poor bastard's house—"

"Stop it!" England said fiercely, pushing back against America. "That's not possessiveness – it's greed and I shan't be bullied or humiliated into being anything different than what I am, not by you nor by anyone else. If nothing else, the war will have its wicked way with me and take from me what I do not deserve."

"What about me, then?" America insisted. "That wasn't possessiveness? The more I tried to get away, the tighter you held on and don't even deny it. Damn, it took France hitting you from the other side to get you to let go!"

"That was—" England was trying to tug his trapped, armed hand free; America could feel him doing it.

"What?" America challenged, tightening his grip, leaning onto the limb. "Different? Why was it any different back then, strangling me the way you strangle others now?"

"The reason I wouldn't let you go was different!" England sounded frustrated as he suddenly sagged against the desk defeatedly. "You were different, the whole thing was… it was just…"

"Different. Yeah. I got that." America reached behind England to the desk and took hold of the map, tugging it out from the beneath the paperweights holding it down.

Hesitating a moment as he let go of England's wrist, waiting to see if he'd need to grab hold of him again, America was satisfied enough to take the map in both hands when he saw that England was just looking at him rather despondently, not really reacting to anything anymore. America opened the map out before him, across his chest, so that England could see it. The red crosshatching looked like a shotgun spray, a patchwork blood pattern of domination made even more apparent when splayed across the United States of America.

"Guess you're pretty proud of this, huh?" he said in a low voice. "All this talk about me being your magnum opus but I don't think that's the case – I think you regard this to be your greatest work. This damn Empire of yours."

England looked away, gazing fixedly, distractedly, at the elaborate fireplace.

"Perhaps once," he agreed absently. "Yes, perhaps once I did. But you can't fail to have noticed that I've changed – since the war, since… since she died." He shook his head. "Things are different now. This century, the way we fight wars… it's all so different. It makes priorities different." Glancing now at America, England nodded briefly, tiredly, towards the map. "Even if we win this war, rest assured that I won't come away with everything marked as mine on that map."

"That doesn't mean that you didn't—"

"I know – but I don't care, you see? It's not something that I have any control over." England tilted his head lazily. "Like a lot of things."

America let the map snap shut, clenching it in his fists angrily.

"I don't get you sometimes!" he said hotly. "You're all up in arms about Germany and Russia but at the same time you're so… I don't know, accepting and pessimistic, like no matter what you do, it's not going to make any difference to anything—"

"No, I don't think that," England interrupted. "I don't think that at all. The difference between myself and Germany is that I believed until fairly recently that my dominion of the world was more or less unwitting – the by-product, so to speak, of ignorance or weakness or depravity. I didn't plan to take over the world, it just happened over time due to either need or greed. However, Germany's present principled and elaborately-rationalized rape and plunder of the world is a new thing under the sun. You have to understand that things are infinitely more complicated now than when it was just two lines of soldiers with guns in a field."

"Like it was with us." America conceded glumly, grudgingly impressed that England would ever deign to call himself weak.

"Exactly. Just red and blue and those useless old muskets that wouldn't fire when the gunpowder was damp. Things have changed since then."

"…I guess so, but—"

"One thing hasn't, however." England was looking right at him and America was a little startled by the intensity of his gaze. "You ask why it was different with you? Because I didn't think you would survive on your own." He put up his hand to stop America's predictable outraged protest. "I know I was wrong but at the time I could be forgiven for not believing that you would live, that you would become what you are now. You would not have won if France hadn't helped you and you know that."

"And that was reason enough to keep smothering me?"

"I know; that was wrong of me too." England shrugged helplessly at him. "But I loved you. I wanted you to be safe. I didn't want you to fall apart and break by yourself." He frowned. "I suppose I might have known that the tighter I held, the more you would struggle. It's in you, after all – to want freedom."

"…Yeah." Sobering at the calm honesty of England's words, spoken as neither defense nor excuse but rather as mere fact, America sighed. "That… that doesn't mean it was okay."

England rolled his eyes at his choice of word.

"I suppose I was rather obsessively protective of you – but that's why you were different, why you're still different. I loved you more than anything. I'd have given my life for you, America."

America smiled at him.

"You still do," he said, "and I bet you still would."

England grinned faintly.

"Perhaps, you prick," he said. "And I expect the feeling is mutual."

"Of course!" America said brightly. "I'm a hero! I'd sacrifice myself for you in a flash!" He laughed. "That might change the world, though, if I was gone. You know, since I'm so awesome and all."

"Mm." England brought up his bayonet again, swinging it idly back and forth for a moment before putting the point decisively against America's heart right over the map, not with enough pressure to puncture – just the weight of it letting him know it was there.

America blinked down at it, not terribly perturbed.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"Just wondering," England said absently, turning the knife a bit.

"A little late for that, isn't it?" America asked mildly. "Back then – in red and blue with the muskets that wouldn't fire. That was your chance to do this and make things different."

There was a pause.

"You're right." England lifted away the bayonet and slumped back against the desk again. "You're completely right, of course. I had my chance. I didn't take it."

"Hey." America dropped one edge of the map, letting it roll up on its own into his other hand so that he could reach out and touch England's cheek with his knuckle, noticing that he turned his head away deliberately. "What's the matter?"

"Nothing." The first half of the word was a sigh.

"Nuh-uh, no, not biting." America shook his head violently to further augment his point. "You're being all sad and droopy and you're doing that cryptic thing again, you know I can't stand that—"

"Well, the world doesn't run according to your expectations!" England snapped.

"But you do." America smiled at him again. "That's why I love you."

England still wouldn't look at him, seeming defiant in his bid to not meet America's gaze. He looked like he was perhaps about to cry.

"Hey, hey!" Feeling a little bit impatient now, America caught England up in his arms, embracing him – feeling that he was rigid in his grasp. "What's wrong? Did I upset you?"

"No." As though he was worn out, England sagged suddenly in his arms. "You've done nothing, America. I'm alright. Just… I'm just tired."

"Then let's sit you down, huh?" America hitched him up onto the desk. "Old man like you needs his rest! This is why you shouldn't stay up all night making war plans."

"…You noticed."

"Sure did. I missed my grabby little hot water bottle!"

"I couldn't touch you without you springing a leak, let alone share a bed with you."

"Jeez, that's not what this is about, is it?" America tipped his head back and sighed deeply. "Look, you don't have to feel… you know, guilty or anything; it was my decision to make and I made it, not you; it's not like I'm a kid or anything and I can't take responsibility. I mean, yeah, the sickness thing took me by surprise and I wasn't exactly happy about it but look, I'm fine, no lasting damage and I'm not mad at you or anything, England!" He straightened again and took hold of England's chin. "See, we can touch, we can…"

He trailed off, thinking that a physical demonstration would be better received, and tipped England's face upwards and kissed him. He didn't expect England to react immediately and was surprised when he did, wrapping his arms around America's broad shoulders, still clutching grim-death to his bayonet, opening his legs a little so that America could press closer to him, hold him tightly; and America looped an arm around England's slender back with all the scars he now intimately knew beneath the shirt and braces, put his hand gently to the back of England's head, only dimly aware that he was still clutching the map in his other hand. For a long wonderful moment it was just them, sharing warmth, sharing breath, just the smallest slide of tongue, just the tiniest hint of teeth, just the faintest breath of a moan into his mouth—

And then, before he could be drawn deeper into the kiss, England abruptly pulled away and instead pressed his face to America's shoulder, clinging to him tighter than ever; the edge of the bayonet dug into his shoulder blade where England seemed to lose track of it between their intimacies.

"Oh, you old sap," America teased, squeezing him back. "If you want a cuddle, all you have to do is ask."

England didn't answer him, just hanging onto him as though his life depended on it.

"Right, right," America muttered. "You're too proud and mighty to stoop to that."

"Shut up." England heaved a shuddering sigh against him. "God, I love you, I… I just…"

"Hm?" America rubbed circles on England's back, feeling the bumps and twists of scar tissue beneath his shirt. "I love you too but there's no need to get all choked up about it, you know." He kissed England's hair. "But yeah, I love you too. Utterly undyingly unchangeably."

"Things are going to change soon." It was muffled into America's shirt.

"Right, because of the war?" America shrugged. "It's just war. Been there before, right? 'Sides, you got my back, I got yours, we have Canada and France… It'll be okay." He laughed. "Wow, I can't believe I'm saying this to you. You're the one starting the fucking thing!"

"I don't have any choice." England suddenly sat up again. "But you're right; I really ought to pull myself together."

"I didn't say that, exactly."

"Well, all this moping around won't get us anywhere."

"That's the spirit!" America pulled away from him with another broad grin. "Let's get out there and change the world!"

"Yes, let's." England pointed to the scrunched map in America's hand. "I say, hold that open again, won't you?"

"Uh…" America blinked, confused, but obeyed. "Sure, yeah, okay…"

The map blocked most of England from view and so America was shocked, to say the least, when the bayonet came sharply through it, stopping barely two inches from his chest.

"Jesus, England, watch where you're pointing that thing!" he burst out, looking over the map to see England cutting roughly around something. The weapon was finely honed so that it half-sliced and half-ripped through the paper. "What the hell are you doing?"

"Changing the world. Hold it taut now."

America held as still as he was able until England was done; he had cut out two pieces of the map and, after sticking his bayonet back into his belt, held them up to show them off.

"You cut us out of the world map," America observed bemusedly. "Uh… why?"

"To change the world, as you suggested." England glanced between the two flimsy bits of paper in his hands. "I think it looks better."

America turned the butchered map towards himself, taking note of the gaping holes in the diagram where the United States of America and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland had once been.

"I don't," he said flatly. "Canada's gonna fall into oblivion without me to hold him up!"

"I'm sure he'll be fine." England had turned away towards the desk and was leaning over it. "Besides, I didn't mean that map. I meant this one."

America tossed the destroyed map over his shoulder and went to the desk. On the surface, cleared of everything else, were simply the two pieces cut out of the map positioned side by side.

"That's not a map," he said uneasily. "That's… just you and me and nothing else."

"Mm." England folded his arms. "No-one else to fuck things up, to invade someone else and drag us all into it. Just you and me and we can have a war if we want to but, if we do, we don't haul anyone else in with us. Everything is just you and me – whether we love each other or hate each other, the only ones who bear the brunt of anything we do or say are us and us alone."

America tilted his head thoughtfully.

"I guess… when you put it like that, it does… look better," he agreed, pushing the two pieces together so that they touched. "Sorta." He gave a nod and put a hand on England's shoulder, squeezing it. "Yeah. I like it, England."

Yet another sigh on England's part; but this time he smiled as he did it.

"I expect you would," he replied. "You would have my attention all the time then."

---

"Angleterre." France adjusted his grip on Canada, holding the child more comfortably against his chest as he stood in the bathroom doorway. "I believe that everyone is assembled downstairs and taking the liberty of rifling through your drinks cabinet."

"That is well," England replied distractedly, still kneeling over the bath with his sleeves rolled up. "I will be along shortly. I must attend to America first."

"Ah, yes, it will not do to have the children present," France said boredly. "Shall we bed them down together?"

England finally paused in scrubbing at America (who was sitting rather miserably in the bath batting uninterestedly at the little wooden toy boat floating before him, much quieter than was usual for him); he turned towards France.

"I am not a babysitter," he said icily. "Why did you even bring Canada with you, knowing the nature of the discussion?"

"He is unwell," France said, nodding a little towards Canada as he did so. The child was curled against his chest, holding a fistful of France's cravat, eyes wavering uncertainly between opened and closed, heedless of the hot splotchy tears that continued to leak from them. "I did not like to leave him." He glanced at America, sitting subdued in the suds. "This little one does not look himself either."

"He is not," England agreed, rinsing the last of the soap out of America's gold hair. "I suppose it is to be expected. This happens every time we undertake negotiations of this sort." He reached for the towel next to the tub and unfolded it as he stood, wrapping it around America and lifting him dripping out of the bath. "Out you come, then, poppet, and we shall get you along to bed so that you can get some rest."

"Has he been like this all day?" France asked, rocking Canada in his arms as he watched England towel America off – America, who didn't protest or kick or giggle or try to squirm loose and flee.

"Indeed. I am unaware of how they always seem to know beforehand but America has been sullen since he awoke this morning." England rubbed America's hair dry and put his shift on for him, leaning in to kiss the child on the forehead when he was done; America latched his arms around England's neck and clung uncharacteristically, whining something that was indistinct to France. "Now, America," England said patiently, lifting him. "It is late and you are not well. I think your bed is the best place for you, do you not agree?"

America started crying – but it was the distress of a tired and unhappy child as opposed to a tantrum, a weak and unceasing whine that couldn't be comforted, reasoned or bribed into silence. France had had to put up with it from Canada earlier. Both twins always suffered terribly during land negotiations, affected to sickness by physical shifts in their boundaries as dictated by agreements and signatures. Still, Canada had settled on the journey over, too worn down to do much else but doze feverishly with his head pillowed against France's collar – but now it looked like America's wailing was going to upset him all over again, for he started shifting distractedly in France's arms.

"Give Canada to me." England put out his free arm, holding America, who was still fussing, tightly against his chest with the other. "I will put them to bed together so that they might keep one another company. You go on downstairs."

France had always been a little bit wary of handing over Canada to England, given how greedily and eagerly he had snatched up America for himself and how obsessively he doted upon him; he had always felt that it might be difficult to get England to give Canada, the other half of the complete set, back to him.

Canada was definitely griping again, however, and France was tired of soothing him. Canada didn't often give him trouble and so he didn't know how to cope with him very well when he did. England, who had gotten the more troublesome twin, was better by experience at dealing with the fussing and whining; he managed to be simultaneously firm and patient.

So he put Canada into England's outstretched arm without much argument. Canada didn't object much, perhaps too sleepy to even notice that he had been moved, snuggling against England instead. America swatted jealously at him and whined again when England told him off. France watched them from the top of the staircase, thinking that America was really something of a brat sometimes, ill or not; spoilt rotten by England and constantly pushing to see what he could get away with.

Still, perhaps it was only natural that Canada, who had been fashioned out of only two ideologies instead of five, was gentler, calmer, easier to deal with. He did not even get as sick as America did at times like this.

America was contesting about a bedtime story or a song, at least, when England kicked the door to America's bedroom shut behind him. France could hear the dispute no longer and retreated downstairs, pausing at one of the mirrors in the hall to check his appearance. Canada had been tugging at the collar of his royal blue jacket, which he straightened; and had pulled, too, at his hair a little, causing it to loosen from its ribbon. He tied the bow again, tighter, and was satisfied that he looked his best before venturing into the drawing room of England's Virginia house to rejoin the gathering of French and British landowners and court representatives.

"Francis!" One of his own envoys, a portly lord from the French court who still looked somewhat seasick from the voyage across the Atlantic, accosted him in French the moment he was through the door. "Mr Bonnefoy, there you are! We had begun to think that you would not return!" The lord glanced about. "Ah, are we still missing Mr Kirkland?"

France nodded.

"He is putting Canada and America to bed. He will join us shortly."

The lord gave a nod of his own, putting a hand to France's back.

"Yes, it would not be well to have the children in question running to and fro," he agreed. "Come then, Francis, and we shall get for you a nice glass of cognac. The British appear to have a taste for our best."

Incidentally, France was on his second glass of the stuff and the delegates were all beginning to get antsy even in their tipsy merriment when England finally appeared in the drawing room. He had made a quick effort to neaten himself up, putting on a cravat and jacket, but his hair was still disheveled and he looked worn out.

"My apologies," he muttered, going straight to the table and flopping across his favorite armchair with the air of the teenaged pirate that he still hadn't quite shaken off yet. "It did not please America to settle but he tired himself out crying."

"Well, I suppose we might now begin," a British official said briskly, sitting himself.

England lit himself up one of those thin little cigars he liked and leaned back as everyone else seated themselves and papers were rustled. France poured himself a top-up on his cognac before he sat opposite him, watching him. England wasn't all that old himself, barely out of his teens, and, despite being dreadfully ambitious, he didn't like things like this – all this paperwork over who owned what where; the bureaucracy that was a result of stability and yet it was just as easy to become lost in political paperwork quagmire as it was in the disorder preceding it. Once, when drunk, he'd muttered that it felt to him as though they were carving America and Canada up, hurting them – their own creations – over silly land quibbles. France had agreed but replied that it was a necessity nonetheless. England had regaled him with some very colorful language and then spent the rest of the evening passed out on the floor.

He was scowling right now, looking up at the ceiling as the French and British representatives got themselves in order. France had observed before, not without some amusement, that England rarely smiled; oh, he would smirk, leer and even glower with upturned lips in order to taunt, coerce and intimidate, respectively, but never did he smile simply to convey joy. It was almost as though the emotion hurt his face. Nothing seemed to make him happy—

Except America.

To the point, in fact, where England practically worshipped the child. He took an unnatural pride in him, loving him neurotically, almost possessively. Perhaps it was mere arrogance, a subconscious narcissism that came from loving what he saw of himself reflected in the boy – his language, his mannerisms, his clothing. France couldn't be sure entirely but he was certain enough that England adoring America the way he did couldn't be healthy for either of them despite the fact that America seemed to greatly enjoy the attention, returning it just as fervently—

But England. Sometimes France was certain that England forgot – or deluded himself – that America wasn't like them. Flesh and blood, certainly, but in some ways more of a machine than any of the original European designs created primarily for war and conquest. America was not one of those – and whilst he had the potential to become a nation himself one day, he was yet different still. Above anything else he, like Canada, was an idea.

England had foolishly, vainly and irreparably fallen in love with an idea clothed in threads of vein, a corporeal cloak of bone and skin and downy hair disguising its intangible yet completely manufactured core – and France didn't know what he expected to gain from it.

"Gentlemen." The British envoy spoke again, looking around. "Before we look to the territorial issues, there is one thing to do with the twins themselves that must be attended to. Indeed, it is something which ought to have been addressed a very long time ago and I feel the need to again bring it up."

England's scowl deepened, trenches dug along his brow and mouth to accommodate the overflow of distaste. Heavens, France thought wryly, young though he was, he was going to get wrinkles at this rate.

"I assume," a French military officer spoke up, "you mean the issue of human names for the children."

Ah. Human names. France closed his eyes as he sipped at his drink, savoring the smooth sear of it. That was, not names that referred to the nations themselves as "humans"; rather, names that humans, their citizens, could address them by. Francis Bonnefoy. Arthur Kirkland. Silly fabrications for the sake of "normalcy" – because humans thought it too peculiar to call their country by their true name when they appeared to be human too. Nations themselves never referred to each other by the names selected by their own citizens.

"Indeed," the British delegate replied, looking to England. "Arthur, have you given any thought to the matter? America is hardly a baby and, as such, it strikes me that his contact with the citizens of British North America will begin to heighten as he grows. They will need a name to address him by." He looked to France. "The same applies to Canada."

France kept quiet, watching England; who exhaled deeply through his nose, breathing out twin plumes of smoke as though a dragon calmly contemplating whether or not to torch an entire town.

"France and I," he said at length, "have not discussed the subject, nor have I myself spared it any thought, gentlemen."

Another of the British higher-ups cleared his throat, looking a tad uncomfortable as the room fell eerily quiet following England's noticeably cool response.

"Well then, Arthur," he said in a somewhat-strained voice, "it is high time that the issue was addressed. Virginia alone has been an established British colony some fifty years—"

"Arthur." England held his cigar loosely between his teeth, putting his hands up behind his head. "I do not even recall which of my old monarchs gave me that name anymore. It comes from the legend, of course – King Arthur and his Round Table. I wonder why it was easier for him to call me after a fictional Welsh hero of hand-me-down tales than it was for he, and all others after him, to call me by my name. My real name, I mean to say." He suddenly leaned forward again, putting his hands down on the table rather heavily. "I wonder, gentlemen, if it was because it allowed him to forget that I am not human – if the name 'Arthur' allowed him to think that I was like him, that I could die like him, for him."

"Angleterre, do not make a scene," France purred, although he was admittedly enjoying the performance.

Sometime in the mid-1500s, England had been bitten by the playwriting bug and bred the blighters like the Black Death, every weeping sore or swollen pustule or lungful of blood a new masterpiece. Romeo and Juliet tempted fate with forbidden love beneath the window of Dr Faustus, who hungered for knowledge the way Macbeth hungered for power and murdered for the crown like Claudius, taking what was not his birthright just as Volpone did. He had been drunk on what he called 'Bard's Blood' for a joke and it had made him delightfully dramatic, especially before a browbeaten audience.

"Well, what are our names, Francis?" England drawled it deliberately, taking his cigar from his mouth. "Little wounds of humanity inflicted upon us, making us servants to our courts and our crowns. As long as we answer to them, we are bound. That is good enough for us, we who were born into those bindings – but America and Canada are not nations and so they do not have citizens to call their own, nor to answer to by name or by nature. We made America and Canada ourselves and I will not negate the reasons for which we did so by enslaving them with a human name. I would urge you to do the same."

France arched an eyebrow, impressed. He had thought England was just being deliberately difficult – not that he truly felt that strongly about it. He took another sip of cognac, savoring it, perfectly aware that everyone in the room was looking at him expectantly. England's eyes were very vibrantly green across the pale poplar table.

"Gentlemen," France said at length, setting down his glass. "I am afraid I am going to have to agree with my dear, ah, colleague on this occasion. Heaven knows that for Angleterre and I to agree on anything is a rarity in itself but he is, to my surprise, absolutely correct. I too will not agree to select a human name for Canada, nor will I sign anything put forward by any of you regarding the matter. I will sign for neither Canada nor America."

"And I will not sign for America or Canada," England said coldly. "We are agreed. Neither twin is the property of any human."

There was a long, uncomfortable moment of silence which France, for one, enjoyed with a certain amount of smugness. England, too, looked rather pleased with himself.

"N-now see here, both of you!" the first British official blustered. "What we do not own by name we certainly do by land!"

"But not by ideology," France pointed out kindly.

"That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet," England sighed, leaning back again to drag on his cigar. "I say, speaking of land, is that not why we are convened here? Can we not get to it? The children are not well – due, of course, to these negotiations entirely – and I do not like to leave them unattended."

The envoys seemed to acknowledge that they had been beaten, their fierce collective composure wilting under the bright glare of noncompliance. There was a lot of muttering in English and French as papers were rustled again and passed about.

"Some of these need only your signatures, gentlemen," a French delegate explained. "Some require both, others need only one. There is quite a bit of reading to do, I fear."

England sighed like a dying swan and rose, fetching two quills and ink wells from his desk and coming back to the table. He sank back into his chair, pulled the first of the sheets towards himself and began to read; France watched him scowl again and smiled before looking down with his own paper.

They remained that way for some time, silence reigning as they read and signed and passed papers back and forth between each other; the uncomfortable hush was punctuated only by the splash of wine here or the murmuring of French or English there.

And then the door creaked opened.

America came pattering into the room first, pulling Canada along behind him by the hand. They both looked very unwell, their faces flushed and damp and yet chalk-white beneath the heat-blush.

America obviously hadn't expected the room to be full of middle-aged foreign representatives and stopped dead in the centre; Canada, who appeared to be following him blindly, bumping into him. France put down his quill and watched him with mild interest, wondering what he would do now that he realized he had an audience – he was an attention-seeker when he was feeling himself, after all.

America glanced wildly about for England and took another bolder step forward when he located him.

"Canada was sick," he announced, his voice quavering as though he was on the verge of choking. "All over the bed."

He started coughing and Canada pulled away from him; France took a brief, guilty look at the document he had just signed – an agreement to the movement of a Canadian border – and noted that that had probably been the cause of Canada throwing up.

Canada came running over to him and started crying as France bent to lift him into his lap.

"Sshh, there now." France whispered to him in French and cuddled him close as he sobbed, the soft heaving interspersed with little wet hiccups.

"This… this is most irregular!" a French officer said, standing and looking haughtily down his nose. "We cannot have the children in here whilst we discuss these matters. Someone needs to take them back to bed—"

"We are almost done here, it would seem," England said, fixing the man with a stare settling somewhere between frigid and permafrost. "America, come here."

America didn't move, still coughing a bit as he looked around, surveying his audience again as his eyes finally adjusted to the brightness of the room. Still France watched him. He was unpredictable, this one, his lands sometimes surprising and cruel and his behavior not far behind. France had seen him kill a copperhead before; still a few feet off, perfectly still and camouflaged in the leaf litter, little America had pitched a rock at it before France even realized there was anything there at all, quick and merciless in his defense of himself.

Honestly, maybe it was just that funny look his illness had put in his eye but France was half-expecting him to shoot the room a coy smile and lift his shift. England seemed to notice the wild rim of his gaze as well and quickly headed it off.

"America, come here this instant!"

He banged the table to capture America's wandering attention and the child finally fled to him, scrabbling at his lap as he reached him.

"Lift me!" he demanded, holding up his arms. He whined when England did not pick him up. "England!"

"In a moment," England replied, rubbing at America's hair with his free hand as he signed another document. "I just need to do this, my lovely, and then we shall be away to bed."

One of the British envoys slammed down his empty glass and stood, the wine transforming itself into a red belligerent haze across his visage.

"A good thing it is indeed that you creatures do not breed often," he spat disgustedly.

"Ah, is it not?" France agreed cheerfully. "I think these two must be the very first of their kind – although rest assured that Angleterre's pregnancy was far from a pretty one."

Well, it was worth the silent roomful of shocked expressions; even England smirked at the collective reaction instead of irately back-lashing against the insinuation, trying to read over something as impatient America physically clambered into his lap, grabbing at his jacket to anchor himself.

The confrontational British delegate did not appear to take the insult kindly; his face darkened past the drunk flush and took on a shaking and angry red.

"How could you possibly have the audacity to suppose that a human name makes us believe that you are anything but monsters?" he hissed. He pointed first at America, then at Canada. "Make all the vile jokes you wish, defend your actions by insisting that the children – if we can even call them such – are ideas and ideals! All they are is beasts bred of other beasts!"

"Oh dear," France hummed. "What remedy do you suggest? Burning at the stake like witches?"

The delegate flushed furiously.

"You had no right to make others," he said in a low voice.

England snorted, adjusting fidgety America over his shoulder as he read over the last document.

"My "pregnancy" is, of course," he said lightly, "a fabrication of France's lewd manner – I quite assure you that nations are unable to reproduce as you humans do, even the females amongst us. Our liaisons do not bear fruit and, as such, while it is in us to want to spread and conquer, the desire to reproduce as our citizens do is not." His tone was aloof, not even bothering to fix the man with a glacial stare after his last ignorant outburst. "Yet you are the ones who treat us like humans. Names, meetings, signing documents. Indoctrinate us enough and we are bound to begin to think like you, no matter how I wish it was not so. We had ideas. We had things we wanted to pass on, not simply beat into those we conquered. We wanted to create. So we did." He smirked again. "In that case, you might say that it was not we as nations who "gave birth". It was Arthur Kirkland and Francis Bonnefoy and Antonio Carriedo – the humans you named."

"I say we burn Angleterre at the stake," France sighed gleefully, grinning at the humiliated British official – who had finally slumped kowtowed back into his chair. "He is clearly a witch, for tonight he has a truly spellbinding way with words."

"Have I not?" England sang in reply, signing the last document with a flourish.

The moment he did so, America lurched against him. England froze and France, still cuddling Canada close, burst out laughing.

America had been spectacularly sick all down England's back.

—

America was crying again.

France sighed into Canada's hair, bundling him closer to his chest to keep him sleeping. The door muffled the sound somewhat but America's wailing was still audible – he was hot and irritable and tired and wouldn't settle no matter what England did for him, just clinging to him and crying. Down the hall in the guest bedroom with Canada, it had taken France long enough to get his own small charge to sleep and the last thing he wanted was him woken again by his twin; he could hear footsteps in the hallway, the same ones repeated over and over again, and knew that England was pacing the passage, half-distracted, trying to lull America to sleep in his arms as though he was a newborn, singing soft but clear in the silent house.

They were all old songs, nursery rhymes, folk stories weaved to a tune; Ride a Cock-horse to Banbury Cross, London Bridge is Falling Down, Wee Willie Winkie. He sounded despairing, exhausted, and still America cried. The child seemed to be trying to make England as miserable as he had been all day, taking out his sickness on England's already-starved sleep schedule.

The envoys, of course, had taken up their papers and left, satisfied if not mollified. They had their signatures, their permission to shift and push things about as they pleased. That was enough for them.

Oh, humans died for their countries, for names and for kings and for queens; but they did not suffer under the physical act of carving out history like this. In time, it would be commented upon by only the most exceptionally-narrowed focus of a historian that in the year of X, borderline Y of country Z had been moved five meters to the West – but no human would know how country Z had suffered with a fever that would not break, nor indeed that wars caused unspeakable scars that nations had no choice but to bear.

Some hours later, silence had finally fallen. Thirsty, France tucked Canada in again as he rose, pressing a cool hand to the child's prickling forehead for a moment before going to the door and slipping out to fetch a glass of water from the jug standing in the hall. He noticed, as he raised the glass to his lips, that England's bedroom door was cracked open, the flickering light of a dying candle still spilling forth like a narrow thread into the hall.

With his gold hair battlefield-wild around his face, France opened the door a little more and stood in the gap, perfectly still as he observed the bed. Both occupants were asleep, if fitfully, their odd positions speaking of having fallen into uncomfortable slumber whilst sobbing and soothing, respectively. America was wrapped up tightly in England's scarred arms, his small face pressed to the crook of England's shoulder, half-buried beneath him.

It was a wonder the child could even breathe.

---

"What's wrong?"

Canada's soft, lilting dialect of French fluttered up on the morning haze. Lifting his cigarette from his mouth, France turned towards him, the bedsheets rustling as they twisted to follow his motion. Still lying down, Canada was looking up at him from the pillow.

"Ah, I'm sorry," France purred at him. "Did I wake you? I know it's still early."

"I did smell the smoke," Canada agreed, wrinkling his nose in distaste, "but I think I was waking up anyway." He frowned, his lilac eyes taking on a serious tint. "Are you worried about something? You were staring off into space."

"Just thinking," France sighed. "Just remembering. It's nothing important." He smiled down at Canada kindly. "Don't worry yourself."

Canada, as a rule, was less oblivious than his brother; he didn't look particularly pacified by France's words but he gave a sigh of his own and snuggled closer, pillowing his head on France's chest. France began carding his fingers through his hair the moment it splayed across his breastbone, noting once more that it really was very similar to his own. As was America's, actually, darker and silkier than England's wild straw-blonde thatch. The eyes, too – Canada's a dusky, bluish heather and America's a really brilliant, vibrant shade of cerulean. Neither of them had inherited England's cool glittering jade, their azure tints more complimentary to France's own; and they were not pale or pint-sized like England either, their vast tracks of lands assuring their height difference. But for their language, it was almost as though England had had no part in their creation as physical beings.

And yet America had spent more of his life stapled to England's side than not, honestly and absolutely clingy at times; and despite once revolting against him, the fact that America had been easily lured back into England's grasp and was content to stay there was proof that America was actually fairly dependent on England, at least subconsciously. Since the First World War, it was rare to see one without the other, America always hanging off England in one way or another – as though he couldn't bear to be without him.

France had, of course, noticed that sort of behavior in America before. It wasn't good. In a lot of ways, America was little more than an imprint, in part, of England – and their suffocatingly-close relationship made him fester beneath the dominant culture of the original. America incorporated many different nations into his own fabric but England's colors were by far the most vibrant, gifting even the tints of his Union Flag to the Star-Spangled Banner. Surely England knew that – that nothing could possibly come of smothering America all over again as he had before. Worse, in fact; this was worse because now England was sleeping with him as well, molding himself – the British Empire – as the basis of America's desire, as the thing that he loved. Certainly a sexual relationship was invaluable in these instances for strong military ties and good international relations but England was undoubtedly doing America more damage than good even so.

But it was too late. There was nothing France could do now. America was independent and chose to latch himself back on to England despite it; whispering Révolution in his ear now would bear no fruit.

Not if America was carrying England's history within his heart.

"Something's wrong," Canada said in a low voice; he shifted and looked up at France. "You're too quiet."

"Just thinking how much you look like your brother," France replied lightly, going back to his cigarette while continuing to stroke Canada's hair, a fine distraction for both of them.

Canada gave a snort.

"Of course I do," he said, casting his gaze away again. "We're twins."

"Mmm," France agreed. "It is unmistakable."

And so I wonder if I am doing you the same damage that England is doing America.

"Canada," he went on suddenly, "I wonder, do you think I am a hypocrite?" He kneaded at Canada's skull as though he was a cat in his lap. "You see, whilst the unresolved sexual tension between your brother and England was intolerable, I have never been particularly supportive of their relationship nonetheless. There are things about it that don't sit right with me."

Canada exhaled deeply.

"And you think this is hypocritical, then?" he asked, sounding more than a little miffed. "You and I?"

"Do you think it is? Surely it isn't fair of me to criticize England for taking America to his bed when I do the same with you – when I have been doing it longer, in fact."

Canada shook his hand off and sat up, looking a bit irritable.

"I suppose it is," he said coolly, "but, you know, it also isn't fair of you judge their relationship to begin with, nor is it right to tar America and I with the same brush. I am not him – and you are not England. Therefore our relationships are different solely on that basis—"

"Not in the way that I am considering," France cut in glumly.

"The age gap, then?" Canada shrugged. "There's a difference there, too. England is younger than you are, meaning there is a smaller gap in age between him and America than there is between you and me – not that our physical age has much relevance to us as nations – but America is still too immature to realize that constantly calling England an old man is kind of in bad taste."

"Thankfully I don't have to put up with that immaturity from you," France agreed distractedly. "I got the nice one."

"As opposed to the sickly one who spurts blood all over the kitchen?" Canada pressed stonily, folding his arms with an angry pout. "France, don't play dumb. I know you know what's going on with that. What exactly did England do to him?"

"Something stupid," France replied, stubbing out his cigarette in the glass ashtray on his bedside table. "Still, it takes two to tango. England didn't force it on him – although I admit that America probably didn't understand quite what he was getting himself into due to England undoubtedly leaving a few important details out of his hard sell."

Canada blinked confusedly at him.

"I… I don't…"

"Let's see, how to put it simply?" France linked his hands behind his head and looked up at the ceiling. "Well, consider, then, that they are now closer than ever before – irreversibly linked, in fact. Closer than love, than marriage, than a military alliance. The fact is, Canada, that the blood America's body was throwing out last night was not his own."

Canada scowled, leaning forward to get into France's diverted field of vision.

"Don't talk in riddles, France," he said irritably. "How… how could America have had… someone else's blood in his veins—?"

"If someone put it there, of course," France cut in lightly. "If England put it there – which he did. That is why America was so unwell last night. It is perfectly natural that his system would need time to adjust to having that sort of strain put upon it, that new weight—"

"You still not making sense!" Canada cried. "What's all… systems and… and God, what are you talking about?"

France laughed amusedly at him.

"Perhaps this is the only reason why England left details out," he mused. "I suppose it is difficult for you to understand – you and America are newer than us, you think differently to us. The fact that you're the smarter one doesn't appear to have made much difference to your ability to grasp—"

"France!" Canada pounced at him, losing his patience, and pinned him by the shoulders against the headboard; France made an appreciative, encouraging noise even as Canada glared at him. "What has England done to my brother?"

"Put his history into him," France said easily. "America is now carrying both sets. It's no wonder his body panicked and started trying to expel the goriest parts."

Canada stared at him, frozen in place with shock. France took the opportunity to slide up his knee and nudge it against Canada's side, overbalancing him so that they tumbled into the same position in reverse; Canada barely even acknowledged that he'd been pinned to the bed, his lilac eyes still wide with confusion.

"This isn't going to be any fun if you're unresponsive," France pouted.

Canada expression slowly mutated from silent shock to stunned, yet determined, inquiry.

"How?" he asked suddenly. "How did England…? I mean, how is it possible to… to put your history into another nation?"

"There's only one way of doing it," France said, sitting back on him. "If I wanted to do it with you, I'd take out some of my own blood and inject it into your vein. It is highly unpleasant for the receiving party since it has to fight for space within your body and the history already residing there doesn't take well to the intrusion."

"Is that what England did to America?"

"Yes." France started to draw patterns on Canada's bare stomach, skating lower in anticipation.

"Why?" Canada sat up, batting France's hand away with a renewed sense of urgency. "Why would they…? I don't understand why either one of them would have wanted that." He irritably shrugged France away when, undeterred, he leaned in and started kissing his neck. "France! This is serious!"

France leaned back with an odd smile on his face.

"You don't realize just how serious," he countered. "Pangaea is not without consequence. England will not get away with duplicating his history."

Canada's eyes widened again.

"What… what'll happen to him?" he asked softly. "Will he… die?"

France shook his head and sighed.

"Not die, per se," he replied. "But history will come and take him to counter the duplication. It won't take America because he has his own single history that has not been duplicated anywhere else – but England has nothing unique to offer the history books anymore with America to fill in his place."

"Why would America have agreed to that?" Canada burst out. "I know he can be selfish but he's not… he would never—"

"America has no idea what he's done," France hummed. "I assure you that England didn't tell him that part."

"Why, then?" Canada asked, leaning in closer to France, anger finally coming to round off the edges of shock. "Last night, when you sent me up to the bathroom with that shirt for America, you said you wanted to have a word with England and to keep America away from the study. Wasn't that what you were talking about? Why did England do this?"

France gave a helpless shrug.

"Because he wants to disappear into history's deepest recesses, it would seem," he sighed.

He got off Canada and sat on the edge of the bed, knowing he had been beaten in his conquest; reaching down for his shirt, he pulled it on and began to button it. Canada was clearly too distracted right now and there would be other opportunities to jump him during the day, after all.

"What about the war?" Canada asked, clenching the sheets in frustrated fists. "Aren't we supposed to be going to war with Germany? England can't just—"

"Ah," France interrupted agreeably, "so you see my issues. One of them, anyway."

"You… we can't let him—"

"It is done." France shook his head. "It is irreversible, Canada. England will have his way at history's expense."

"And what about America?" Canada asked in a low voice. "He won't be okay with this, you know; he'll—"

"Yes, I know – but that is what this all comes back to," France said tiredly. "America. Arguably it always takes something cataclysmic to separate the two of them but, as with back then, I admit that I don't know if England is doing this because he loves America or because he can't bear to be wrong about him."

—

Too long France had watched America cling to England as though absolutely inseparable from him, bound by invisible roots to his source. It was obvious to any outsider that the backward dependence wasn't doing America any good – why, he had even stopped growing, his appearance reaching that of about a fifteen year old and then remaining completely unchanged for decades. Nations ceased to age physically once they had reached a comfortable level of maturity and were able to look after themselves. Until then, they grew and developed not unlike humans.

And yet America had stopped ageing before he had fully bloomed. He was going to be stuck in a teenaged body for the rest of his life if he stayed with England, as long as he stayed a colony. France didn't understand why neither of them could see it.

So he waited. At the next land ownership meeting, when America fussed that it was too early for bed when England ordered him upstairs, when he argued that he should be allowed to be present at a discussion about his lands, France slipped into the tiny rift it broke between them and widened it by brushing America's gold hair aside so that he would better hear him as he whispered that one tiny word – a disease and a mechanism; a virus, a plague and a cure – in his ear.

"Révolution."

---

America took another moody sip of his bourbon. He was sulking, which was exactly what he'd promised England he wouldn't do; but it was difficult to do anything other than sulk when he couldn't understand a word being said and thus couldn't interject with some loud, cheerful, poorly-thought-out statement as was his usual method.

That alone would have put him into a bad mood, for if there was one thing that the United States of America couldn't stand, it was being ignored. Or left out, at least. But they were pretty much ignoring him to boot.

And then, on top of that, there was England. And Portugal. Who were practically flirting with one another.

Portugal looked very like his brother – the same cappuccino-colored skin, the same rich curly hair, pushed back off his round face but nonetheless bouncing at his cheeks when he moved his head. He had the same wide smile, too, friendly, almost vapid – that could yet no doubt turn cruel. He was smaller than Spain, though, shorter and narrower with rounded shoulders; and his eyes were brown, not the same olive green as his sibling.

He wasn't in military uniform, making him an odd contrast to America and England in their similar ones; instead he was dressed in what America supposed was some kind of traditional-casual Portuguese clothing, his white shirt only loosely laced up beneath the black velvet waistcoat embroidered with almost every color imaginable in the design of flowers with swirling stems and a decorative rooster adorning each pocket.

(They were highly-distracting.)

Anyway, America was pretty sure England and Portugal weren't talking about the war, even though they had a few maps out. Oh, he couldn't understand them, obviously; but they were laughing too much and talking very quickly and smiling. Portugal was very physical, too, perhaps even worse than Spain, constantly putting a hand on England's elbow, on his shoulder, on his back. Even more annoying was that England didn't appear to mind. If France touched him like that, England just about broke his arm, which was fair enough; but sometimes he even shrugged America away if he touched him too much, saying that he wasn't about to disappear and didn't need America to hold onto him to keep him grounded in the real world.

So America just sat opposite them in the booth at the back of the tavern and scowled over his bourbon, thinking he might deliberately get so drunk on the stuff that he had an excuse for interrupting them, lett his inhibitions float away on a stream of alcohol so he could just sling his arm across England's shoulder and pull him in for a kiss while Portugal stared on, perhaps as jealously as America did now. Maybe he would even drink himself into a blackout so that England had to carry him home and it would serve him right, too. Who did he think he was, flirting with his old flame right in front of his current one? Of course, America had no proof of any kind of sexual encounter between the two of them but he felt that it was pretty obvious, given how comfortable they seemed with one another. Perhaps it hadn't been anything serious, not a proper relationship like America had with England now, but the way England leaned into Portugal's touch ever so slightly even when he was sober and in public meant that it wasn't too far of a leap to suppose that an England – a younger, teenage England – drunk and not in public might have been easily tempted into Portugal's bed. Or vice versa. The dynamics of the thing didn't matter. The attraction was obviously there no matter what, even now.

Portugal said something in a low voice (it all sounded like gibberish to America) and reached for his port; England reached out and put his hand on his to stop him, replying with a small shake of his head, and America clenched his own glass tighter. The jealousy flared in him when he saw England touch Portugal even though it was such a simple gesture; he couldn't help it. He had never seen England act this way with anyone other than himself and even then England was still kind of a jerk to him sometimes; he seemed to be nicer to Portugal, in fact. He hadn't scowled or rolled his eyes at him once, perhaps proof that Portugal didn't annoy him the way America did.

…Maybe that wasn't all of it. Maybe England just genuinely preferred Portugal, his oldest ally, a fellow European; exotic enough, though, blessed with those Mediterranean good looks like his brother, like the Italies. He, too, had once been an Empire – perhaps England could relate to him far better for that; and he was well-versed in war like England, having fought the same kinds as him for centuries but never once against him. And the sex was probably better, too, with Portugal, who was about the same age as England and had had just as many alliances; who had a better sense of romance, no doubt, who was an equal instead of inexperienced and isolated like America, with whom England had to do most of the work in order to satisfy them both. With Portugal it might be heady and heated and passionate; with America, even after all these years, sometimes it was still clumsy and exasperating and America spent half the night thereafter kissing him all over not avidly but apologetically.

America glanced gloomily at Portugal; barely touched by the recession of ten years before, unscathed by the Great War, he seemed radiant now under the rich amber light of the darkening tavern as he leaned back in his seat and sipped at his port, listening to England speak his language with an interested smile on his face. America didn't think that England would ever cheat on him but he didn't imagine it all that farfetched that England might prefer Portugal over him all the same.

He drained his bourbon and got up, thinking that going to the bar for another would nicely kill five minutes; he interrupted Portugal carelessly, addressing England:

"Hey, I'm heading to the bar again," he said, shaking his empty glass so that the ice rattled and clinked. "You need a top-up on your poison, doll?"

"Ah, no, I'm quite alright," England replied, tapping the side of his pint; the beer wasn't even half gone, so immersed was he in talking to Portugal that he appeared to have forgotten that he was a borderline alcoholic. "Thank you all the same."

"América," Portugal drawled suddenly in his rich, musical accent, "if it would not trouble you, I would like a top-up on my poison. Porto Cálem, fine tawny. Simply half a glass will do."

America stared at him, mouth swinging open on soundless hinges. England, conversely, suddenly seemed terribly interested in his beer after all.

"What the hell?" America pointed accusingly at Portugal. "You speak English?"

Portugal looked amused.

"Of course I can speak English," he said pleasantly. "And Spanish and French besides. You are surprised?"

"Uh, yeah?" America scowled. "I thought he was only speaking in your language because you can't understand ours!"

Portugal shook his head, smiling.

"This is a discussion of a military nature," he said, "and you find yourselves upon the doorstep of war. England and my own brother are the only two of my acquaintances who have ever bothered to learn my tongue. Conversely, many nations, including Germany, can speak English. Therefore Portuguese offers a sense of privacy in these matters that English does not."

It was a perfectly sound reason, much to America's chagrin. Nonetheless, he was still pretty sure they hadn't been talking about the war the entire time. That, and his dislike of Portugal had suddenly spiked even more – to the extent that even thinking that he should sit here out of spite to make sure Portugal didn't get even more touchy-feely the moment his back was turned didn't win out against suddenly wanting to get away from him to prevent himself from knocking that too-friendly-beam into the middle of next week.

"I'm going to the bar," America said icily, snatching up his bomber jacket, "and I think I'm gonna stay there. Come get me when you're ready to go, England."

"Alright," England said blandly.

America paused, smoldering. England wasn't even going to protest that he was being childish and demand that he sit down and not storm off to sulk. America almost wanted him to.

But England said nothing, still engrossed in the foam crowning his drink.

So America stalked away with as much panache as he could manage considering that even he knew he was being petty and jealous.

Still, it's not every day you meet your match, he thought irritably, knowing he would never ever admit that thought aloud.

—

"Well, well," Portugal commented in his own language, tilting his head as America stomped away, "didn't he grow up to be charming?"

"Oh, he grew up, certainly," England replied, easily slipping back into Portuguese himself. "Into a bigger pain in the neck than ever."

"But he's so very handsome, too." Portugal turned to glance at America at the bar, fuming and hunched over and unwittingly showing off his ass. Portugal shook his head, turning back. "I would never have thought it of that snotty little thing you used to cart around under your arm all the time."

"He's certainly full of surprises," England agreed, looking past Portugal to also appraise America's turned back. "I keep forgetting that you haven't seen him for centuries."

"And I never thought that I was missing out but I'm impressed, I have to admit." Portugal whistled. "And the glasses?"

"Ah, what you might call an "upgrade"," England said. "From his first government. He didn't ever need them under my care but I suppose a brand-new nation is bound to be somewhat short-sighted. Still, even I would never say that that... lot weren't good at thinking outside the box."

"You mean Washington," Portugal purred.

"Yes, him," England said moodily.

"And Franklin."

"Mm, him too."

"And Jefferson and Adams and—"

"Yes, alright, Portugal," England interrupted, frowning at the deliberate needling. "I'm so glad to see that you brushed up on that, at least."

"Only to tease you with," Portugal said with a grin. "You're adorable when you get all flustered."

"There are better ways of doing it than poking at old wounds, don't you think?"

"Ah, but all the other old ways are probably off-limits now," Portugal sighed, resting his chin in his hands. "Does that little spot behind your ear still drive you crazy?"

"That's none of your business," England said curtly; but he smirked briefly at Portugal all the same.

"Maybe not," Portugal sang. "But it's his." He nodded in the direction of the bar. "And I'll bet he doesn't even know."

"No, he doesn't. Things like that... aren't his strong point."

"Oh, my," Portugal said brightly, sitting up again. "England, I do believe we're having a discussion about your sex-life and how awful it is. How delightful."

"It's not awful," England said flatly. "He's just... young. And I'm his first and only. And the Puritans got to him before I did, at least subconsciously."

"How simply dreadful," Portugal incited gleefully, clapping his hands together. "You must be beside yourself."

"I don't mind. He's more conservative than I was at his age but I suppose it's not really his fault. I did my fair share of damage to him when he was my colony, always keeping him to myself, and then neither Washington nor Jackson, to name but two of the culprits, did him any favors by telling him that he shouldn't touch any other nation with anything less than a ten foot pole if it could be helped."

"A bout of piracy on the high seas would have cleared that up."

"It was no longer a remedy by the time he came of age."

"Ah. Shame." Portugal smiled wistfully at him. "I suppose you probably don't mind, though, do you? Not if you love him."

England paused.

"I expect you think I'm an idiot for it," he said in a low voice, not meeting those inquisitive eyes.

Portugal shrugged.

"Perhaps a little bit," he admitted. "But I suppose I'm also somewhat flattered. There's a bit of me in him, after all."

"It's not as though he doesn't return it."

"No," Portugal said softly, "I can see that. He clearly adores you. Certainly enough to be jealous of me."

"It doesn't help that you were playing him up," England said tartly. "I notice you haven't touched me once since he left."

"Well," Portugal pouted, walking his fingers up England's arm as though to make a point, "I was here first and I wanted to let him know that, if only for his own good. He can't be so naïve as to think that there haven't been others."

"I don't know. He doesn't... he doesn't think like us. Neither does Canada. That was entirely the point, if you recall."

"Of course. Still, in that case, maybe you shouldn't be fucking him."

England laughed.

"That's rich," he said, "coming from someone who fucks his brother."

Portugal winked at him.

"Only when that brat Romano isn't looking. Of course, I've fucked Romano too – but don't tell Spain."

"Did I leave you that cold and lonely, Portugal?"

Portugal snorted with laughter.

"It's not so much a case of that so much as it's Spain will fuck just about anything," he drawled. "I hear France had to sodomize a tree to wrest that title off my brother."

"I feel for the tree."

"Oh, I'm sure you do – knowing the feeling, that is."

England sipped at his beer.

"Why is this conversation so firmly in the gutter?" he asked.

"Because, England, you want to brag about sleeping with the United States of America," Portugal explained patiently. "Perhaps only subconsciously, like his Puritan thing, but that's what you want. That's why you brought him along even though his presence isn't needed, a pretty little ornament to dangle about your arm; Exhibit A, the dashing young thing you pound into the mattress on a nightly basis. I assume it's always a mattress if he's that conservative—"

"I didn't bring him, actually," England replied icily. "He insisted on coming."

"Ah, because he was jealous of me before he even saw me," Portugal said with a nod. "Understandable."

"This isn't about me sleeping with America!" England snapped.

Portugal grinned lazily at him.

"But it's about him nonetheless," he sighed, trailing a finger along England's jawline. "Come on, England. It's not like you to be shy - and besides, I'm not an idiot. Spit it out, darling."

England shook his head away from Portugal's roving touch.

"I... I need to hand something over to you," he said stiffly. "Please don't question it."

"Ah, is it the fabled pornography collection crafted by medieval monks chained to their desks by day and by night, the very existence of which you have always vehemently denied?"

"No, I'm going to hang on to that," England replied absently, reaching under the table again for the leather case in which he had brought the maps. He set it in his lap and, after checking that America wasn't in the process of making a dramatic comeback to the table like the poor jilted lover he was, unclasped it and held it open towards Portugal.

Portugal rested his chin in his hand as he looked down into the case, his eyebrows raising when he saw the shrouded contents.

"Is that—?" he murmured, lowering his voice even though the language should have disguised their conversation regardless.

"Yes."

"Why are you—?"

"I asked you not to question it. Please, just take it. I can't give it to someone... someone I don't trust."

"I'm neutral, England," Portugal replied, frowning. "And he's allied with you. And you're certainly not neutral."

"I know. It doesn't matter if you're neutral. In fact, that's even better."

"Even so, perhaps France...?"

England shook his head.

"No," he said. "France already has Canada's and... and besides, I don't know if France is going to be able to hold off Germany and I just... well, I'd rather give it to you."

Portugal's dark eyes gleamed.

"For the irony?" he asked softly.

"Perhaps just a little bit," England admitted with a grin of his own.

"I never thought you would give this away. You've held onto it for all these years, even when he broke away from you. You wouldn't even hand it over to his Founding Fathers."

"It is a weapon not crafted for the hands of Mankind. That's why I have to pass it on to you." England looked up at Portugal briefly. "You will... take it, won't you?"

Portugal smirked.

"Why should I?" he asked in a low voice, nearly growling. "Why do I need to?" He leaned in close, his lips brushing against England's ear as he spoke again, his voice barely above a whisper. "What have you done, England?"

"I asked you not to question it!" England said sharply, jerking away from him. "Now are you going to take the bleeding thing off my hands or am I to lower myself to the humiliation of asking France?"

Portugal leaned back with a musical laugh.

"Very well, I will lift this burden off your shoulders, if that's what you want," he sighed, reaching into the case and taking the gift; only a glint of gold flashed beneath the old, bedraggled Union Jack it was swathed in as he lifted it out. "He'll be angry if he knows you wrapped it in this."

"He doesn't even know it exists," England said in a low voice. "And I am trusting you to keep it that way."

"Well," Portugal reasoned, "I'm certain that you would rather I didn't use it anyway."

"Except for in one single instance." England looked at Portugal pointedly, lowering his voice. "The bomb. If he ever talks about the bomb, use it. Shut him down."

Portugal blinked, uncomprehending.

"The... bomb?" he repeated uneasily.

"That is all the knowledge you require," England said frostily, slamming the case shut again and beginning to rise. "I am hopeful that now... now it will never come to that but if it does regardless... Only if he says that he's going to use the bomb, alright? I trust you, Portugal."

"W-wait!" Portugal caught at England's arm as he stood, tugging at him. "Now I sincerely hope that you're not running away from all this—"

England snorted, trying to pull his arm back.

"I should think you know me better than that," he bit out.

"I don't know," Portugal replied lightly, his eyes nonetheless as hard as flint. "You've always been a bit odd when it comes to that brat."

"That brat is Europe's hope," England said testily. "That is what he was created as and that is what he will become. It is buried too deeply within us, the need to tear each other apart with wars and invasions, but he and Canada were made to be different – they are above all that mire. Everything we wanted and yet could not have was poured into them back then – and that..." He gestured to the weapon in Portugal's hand. "...The bow to his strings. Alas, it was made by us and has no place buried within human history – and so I may not take it to my grave."

Portugal's hand moved up England's arm to the crook of his elbow.

"What right have you to talk about your grave?" he hissed, pressing his thumb hard against the vein, buried beneath shirt and uniform jacket. "I never took you for a coward, you know – but if you can't even bear to put the final stroke to your masterpiece yourself, instead leaving it to me—"

"Ah, no, it's quite the opposite, I assure you," England said in a low voice, ignoring the breath of pain. "I will still be the one to save him – but that..." He nodded again at the long, thin object gleaming beneath the ragged red, white and blue (their shared colors). "That is no longer the instrument with which I will do it."

Portugal simply grinned, letting go of his elbow and instead taking his hand.

"Inglaterra," he purred, accentuating his own name for his friend, rolling it richly off his tongue as he switched deliberately to English, "I do believe that you're a little bit mad." He lifted and kissed his hand. "Of course, that is what I have always liked best about you."

England smirked, reclaiming his hand.

"Syphilis will do that to you," he said fondly as he started to walk away.

"Is that your way of saying that you won't sleep with me?"

"Not tonight, you arrogant prick."

"Nor any other night." Portugal leaned back with a deep sigh, looking up at the ceiling of the tavern. "Your loyalty sickens me. You're barely European – never have been."

"The bomb." England waved over his shoulder at him as he sauntered away. "Don't forget now."

He heard Portugal sighing deeply in Portuguese about frigidity and not even getting a kiss for his trouble as he went to the bar to hunt down America, finding him at the end of it with another glass of bourbon, barely touched, more preoccupied with stacking square drink coasters into a pyramid.

This was the first time in a very long time he had looked at him without knowing that he still had the power to change him.

It was a strange feeling; not sad, not terrifying, just sort of a bit... odd. A novel sense of trust that he could let America grow on his own.

He moved behind America without him noticing, so invested was he in building his pyramid, and ran a hand up his back.

"Shall we go?" he asked, leaning in close to his ear.

America paused in putting two coasters carefully into balance against each other, his azure eyes sliding towards England. He was scowling.

"Oh, are you done flirting with your boyfriend?" he replied moodily, turning his interrogation lights onto England. "Bet he had a field day with you the moment I left."

"Do you really think so little of me?" England asked patiently, patting America's back. "I admit he was being a bit spiteful but I am done with him now. Come on, let's go. Finish your drink."

"You should have told me," America hissed, ignoring England's beckon. "Honestly, I don't care what Portugal thinks of me but I still felt like an idiot sitting there believing that the ignorance went both ways."

"No-one ever said Portugal couldn't speak English – you came up with that all on your own," England retorted calmly.

"You should have told me."

America's eyes flared like the torches of a miniature lynch mob and England knew then that there was no possible way to dissuade him from the unreasonable idea that he had been somehow wronged. He sighed, letting the blame roll onto him as he tossed out an appeasement to make up for it.

"Yes, perhaps I should have. Here, let me take care of the tab."

"Already did." Abandoning his still nearly-full drink at the bar, America knocked his pyramid flat and got up, pulling on his bomber jacket. "Right, fine, yeah, let's go."

He pushed past England and stalked out of the tavern ahead of him; England followed a slower pace, pausing on the steps leading up to the door as it swung shut behind him. It was a clear, cool evening, the sun setting to cast marbled purples and blues and dark pinks over the horizon, the odd flash of sun-split orange glistening like the inner flesh of a tangerine amongst it all, darkening London's lovely old architecture against the perfectly-primed canvas of it. America had paused out on the empty cobbled street, waiting for him whilst pretending not to, his hands jammed moodily into the pockets of his uniform trousers as he looked up at the sky himself. England studied long and hard the creases of soft, supple leather across the blank back of his Royal Air Force flight jacket. It looked strangely, suddenly, plain.

"America," he said, stepping up onto the pavement himself.

America looked at him; his hair was the color of ripe corn under that light, the frames of his glasses gleaming and his freckles noticeable beneath the metal on his cheeks and over his nose.

"What?" he asked in a low, childish voice.

"I want to go somewhere," England said, holding out his hand. "Please come with me."

America hesitated, looking at his outstretched hand as though suddenly wary of him. It was the same look as he had given him back then, when he had first laid eyes on him, this strange young man from overseas in his fancy clothes impractical for the wild plains of the New World – and it was the same outstretched hand.

The same inherent trust and the same blind, bred-in love.

America didn't say a word but he reached out and put his hand in his and finally cracked a small smile.

---

The edge of Russia's coat trailed in the snow. Prussia watched the wispy tangled track it made as the taller man strode ahead, his steps light and confident and easy in his own environment.

Prussia himself trudged behind him, his hands shoved into the pockets of his thick grey trench coat, cursing away to himself about how fucking freezing it was out here as the wind howled at his back, finding every chink and weakness in his clothing until the cold became focused pressure points across his body. No wonder West had sent his apparent "lackeys" out into the elements for this job—

"You are keeping up with me, yes?" Russia asked pleasantly over his shoulder. "Should I slow down?"

"Perhaps a little bit," Prussia grumbled, quickening his pace for a few steps to catch up with his companion. "I can handle the cold but this is freaking ridiculous. I'm freezing my balls off – but I guess you're used to this, huh?"

Russia smiled serenely, tilting his head. He had lovely eyes but there was a terrible cruelty in them even so, one that Prussia never failed to notice when their gazes met. Prussia wasn't exactly Mr. Golden Boy himself, certainly, but there was something... different about Russia. Something odd. Something interesting.

"Would you like to borrow my scarf?" Russia offered as Prussia shivered violently.

(Something strangely kind, as well.)

"Huh?" Prussia scoffed and shook his head. "Nah, you keep it. You'd look fuckin' weird without it."

"Very well." Russia began to hum some sweet, pretty little tune as they walked side by side through the snow.

"You're in a good mood, huh?" Prussia noted through gritted teeth. It was almost annoying how cheerful Russia was. Nobody should be allowed to be cheerful in weather like this.

"Yes." Russia nodded. "I think this is fun. Don't you agree?"

"Sure, if you consider freezing your balls off fun," Prussia bit out.

"You will not be cold for much longer," Russia replied absently. "The blood will be warm, I am sure."

---

"Those are my cigarettes."

Tipping his head right back, the base of his skull pressing against the lion's smooth, cold flank, America blinked up at England, who was leaning over him with ease from his loftier position.

"Yeah?" America smiled pleasantly at him. "Well, finders keepers, losers weepers. I got 'em from you fair and square."

"You didn't find them if you just knowingly stole them from my stash. Besides, you have two. Give me one."

"Tch." Ticked as he was by the demand, America didn't really feel that he could refuse given that he had stolen them from England and he wasn't exactly going to smoke them both right at this exact moment. "You have pretty bad manners for a gentleman sometimes," he mocked, handing one upwards.

"My status as a gentleman is entirely self-styled," England replied easily, "meaning that I can pick and choose the qualities which I desire to embody. Besides, I don't want to hear criticism about my manners from a little thief such as yourself."

America grinned as he fished out his Zippo lighter, his own cigarette already held loosely between his teeth.

"Guess I can't argue with that," he admitted merrily.

He twisted in his seat on the sandstone plinth of the huge lion and stretched up towards England to light his cigarette for him; England, sprawled happily over the lion's bronze back, leaned down again so that America could cup a hand around the flame. It flared brightly like a little lighthouse against America's ocean eyes, making England's gold hair glow briefly as he sucked in the heat before he pulled back with a satisfied sigh releasing the first puff of smoke into the evening air. America lit his own cigarette and settled back against the lion again to enjoy it – one of the four hulking metal beasts guarding the cardinal directions on Nelson's Column. Trafalgar Square was utterly deserted, dusk setting in fast and the moon rising pale and chalky in the smoke-colored sky; both fountains had been turned off for the night, water rippling and lapping at their edges beneath the faintest touch of a breeze and the surrounding buildings, including the National Gallery and Canada House, were fast becoming dark silhouettes in the endless wave of London's skyline. It was so quiet, the bustling streets and roads of England's capital (his heart) asleep for the evening in this area – a few streets over, perhaps, ladies and gentlemen in glimmering jewels and silk neckties would be congregating outside the West End theatres to see the latest talked-about play or musical, but here it was just them and the lions and Admiral Horatio Nelson over one hundred and fifty feet above.

"I can see why you wouldn't want Germany stomping in here and claiming all this," America said after a moment. "This has always been one of my favorite bits of London." He smirked. "Even if Canada does get his own house here while my embassy is all the way over in freaking Grosvenor Square."

"Now don't be greedy – there's a statue of George Washington just over there next to the National Gallery. I don't see any of Canada's bosses around here, do you?"

"True." America shrugged easily. "And I guess this is still better than that huge bragging phallic symbol of yours in Westminster."

England snorted incredulously, a shotgun pattern of smoke floating up from his nose.

"This is where I remind you of the Washington Monument, is it not?" He smirked. "Didn't that used to be the tallest structure in the world – ah, that is, until France's Eiffel Tower topped it?"

"Shut up," America shot back, laughing nonetheless. "Like Big Ben could ever compare to either."

"Technically speaking, Big Ben is a nickname for the main bell. The clock tower – the "huge bragging phallic symbol" which you referred to – is simply the Westminster clock tower. And its size is proportional to the building it is attached to; if it were any larger it would just look out of place."

"Aw, shucks, England, thanks for the history lesson."

"That wasn't a history lesson," England sighed, shifting on the lion's curved back to get more comfortable. "I was merely contradicting you, love."

"Mm. You always do a great job of that."

"It would help if you weren't wrong all the time."

America glanced up at him again.

"Are you enjoying it up there on your lion-shaped pedestal?" he asked good-naturedly.

"Ah, can you tell?" England pressed his cheek to the lion's mane and smiled. "I think I might just stay up here forever."

"Right – because those lions were put there just for you to climb on."

"They're my lions." England inhaled on his cigarette again and drew a little pattern beneath the lion's curved ear with his fingertip. "Still, I'm willing to share. All of this, I mean. Everything I have, I don't mind sharing it with you, America, as long as you promise to take good care of it." He leaned down again and kissed America right on his parting. "You're as good as my heir."

"I think you've given me all I can take for now without bursting or something," America replied, rubbing absently at his arm. "But thanks. I'll definitely hold you to that when I feel like adding another state to my collection. I've never been quite satisfied with forty-eight, makes the flag look too static with all my stars looking like ducks in a row. I reckon fifty is better; a nice round number that would make my stars more dynamic to boot." He turned and looked up at England again with a smile. "What do you think of that, huh? You want to be one of my states, England?"

"There's that insufferable arrogance again; no, America, I don't think so," England replied with a smirk.

"Why not? You'll be my favorite and I won't even rename anything, I promise."

"Even so, at the risk of you installing a restaurant selling hamburgers right here in Trafalgar Square, I am still going to have to pass up your oh-so-temping offer."

"Eh, it's gonna happen one day anyway. They'll be all over the world with... with streets named after them and stuff! Hamburgers are just that great."

"...I envy your odd little world, America."

"Hey, you be can part of it!" America chirped around his cigarette. "There's a star just for you waiting to be sewn onto my flag!"

"Ugh, don't go down that sodding imperialism route. I assure you that it doesn't pay in the end. This war is proof enough of that – as was the last one."

"But you like a good war, England," America said patiently, reaching back to tap at the lion with his leather-gloved knuckles, listening to the dull ring of heavy metal. "You and your crazy old lion here, remember?"

England sighed above him.

"I like this better," he replied quietly. "Just this. You and me sitting here with no-one else about, nothing to distract us or worry us—"

"Like your "map"."

"Exactly."

America gave a half-irritable snort, smoke burning his nose as it clouded from his nostrils.

"Listen to you sweet-talkin' me," he drawled. "I should still be pretty darn mad at you for that thing back there with Portugal."

"Nothing happened with Portugal. You're just being jealous."

"You've slept with him though, haven't you?"

"Centuries ago, yes. Long before you, I promise. He was my first." England reached down and played with America's hair, holding on to the little wild tuft that forever stood aloof when America tried to pull away in annoyance. "It doesn't matter. I love you, America – I've never loved anyone the way I love you. I simply could never love Portugal the way I love you."

America didn't answer him, didn't look at him.

"Well, you can't expect me to regret it," England went on in a low voice, "because how was I to have known back then that I would have you? Perhaps if I had known... I would have waited—"

"Until 1917 in that fucking tank?" America gave a cool, disbelieving little laugh. "You'd have missed out on all the drunken medieval revelries."

"In hindsight, that would not bother me now," England said softly, patiently. "But that is my point exactly. You can only ever know these things in hindsight. History cannot run backwards for your sake or for anyone else's."

"Heh." America smiled a little bit. "I guess you're right. You'd just run about changing all the stuff you didn't like if you could, anyway."

"Would you change that?"

"You mean would I kick Portugal down a flight of stairs before he got his grubby meathooks on you? Hell yeah I would."

"France, too."

America gave a disgusted groan.

"Do I want to hear this?"

"Well..." England shrugged. "That's what history is, I'm afraid. One long list of unpleasant facts."

"Yeah, some more unpleasant than others."

"And some less so."

"Uh huh?" America turned towards him again, tapping his cigarette over the edge of the plinth. "And what would those be?"

"Oh, we've had an alright time of it, haven't we?" England leaned down towards him again, as close as he could without sliding off his perch between the lion's wide shoulders. "We've had our moments, you and I."

"Yeah, I guess my childhood wasn't so bad," America said, grinning. "You weren't even there half the time. I ran riot. I even let the chickens come into the house."

"I know that," England said, rolling his eyes. "I mean this. Us. Since 1917."

"Aside from the war, Spanish Flu, Prohibition, strikes, Depression, Dust Bowl and what looks pretty much like another war?"

"Half of those things weren't my problem but yes, aside from all that."

America smirked.

"Yeah, we've had an alright time of it," he replied. "You more so."

"Only just, I assure you. But you're missing the point. I mean us. Together."

"Right, right." America pushed up towards him. "You're sweet-talking me again. I know you just want a kiss."

"So kiss me, idiot."

"Aye aye, sir."

He had to stretch a bit and hold his balance by putting a hand on the lion; the position was sort of awkward, really, but England seemed happy enough with the effort, pressing in again and again for a few smaller smooches before pulling back completely with a smoky smile.

"Hey," America said conversationally, bringing one leg up onto the plinth so that he could twist more comfortably and lean his chest against the lion's cool metal ribs, looking up at England with his chin resting his arms. "So none of my bosses have ever known that you and I... you know. Do it. Or that we're lovers, even. 'Cause, you know, they'd totally kill me. Everyone is still pretty much into that Isolationist thing over at mine."

"That's fair." England prodded at America's shoulder with the heel of his boot. "Big Bad Britain – you don't want to be messing around with me and my Empire. Even your greatest have always regarded that to be something of a dirty word."

"Well, some of 'em have kind of liked you, dirty-word-Empire and all, but probably not enough to be cool with me being that close with you. It's not like we have a proper military alliance or anything, really. At least not yet."

"We have more than that now."

"Right, our 'Special Relationship' thing with the blood transfusion and all that jazz." America nodded. "Well, it's my body and I can have whoever's blood and other bodily fluids I want inside it – but even so, I think I might still keep it to myself."

"That's wise. I like your boss but I don't know how kindly he would take it nonetheless."

"Who, Frankie D?" America puffed thoughtfully at what was left of his cigarette. "You know, funny story about him – he has no idea that I'm over here."

"Ah?" England arched an eyebrow. "Is that so, my boy? I like very much that you neglected to furnish me, and your superiors, with that information."

"Oh dear, breaking out the huge vocabulary," America muttered. "I've made you mad."

"Not as mad as "Frankie D" is no doubt going to be," England replied coolly. "Some advice: Don't call him that when you're groveling for forgiveness on the floor of the Oval Office."

America gave a dismissive snort and hoisted himself up onto the lion's back, sitting on it with his feet resting on the plinth. He reached out and slipped an arm about England's waist, pulling him towards himself so that they were sat next to each other and pressed close.

"What was I supposed to do?" he asked in a low voice. "Everything gets all tied up with rules and... and agreements and paperwork and stuff; you know what my government is like, it's not really Roosevelt himself, it's the Senate, they don't want me involved with foreign wars, God knows they stamped Wilson into the ground over that League of Nations thing..." He sighed and rested his cheek on the crown of England's head. "You might get a Lend-Lease program or something out of 'em, maybe – I mean, you probably can't afford another huge war all by yourself this time, not after the hole the first one burned in your pocket, but... I don't know, I just get the feeling they're not exactly gonna let me sling a couple bandoliers over my shoulder and rally the troops to come help you out. They're just so preoccupied in maintaining that it's not our fault, we shouldn't get involved and sure, yeah, Washington was into that whole "Don't get involved in foreign wars" thing but times have changed since 1796 and I just..." He gave another frustrated sigh and England nuzzled against his neck with a little sound of understanding. "Ugh, last time I just sat on the sidelines until it was almost too late. You looked like death by the time I got to you and I just... I can't do that again. I can't watch you get the hell beaten out of you from the bleachers."

"So you ran away?" England translated shortly.

"Does this count as running away?" America asked sincerely.

England shrugged.

"I suppose it's relative," he muttered. He took America's hand and squeezed it in his. "Well, thank you, America. I'm going to need your help, I assure you."

"I know. I'm a hero, remember? Got the jacket to prove it and everything." America finally reached into his pocket and pulled out his garrison cap, which he'd left shoved in there since yesterday. He put it on, angling it as best he could without a mirror. "Got the hat, too!"

"And the damsel in distress, it would seem," England sighed, reached up and adjusting his hat the tiniest of degrees. "Nothing new there."

"Damsel?" America nudged him. "I reckoned you were my steed."

England shot him a scowl.

"And why would I be your steed?" he asked testily.

"Because I ride you."

England didn't laugh. He didn't get annoyed. Oddly enough, he looked somewhat impressed.

"I take my earlier statement back," he said at length, finishing his cigarette. "The wit is new."

"You like it?"

"It might take some getting used to."

America snorted, pretty sure he should be offended by that.

"And the war won't?"

"Ah, not so much. You know me – always at war if I can help it."

"This one might be different."

"Yes, I know that. They were supposed to be testing the new air raid sirens tonight, actually, in anticipation of that fact."

"Huh." America tipped his head back and looked up the clear, quiet sky. "I didn't hear nothin'."

"Of course not. That's because they didn't even though they were supposed to." England shook his head. "Well, nothing new there either, I suppose. What I laughably refer to as my government couldn't organize a piss-up in a brewery. Churchill's been saying there would be another war for years and no-one listened to him – and then of course Chamberlain went and signed the Munich Agreement with that bloody Nazi nutjob boss of Germany's, giving away Czechoslovakia and putting my name to the deal..." He sighed heavily. "That why it's easier for us to just put on a uniform, load up a gun and go and deal with the thing ourselves. Leave politics out of it. Humans love to make everything so complicated and there's really no need for it."

"Lord, you can say that again," America agreed in a low voice. "My government is the definition of a bunged-up bureaucracy, pretty much a huge tangled cat's cradle of checks and balances, legislation and amendments and God knows what else. Good thing Roosevelt's pretty damned good at cat's cradle but he's still been wrestling with it since 1933. The New Deal couldn't solve everything, after all."

"We're much simpler creatures than humans, aren't we?" England sighed. "I rather think we only have a few basic instincts: Invade, conquer, steal, make alliances, declare war and attempt to preserve our own history. We don't feel the need to complicate all those things by drawing up... paperwork for them. I tell you, I miss the days when the Vikings and the Saxons simply beat each over the head with an axe and nicked each other's gold reliquaries."

"And when you didn't need concrete paperwork proof of a military alliance for no-one to bat an eyelid about you screwing your former colony."

"Exactly." England frowned. "Not that colonies aren't another source of a lot of fucking paperwork, too..." He made an odd little whistling sound, almost like the trill of a bird. "You know what? I could go for another drink. Shall we find another pub? There's bound to be one open around here somewhere."

"I knew you'd recall that you're a borderline alcoholic at some point," America replied cheerfully. "Sure thing, I guess we'd just be sitting in your house waiting for Germany to not get the hell out of Poland's house so we can declare war on him anyway." America stood up and hopped down off the plinth, landing heavily after more of a drop than he'd anticipated. He bounced on the balls of his aching feet, looking up at England as he rose from the lion's back. "Ouch, didn't think it was that high," he muttered, outstretching his arms. "Well, c'mon then, doll. Jump and I'll catch you."

England smirked down at him, putting a hand on the lion's head.

"Are you being metaphorical again, America?" he asked sweetly, his other hand resting on his hip, his fingertips brushing the edge of the holstered Browning Hi-Power on his belt.

"No," America said. He fanned his fingers. "Well, maybe a little – but not as much as you right now, standing way up there with your crazy old English lion at your back, both of you with teeth and claws bared, ready for a fight."

England's expression sobered a little as he craned his neck to look up at Admiral Nelson atop his high, elaborate pillar.

"I'm expecting one," he said.

—

Walking home across Westminster Bridge, their hands clasped tightly together as a physical statement of their alliance (both in military uniforms already, after all), Big Ben began to chime midnight overhead. On the empty bridge, the black water ebbing silently at the bank beneath, America stopped and tugged England firmly towards him, pulling him into a deep kiss and wrapping his strong arms about his slender back. England looped his own arms around America's neck – and this time he didn't have a weapon in his hand to press heavily on America's shoulder as they entwined themselves with each other as though no longer content to exist as two separate beings.

America pulled back again breathlessly after the twelfth strike of the bell had flitted away on the still night air and gave a strained smile.

"It's the third of September," he said quietly. "I think we're officially at war, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland."

England pressed his forehead against America's and nodded, closing his eyes.

"I think so too, United States of America," he muttered in reply.

---

A trip to London just isn't a trip to London without going to Trafalgar Square to hang off one of those lions. In the summer it's always heaving with tourists just sitting all over everything. The lions are pretty big, though – they're hard to get up on unless you have someone to give you a boost or you're really tall. Alfred probably had to lift Arthur on. XD

Some "translation" notes:

England's Portuguese: He says 'Good day', 'thank you very much' and 'see you later'. It was taken from online phrasebooks and not done on a translator so I trust it's probably correct.

Speaking of Portugal: a.) The "highly-distracting" roosters on his waistcoat are Galo de Barcelos – or, in English, Barcelos Roosters. These seizure-inducing little critters are a national symbol of Portugal and thus on all souvenirs purchased from the country. All souvenirs. b.) Don't know what Alfred is jealous about, really. There is an Anglo-American base in Portugal, which is pretty much the Hetalia equivalent of them doing it in Portugal's bed. XD

(Portugal would probably just watch and then award marks out of ten, though.)

On the "playwright" paragraph: Romeo and Juliet tempted fate with forbidden love beneath the window of Dr Faustus, who hungered for knowledge the way Macbeth hungered for power and murdered for the crown like Claudius, taking what was not his birthright just as Volpone did. It references:Romeo and Juliet from Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare; Dr Faustus from Dr Faustus by Christopher Marlowe; Macbeth from Macbeth by William Shakespeare; Claudius from Hamlet by William Shakespeare; Volpone from Volpone by Ben Jonson.

I know three of those were really obvious but I do hate to set people homework nonetheless. Shakespeare, Marlowe and Jonson were all contemporaries in Elizabethan Britain (and real-life-wise, Shakespeare was by far the most boring. Jonson once killed someone in a pub brawl and Marlowe was a British spy, lolololol).

Speaking of Shakespeare: England's line "That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet" is, of course, a direct quotation from Romeo and Juliet. The line is spoken by Juliet in the play.

Speaking of English Literature: The Dying Swan, which has become a noun-phrase which was worked its way into British English as a simile for someone acting overdramatically towards something that really isn't a big deal (like England having to get out of his seat to get a pen), comes from two things: A short Russian ballet and a poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. Tennyson, while we're at it, served the Poet Laureate to Queen Victoria and was particularly famous for his long poems The Lady of Shalott, Ulysses and In Memoriam – this latter one was written on the death of his best friend, a man named Arthur Hallam. I don't think Himaruya had that in mind when he named them, though. XD

LASTLY,if you've read this much of this fic, I assume you like USUK. In which case you need to go to my profile to get the USUK gifts that I bear to you all. There are explanations as to exactly what it all is there but let's just say that if you have not yet heard America and England fucking, your life is missing something. Something which you can get from my profile. Just a heads up. XD

Thanks for reading this monster. God only knows how long it'll take us to drag the bloody carcass of the next mammoth over the The Pit's threshold.

RobinRocks and Narroch

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