Almost... there...

Warning: Angst, smoking, chewing tobacco, references to RusAme lemon, and some fluffy FrUK and RusAme.

Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN HETALIA. I have fun manipulating their characters, though

Precipice

12:00.

Andre woke them. Red had gone out on another smoke break, but everyone knew it was more than that. They all reluctantly left their cots, sleep heavy on their eyes and their minds drowsy despite the rapid beating of their hearts.

Andre directed them to the meeting room, and they crammed themselves inside. They were so close to each other that they could practically feel the racing pulses of those pressed against them. They were all scared, and no one could deny it.

"This is it," Andre echoed what they were all thinking. "We've alerted Red's squad to prepare. We need to as well, but we have to stay down here until we receive the summons to the morning gathering at six. All those with injuries should speak now so they can be treated. As soon as Red returns, we will go back over 'Checkmate' and clear up any confusion. Don't be ashamed to ask any questions. We don't want anything to go wrong because of lack of knowledge. Afterward, we will prepare everyone for immersion into Organization ranks. Any questions as of now?"

As apprehensive as they all were about this whole thing, the only question they wanted to have answered was 'Are we all going to make it?' So they just shook their heads and stayed silent.

Andre nodded back, hands clasped behind him. "All right then. The countdown has officially begun. We're in for the long haul.

"No pressure."

12:30.

No pressure.

Arthur could feel apprehension pushing at the back of his eyes, crawling up his throat and threatening with despairing sobs or hysterical laughter. No pressure. He swallowed and felt as if a rock had hit the base of his stomach, weighing him down and stirring up his bowels. He'd done this before, he kept telling himself, so many times in the past. But the mortality of it all was what had him standing over the sink in the bathroom, having locked himself away in what he soon reflected was an act of cowardice—but he would not allow himself to submit to hysterics in front of everyone. He was simply… composing himself for the sake of his group. That was right…

Right?

But how could he?

His fears manifested in his hands. The burning had ceased to be sure, but they were still stiff, skin a ruddy shade and thick with scarring. He flexed them, wincing as he felt the healing burns stretch and contract. How could he hold a weapon, defend himself, sort through the destruction yet to come with such useless and yet overwhelmingly essential appendages?

And the rest of him looked as if he should be rolled into a grave rather than preparing for war. Pale, gaunt, eyes hollow and dark-smudged beneath, weathered, frazzled, not ready. No one was ready, but out of them all he felt the most compromised and all at once he hated that his body could betray him by submitting to the effects of his troubled mental state.

Usually, at times like this, he paced, but he doubted the strength of his legs. Francis had offered (almost insisted) that he be allowed to tend to Arthur's hands, but Arthur didn't want anyone to see how hurt he was, how incapable. In his haste to remove himself from the eyes looking to him, he had neglected to lock the door, and he knew that Francis had been standing behind him, observing him with what was surely a worried gaze, for most of his anxious ritual.

"Stop watching me like that." Arthur sniffed and pulled the new bandages on his hand tighter, hoping that the pain it caused would divert his attention from the murderous elephant in the room, or rather in the system of sewer tunnels above them. He flexed his hand, the ointment given to him courtesy of the squad numbing the discomfort that came with the movement. But that didn't change the fact that he was still injured. "I hate when you stare. What is it?" he nearly snapped. Do you want something from me as well?

He could feel Francis's presence close behind him, and he continued to pull at the bandages, pulling, pulling, pulling until the pain was crippling, because he deserved it for being so weak, for losing control of himself when he knew better—

"Mon chou," Francis murmured, arms coming around Arthur's front, seizing the Briton's wrist and gently urging the fingers to release the gauze they were holding so tightly to.

Arthur twisted and jerked, hand itching to snatch at the gauze again. It had been enough that Francis had been watching him, but now he was taking away his only source of distraction? "Let go of me, fucking sod! You have no right… I need… I n-need to—"

But Francis held his flailing arms like a vice, pulling him around so that he could wrap his own arms around him, allow Arthur to hide his face in Francis's shoulder and let go himself. Those hands, so useless and weak and punishing, dug fingers into the back of Francis's sweater, holding tighter than they ever had. His eyes stung, and he hated how it reminded him of the stinging in his hands—of the weakness—but it was so much more different, like with every quivering breath and sticky roll of moisture down his cheek he felt lighter, and he vaguely wondered if before everything bad had happened in the world he had been walking on air and never known until then.

"When this is over," Francis said quietly as Arthur's despairing hiccups subsided. The Frenchman's hand cupped the back of Arthur's head, another wrapped around his waist, rocking them gently back and forth. "I want you to keep your promise." He needn't say it; they both knew what it was. That little slip of the tongue after their bath together, the embrace that confirmed the answer. Francis clutched Arthur more tightly to him, lips pressed into his hair. "And I will promise to make you as happy as I can manage."

Arthur let out a breath he didn't know he had been holding, muscles limp after so many hours of being stiff with anxiety. He refilled his lungs with a shudder and realized how ridiculous he was being, how this all was… but for once he didn't care. "I will," he assured, and he found that before he hadn't been so sure himself about his answer, but now he knew he wanted this, that it wasn't just something said in the heat of the moment, on the edge of everything. And now that he had said it with the strongest note of truth in him, he knew that it also came with another, underlying promise. Being with Francis meant he had to survive whatever was coming, but it was also a promise to everyone else who relied on him, and, most importantly, to himself. He wouldn't have anyone saying, years from now, that the former empire, who had once held the world in the palm of his hand, had been wiped from the earth, swallowed by mere human dissidents as if he were still some inexperienced child clinging to his mother's skirts and crying whenever one of his brothers pushed him around. He still had his power, and he would have this Overlord acknowledge it.

He drew back as Francis let up on him a little, and even though the man was smiling his blue eyes were bleary as they regarded him. "Then you will be very happy, cher. And these," he took up Arthur's hands and lovingly wrapped the bandages properly, "will not stop you. As I recall, it was your voice that made you powerful."

Arthur felt heat unbidden rise to his cheeks and he scoffed, snatching his hands away. "Kiss-arse. Always kissing arse throughout history, stupid frog."

Francis arched an eyebrow and a genuine smirk pulled at his lips for the first time in weeks. "I see. So this was why I could never have you. You failed to recognize flirting."

Arthur was scandalized. "I-I know what flirting is, thank you very much!"

"There is a difference between lust and love," Francis reminded as if he knew everything on the subject, and Arthur rolled his eyes. "But you could never make difference of the two."

"What did you expect me to think when you were practically stalking me all the goddamn time?" Arthur squawked. Francis laughed and then just smiled at him, Arthur growing more and more uncomfortable under his stare. "What is it?"

"I recall you asking that question when you were in a much different state of mind," Francis said, smile broadening. "Already I have kept my promise to make you happy."

Arthur blinked at him and realized that, although he was annoyed, he was more lighthearted than he had been in a long time. Then reality came crashing down upon him again, crushing the little paradise they had created for themselves and only them. But he was determined not to let the situation overtake him as it had before, because now he was acutely aware that he had so many things to live for and just the thought of them alone would make him stronger than any pair of hands could.

What a fool, Arthur thought as he imagined the Overlord, sitting somewhere, far from the reaches of Resistance fighters. Or at least he thought he was. He created something so terrible, something he thought would cut us to the core. But he also played matchmaker to us, to everyone, made us find each other. He made us realize how blind we really were.

"You look content," Francis commented as Arthur returned to the situation at hand.

He responded by resting his forehead against Francis's. "I am." He pressed a kiss to Francis's lips and decided it was time to see to preparations once more.

In disaster, he only managed to make us stronger.

"And don't think that's an excuse for you to just walk up and have a kiss all the time."

By which, Francis picked up from his tone, would be a perfectly good (and welcome) excuse.

1:00.

"It's getting better."

Ivan scoffed, shifting as Alfred's fingers pressed over a particularly tender spot on the wound. "It would be 'better' if it were healed by now."

Alfred was silent, and the Russian knew it was because he could not refute his words, were weighing them in his mind, adding the risk the wound posed to the mix. He continued on with his tending, dabbing a bit of cream at the affected area with a scrap of cloth. "I shouldn't have let you fuck me," Alfred said, voice barely above a whisper. They were currently in the room they shared with Arthur, Francis, and Matthew, though the first two were absent. Ivan was sitting on Alfred's cot, the latter kneeling before him in concentration, and Matthew was currently unrolling the gauze for his own wrists across the room. Yet he didn't look up as Alfred continued, "It looks redder than before."

Ivan took time to reflect on how silly it seemed to be discussing this in hushed tones when just a few hours earlier they had been expressing quite loudly (and obscenely) their dedication to one another. Matthew would not be in the least bit shell-shocked at overhearing their conversation. "That is because you are treating it, Fredka. Is nothing to worry about, da?"

He knew Alfred must have picked up on the hurt in Ivan's voice; how Alfred could just say he wished he could take back all that had happened in that shower room, as if he would rather have gone without it. Ivan knew it wasn't true. He had been woken at midnight with Alfred clinging to him, the man kissing him as they rose, always making sure he was in contact with at least some part of Ivan as they shuffled around to make themselves presentable. The Russian had been preparing for the past hour, visiting the meeting room to look over the plans again to cement them in his mind, packing up his things and storing them in a secluded little corner, pacing before lighting up a forgotten cigarette to calm his nerves, and Alfred had been right there the whole time, following him like a puppy, all round eyes and perked ears whenever Ivan threw so much as a glance at him. It was endearing as much as it was reassuring.

Alfred placed a hand on Ivan's thigh, warm even through the dense fabric. "I'm just worried about you," he said, round eyes and perked ears again. As if he had done something wrong.

Ivan patted him on the head when he really wanted to embrace him. Tell him how grateful he was to hear that Alfred was so concerned about his well-being. Instead he wove his fingers through Alfred's hair, smiling down at him. "It seems you need a haircut."

It was necessary to their operation for them to blend in with the rest of the Organization's troops. Months on the run had their hair long and unkempt and their faces stubbly—definitely not the order the Organization strictly adhered to. Ivan took scissors to Alfred and later a razor. Modern ones were hard to come by, difficult to obtain without suspicion as well, so a newly sharpened straight razor discovered in the recesses of the bunker had to suffice. Shaving cream was scarce. Soap was all that stood between Alfred's skin and a glorified knife.

"Do you trust me?" Ivan murmured against Alfred's ear. The man shivered and nodded, trembling as Ivan set the razor to his skin, starting a slow, sloping line downward. For every swipe, Ivan would give him a kiss, and Alfred would calm little by little. One on the forehead, one on each cheek, one on the tip of his nose, his lips as Ivan wiped off the remnants with a towel. Alfred's face was smooth and unmarked, apart from a few scars and some bruising around his left eye from the car accident earlier. Ivan just hoped he wouldn't see any damage worse than what was already present.

Then it was Ivan's turn, Alfred clipping off excess hair, ridding him of the weight of all their previous hardships, leaving room to take on new ones. He flinched as Alfred cut him with the razor, the American giving a squeak of, "Sorry!" When he was done, Alfred had only managed to cut him twice, and Ivan caught him watching him in the mirror as he dabbed at the bleeding cuts with the towel they had been using. Ivan pressed at one cut a bit too hard, a sting shooting through him and making his hand flinch away. He tched when he found that he had smeared the blood across his throat in the process. By the time his eyes returned to the mirror to continue his cleaning, he noticed Alfred rubbing at his eyes behind him.

"Something is wrong?" Ivan asked, turning.

Alfred drew his hands away from his face and wiped them on his pants, sniffing. "I just… the blood… it looked like—I-I never wanna see you like that." He stared fixedly at a point on the far wall, refusing to meet Ivan's gaze. "Don't you dare let me see you like that, Ivan. I-I'll kick your ass." A sniff. Another wipe to the eyes. He turned his back to him, trying to run away from his vulnerability.

Despite the image he knew Alfred to be envisioning, Ivan couldn't help but give a soft smile. Ivan had never thought he would be so happy to see Alfred cry, but he was crying for him. It was so obvious now. Alfred was hopelessly in love, and it amused Ivan that he didn't have the ability to contain emotion unlike himself, who had been nurturing such affection and taking rejection for so long he had learned to hide his heartbreak behind a plastic smile.

He wondered what Alfred would think if he knew that Ivan could sense these things about him. Centuries of observation had clued Ivan in to Alfred's mannerisms, predicting the stiffening of the shoulders and the shuddering exhale as Ivan's arms came around him from behind. He rested his chin on Alfred's gradually relaxing shoulder.

"You are such a child, Fredka."

It took one to know one.

1:30.

Red was sitting under the vent in the meeting room, smoke curling up to the ceiling from the cigarette balanced between her fingers. She looked strangely still—separate from the bustle of preparations. She looked like she was someplace very far away.

Francis took a seat next to her. He had just finished going through the rest of his worldly possessions, having taken a whole hour to tear his fingers and eyes away from what was and what could possibly no longer be his. An embroidered kerchief from Austria, his trusty lighter now useless, an empty pack of Gauloises, a drawing of Napoleon that Matthew had given him when he was a child, a patchy feather snatched from Arthur's tricorne during a spat on the sea, daguerreotypes of Alfred and Matthew together and laughing, handfuls of photos of Arthur passed out in a boozy slumber. One, two, three, four, Napoleon, Matthew, Alfred, Arthur. Again and again he counted, organizing by color, shape, people, meaning. One of the French crown jewels, a lady's favor from a tourney, a page agonizingly torn from Voltaire's Candide—Cela est bien dit, mais il faut cultiver notre jardin—rosary beads centuries old and sparse on the string, a wild lock of Gallia's hair stored in a purse with worn francs bearing the Fleur-de-lis. One, two, three, four, royals, Voltaire, church, Gallia. And back again and again until he was sure that he would never forget, for as long as he lived, that he used to be a country called France, the history of which may now be limited to the contents of his pack.

He needed something to do before he returned to getting lost in his memories.

He jumped a little when a pack of cigarettes was offered to him. "Take it," Red said, smoke curling out of her nostrils as she exhaled. She wasn't even looking at him. "It's the last one."

Her words left room for I know you need one, but Francis wisely took the lone cigarette before she had the chance to say anymore. Red slid her lighter across the table, and Francis gladly lit up, eyes watering and throat itching as smoke rolled down to his lungs for the first time in weeks. They sat in silence, just smoking, eyes trained on different points in the room as they listened to the others shuffle around the bunker. Halfway through, the image of the safehouse rose to Francis mind; of the smoke he'd had in the back by himself, stupidly; of the inmates dragging him away to the school where they—

He squashed the memory along with his cigarette, watching them turn to ashes in the tray on the table.

Red didn't so much as glance at him as he pushed back his chair and stood, walking back down the hallway and turning into his shared room. He didn't acknowledge anyone within, didn't even know who was in there or if he was alone. He unzipped his pack and dug through the contents, pushing memories aside to procure a knife. The one Gilbert had given him as a keepsake during the wars.

The clothes were in the shower room. The black ones, with the long sleeves and turtleneck, leather gloves and puffy black pants. The ones with the gray insignia on the breast. He locked the door behind him and pulled Matthew's borrowed sweater over his head, pressing his lips to the braided moose pattern before folding it delicately. He then dug the point of the knife into the top of his jeans, carving downward until they were strips hanging off of his legs. He tore them off the rest of the way and tossed them across the room, satisfaction bursting through him as they hit the far wall with a whump. Gritty hands had touched them, removed them so that they could get beneath, clawing and hurting. Imprints of filth, gone. Clean now, he stepped into the new Organization pants, pulling them up and belting them on. He slipped the shirt over his head and the vest along with it. His shoes and gloves were last.

And there he stood in the scuffed mirror, having taken up the garb of the enemy. A black masquerade that would turn red before long. He smiled and left his discarded clothes where they were, kicking the massacred jeans as he made his way out. He passed Arthur in the hall, both walking in opposite directions. Arthur slowed, visibly struck by Francis's appearance, long enough for Francis to give him a peck to the lips. He left Arthur standing there, staring, feeling his eyes follow him back out to the meeting room where Red was still sitting.

He sat back down in the chair just as Red stood. Her green eyes fell on him, turbulent and steady all at once. "You found your new clothes?" she asked. Her black mirrored his own, blending, twins, unsullied, not alone. The first step to ending everything.

Francis flashed a smile. "Oui, I did."

2:00.

Shick.

Yao winced at the sound as he squeezed his fingers in the scissors, eyes following the long strands as they drifted to the cold cement floor. He pulled his gaze away and back to the makeshift mirror, fingers working again. Shick. Shick. He couldn't watch anymore, relied on touch to complete the action instead.

Sitting crosslegged on the floor in the corner of his shared room, a butterfly knife he had forgotten all about nestled in his lap, angled especially to reflect the cutting of his hair. It was difficult to do, and not because the position made it difficult. Each snip of the scissors took more of himself away. Even as a fledgling empire, Yao had always worn his hair long and tied, a tradition that had never died with him despite the rest of his people moving on with the times. He had always thought it was his obligation to keep tradition alive, even if it had drawn its last breath and been buried six feet under with Organization shovels. His eyes wandered down to the pile of hair at his feet again, sullen. Thousands of years of culture gone with a few clips of the scissors. Shick. Shick.

He had been wrong before, about his strength. Why not now? The Uprising had made him lose trust in himself when he knew he had more than enough knowledge to fix this, and he hated it. He hated that someone was trying to squash him out of existence again, how, despite having faced it before, Yao was beside himself, feeling as if he was slowly being sucked into a pit of quicksand with nothing to grab onto even though he knew there was something out there that could help him escape. He felt as if he was descending into that despairing spiral he knew so well, had fought so hard to claw his way out of, had promised himself again and again he would never fall back into.

Yet, here he was, spiraling. Again. There was nothing for him to hold onto, nothing that couldn't be lost in a matter of hours.

Shick, shick went the scissors through his hair.

No. It couldn't be that way. If one person could change the world with their words, then their little group shouldn't have any excuse not to succeed.

Shick. Shick.

And this hair, yes, this hair, this dead weight of despair and bleak nostalgia were at the center of his worry, blocking him from the view of that handhold past the sinking pit he was stuck in. His brow furrowed, eyes narrowed, fingers flexing with renewed fervor, shick, shick, music to his ears, the trumpet at the start, the rallying cry. Shick-shick, shick-shick, up to his ears, a scattered pile at his feet, all ink-shine and yesterday. Clearing the foliage, the unnecessary curtain blocking his view of the other side, the determined side, the side he'd worked so hard to revive. Shick-shick-shick-shick. Almost there now, reaching with everything he had, and he knew he could do it, had done it before, why not now? There was no excuse.

Shick, shick. The last bit gone, and there it was, a handhold. He pulled himself out of his trap as he lifted the butterfly knife to his face, pushed the remainder of his hair behind an ear. His lungs felt constricted, something working its way up from his throat, but he refused to let it out, couldn't afford to. He glanced at the glossy pile again. Had he really that much gray hair?

He swept the heap away before he could dwell on it, storing it in a corner and pulling himself up to sit on his cot. He leaned back on his hands, tipping his head up to the ceiling, lightheaded, the absence of hair on his shoulders and back strangely satisfying. He wasn't letting go of what he had; no one could ever make him forget, ever make him stop, returning to his past. What was the future but a projection of the past? The sun set only to rise again, the stars glittered to remind that there was still light out there, somewhere, in the dark. He wasn't forgetting, he was transcending. He would go farther than he ever had been and when he felt he finally achieved what he wanted, what needed to be achieved, he would return—for wasn't that the ultimate goal of the pioneer, the one who changed everything with his experiences? There had always been barriers, hurtles, time that would keep Yao from what he knew he needed. Now that they were gone he had a clean slate, fingers free of the scissors and eager for the chalk. His heartbeats may no longer thrum in time to the phases of his country and his traditions may lie in the sorry, abandoned strands of hair in the corner for who knew how long, but he still had a heart, his heart, and he had never felt such ownership of it, such potential pumping through it, until now.

And that gray hair? They had firm roots. The past he would be sure to return to.

2:30.

"So… should I spray it down with a chemical agent or just blow it up?"

The question made Alfred wince internally at its reference to what very well could be their close demise, but he forced himself to smile a fake smile, for his daughter. She was standing in front of the doorway to the shower room, looking as displeased as ever, chewing as she nodded to the room in question.

It took Alfred's brain a few moments to process what she was asking him, his mind everywhere at once. Then he flushed and scratched the back of his head sheepishly. "Oh, uh, that. Well…" He glanced away. Oh God, he hadn't even considered if Red had heard them…

Red appeared unimpressed. "Him? Out of everyone in the world and it had to be him?"

Alfred huffed. "Oh, don't give me that crock of bullshit. You're probably the biggest hypocrite when it comes to this and you know it."

For a moment, Alfred thought that Red would explode like she usually did when it came to anything about Ivan. It was well known that she absolutely hated the man and Alfred was very surprised that she hadn't led her own covert operation to wipe him off the globe (which, unfortunately for him, was understandable, considering Red's devil-may-care reputation). But no. Red smiled. "Yeah," she laughed a bit. "Guess so. But," and here her smile disappeared, "if that sneaking commie ever does anything to—"

Alfred scoffed. "Like I couldn't beat his ass if he did do something."

Red blinked at him, as if just realizing that Alfred—this haggard, piteous Alfred—could take care of himself. She shrugged. "Hey, don't come crying to me if he breaks your—or rather rips your heart out. Literally, I mean."

Alfred sighed. It came as a relief, among all the other shit going on, that his daughter could tolerate his choice to be with Ivan. Although, a little voice in the back of his head suggested, it was more of a need than a choice. "Um, thanks Red, I—what are you eating?"

Red's answer came in the form of chaw spat onto the floor. Alfred eyed the brown phlegm with cringing disgust. Ugh, he could never understand how he had chewed that stuff himself for so long. "Uh… ran out of cigarettes?"

Red nodded and sucked her teeth, gathering the tobacco into a wad inside her cheek. "Yup."

"Is spitting on the floor really… necessary?"

Red was already walking away down the hall. "It's all gonna get blown up anyway." And she closed the door to her room.

Alfred should have known better than to criticize her, but he was rather moody himself and was forgetting all his experience gained from and used to interact with others, so focused was he on their upcoming mission. It was as if everything was growing blurred while the coup was consistently sharper with each second that passed.

Alfred was getting nervous again, wringing his sweaty hands and deciding that he needed to go back to his room to lie down, even though he knew sleep would not come to him. Still, it wouldn't kill him to try… was one of only a handful of things he was sure wouldn't kill him now.

He walked into the room and made straight for his cot, dropping down onto it and laying on his back, hands folded over his stomach, staring with unfocused eyes upward. He didn't even notice that someone else was in the room with him until he heard shoe-clad feet shuffling toward him.

"Can't sleep?" Arthur asked, sitting on the cot at Alfred's feet.

Alfred sighed. "Yeah. I never can at times like this. When everything hangs by a thread."

"Yeah,"

Silence.

"Hey, Alfred."

"Yeah, Art?"

"When you were small, you used to climb trees… bloody tall ones. Do you remember that?"

"… Yeah."

Arthur smiled and stared ahead of him. "And no matter what I said, you wouldn't come down, goddammit. But when you did, you always ended up slipping, and I would rush forward like a fool to catch you. I would never make it and you would hit the ground, and I would stop breathing for a moment…"

Alfred felt awkward at the confession, but also a bit… touched (still, it was pretty corny). As much as he wanted to interrupt his brother so that he could end all this weird sappy shit about memories, something inside him made him hold his tongue. Or maybe that was just the angst silencing him.

"But you would always jump to your feet in the end. Brush off the dirt. You'd have a few cuts and bruises, of course, but that never deterred you from climbing those damned trees. You would always laugh and say—"

"'I'll get it next time', yeah, yeah, Artie, I can remember my own childhood." Alfred felt bad for shattering the moment, but he had too many questions to ask. He settled for only one of them. "Why're we talking about memories, bro? You're not one to get all sappy from a case of nostalgia."

Arthur chuckled a bit. "You were always scraped up and bruised and a bit bloody, but you would always wear that stupid smile and laugh that stupid laugh of yours." He looked down at Alfred then, and the American felt frozen by his gaze. "If I go—whether it be today, or tomorrow, or a few weeks from now—I would see you smile again. Because… it got me through a great deal, no matter if I wasn't sappy enough to admit it."

Alfred stared, wide-eyed and at a loss for words. He would have liked to say something back, but Arthur was already headed out of the room.

"Get some rest, Alfred."

When the door was shut and Alfred could no longer hear the Briton's footsteps, he sighed.

"Always knew he was a softie."

He smiled.

Translations:

Mon chou-sweetheart

Cela est bien dit, mais il faut cultiver notre jardin-That is well said, but let's cultivate our garden (Quote is from Voltaire's Candide, and I take no ownership of it whatsoever!)

*Also some references to foreign imperialism in China (though I hope you caught that). And 'chaw' is slang for chewing tobacco, particularly the phlegm you have to spit. Ick.

A Word From the Writer: Aw fluffy fluff fluff at the end there. I actually wrote the little America and England talk thing months ago when I thought, "Well, wouldn't that be sweet?"=^^= Anyway, thank God I got this finished... I'll admit, not as clean or powerful as I want, but I was pressed for time. I've kind of been procrastinating with school shit and now I have everything piling up with research papers and anthologies and reteaching myself math from the bottom up since I didn't have any this year for a placement test (don't do it, children! Take a math class your last year or you'll be royally screwed, I'm telling you, not worth it!) and *sigh* just a lot of stuff I really should have done earlier. And then I've also been devoting more time than I can afford to the little smutty one-shot I've been writing. I think I'll post it right after I finish this fic. Want a hint? (It's a threesome). So, apart from my poor time management skills, just a few notes: 1, chewing tobacco is kind of disgusting, which is the reason why nobody does it anymore (kinda went almost extinct since the manufacturing of cigarettes in the early 20th century), though I have seen some people still do it... but they're mostly rural old men whose teeth are (unsurprisingly) rotting out of their heads, so, um... good on them for keeping tradition alive? 2, Gallia was France's mother, and 3, Voltaire is one of my writing heroes and I am currently reading Candide (my French sucks balls by the way, but my teacher is lazy and I'm lazy and... I'll just start over in college, fml).