2012 (France, England)
Title: 2012
Characters: France, England
Summary: It's New Years' Eve 2011, and the world is going to end... again? (Late) fill for what_the_fruk's October Lovefest.
Warnings: Booze
Year: Modern
At 7:37 on December 31, 2011, England started drinking. It was a precaution, really. It would, perhaps, keep him from thinking of New Years’ Eves past, and oh, the crowds he’d had at his house. The New World colonies, yes, and Australia and New Zealand, but also Malaysia, Jamaica, Togoland, Nigeria, Egypt, Kuwait, Burma, Ceylon, Hong Kong… He smiled fondly. Yes, there were days he could hardly remember all their names, and the babble in dozens of languages filled his house to the rafters. He’d had to move into a larger manor to accommodate them all.
That manor was dark and quiet now, much of it sheeted off. He had no need for the huge kitchen, the banquet hall, even the sitting rooms were depressingly large for one man. And one man he was. Even Scotland and Wales usually stayed at their own houses. It made France, the bastard, snicker and mumble in that foolish nasal accent of his about reading the augers, but England refused to be pessimistic. They wouldn’t leave him; his money would keep them, if nothing else.
So he started to drink, trying not to think about the party at Ireland’s to which he had not been invited, or the one at America’s that he had been too proud to attend, or about the large, empty rooms of his once-bustling house. Maybe it was about time to move to a smaller place, he reflected at 8:34, nearly a bottle in to his favorite Australian red. No reason to putter about here by himself. But he thought of the look of triumph on France’s face (France, who had moved out of his old home many years ago), and decided it would be more trouble than it was worth, moving all his old furniture.
By 11:41 on December 31, 2011, England was feeling pleasantly contemplative. It was chilly, yes, since he hadn’t started a fire and he disliked turning the heat up too high, but really, that wasn’t so terrible. It was sort of… What’s the word. Sort of… cozy, in his old flannel bathrobe, with his worn-out quilt and dilapidated slippers. He gazed at them, blearily. Yes, really ought to get new ones soon. He had a feeling he’d said that to himself before.
The old grandfather clock down the hall rang the half hour. Every year it got slower and slower, until Canada, sweet boy, took pity on him and came sometime in August to wind it back up. December now, so about thirteen minutes late at this point. Seventeen minutes to 2012, good Lord. 12s… 12 was an interesting number, wasn’t it, rather biblical. 1912… Just before the Great War, that had been, and just after that ridiculous agreement with France; he thought with a certain degree of nostalgia and amusement of how horrified they had both been. Yes, the house was a little emptier then, than it had been the previous century. But he hadn’t had to wind his own clocks, goodness no.
1812; the smile froze on his face a little, and he thought of France again, limping back from Russia, still determined that he would not lose. Two hundred years ago, now. He wasn’t sure if it seemed more like yesterday, or last millennium.
1711, and the War of the Spanish Succession; back when France and Spain had really been the major players. He laughed, in crude amusement. 1611, Elizabeth had just died; what a woman... 1511… What happened in 1511? He was trying to remember when he heard the expected footfalls in the hall. A little bit of the tension left his body.
“What on earth are you doing here?” asked England, without bothering to turn around.
“What else?” asked France. “I have come to watch you sit and languish in your freezing house by yourself, because no one wants to see you.”
“Yes, of course,” said England vaguely.
“And, naturally, to laugh at your advanced state of inebriation,” added France.
“Ah,” agreed England. He felt perhaps he ought to say something else, but France interrupted.
“They say the world will end in twelve minutes, you know.”
England scoffed. “I thought that was supposed to happen when they built that thing, what was it called, between you and Switzerland…”
“Ah, the LHC?” he asked, fondly. “Yes, the world was supposed to end then too.”
“And back in 2000, that business with the computers?”
“Yes, nuclear war, we were told.”
“And there was that French astronomer, back in 1910?”
“Yes, with the comet.”
“And I suppose I must mention 1881…”
“That was hilarious.” England ignored that.
“America had one too, back in 1780, do you remember?”
France frowned, delicately. “I have to admit, I was worried about other things in 1780, as I imagine, were you. Although I suppose you had more reason than I to be hanging around the boy’s house like a scorned lover.”
England ignored that too, with the determination of the deeply drunk. Why fight about America’s revolution, of all things, when there were two world wars worth of jibes to fall back on. “Yes, in New England,” he always smiled a little when he said that name, “it turned out the skies had blackened because of the forest fires…”
“Fascinating,” France sat down and poured himself a glass of England’s wine. “We had one on the continent too, in 1524.”
“Did you?” asked England. “I wasn’t especially paying attention to the Continent in 1524.”
“You pay attention to the Continent as rarely as possible,” France agreed, “unless you are making love or waging war.”
England sniffed. “There are better places to do both.”
“I think that you are exaggerating, friend. I think you have never had war so feverish, or love so… passionate, as you have had on the Continent.”
England snorted. “Arrogant as always.”
“But then,” added France, with a darker sort of smile, “we have fought and fucked in many, many other places, have we not? Africa. The New World. You remember, in 1754…?”
“Do not talk to me about 1754,” England ground out. “I would much rather talk about 1760.”
“That lovely battle in Pennsylvania,” France continued, unfazed. “And we were nearly discovered, as you knelt in the dirt…”
“Foolish, really, the way we carried on back then.”
“Quite.”
They were quiet for a time. “So, you are not worried, then?” asked France, finally.
“What, about this apocalypse business? Please.”
France said nothing more, and it was not until 12:13, as England’s grandfather clock struck midnight and his snores filled the frigid air, that France-as he had done many, many times-came to sit next to him on the couch, curling him against his chest and sitting back to wait for the sunrise.
NOTES
* Yes, England may ordinarily feel a little bit of empire-guilt, but not drunk on a holiday.
*Australian wine, apparently, has been doing quite well in Britain recently! http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7827713.stm
*I don’t need to tell you guys about the Entente Cordiale, right? (I almost used this link instead, I think it gives you a more useful picture xD)
*For the discussion about 1754, see here, unless you’re an anti-wiki purist, in which case, what are you doing in this fandom?
*See this for a delightfully tongue-in-cheek recounting of previous apocalypse scares, many of which appear here.
*Thanks for reading!