No Metronome, No Metronome
.
I want to do an operatic or art-music "cover" of this song.
Just getting that out there. Maybe when this house stops being....yeah. Not a good day to be here.
So I write about the real world and real issues instead of my own.
Title: No Metronome, No Metronome
Author: Mithrigil
Fandom: Axis Powers Hetalia
Characters: America, England
Words: 2500
Rating: PG
Timestamp: concerning the 1958 Anglo-American Mutual Defense Agreement
Summary by way of passing Flobots: my reach is global, my tower secure, my cause is noble, my power is pure
No Metronome, No Metronome
axis powers hetalia
Mithrigil Galtirglin
30 September, 1958 C.E.
The ground is neutral, the table is sleek, and the half of it that England hasn’t covered with manila gleams a ruddy burnished gold. It makes the papers seem like rubble by comparison; the table is a product of the glorious earth and the documents the clutter and waste of man. Files are an obstacle to sanctity. The metaphor has no right to be this appropriate, England thinks, this apt, this intrinsic.
America is late.
There is only so much organising England can do, only so many citations and notes he’ll need. The paper sounds like sharpening knives, sliding against itself this way-when he raps a stack’s collected edges on the table to straighten them, the sound echoes, staggered beats. This room is far too large for the two of them, the round table almost England’s own height for diameter, and there are six seats surrounding it, spread comfortably as if for a corporate dinner. England has turned the two on either side of his away from the table’s edge, an obvious signal, do not sit beside me, and America can do whatever the hell he pleases with the other three. He can prop his feet up, for all England cares, sprawl across the lot of them and pick at the studding on the arms like he always used to. These chairs are rather like the ones in England’s old study, though the backs are not as high and the leather upholstery red, not a natural brown-
America is late and England has damned near run out of patience.
America is late and England would still rather be angry at him than think about Japan.
Files. There are no more to straighten and no more to stack. Everything is in order except the world. The world, England decides, has not gone mad, it has been mad, has been since before he became aware and failed to fix it and now things have gone from mad to worse because the illusion, the illusion is perfectly reasonable and sane.
“Your cab system makes no sense,” America says from the open door.
England would tell him to shut it but knowing America he’d miss at least one of the meanings. And besides, a serviceman posted outside takes care of that.
“Seriously,” America says, strolling in, bomber jacket open and the blue suit-jacket beneath it open as well, to a wide gold-clipped tie and tactfully starched shirt, “they’re expensive and they’re black and they look like every other car in the street. It’s like being in Queens. Well. Actually. Ha, Queens. Get it?” He doesn’t wait for an answer, swings himself over the arm of the chair all the way opposite England and sits, decisively, the air beneath the leather escaping with a violent creak. “It’s like Queens because you have one.”
Just as decisively, England reaches beneath the table to the holster on his thigh, draws his sidearm, and places it on top of his files.
Behind his glasses, America’s eyes widen, like his mouth on an aborted word.
England raises his eyebrows, tries not to make this face a glare but damned if he can control that-he places both hands on the gun, dismantles the stock, upturns it and lets the six bullets fall out of the revolver to the paperwork. Some roll in oblong, lazy circles around the meticulous, typeset words. A few make it all the way to America’s side where there are no documents at all.
“You too,” England says.
America’s mouth closes, then reopens-presumably to speak, given his evident incredulity but England won’t have it. “You too,” England says again, “or we are not having this conversation at all.”
The cock of America’s head says ‘fine’, and the quirk of his brow, ‘be that way’, and the mocking, similar motions he reaches past his lapel for his shoulder-holster with attest to precisely what he thinks of England’s insistence. But he does it, sour expression nonwithstanding, his derision and indignation plain in every flick of his wrist. The eight bullets of that gun, an M1911, chatter on the uncovered wood on his side, sliding toward England’s.
“Both of them,” England says.
“You-”
“Both of them or you can deal with Russia alone,” England doesn’t quite mean to bark but his voice is raised, agitated.
“He doesn’t scare me and neither do you,” America says, but when he pushes back his chair (the rug tautens with it) he doesn’t stand to leave-he pushes up the right flap of his suit jacket to show his other holster, draw the gun out of it, one of the same make. The M1911s seem almost cudgel-like compared to England’s silver Enfield. America empties the second gun while he’s still standing, glowering at England the whole time. “That enough for you?” he snarls, dropping it beside the other one on the table. “You want to get over here and frisk me too? Jesus Christ.”
England sighs. “We were almost at war before this one, America.”
“Yeah well patronising me like this isn’t the best way to keep that from happening again,” America snaps-but he does sit back down, knees bussing the table’s edge as he does and setting the bullets skittering.
Shutting his eyes to the sound and the scraping, England spreads his fingers on the stacks of papers. A pair of bullets-his, from the Enfield-nestle between his index and middle finger on his gloved right hand. He ignores it. “I didn’t intend to patronise.”
“What, you’re actually scared of me? The Big Bad British Empire, scared of her little old colony?”
England doesn’t dignify that with an answer; he knows even as he opens his eyes that America is smirking, almost preening on his nearly-bare side of the table, just from that tone of voice. “And emasculating me isn’t exactly the path to peace either, America.”
America rolls his eyes, taps his fingers on the table. “Just giving as good as I get.”
“Can you leave your fucking ego at the door for a quarter of an hour?”
“I could put it on the table with all the bullets, would that work?”
England would groan, but there’s really no point. “Do you want to treat with me or not?”
“We’re allies now, England, what’s there to treat about?” America-does look genuine when he says that, not quite confused but concerned, at the least. His hands are still beneath the table and for a moment England wonders if he does have something more up his sleeve and I really am scared, aren’t I.
He ascertains that he has America’s eyes before he says it. “You changed war. You irrevocably changed war, the way metal did, and ships, and currency and guns,” and bunkers built of tables draped in blankets, stick-swords and washbasin helmets and hand-sewn damsels in distress. “And so you’ve changed what it means to be allied.” England’s fingers tent-the bullets roll under his palm, all the way to the heel, the cuff of his glove. He traps them. “You are now capable of destroying a civilisation with one spoken order. I hope you know that.”
“Yeah,” America says, “I do. I don’t see what the problem is.”
“When Nations other than you become capable,” England clarifies-and keeps the words just that, clear, the consonants almost hurting his teeth as he enunciates them. “That’s when the problem arises. And it’s partly my fault, I suppose-you couldn’t have done it without my raw materials, nor the collaboration of my scientists, and now I’ve made a few of my own.”
To America’s credit, he suppresses the white fear that washes over his face-a half-second after England sees it and recommits it to memory, relieved that America is still capable of fear. “You wouldn’t,” America says when the bravado drowns that pallour in red and gold.
“Oh, I certainly would, if it would prompt you to think twice before turning your arsenal on me.” England watches, just with a dart of his eyes, as America’s bare hands creep over the rim of the table, skin whitening there, his front knuckles as pale as England’s gloves. “And what’s to prevent me from making advances in the science and not informing you-or worse, informing whomever else I plan to ally with in the future?”
“You wouldn’t,” America says again, darker now, more a threat than before-
“You see,” England whispers, calmer than he is. “Therein, the problem.”
The loose bullets have mostly stilled-and then that’s broken, when America bats one toward England’s papers, across the table.
“You still wouldn’t.” But there’s uncertainty in that, a quaver that England knows well, from the past, the guileless past, you’re not going to cane me, are you? England?
Not hard.
America shakes his head, his hair catching across the rims of his glasses, peaked, distorted. “And, what, I have to keep an eye on you too, now? Have to watch what I say and do and get a third gun like you’re Russia?”
“No,” England says-too quickly, perhaps. “No. That’s what this treaty is for.”
Relief crests over America’s brow and cheeks-he finds another bullet on the table, extends a finger and putts it into his other, waiting, hand. “You’ve made a few of your own, huh?”
“You’d like to know how many.”
“Well duh. But.” America huffs out a gust of air that dislodges his bangs again. “But not if I find out because you shoot me.”
England smiles. “I couldn’t, once.”
That bullet in America’s palm slides into his other hand like a skate on ice, reflecting in the polished wood. America looks up, over the rim of his glasses, and direly into England’s eyes again. “Can you now?”
The draft is among England’s files, which are covered in bullets, still, some of America’s have rolled over here. England brushes them off, opens the appropriate manila folder to ascertain (or give a show of ascertaining), then rises and extends it across to America, putting the point in the trajectory of that bullet he’s batting back, forth, back, forth, tick, tock, tick, tock-
Forget it, “Stop that,” England commands, dropping the folder into America’s place. “Read what we’ve lain out.”
Nothing America does ever seems choreographed, per se, but the way he swipes the folder off the tabletop with one hand and clears the table of bullets with his other is sinuous, dancelike, and the bullets hit the rug in semiquavers. England suppresses a shudder. He shoves his two guns aside but not off, all the way to the edge of the table, haphazardly. And then America taps the bound draft out of the file, rights it, quirks the corner of his lip at the cover. “You need to lay off all this My Lords crap.”
“I’ll make sure you get one in your heathen language, America. Take it as a challenge and read it.”
Blessedly, he does; England knows that spark in America’s eyes far too well, curiosity tinged silver with opportunism. The glasses do nothing to hide it. He still mouths the occasional word as he reads-manoeuvre, notably, the spelling still throws him, and England’s thrown himself by how little has changed, here, in this, I taught him his letters, I taught him his tools, I built his ambition-
“You want to share them?”
-and we are both fools. “Effectively.”
“You’re crazy,” America says, sudden and probably louder than he meant to, pushing back from the table and dropping the file like it’s burned him somehow. “I mean, I knew that already, but-England, you’re crazy. Share?”
“An entirely foreign concept to you, I’m well aware,” England sighs, and there’s more growl to it than he intended. He takes up another file from under his Enfield, comes around the table to actually put this one where America’s more or less forced to see it. “Here are the test results from Operations Grapple. You will note that the seal on these files is unbroken.” He leans on the chair on America’s right but does not sit in it, not yet. “You are the only Nation to whom I have offered this. Your production and testing facilities far outstrip mine, I will give you that-but I am not without relevance to your military interests.”
America’s fingertips are tapping on the closed file-he’s still got a bullet in his palm, and he lets it drop, swats it between his fingers and then between his hands. Batting. Scraping. A beat, a regular, almost steady time, the metal sliding on the wood, the paper, the skin, the faint track of sweat overlaying the polish-
Tick.
Tock.
“Stop,” England yells, too exasperated to tone it down-slams his hand onto the table to catch the fucking thing before it rolls back into America’s hand and ends up there, instead, America’s hand-under England’s glove, tense and bare and hot, slick. He’s scared, America’s hands always sweat when he was nervous, made it worse, made it harder to hold on-
-his knuckles tent up between England’s, and England presses, down-
“Sign it,” England hisses or shouts or both, somehow both, “sign it, America, if you value our-whatever it is we are, sign it,-”
“I can’t if you’re holding my hand,” America snarls-
-and now England knows how America dropped that paper, because his hand is burning as well, sweltering in the glove.
He doesn’t let go.
“Does that mean you’ll sign?”
England didn’t realise he was standing this close-close enough to feel America’s shoulder shivering as he exhales. Twice. Quickly. “Let me read it first,” America answers. “And let go of me.”
Read it first. Of course. Of course. Good.
England withdraws his hand; retreats a step; hears all this military body-language for what it is and tastes bile to think it but then, this is what it is, this is all what it is. He turns away from the table as he circles it, avoids the bullets scattered glinting on the rug.
When England sits, America is still there, on his own half of the table, reading-the treaty draft, not the sealed data, though one of his hands is resting on that, the one attached to the arm of the jacket that has wings on it. He’ll sign. If he knows or cares what’s good for him, he’ll sign-
But when has he ever? England thinks, waiting.
Tock.
-
---
-
The Mutual Defense Agreement was signed in 1958 and has been renewed and enhanced in scope several times since. It is currently under review as a potential violation of International Law and the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty because the Mutual Defense Agreement effectively combines American and British nuclear intelligence, finance, and arsenals.
And speaking of arsenals: England’s Enfield Revolver (it’s the No. 2 Mark 1) and America’s Browning M1911s.
i can keep rhythm with no metronome, no metronome, no metronome
.
I want to do an operatic or art-music "cover" of this song.
Just getting that out there. Maybe when this house stops being....yeah. Not a good day to be here.
So I write about the real world and real issues instead of my own.
Title: No Metronome, No Metronome
Author: Mithrigil
Fandom: Axis Powers Hetalia
Characters: America, England
Words: 2500
Rating: PG
Timestamp: concerning the 1958 Anglo-American Mutual Defense Agreement
Summary by way of passing Flobots: my reach is global, my tower secure, my cause is noble, my power is pure
No Metronome, No Metronome
axis powers hetalia
Mithrigil Galtirglin
30 September, 1958 C.E.
The ground is neutral, the table is sleek, and the half of it that England hasn’t covered with manila gleams a ruddy burnished gold. It makes the papers seem like rubble by comparison; the table is a product of the glorious earth and the documents the clutter and waste of man. Files are an obstacle to sanctity. The metaphor has no right to be this appropriate, England thinks, this apt, this intrinsic.
America is late.
There is only so much organising England can do, only so many citations and notes he’ll need. The paper sounds like sharpening knives, sliding against itself this way-when he raps a stack’s collected edges on the table to straighten them, the sound echoes, staggered beats. This room is far too large for the two of them, the round table almost England’s own height for diameter, and there are six seats surrounding it, spread comfortably as if for a corporate dinner. England has turned the two on either side of his away from the table’s edge, an obvious signal, do not sit beside me, and America can do whatever the hell he pleases with the other three. He can prop his feet up, for all England cares, sprawl across the lot of them and pick at the studding on the arms like he always used to. These chairs are rather like the ones in England’s old study, though the backs are not as high and the leather upholstery red, not a natural brown-
America is late and England has damned near run out of patience.
America is late and England would still rather be angry at him than think about Japan.
Files. There are no more to straighten and no more to stack. Everything is in order except the world. The world, England decides, has not gone mad, it has been mad, has been since before he became aware and failed to fix it and now things have gone from mad to worse because the illusion, the illusion is perfectly reasonable and sane.
“Your cab system makes no sense,” America says from the open door.
England would tell him to shut it but knowing America he’d miss at least one of the meanings. And besides, a serviceman posted outside takes care of that.
“Seriously,” America says, strolling in, bomber jacket open and the blue suit-jacket beneath it open as well, to a wide gold-clipped tie and tactfully starched shirt, “they’re expensive and they’re black and they look like every other car in the street. It’s like being in Queens. Well. Actually. Ha, Queens. Get it?” He doesn’t wait for an answer, swings himself over the arm of the chair all the way opposite England and sits, decisively, the air beneath the leather escaping with a violent creak. “It’s like Queens because you have one.”
Just as decisively, England reaches beneath the table to the holster on his thigh, draws his sidearm, and places it on top of his files.
Behind his glasses, America’s eyes widen, like his mouth on an aborted word.
England raises his eyebrows, tries not to make this face a glare but damned if he can control that-he places both hands on the gun, dismantles the stock, upturns it and lets the six bullets fall out of the revolver to the paperwork. Some roll in oblong, lazy circles around the meticulous, typeset words. A few make it all the way to America’s side where there are no documents at all.
“You too,” England says.
America’s mouth closes, then reopens-presumably to speak, given his evident incredulity but England won’t have it. “You too,” England says again, “or we are not having this conversation at all.”
The cock of America’s head says ‘fine’, and the quirk of his brow, ‘be that way’, and the mocking, similar motions he reaches past his lapel for his shoulder-holster with attest to precisely what he thinks of England’s insistence. But he does it, sour expression nonwithstanding, his derision and indignation plain in every flick of his wrist. The eight bullets of that gun, an M1911, chatter on the uncovered wood on his side, sliding toward England’s.
“Both of them,” England says.
“You-”
“Both of them or you can deal with Russia alone,” England doesn’t quite mean to bark but his voice is raised, agitated.
“He doesn’t scare me and neither do you,” America says, but when he pushes back his chair (the rug tautens with it) he doesn’t stand to leave-he pushes up the right flap of his suit jacket to show his other holster, draw the gun out of it, one of the same make. The M1911s seem almost cudgel-like compared to England’s silver Enfield. America empties the second gun while he’s still standing, glowering at England the whole time. “That enough for you?” he snarls, dropping it beside the other one on the table. “You want to get over here and frisk me too? Jesus Christ.”
England sighs. “We were almost at war before this one, America.”
“Yeah well patronising me like this isn’t the best way to keep that from happening again,” America snaps-but he does sit back down, knees bussing the table’s edge as he does and setting the bullets skittering.
Shutting his eyes to the sound and the scraping, England spreads his fingers on the stacks of papers. A pair of bullets-his, from the Enfield-nestle between his index and middle finger on his gloved right hand. He ignores it. “I didn’t intend to patronise.”
“What, you’re actually scared of me? The Big Bad British Empire, scared of her little old colony?”
England doesn’t dignify that with an answer; he knows even as he opens his eyes that America is smirking, almost preening on his nearly-bare side of the table, just from that tone of voice. “And emasculating me isn’t exactly the path to peace either, America.”
America rolls his eyes, taps his fingers on the table. “Just giving as good as I get.”
“Can you leave your fucking ego at the door for a quarter of an hour?”
“I could put it on the table with all the bullets, would that work?”
England would groan, but there’s really no point. “Do you want to treat with me or not?”
“We’re allies now, England, what’s there to treat about?” America-does look genuine when he says that, not quite confused but concerned, at the least. His hands are still beneath the table and for a moment England wonders if he does have something more up his sleeve and I really am scared, aren’t I.
He ascertains that he has America’s eyes before he says it. “You changed war. You irrevocably changed war, the way metal did, and ships, and currency and guns,” and bunkers built of tables draped in blankets, stick-swords and washbasin helmets and hand-sewn damsels in distress. “And so you’ve changed what it means to be allied.” England’s fingers tent-the bullets roll under his palm, all the way to the heel, the cuff of his glove. He traps them. “You are now capable of destroying a civilisation with one spoken order. I hope you know that.”
“Yeah,” America says, “I do. I don’t see what the problem is.”
“When Nations other than you become capable,” England clarifies-and keeps the words just that, clear, the consonants almost hurting his teeth as he enunciates them. “That’s when the problem arises. And it’s partly my fault, I suppose-you couldn’t have done it without my raw materials, nor the collaboration of my scientists, and now I’ve made a few of my own.”
To America’s credit, he suppresses the white fear that washes over his face-a half-second after England sees it and recommits it to memory, relieved that America is still capable of fear. “You wouldn’t,” America says when the bravado drowns that pallour in red and gold.
“Oh, I certainly would, if it would prompt you to think twice before turning your arsenal on me.” England watches, just with a dart of his eyes, as America’s bare hands creep over the rim of the table, skin whitening there, his front knuckles as pale as England’s gloves. “And what’s to prevent me from making advances in the science and not informing you-or worse, informing whomever else I plan to ally with in the future?”
“You wouldn’t,” America says again, darker now, more a threat than before-
“You see,” England whispers, calmer than he is. “Therein, the problem.”
The loose bullets have mostly stilled-and then that’s broken, when America bats one toward England’s papers, across the table.
“You still wouldn’t.” But there’s uncertainty in that, a quaver that England knows well, from the past, the guileless past, you’re not going to cane me, are you? England?
Not hard.
America shakes his head, his hair catching across the rims of his glasses, peaked, distorted. “And, what, I have to keep an eye on you too, now? Have to watch what I say and do and get a third gun like you’re Russia?”
“No,” England says-too quickly, perhaps. “No. That’s what this treaty is for.”
Relief crests over America’s brow and cheeks-he finds another bullet on the table, extends a finger and putts it into his other, waiting, hand. “You’ve made a few of your own, huh?”
“You’d like to know how many.”
“Well duh. But.” America huffs out a gust of air that dislodges his bangs again. “But not if I find out because you shoot me.”
England smiles. “I couldn’t, once.”
That bullet in America’s palm slides into his other hand like a skate on ice, reflecting in the polished wood. America looks up, over the rim of his glasses, and direly into England’s eyes again. “Can you now?”
The draft is among England’s files, which are covered in bullets, still, some of America’s have rolled over here. England brushes them off, opens the appropriate manila folder to ascertain (or give a show of ascertaining), then rises and extends it across to America, putting the point in the trajectory of that bullet he’s batting back, forth, back, forth, tick, tock, tick, tock-
Forget it, “Stop that,” England commands, dropping the folder into America’s place. “Read what we’ve lain out.”
Nothing America does ever seems choreographed, per se, but the way he swipes the folder off the tabletop with one hand and clears the table of bullets with his other is sinuous, dancelike, and the bullets hit the rug in semiquavers. England suppresses a shudder. He shoves his two guns aside but not off, all the way to the edge of the table, haphazardly. And then America taps the bound draft out of the file, rights it, quirks the corner of his lip at the cover. “You need to lay off all this My Lords crap.”
“I’ll make sure you get one in your heathen language, America. Take it as a challenge and read it.”
Blessedly, he does; England knows that spark in America’s eyes far too well, curiosity tinged silver with opportunism. The glasses do nothing to hide it. He still mouths the occasional word as he reads-manoeuvre, notably, the spelling still throws him, and England’s thrown himself by how little has changed, here, in this, I taught him his letters, I taught him his tools, I built his ambition-
“You want to share them?”
-and we are both fools. “Effectively.”
“You’re crazy,” America says, sudden and probably louder than he meant to, pushing back from the table and dropping the file like it’s burned him somehow. “I mean, I knew that already, but-England, you’re crazy. Share?”
“An entirely foreign concept to you, I’m well aware,” England sighs, and there’s more growl to it than he intended. He takes up another file from under his Enfield, comes around the table to actually put this one where America’s more or less forced to see it. “Here are the test results from Operations Grapple. You will note that the seal on these files is unbroken.” He leans on the chair on America’s right but does not sit in it, not yet. “You are the only Nation to whom I have offered this. Your production and testing facilities far outstrip mine, I will give you that-but I am not without relevance to your military interests.”
America’s fingertips are tapping on the closed file-he’s still got a bullet in his palm, and he lets it drop, swats it between his fingers and then between his hands. Batting. Scraping. A beat, a regular, almost steady time, the metal sliding on the wood, the paper, the skin, the faint track of sweat overlaying the polish-
Tick.
Tock.
“Stop,” England yells, too exasperated to tone it down-slams his hand onto the table to catch the fucking thing before it rolls back into America’s hand and ends up there, instead, America’s hand-under England’s glove, tense and bare and hot, slick. He’s scared, America’s hands always sweat when he was nervous, made it worse, made it harder to hold on-
-his knuckles tent up between England’s, and England presses, down-
“Sign it,” England hisses or shouts or both, somehow both, “sign it, America, if you value our-whatever it is we are, sign it,-”
“I can’t if you’re holding my hand,” America snarls-
-and now England knows how America dropped that paper, because his hand is burning as well, sweltering in the glove.
He doesn’t let go.
“Does that mean you’ll sign?”
England didn’t realise he was standing this close-close enough to feel America’s shoulder shivering as he exhales. Twice. Quickly. “Let me read it first,” America answers. “And let go of me.”
Read it first. Of course. Of course. Good.
England withdraws his hand; retreats a step; hears all this military body-language for what it is and tastes bile to think it but then, this is what it is, this is all what it is. He turns away from the table as he circles it, avoids the bullets scattered glinting on the rug.
When England sits, America is still there, on his own half of the table, reading-the treaty draft, not the sealed data, though one of his hands is resting on that, the one attached to the arm of the jacket that has wings on it. He’ll sign. If he knows or cares what’s good for him, he’ll sign-
But when has he ever? England thinks, waiting.
Tock.
-
---
-
The Mutual Defense Agreement was signed in 1958 and has been renewed and enhanced in scope several times since. It is currently under review as a potential violation of International Law and the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty because the Mutual Defense Agreement effectively combines American and British nuclear intelligence, finance, and arsenals.
And speaking of arsenals: England’s Enfield Revolver (it’s the No. 2 Mark 1) and America’s Browning M1911s.
i can keep rhythm with no metronome, no metronome, no metronome
.