Freedom's humping Bluey (1/3)
anonymous
April 9 2009, 04:30:22 UTC
Arthur clears his throat. Loudly.
His mouth is dry from the long trek through the wilderness. His best uniform is caked with dust and dirt, he smells of horses, and, he realises with a curl of one lip, he has just dropped his suitcase on an ant’s nest. He’s not really in the mood for games, standing under the glare of the midday sun. He clears his throat again, more obviously.
Australia leans back further on his rickety wooden stool against the wall of his hut and pointedly ignores him. The bastard.
Eyebrow twitching, England summons all of his remaining powers of patience and etiquette and lets out a loud, hacking cough.
The other country doesn’t move, but the sheepdog drowsing on the porch next to him jerks its head up, sees him with intelligent eyes and bounds down the steps, tail wagging. It sniffs excitedly at England’s feet and stands on its hind legs for a pat. Slightly disarmed, Arthur gives the dog a quick brush around the ears, but then, smiling a little, he finds himself roughly patting his neck. The dog seems to get more and more animated as he continues to pat him, and England’s just beginning to enjoy himself-
-when he realises what the dog is actually doing. With its lower half. To his leg.
He wrenches it off with a startled curse and glares up at his brother, who’s perfectly awake and watching him and collapsed over in on himself laughing his head off. Wiping his eyes of tears, he gives a short whistle, to which the dog shoots back to his master’s side for a thorough belly rub.
“Ah, Bluey you little Beauty, you,” he manages through his laughter, half to the dog and half to England fuming on his doorstep. “You bloody ripper!”
He plants exasperated hands on his hips and scowls. “Are you just going to sit there laughing like a git, or are going to invite me in?”
Australia bursts into another round of hysterics.
-
A few minutes, a chipped enamel mug of tea and a stale biscuit later and Arthur’s still harping on about it. Australia barely listens as he fills the billy with water again sets it back on the fire.
“-Honestly, I would have thought Federation would have made you a little more civilised, but obviously it hasn’t. I swear, even Alfred was better than this- he’d at least say “Hello England” or have an idea about decorum and etiquette and-”
“Jeezes Artie,” he interrupts, brushing his hands of dust and plopping back down onto his seat with a Scotch finger in his mouth. “Quit yer whingin’ and givva man a chance to drink his tea, will yer?”
“Tea?” he continues his tirade, eyebrows angled in angry sharp angles. “You’re boiling leaves in a tin can on a camp fire, and you call this tea? There’s not even any sodding cream or sugar!” He seems to take it as a personal insult.
Australia snorts and gulps his mug down regardless. “Aww, shut up, yer bloody British snob. ‘f’yer want cream and what-not you should be down in Sydney-town, not up ‘ere.” A bellbird lets out a ding from somewhere nearby. Australia smiles and scratches Bluey under the table with one boot as the dog chews on something unidentifiable.
Finally Arthur lets out a long breath and crosses his arms over his chest. “So,” he starts. “How is it? Being your own country.”
Australia shrugs. “Not bad,” he says. “Havin’ our own government’s not too shabby. Get t’pass laws and all that. Pretty happy all up.” Australia’s people had voted for Federation, but then again this was only the men who could be bothered reaching a voting booth.
“I meant…I meant more for you.”
“What?”
Arthur looks at him a little indignantly. “For you. As a country. That’s…that’s mostly why I let you. Because you seemed confused.”
Freedom's humping Bluey (2/3)
anonymous
April 9 2009, 04:37:42 UTC
There’s a pause between them as Australia stares out into the bush, watching a flock of sheep pass by in the middle distance. Arthur does care. That’s what he wants to say, but after Alfred’s rebellion he finds these sorts of things harder and harder to express. Personally, yes, but also because the world seems to be spinning further and further out of the Empires’ control nowadays, and the American civil war and the Eureka Stockade weigh him down in his tightening Red Coat.
His brother lets out a long, quiet sigh and crosses his legs. He shoots him a wry grin as the wind sweeps through his brushed back hair. “And here I thought you were just ‘fraid of me ending up like America,” he voices a little woodenly. “Well…it’s strange. Yer know? I feel more together than I did. More organised, ‘guess. Like I don’t needa listen to yer whinin’ all th’ time,” he can’t resist adding to the end.
It’s also made him more aware of the people around him: of Kiku holding his blade to Ivan’s throat; of Brother America suddenly appearing in glasses; of Yao’s people tracking through his house in Chinese robes; and of Aboriginal Australia and his children as they watch him.
Federation has forced Australia to think about Arthur and the Commonwealth and the Empire and himself- but England doesn’t need to know that.
-
England’s lying on his bed (although he would hesitate to call it one) and listening to the cicadas whirring in the moonlight outside when Australia bursts in through the door. He doesn’t have time even to sit up before a powerful arm has grabbed him by the collar and wrenched him upwards and there’s an angry face in his own. Arthur stares shocked into the blue eyes an inch from his own.
“This,” the Australian hisses, teeth bared like an animal. “What the fuck is this, yer bloody shit-faced pom?!”
It takes him a few seconds to realise that there’s something else brandished in his face. It’s a flower- small, tissue thin and delicate, with perfect pink petals, something so foreign and alien in a land of brown and green and more brown. He recognises it instantly. “It’s a…it’s a cherry blossom,” he chokes out without thinking. “So what?”
“So what?” Arthur’s thrown down onto the mattress so hard he loses his sense of direction for a moment. He regains it the moment there’s an angry Australia straddling him on his knees and holding him by the throat. “Yer rootin’ Japan, arn’t you, yer filthy lyin’ snake!”
He tries to push his brother off of him, but he’s not his little colony anymore. Australia has wiry arms made strong by outrage and anger. “Listen!” he gasps. “Listen, I just visited him on the way-”
Australia bursts into humourless laughter, one thick brow arched in loathing disbelief. “Piss off, England, no one’s gonna believe that- not after Ivan and that damn yella bastard.” Australia knows. He doesn’t live up with Mother England, but he knows that Arthur’s been close to Kiku. He’s been talking to him, helping him against Russia. The Russian in his blood from the Gold Rush boils, but more than that, more than that, this is a matter of colour. “Never thought you’d fuck one a’them, England.”
Is this what has happened to his brother? Arthur thinks in a flash as he tries to pull away, stiff with fear. Australia doesn’t let him. England thinks he’s about to get throttled, but the Australian surprises him and does the complete opposite.
Suddenly, Australia’s kissing him. Hard and frantic and needy and all teeth and tongue. Arthur freezes against him, but there’s a hand roughly clenched in his hair, pulling it out of his face and the other is still grabbing his neck in a hard grip as Australia breaks away. “Japan’s betta than that?” he bursts out with an explosion of air. It’s not meant to sound desperate, but it does. “…None of yer col’nies good enough fer you?”
Freedom's humping Bluey (3/3)
anonymous
April 9 2009, 05:18:34 UTC
There’s no answer. With Arthur’s hair pulled away from his forehead, and in the milky, white, white moonlight of the night outside, the two nation’s faces are almost identical. They stay like that, Arthur pinned underneath his colony’s bigger body. The cicadas drone on.
Australia is so young. He looks like he want to kiss him again, but he doesn’t know. He doesn’t know, because he hates England like his fathers had, but he needs him. Australia hides his fear about his suddenly opened world behind youthful bravado and a façade of gleeful apathy, and he clings to his beliefs like he clings to Arthur’s uniform- with tight fingers and all he has.
Lying there and watching him breathe, Arthur wishes he could give Australia more time.
Instead, he brings one hand up to run a finger over the mostly healed gash over the younger’s nose. “You should get a band aid for that,” he remarks simply, suppressing the shake in his voice.
Australia weakly lets go of him and sits silently on the end of the bed. “Yeah,” he finally says. “I guess I should.”
-
When England’s packed and ready to go the next morning, Australia’s already out on the run rounding up the sheep. There’s a mug of tea on the stool on the veranda and something yellow and green lying next to it.
It’s a spray of wattle flowers, all green and gold and dropping pollen everywhere.
Arthur finds himself smiling as he sips his bitter tea. As he leaves he sniffs at the flowers pushed into his buttonhole and sneezes. The kookaburras laugh him out of the country and all the way back to Britain.
That evening, Australia sees the mug and the flowers gone and grins like an idiot.
-
The line "Freedom's humping Bluey" comes from Henry Lawson's poem "Freedom on the Wallaby", written in 1891. The image of Australia being the sheepdog gleefully humping Freedom’s leg was just too much. <3
Did you know?
new!Australia is new, so the Australia in this fic is also new- set between 1904-1906. Australia was federated in 1901.
In 1899, only about 60% of Australian voted in the referendum for independence. No women, Aboriginals or non citizens (mostly white Australians) were allowed to vote.
Australia at the time was dominated by two main movements- Australian Britons and radical nationalism. Australian Britons took pride in being a part of the Empire; radical nationalists (mostly Irish descended) resented England and preferred the image of what would eventually become the Australian stereotype (bush, ocker, not snobbish). (thus Australia's split loyalties/confusion)
Eureka Stockade (1854) was a skirmish between the British and the Gold Miners- the closest Aus has had to a civil war. (was Actually pretty tame.) There were many immigrants at this time- some Russian.
The Russo-Japanese war (1904-1905) added to Australia's fears of isolation from Britain. Britain supported Japan in this war. At the time, Australia saw this as Britain losing its 'White Pride'. This made Australia wonder about Britain's loyalties, but also made it desperate for protection against its Asian neighbors.
Unfortunately, aussie!anon concedes her country was extremely racist as a new nation. In 1901 the government passed the Immigration Restriction Act, the beginning of the "White Australia Policy". This law basically enabled the government to refuse any non-white immigrants seeking citizenship by giving them an impassable test in any language it chose. Foreign workers were deported with little reason other than that they weren't white. And, of course, the mistreatment of Australian Aboriginals was still mainstream.
Australia's national floral emblem is the wattle. It brings hell upon all people with hayfever every summer.
In modern Australia, 43% of citizens are born overseas, or have parents born overseas. More are descended through 3 or more generations.
Although Australia's dog will probably have a different name, Bluey is common Aussie name for a cattle/sheepdog.
billy- tin can substitute for a teapot Scotchfinger- a favourite biscuit of many Australians to root- Australian verb; to 'fuck'
...Australia was a lot more fun to write as a man. :)
His mouth is dry from the long trek through the wilderness. His best uniform is caked with dust and dirt, he smells of horses, and, he realises with a curl of one lip, he has just dropped his suitcase on an ant’s nest. He’s not really in the mood for games, standing under the glare of the midday sun. He clears his throat again, more obviously.
Australia leans back further on his rickety wooden stool against the wall of his hut and pointedly ignores him. The bastard.
Eyebrow twitching, England summons all of his remaining powers of patience and etiquette and lets out a loud, hacking cough.
The other country doesn’t move, but the sheepdog drowsing on the porch next to him jerks its head up, sees him with intelligent eyes and bounds down the steps, tail wagging. It sniffs excitedly at England’s feet and stands on its hind legs for a pat. Slightly disarmed, Arthur gives the dog a quick brush around the ears, but then, smiling a little, he finds himself roughly patting his neck. The dog seems to get more and more animated as he continues to pat him, and England’s just beginning to enjoy himself-
-when he realises what the dog is actually doing. With its lower half. To his leg.
He wrenches it off with a startled curse and glares up at his brother, who’s perfectly awake and watching him and collapsed over in on himself laughing his head off. Wiping his eyes of tears, he gives a short whistle, to which the dog shoots back to his master’s side for a thorough belly rub.
“Ah, Bluey you little Beauty, you,” he manages through his laughter, half to the dog and half to England fuming on his doorstep. “You bloody ripper!”
He plants exasperated hands on his hips and scowls. “Are you just going to sit there laughing like a git, or are going to invite me in?”
Australia bursts into another round of hysterics.
-
A few minutes, a chipped enamel mug of tea and a stale biscuit later and Arthur’s still harping on about it. Australia barely listens as he fills the billy with water again sets it back on the fire.
“-Honestly, I would have thought Federation would have made you a little more civilised, but obviously it hasn’t. I swear, even Alfred was better than this- he’d at least say “Hello England” or have an idea about decorum and etiquette and-”
“Jeezes Artie,” he interrupts, brushing his hands of dust and plopping back down onto his seat with a Scotch finger in his mouth. “Quit yer whingin’ and givva man a chance to drink his tea, will yer?”
“Tea?” he continues his tirade, eyebrows angled in angry sharp angles. “You’re boiling leaves in a tin can on a camp fire, and you call this tea? There’s not even any sodding cream or sugar!” He seems to take it as a personal insult.
Australia snorts and gulps his mug down regardless. “Aww, shut up, yer bloody British snob. ‘f’yer want cream and what-not you should be down in Sydney-town, not up ‘ere.” A bellbird lets out a ding from somewhere nearby. Australia smiles and scratches Bluey under the table with one boot as the dog chews on something unidentifiable.
Finally Arthur lets out a long breath and crosses his arms over his chest. “So,” he starts. “How is it? Being your own country.”
Australia shrugs. “Not bad,” he says. “Havin’ our own government’s not too shabby. Get t’pass laws and all that. Pretty happy all up.” Australia’s people had voted for Federation, but then again this was only the men who could be bothered reaching a voting booth.
“I meant…I meant more for you.”
“What?”
Arthur looks at him a little indignantly. “For you. As a country. That’s…that’s mostly why I let you. Because you seemed confused.”
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His brother lets out a long, quiet sigh and crosses his legs. He shoots him a wry grin as the wind sweeps through his brushed back hair. “And here I thought you were just ‘fraid of me ending up like America,” he voices a little woodenly. “Well…it’s strange. Yer know? I feel more together than I did. More organised, ‘guess. Like I don’t needa listen to yer whinin’ all th’ time,” he can’t resist adding to the end.
It’s also made him more aware of the people around him: of Kiku holding his blade to Ivan’s throat; of Brother America suddenly appearing in glasses; of Yao’s people tracking through his house in Chinese robes; and of Aboriginal Australia and his children as they watch him.
Federation has forced Australia to think about Arthur and the Commonwealth and the Empire and himself- but England doesn’t need to know that.
-
England’s lying on his bed (although he would hesitate to call it one) and listening to the cicadas whirring in the moonlight outside when Australia bursts in through the door. He doesn’t have time even to sit up before a powerful arm has grabbed him by the collar and wrenched him upwards and there’s an angry face in his own. Arthur stares shocked into the blue eyes an inch from his own.
“This,” the Australian hisses, teeth bared like an animal. “What the fuck is this, yer bloody shit-faced pom?!”
It takes him a few seconds to realise that there’s something else brandished in his face. It’s a flower- small, tissue thin and delicate, with perfect pink petals, something so foreign and alien in a land of brown and green and more brown. He recognises it instantly. “It’s a…it’s a cherry blossom,” he chokes out without thinking. “So what?”
“So what?” Arthur’s thrown down onto the mattress so hard he loses his sense of direction for a moment. He regains it the moment there’s an angry Australia straddling him on his knees and holding him by the throat. “Yer rootin’ Japan, arn’t you, yer filthy lyin’ snake!”
He tries to push his brother off of him, but he’s not his little colony anymore. Australia has wiry arms made strong by outrage and anger. “Listen!” he gasps. “Listen, I just visited him on the way-”
Australia bursts into humourless laughter, one thick brow arched in loathing disbelief. “Piss off, England, no one’s gonna believe that- not after Ivan and that damn yella bastard.” Australia knows. He doesn’t live up with Mother England, but he knows that Arthur’s been close to Kiku. He’s been talking to him, helping him against Russia. The Russian in his blood from the Gold Rush boils, but more than that, more than that, this is a matter of colour. “Never thought you’d fuck one a’them, England.”
Is this what has happened to his brother? Arthur thinks in a flash as he tries to pull away, stiff with fear. Australia doesn’t let him. England thinks he’s about to get throttled, but the Australian surprises him and does the complete opposite.
Suddenly, Australia’s kissing him. Hard and frantic and needy and all teeth and tongue. Arthur freezes against him, but there’s a hand roughly clenched in his hair, pulling it out of his face and the other is still grabbing his neck in a hard grip as Australia breaks away. “Japan’s betta than that?” he bursts out with an explosion of air. It’s not meant to sound desperate, but it does. “…None of yer col’nies good enough fer you?”
Reply
Australia is so young. He looks like he want to kiss him again, but he doesn’t know. He doesn’t know, because he hates England like his fathers had, but he needs him. Australia hides his fear about his suddenly opened world behind youthful bravado and a façade of gleeful apathy, and he clings to his beliefs like he clings to Arthur’s uniform- with tight fingers and all he has.
Lying there and watching him breathe, Arthur wishes he could give Australia more time.
Instead, he brings one hand up to run a finger over the mostly healed gash over the younger’s nose. “You should get a band aid for that,” he remarks simply, suppressing the shake in his voice.
Australia weakly lets go of him and sits silently on the end of the bed. “Yeah,” he finally says. “I guess I should.”
-
When England’s packed and ready to go the next morning, Australia’s already out on the run rounding up the sheep. There’s a mug of tea on the stool on the veranda and something yellow and green lying next to it.
It’s a spray of wattle flowers, all green and gold and dropping pollen everywhere.
Arthur finds himself smiling as he sips his bitter tea. As he leaves he sniffs at the flowers pushed into his buttonhole and sneezes. The kookaburras laugh him out of the country and all the way back to Britain.
That evening, Australia sees the mug and the flowers gone and grins like an idiot.
-
The line "Freedom's humping Bluey" comes from Henry Lawson's poem "Freedom on the Wallaby", written in 1891. The image of Australia being the sheepdog gleefully humping Freedom’s leg was just too much. <3
Did you know?
new!Australia is new, so the Australia in this fic is also new- set between 1904-1906. Australia was federated in 1901.
In 1899, only about 60% of Australian voted in the referendum for independence. No women, Aboriginals or non citizens (mostly white Australians) were allowed to vote.
Australia at the time was dominated by two main movements- Australian Britons and radical nationalism. Australian Britons took pride in being a part of the Empire; radical nationalists (mostly Irish descended) resented England and preferred the image of what would eventually become the Australian stereotype (bush, ocker, not snobbish). (thus Australia's split loyalties/confusion)
Eureka Stockade (1854) was a skirmish between the British and the Gold Miners- the closest Aus has had to a civil war. (was Actually pretty tame.) There were many immigrants at this time- some Russian.
The Russo-Japanese war (1904-1905) added to Australia's fears of isolation from Britain. Britain supported Japan in this war. At the time, Australia saw this as Britain losing its 'White Pride'. This made Australia wonder about Britain's loyalties, but also made it desperate for protection against its Asian neighbors.
Unfortunately, aussie!anon concedes her country was extremely racist as a new nation. In 1901 the government passed the Immigration Restriction Act, the beginning of the "White Australia Policy". This law basically enabled the government to refuse any non-white immigrants seeking citizenship by giving them an impassable test in any language it chose. Foreign workers were deported with little reason other than that they weren't white. And, of course, the mistreatment of Australian Aboriginals was still mainstream.
Australia's national floral emblem is the wattle. It brings hell upon all people with hayfever every summer.
In modern Australia, 43% of citizens are born overseas, or have parents born overseas. More are descended through 3 or more generations.
Although Australia's dog will probably have a different name, Bluey is common Aussie name for a cattle/sheepdog.
billy- tin can substitute for a teapot
Scotchfinger- a favourite biscuit of many Australians
to root- Australian verb; to 'fuck'
...Australia was a lot more fun to write as a man. :)
Reply
WHY CAN I NOT READ REQUESTS PROPERLY!?
This is UK/AUS, NOT US/AUS!
VERDAMMT NOCHMAL!
...can I redeem myself by writing anons another fic in a few hours that is actually US/Aus?
*sob* D:
Reply
Wonderful.
Kookaburra!
Reply
not prompt, but just as osm!
*gives cookies to author!anon.
IT HAS AUSTRALIA so it is obviously epic win. <3
Recaptcha says "available cakes," so it obviously thinks so too and wants me to give you some cakes.
*gives cakes*
:D
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