[Fanfiction] Where the Shadows Are
Where the Shadows Are, Part One
In the land of Mordor, where the shadows are.
He woke gasping, his entire body trembling head to foot, his muscles so tightly wound they’d knotted themselves into a single solid ache. Everything was dark, everything but the blasts exploding behind his eyes. He could hear them reverberating in his ears, the shells, the pounding of the guns. None of them would live out the night under this kind of artillery. He could see the barbed wire tilting crazy shadows above his head, sharp and jagged against the alternating light and darkness of the blasts. He jerked his head away, hearing the breath choke off ragged in his lungs, feeling the cold sweat soaking his skin, and then he could hear again the thundering echo of the bombs, feel again the pain ripping through him from within as they fell in craters onto his cities, each a new sparking pattern of pain tearing into his bones and sinews, his body marked with their wounds and scars and lingering ache. Thud, boom, thud, boom, thud-would it be Big Ben next? St. Paul’s? Not the king. He had to stop them, to get himself up, somehow, despite the exhaustion that dragged at every fiber of his being-but it was nothing, he could go on a bit longer, he could fight on, he could, he would-
It wasn’t happening.
England took a breath that shuddered deep in his chest, stared up at the shadows moving slowly across his ceiling. The curtain was slightly ajar, light peeking through and tracing shapes on the ceiling, and he saw tracers in it. A sudden alarm sliced through him-he hadn’t observed full blackout, that would, could, spell the end of him and who knew how many others if the Jerries sighted it, used it as a beacon to drop their bloody bombs.
And then he told himself that the war was over, over years ago. He was being an unmitigated idiot, and there was no excuse for this . . . this lack of moral fiber, not in him. He was the nation of England, he was Britain, and now he was behaving like a child, and one who still couldn’t manage a full, untrembling breath. He clenched his fingers into fists, twisting them into the bedsheets. His scars throbbed, already stiffened into awkwardness when he did something foolish to pull at them and now the familiar pain from when he woke from a bad night like this.
Oh, come on now, stiff upper lip, England. They’re nothing. Dreams. Memories, even. The lot of you won, didn’t you, and none of it matters now it’s over . . . .
Bright light flashed through the window, perhaps the headlights of an auto driving past out on the distant road, the light filtered through the trees, and England was back there again. He was out of bed before he thought, old wounds screaming with the sudden violence of the strain-God, soon they would fade, he knew it, but for now the scars still lingered and pulled-and then he was at the window, yanking the curtains shut, his breath coming hard and quick, panicked in his throat, his hands trembling, white against the pitch black of the curtains, drawn tight and clutching fast. And then he was spinning back around, mentally placing the location of his service revolver, clutching for it at his hip, though it didn’t matter, it didn’t matter now-the room seemed to close in around him, the darkness close and stifling and thick, and he couldn’t seem to breathe, it was the gas, coming to choke him, where was his mask, he could taste it, the sickly sweetness of chlorine on the back of his throat, he would die in it, gasping, his throat burning, even though he couldn’t die, not like this-
He came to himself again coughing, his lungs in spasm, shaking like a horse at the end of a race and dripping with cold sweat, doubled over, covering his face with his arms in a desperate attempt to evade the gas he had imagined for himself. He could feel the shame coursing through him, burning and wretched, roiling in his stomach until he was hot and sick with it. He forced his arms down with effort, unclenched his fingers, struggled with the clenching terror in his belly and the muscles in his neck to raise his head. His room was cloaked in darkness and the phantoms of his imagination rising out of the deep shadows, or perhaps they weren’t his imagination, perhaps they were real, curses and black magic-
Pathetic, he thought, even as he stumbled over to his desk, fumbled in the top shelf for his pistol. Truly pathetic. The feeling of it was reassuring in his hands, cold and heavy. His fingers still remembered how to load it in the dark; he thought they probably always would, even as they shook and faltered over each bullet.
He needed to get a hold on himself, if ever he could manage it. It was over. Done with. Finished. It was over for him now, for all of them. He could put it behind him. He would. Simple enough. He knew it. He had done this before, though it hadn’t been . . . like this, before, not quite like this, and now when waking dreams of the second war came to torment him, the first followed along in their wake, dragged at phantom scars in his lungs . . . .
He had to get out of there, out of the room that suddenly seemed far too small, pressing in on him. He couldn’t stay there, shamed by his own shuddering loss of control and haunted by the shadows, the demons that lurked there in the dark. He reached immediately for his oldest, most comfortable dressing gown where it rested over his armchair, tugged it on over his sweat-damp pyjamas and knotted it quickly around his waist, still feeling, hearing how heavily he was breathing, the pounding thud of his heart, how badly his hands trembled. Badly. He stilled them with an effort. The dressing gown was thin, but soft and comforting around his shoulders. He fumbled with the door to the corridor, picked up his revolver, and then closed the door tightly behind him, so firmly it shuddered under his hand.
Right. He needed to get a grip on himself. It struck him with a sudden force, like a blast illuminating the dark, the thought that America was here, just down the hall. England had given him his own room for his visit, to observe the proprieties, because their relationship was so new, and uncertain, and he wasn’t certain what he should have done, so it was better to observe a certain safe distance, he thought. Besides, surely it would have been far too awkward to share a bedroom, let alone a-a-well, a bed, theirs wasn’t that . . . sort of relationship, not yet, surely America would have found it awkward merely to . . . sleep together, let alone . . . . Would America be sleeping peacefully, sprawled in that way he had that hadn’t changed since he was a child, that England had seen on too many low camp beds to count, across England’s old guest room bed, or would he sleep fitfully as well, tossing and turning and seeing fire and war and death behind his eyes? The thought made something tight and sick clench behind England’s breastbone, the thought of America facing this sickness, this lingering scarring of the mind, when he was so always so bright and . . . and radiant, ever-hopeful and determined in that way that he made seem so very simple. And yet he was already tempered, forged, aged by this war, these world wars. A hero, England thought, and wanted to bury his face in his hands, not because America had not proven himself heroic, at least in a sense, but because perhaps now when America said that he meant something different than he had when he had been England’s little colony dreaming of knights and monsters, England could hear it in his voice, the determination in his tone whenever he spoke of it, and that frightened him, frightened him so that his heart pounded too rapidly in his chest and his breath rasped harsh in his throat for a moment.
He paused in the corridor outside America’s door, his hand raised, poised to knock for one long, frozen moment. Of course he could knock, but surely America would not hear him, no doubt long since lost in sleep. Even if he did hear him, he would mock England for this idiocy, this bizarre turn he had taken, England was sure of it. After all, he derided himself for his own inexplicable weakness of the mind, his inability to put it behind him, for the fact that he was carrying a loaded pistol in the safety of his own house. One thing for a simple soldier to suffer this malady, but he was England, Great Britain, the British Empire, the United Kingdom, and it was another thing, another thing entirely, for him, for wars past to haunt his waking moments as well as his sleeping. America looked always ahead, to the future, surely he would have no sympathy for England’s foolishness.
It was still incredible to him that America was right there, on the other side of the old, thick oaken door, in England’s house, his own old edifice of stone and wood and time, so incredible that England could hardly believe it, to the point that he nearly opened the door despite his resolution not to wake America, though it would not have been to wake him in the least. Simply in order to see him, to reassure himself that America was truly there, truly . . . real, that is was not all a product of his own desperate mind, the dreaming fulfillment of an aching, hopeless wish. But opening the door might wake America in truth, and now that England had considered the possibility of this painful place inside of him being teased, mocked, he found he recoiled from the thought, as much as he would have appreciated the warmth of America’s voice, the touch of his hand, even his idiotic laughs and far too forceful pats on the back . . . . He let his hand rest against the door for just a moment longer then sighed, sucked in his breath and squared his shoulders out of pure military habit, straightening his back and continuing on to the kitchen.
The kitchen was cold and dark but for the soft lights of the kitchen fairies, the brownie beneath the stove snoring very slightly like the rattle of an old oven. England shivered and crossed to turn on the light, regretting not bringing his slippers now that his feet were pressed to the icy flagstone of the kitchen floor, turning them numb, making the scar along one side of his foot ache tightly and painfully. He curled his toes inward, crossed one foot absently over the other to warm them as best he could, getting the puckered skin of the aching scar away from the cold of the stone, as he took down his ancient teakettle and filled it with water before turning up the heat on the stove. The comforting hiss as the water began to heat calmed him, at least, relaxed the bunched, tight coil of his shoulders. He set the pistol aside, braced his hands against the old wooden countertop, and tried very hard to think of nothing in particular.
His hands looked pale and thin and worn, still with lighter places from wartime scars. He knew they were callused and hard, too thin to have much room left over for even a bit of softness. Sometimes he wished they could, but he didn’t know how have that softness, how to live with it, how to soften his touch, even his words. Too much of him was hard, scabbed over long ago into callus. If he didn’t have that he’d no doubt cut his hand open or some such thing, at any rate. There was nothing else for it. He simply had to go on like this.
He sighed. Tea. Right. Warm, soothing, familiar, bracing tea. None of the rest of it for now. He would simply concentrate on making his tea, and then on drinking it, and perhaps after that he would be able to banish the visions in the dark, to get back to bed, even if not to sleep.
----------------
The bed was cold, and America felt as if he could hear every creaking sound the old house made as it settled around him. He kept dropping off into a shallow sleep only to be woken by some slightly louder creak. It was unnerving, the soft noises almost like a chorus of sighs in the night-or-or something. Creepy as hell, just like the shadows in his room. He was pretty sure that that over there was a closet or something in the light, and that was a desk, but-well, it totally was. Of course, it was England’s house, so maybe it was only to be expected that it would be creepy and all. And old, of course.
The house reminded him of England, in a way, which was also kind of unsettling, because for all his teasing of England, America never thought of the other nation as actually old, not like this old house with its stone walls and tapestried corners and the ancient table in the kitchen that must have been at least a hundred years old and the thick oak doors, all the dark corners and twisting staircases and the sometimes flickering lights. “It hasn’t been the same since the war,” England would grumble sometimes, if the house groaned on its foundations or the power proved particularly recalcitrant, and take himself off into the deep bowels of the house to hit the switchboard with his fist until it worked again. America had offered to jigger it for him, but England had turned bright red and huffy and told him to sod off, he had it perfectly under control.
And thinking of England like that, with dark corners America hadn’t seen into, and secrets and memories and a kind of settling age, that scared him sometimes, because America was young, he knew that, comparatively, though he’d be the first to say he wasn’t all that young anymore-and he spent so much of his time looking ahead to the future, dreaming of things to come and how the future would be even bigger and brighter and better than things were now, because things right now were kind of messed up, because of the war and all, and they’d, he’d, fix that, he knew it, and everything would be amazing; it had to be, now that the war was over-but sometimes he felt like England’s perspective was so different from that that maybe he’d never understand, all tangled up in, with, the past in a way America had never been.
And when he started thinking like that he got nervous, nervous that maybe this thing wouldn’t work out between them, this thing he’d spent so much of his life, well, hoping for, and dreaming over, and God, okay, it was embarrassing, but this-this was big, really big, to him at least, and he thought it was pretty big to England, and he wanted it to work, more than almost anything he’d ever wanted (but not quite, because there was independence, and there was flight, and there was freedom, but England was a big deal, England was up there with all of those things). And when he thought about that, thought about it too much, his heart started pounding, and he could feel cold sweat prickle the back of his neck, and his stomach flipped over and tied itself into knots. It wasn’t like he was nervous; he was way too heroic for that, but it was just . . . it was big, was all.
He couldn’t sleep, there were so many weird old shadows in the room that was so dark with the heavy curtains. There were carvings on the bed and the closet, and when America peered into the darkness over near the door he could have sworn he could see shapes there that hadn’t been there earlier.
He pressed himself further into the bed, telling himself firmly that he wasn’t scared, he was a hero, after all, and he’d seen a hell of a lot of scarier stuff than this, anyways. The chill of the sheets against his back where he was pressed flat against it made him shiver, sending chills crawling over his skin. God, why did England have to be so stuffy? If he hadn’t been so stodgy and old-fashioned they could have shared or . . . something, though America knew their relationship wasn’t like that yet, and he didn’t want to push England or anything, not at all, or like . . . not follow whatever weird rules he had, or whatever, though America didn’t see why they’d apply to him and if England didn’t tell him the rules why would he have to follow them, anyway (not if he would have, if he’d known them, probably, he thought rebelliously), but it was true that he didn’t want to push him. It was just the thought of having England there with him, to wrap his arms around, warm and sturdy and well, reassuring, that was nice. Would have been nice. But it was okay; it wasn’t like he was going to have a problem sleeping alone or anything. Ha. He wasn’t a kid anymore. It was just that the shadows were really weird, that was all, and the bed was cold.
There was a sound from outside, a weird scratching sound, like someone moving around, and America couldn’t help the way he sort of jumped, a flinch going through his body without his permission so that he ended up with his back against the old-fashioned carved headboard, and he could feel a nervous trembling starting his shoulders, adrenaline making his heart thump and pound almost like it would have at the sound of an air-raid signal. But there were no other sounds-everything else was quiet.
America shook his head at himself. England’s weird old house was making his imagination work overtime or . . . something, that was all. There was nothing there. Nothing had made that noise. Because there hadn’t been a noise. He was seriously just imagining things. Or maybe he’d dreamed it, or something, but the point was that there hadn’t been anything there.
His thudding heart didn’t believe him, and neither did the tense muscles trembling in his shoulders and back. America scowled, told himself he wasn’t scared, he was just going to prove it to himself because it was . . . heroic, and a good idea anyway just in case England was sleepwalking or something weird and old like that, and slid out of bed. He shivered in the cold air of the old stone house in his pajamas but stubbornly set his jaw and started for the door. He’d just have to open it for a second to make sure-his hand shook on the knob. America glared at it-he was a hero, and he’d just been through a war just a few years back, for chrissakes-and he yanked the door open.
There was nothing outside. Only the dark shadows of the old hallway outside met his eyes, wallpaper and a black mark against the wall that he thought was a wall sconce or something? America shuddered. It looked . . . creepy, all dark and ominous. He moved to close the door, suddenly eager to be back in bed pulling up the covers.
A sudden sound split the stillness of the night, and America jumped and nearly banged his head against the top of the door, only barely catching himself in time. It sounded like the air-raid signal he’d thought about just a few moments earlier, but that was ridiculous, it couldn’t be-
It cut off, and he heard the faint sound of shouted curses in a familiarly rounded accent, in a familiar gruff voice, from what he vaguely remembered to be the kitchen. Had it been . . . the whistle of a tea kettle? Was England awake? What was he doing up at this hour? America stumbled back to grab his watch off the desk where he remembered leaving it, then fumbled for the switch to the light. It guttered, flickered once, and then switched on, leaving him squinting at the face of the watch in light that was newly startling. The hour hand hovered around the number one. What the hell was England doing up at one in the morning?
America tossed his watch carelessly back onto the desk and picked up his glasses, and carelessly, his dogtags, out of habit, jamming Texas onto his face as he grabbed his jacket off the chair where he’d folded it the night before. He shrugged into it and dropped the dogtags around his neck, heading out into the corridor toward where he thought he remembered the kitchen was.
He stumbled a bit on the stairs, but after he got to the bottom he could remember which way the kitchen was because he could hear England’s cursing, quieter now, but still loud enough that it wasn’t hard to follow. Shadows loomed at him out of the surrounding rooms, and America shuddered and picked up his pace.
There was a light on in the kitchen. America slowed to a walk, then hesitated a moment at the open door. England was standing in front of the sink, his shoulders slumped, and yet taut with tension, and there was the sound of running water interspersed with his now much quieter curses. “Fucking idiot,” he said in a ferocious whisper, “you truly are too stupid to be allowed to go out-” America recoiled, his face flushing hot with hurt for a moment before he realized England still had no idea he was there. He was talking to himself. “Shout and wake America, why don’t you, yes, brilliant, good lord, England, could you have handled the bloody damn thing any worse-”
“England?” America started. “You . . . okay and everything?”
England must have jumped a foot, America was sure of it, before he spun around as if he was expecting some kind of attack from behind rather than the simple question. His shoulders were rigid and set, and his face was stark white, gone so pale that America could see clearly the dark, bruised shadows under his eyes and over his hollowed cheeks, the startled, almost panicked look in his eyes, dark and stretched so wide they seemed to take up half his face. “America?” he gasped, and his voice snarled, choked off, sounding almost . . . almost scared. But England was never scared, or hardly ever, even during the war, England was so tough, England had faced down Hitler without flinching, England . . . “You-you should be in bed,” England stammered out, “I-what the bloody hell do you imagine you’re doing down here?” England’s hands were clenched at his sides, his breath shuddering unevenly. There was something horribly vulnerable about the way he squared his shoulders, his solid, compact form small against the darkness of the cupboards behind him. He looked absolutely fucking terrible, thin and shaking, wrapped in his tattered old robe over his pinstriped pajamas, and something in America’s stomach turned over and clenched up into a tight little ball that hurt, his chest constricting until it felt like it was painfully pushing in against his heart. England clearly didn’t want him down there with him, but even if he didn’t want America around at all he looked like he needed something, something more than what he was getting from his dark kitchen and his tea and his dumb thin robe that clearly wasn’t thick enough, because he was still fucking shaking.
“Heard you cussing up a storm and thought I’d come down and see what I could do,” America said, making an effort to keep his tone light. “What’s the use of having a hero around if he can’t help you out with stuff, right?” He started toward England where he stood with his back against the sink and turned off the water.
England’s mouth opened, then closed. He swallowed, then dropped his hands, his shoulders squaring. “That was . . . quite good of you,” he said in this rough, rasping voice that sounded like it was scraping along the inside of his throat, “but I’m perfectly all right.” He cleared his throat, coughed a bit, and said in a more normal tone, tight and clipped. “You might as well go back to bed.” One hand came up to rub at the other, a restless motion that spoke of discomfort.
“I’m up now,” America said. Gee, England really didn’t want him around. He didn’t examine how painfully that thought made his chest twinge, didn’t want to think about it. Instead he held out one hand, waggling his fingers impatiently. “Lemme see,” he ordered.
“I beg your pardon?” England retorted, his hand tightening around the other as if he could hide it from America’s gaze somehow.
“Your hand,” he said, “lemme see. You hurt it, didn’t you? Probably burned it on the hot water or something-” England’s eyes went even wider, and America knew he’d been right. “What, you forget about it and had to scramble?” he asked with a laugh, and as England snorted derisively under his breath and looked away, hunching one shoulder defensively, knew he’d been right about that, too.
“What could you do?” England demanded in a low, tightly controlled tone that sounded furious. Or maybe not furious, but America didn’t know what else that emotion he was keeping under there could be, and that was pretty typical for England.
America could feel his shoulders slump, and he sighed, swallowing against the lump in his throat until it disappeared. “You won’t know until you try!” he said nonetheless. “C’mon, England, get over here.”
There was one more moment of silence. America was just about ready to give up when England stuck out his hand, scowling, and slapped his palm into America’s hand. “It’s not as if you’ll be able to do anything for it,” he muttered.
America caught it, turned it until he could see the red marks of a faint burn over the skin at the heel of England’s palm, up the side of his first finger. England’s hands felt hard under his, slim, marked with callus and scars and scratches that were at odds with their long fingers, the rounded knuckles, the neat, clipped nails. The skin felt cold, the hand itself shaking slightly. America brought it up to his mouth and bent to press a soft little kiss against the irritated flesh. England gasped, but at least he didn’t wrench it free. “Wh-what-” he started. “What do you think you’re-”
America curled England’s fingers in so he could brush his mouth over his knuckles before he pulled away. “Hey,” he said, “you’re hurt, so I kissed it better. S’my right, as your . . . your . . . best guy,” he finished awkwardly. “Your boyfriend,” he added, to clarify the whole thing, and remind England that they’d been on a whole four actual dates now, war and rebuilding stuff not included. And they’d thought about it and talked about it a lot more than that, and kissed and . . . kissed. More than once, too!
England’s pallid cheeks flushed a deep red. “I . . . suppose you are,” he said. “I-is that the case?”
“Sure is,” America said. “Kiss of a hero! Good for what ails ya.” He released England’s hand, sighing as he did, missing the touch of the firm fingers and hard palm already. “Feel any better?” he asked. His hands wanted really badly to keep hovering around England, but he brought them down, forced them to hang poised by his sides. He leaned against the counter by the stove, trying to seem unconcerned. You know, cool, like the hero of a movie or something.
England looked down, his eyes slanting away, and curled his hand inward. It came up to rest against the collar of his robe, over his chest. “It . . . it actually rather does,” he said, his voice hoarse and low.
America felt warm. “It does?” he asked, then grinned. “Not that I’m surprised! See, I knew you needed me down here, didn’t I? Didn’t I tell you?”
England made a scoffing noise, but didn’t shake his head. America’s chest warmed still further. “So,” he said, leaning toward him, “fill me in.”
England’s head came jerking up, his eyes wide and alarmed. “No,” he said flatly. “There’s nothing to fill you in on. Nothing at all. Why would there be anything? Haha. I mean, I just came down to get a cup of tea, and to-to check on the fairies-why would there be anything out of the ordinary?”
“Don’t give me that bullshit,” America said. “Or maybe you usually spend your nights wandering around your own kitchen?”
England flushed a deep red, scowled, and looked away. America sighed. “Okay,” he said, “have it your way. But sit down, okay? I’ll get you the water and the teapot and shit and you can make your tea.” Before England had a chance to say anything, America was opening cupboards and searching for the teapot, which he found set neatly on the counter by a tin of tea. He brought both over to England, then snagged a cool bottle of milk and set it down on the table along with a spoon. England shook his head at him, but there was a smile playing about his lips, a very slight one, and America felt a thrill of triumph at that. Hell yeah, England was smiling at him, when just a few seconds ago he’d had the blackest scowl he could manage, and with England that was saying a lot. He sat down in the chair beside England and watched in fascination as England made his tea, pale hands quick with the ease of long practice. After a moment the tea was steeping in the teapot, and England sat back in his chair with a sigh, his perfectly square, ramrod-straight shoulders slumping out of military posture. America turned toward him, letting his hands rest loose on the table.
To be continued in Part Two . . .
In the land of Mordor, where the shadows are.
He woke gasping, his entire body trembling head to foot, his muscles so tightly wound they’d knotted themselves into a single solid ache. Everything was dark, everything but the blasts exploding behind his eyes. He could hear them reverberating in his ears, the shells, the pounding of the guns. None of them would live out the night under this kind of artillery. He could see the barbed wire tilting crazy shadows above his head, sharp and jagged against the alternating light and darkness of the blasts. He jerked his head away, hearing the breath choke off ragged in his lungs, feeling the cold sweat soaking his skin, and then he could hear again the thundering echo of the bombs, feel again the pain ripping through him from within as they fell in craters onto his cities, each a new sparking pattern of pain tearing into his bones and sinews, his body marked with their wounds and scars and lingering ache. Thud, boom, thud, boom, thud-would it be Big Ben next? St. Paul’s? Not the king. He had to stop them, to get himself up, somehow, despite the exhaustion that dragged at every fiber of his being-but it was nothing, he could go on a bit longer, he could fight on, he could, he would-
It wasn’t happening.
England took a breath that shuddered deep in his chest, stared up at the shadows moving slowly across his ceiling. The curtain was slightly ajar, light peeking through and tracing shapes on the ceiling, and he saw tracers in it. A sudden alarm sliced through him-he hadn’t observed full blackout, that would, could, spell the end of him and who knew how many others if the Jerries sighted it, used it as a beacon to drop their bloody bombs.
And then he told himself that the war was over, over years ago. He was being an unmitigated idiot, and there was no excuse for this . . . this lack of moral fiber, not in him. He was the nation of England, he was Britain, and now he was behaving like a child, and one who still couldn’t manage a full, untrembling breath. He clenched his fingers into fists, twisting them into the bedsheets. His scars throbbed, already stiffened into awkwardness when he did something foolish to pull at them and now the familiar pain from when he woke from a bad night like this.
Oh, come on now, stiff upper lip, England. They’re nothing. Dreams. Memories, even. The lot of you won, didn’t you, and none of it matters now it’s over . . . .
Bright light flashed through the window, perhaps the headlights of an auto driving past out on the distant road, the light filtered through the trees, and England was back there again. He was out of bed before he thought, old wounds screaming with the sudden violence of the strain-God, soon they would fade, he knew it, but for now the scars still lingered and pulled-and then he was at the window, yanking the curtains shut, his breath coming hard and quick, panicked in his throat, his hands trembling, white against the pitch black of the curtains, drawn tight and clutching fast. And then he was spinning back around, mentally placing the location of his service revolver, clutching for it at his hip, though it didn’t matter, it didn’t matter now-the room seemed to close in around him, the darkness close and stifling and thick, and he couldn’t seem to breathe, it was the gas, coming to choke him, where was his mask, he could taste it, the sickly sweetness of chlorine on the back of his throat, he would die in it, gasping, his throat burning, even though he couldn’t die, not like this-
He came to himself again coughing, his lungs in spasm, shaking like a horse at the end of a race and dripping with cold sweat, doubled over, covering his face with his arms in a desperate attempt to evade the gas he had imagined for himself. He could feel the shame coursing through him, burning and wretched, roiling in his stomach until he was hot and sick with it. He forced his arms down with effort, unclenched his fingers, struggled with the clenching terror in his belly and the muscles in his neck to raise his head. His room was cloaked in darkness and the phantoms of his imagination rising out of the deep shadows, or perhaps they weren’t his imagination, perhaps they were real, curses and black magic-
Pathetic, he thought, even as he stumbled over to his desk, fumbled in the top shelf for his pistol. Truly pathetic. The feeling of it was reassuring in his hands, cold and heavy. His fingers still remembered how to load it in the dark; he thought they probably always would, even as they shook and faltered over each bullet.
He needed to get a hold on himself, if ever he could manage it. It was over. Done with. Finished. It was over for him now, for all of them. He could put it behind him. He would. Simple enough. He knew it. He had done this before, though it hadn’t been . . . like this, before, not quite like this, and now when waking dreams of the second war came to torment him, the first followed along in their wake, dragged at phantom scars in his lungs . . . .
He had to get out of there, out of the room that suddenly seemed far too small, pressing in on him. He couldn’t stay there, shamed by his own shuddering loss of control and haunted by the shadows, the demons that lurked there in the dark. He reached immediately for his oldest, most comfortable dressing gown where it rested over his armchair, tugged it on over his sweat-damp pyjamas and knotted it quickly around his waist, still feeling, hearing how heavily he was breathing, the pounding thud of his heart, how badly his hands trembled. Badly. He stilled them with an effort. The dressing gown was thin, but soft and comforting around his shoulders. He fumbled with the door to the corridor, picked up his revolver, and then closed the door tightly behind him, so firmly it shuddered under his hand.
Right. He needed to get a grip on himself. It struck him with a sudden force, like a blast illuminating the dark, the thought that America was here, just down the hall. England had given him his own room for his visit, to observe the proprieties, because their relationship was so new, and uncertain, and he wasn’t certain what he should have done, so it was better to observe a certain safe distance, he thought. Besides, surely it would have been far too awkward to share a bedroom, let alone a-a-well, a bed, theirs wasn’t that . . . sort of relationship, not yet, surely America would have found it awkward merely to . . . sleep together, let alone . . . . Would America be sleeping peacefully, sprawled in that way he had that hadn’t changed since he was a child, that England had seen on too many low camp beds to count, across England’s old guest room bed, or would he sleep fitfully as well, tossing and turning and seeing fire and war and death behind his eyes? The thought made something tight and sick clench behind England’s breastbone, the thought of America facing this sickness, this lingering scarring of the mind, when he was so always so bright and . . . and radiant, ever-hopeful and determined in that way that he made seem so very simple. And yet he was already tempered, forged, aged by this war, these world wars. A hero, England thought, and wanted to bury his face in his hands, not because America had not proven himself heroic, at least in a sense, but because perhaps now when America said that he meant something different than he had when he had been England’s little colony dreaming of knights and monsters, England could hear it in his voice, the determination in his tone whenever he spoke of it, and that frightened him, frightened him so that his heart pounded too rapidly in his chest and his breath rasped harsh in his throat for a moment.
He paused in the corridor outside America’s door, his hand raised, poised to knock for one long, frozen moment. Of course he could knock, but surely America would not hear him, no doubt long since lost in sleep. Even if he did hear him, he would mock England for this idiocy, this bizarre turn he had taken, England was sure of it. After all, he derided himself for his own inexplicable weakness of the mind, his inability to put it behind him, for the fact that he was carrying a loaded pistol in the safety of his own house. One thing for a simple soldier to suffer this malady, but he was England, Great Britain, the British Empire, the United Kingdom, and it was another thing, another thing entirely, for him, for wars past to haunt his waking moments as well as his sleeping. America looked always ahead, to the future, surely he would have no sympathy for England’s foolishness.
It was still incredible to him that America was right there, on the other side of the old, thick oaken door, in England’s house, his own old edifice of stone and wood and time, so incredible that England could hardly believe it, to the point that he nearly opened the door despite his resolution not to wake America, though it would not have been to wake him in the least. Simply in order to see him, to reassure himself that America was truly there, truly . . . real, that is was not all a product of his own desperate mind, the dreaming fulfillment of an aching, hopeless wish. But opening the door might wake America in truth, and now that England had considered the possibility of this painful place inside of him being teased, mocked, he found he recoiled from the thought, as much as he would have appreciated the warmth of America’s voice, the touch of his hand, even his idiotic laughs and far too forceful pats on the back . . . . He let his hand rest against the door for just a moment longer then sighed, sucked in his breath and squared his shoulders out of pure military habit, straightening his back and continuing on to the kitchen.
The kitchen was cold and dark but for the soft lights of the kitchen fairies, the brownie beneath the stove snoring very slightly like the rattle of an old oven. England shivered and crossed to turn on the light, regretting not bringing his slippers now that his feet were pressed to the icy flagstone of the kitchen floor, turning them numb, making the scar along one side of his foot ache tightly and painfully. He curled his toes inward, crossed one foot absently over the other to warm them as best he could, getting the puckered skin of the aching scar away from the cold of the stone, as he took down his ancient teakettle and filled it with water before turning up the heat on the stove. The comforting hiss as the water began to heat calmed him, at least, relaxed the bunched, tight coil of his shoulders. He set the pistol aside, braced his hands against the old wooden countertop, and tried very hard to think of nothing in particular.
His hands looked pale and thin and worn, still with lighter places from wartime scars. He knew they were callused and hard, too thin to have much room left over for even a bit of softness. Sometimes he wished they could, but he didn’t know how have that softness, how to live with it, how to soften his touch, even his words. Too much of him was hard, scabbed over long ago into callus. If he didn’t have that he’d no doubt cut his hand open or some such thing, at any rate. There was nothing else for it. He simply had to go on like this.
He sighed. Tea. Right. Warm, soothing, familiar, bracing tea. None of the rest of it for now. He would simply concentrate on making his tea, and then on drinking it, and perhaps after that he would be able to banish the visions in the dark, to get back to bed, even if not to sleep.
----------------
The bed was cold, and America felt as if he could hear every creaking sound the old house made as it settled around him. He kept dropping off into a shallow sleep only to be woken by some slightly louder creak. It was unnerving, the soft noises almost like a chorus of sighs in the night-or-or something. Creepy as hell, just like the shadows in his room. He was pretty sure that that over there was a closet or something in the light, and that was a desk, but-well, it totally was. Of course, it was England’s house, so maybe it was only to be expected that it would be creepy and all. And old, of course.
The house reminded him of England, in a way, which was also kind of unsettling, because for all his teasing of England, America never thought of the other nation as actually old, not like this old house with its stone walls and tapestried corners and the ancient table in the kitchen that must have been at least a hundred years old and the thick oak doors, all the dark corners and twisting staircases and the sometimes flickering lights. “It hasn’t been the same since the war,” England would grumble sometimes, if the house groaned on its foundations or the power proved particularly recalcitrant, and take himself off into the deep bowels of the house to hit the switchboard with his fist until it worked again. America had offered to jigger it for him, but England had turned bright red and huffy and told him to sod off, he had it perfectly under control.
And thinking of England like that, with dark corners America hadn’t seen into, and secrets and memories and a kind of settling age, that scared him sometimes, because America was young, he knew that, comparatively, though he’d be the first to say he wasn’t all that young anymore-and he spent so much of his time looking ahead to the future, dreaming of things to come and how the future would be even bigger and brighter and better than things were now, because things right now were kind of messed up, because of the war and all, and they’d, he’d, fix that, he knew it, and everything would be amazing; it had to be, now that the war was over-but sometimes he felt like England’s perspective was so different from that that maybe he’d never understand, all tangled up in, with, the past in a way America had never been.
And when he started thinking like that he got nervous, nervous that maybe this thing wouldn’t work out between them, this thing he’d spent so much of his life, well, hoping for, and dreaming over, and God, okay, it was embarrassing, but this-this was big, really big, to him at least, and he thought it was pretty big to England, and he wanted it to work, more than almost anything he’d ever wanted (but not quite, because there was independence, and there was flight, and there was freedom, but England was a big deal, England was up there with all of those things). And when he thought about that, thought about it too much, his heart started pounding, and he could feel cold sweat prickle the back of his neck, and his stomach flipped over and tied itself into knots. It wasn’t like he was nervous; he was way too heroic for that, but it was just . . . it was big, was all.
He couldn’t sleep, there were so many weird old shadows in the room that was so dark with the heavy curtains. There were carvings on the bed and the closet, and when America peered into the darkness over near the door he could have sworn he could see shapes there that hadn’t been there earlier.
He pressed himself further into the bed, telling himself firmly that he wasn’t scared, he was a hero, after all, and he’d seen a hell of a lot of scarier stuff than this, anyways. The chill of the sheets against his back where he was pressed flat against it made him shiver, sending chills crawling over his skin. God, why did England have to be so stuffy? If he hadn’t been so stodgy and old-fashioned they could have shared or . . . something, though America knew their relationship wasn’t like that yet, and he didn’t want to push England or anything, not at all, or like . . . not follow whatever weird rules he had, or whatever, though America didn’t see why they’d apply to him and if England didn’t tell him the rules why would he have to follow them, anyway (not if he would have, if he’d known them, probably, he thought rebelliously), but it was true that he didn’t want to push him. It was just the thought of having England there with him, to wrap his arms around, warm and sturdy and well, reassuring, that was nice. Would have been nice. But it was okay; it wasn’t like he was going to have a problem sleeping alone or anything. Ha. He wasn’t a kid anymore. It was just that the shadows were really weird, that was all, and the bed was cold.
There was a sound from outside, a weird scratching sound, like someone moving around, and America couldn’t help the way he sort of jumped, a flinch going through his body without his permission so that he ended up with his back against the old-fashioned carved headboard, and he could feel a nervous trembling starting his shoulders, adrenaline making his heart thump and pound almost like it would have at the sound of an air-raid signal. But there were no other sounds-everything else was quiet.
America shook his head at himself. England’s weird old house was making his imagination work overtime or . . . something, that was all. There was nothing there. Nothing had made that noise. Because there hadn’t been a noise. He was seriously just imagining things. Or maybe he’d dreamed it, or something, but the point was that there hadn’t been anything there.
His thudding heart didn’t believe him, and neither did the tense muscles trembling in his shoulders and back. America scowled, told himself he wasn’t scared, he was just going to prove it to himself because it was . . . heroic, and a good idea anyway just in case England was sleepwalking or something weird and old like that, and slid out of bed. He shivered in the cold air of the old stone house in his pajamas but stubbornly set his jaw and started for the door. He’d just have to open it for a second to make sure-his hand shook on the knob. America glared at it-he was a hero, and he’d just been through a war just a few years back, for chrissakes-and he yanked the door open.
There was nothing outside. Only the dark shadows of the old hallway outside met his eyes, wallpaper and a black mark against the wall that he thought was a wall sconce or something? America shuddered. It looked . . . creepy, all dark and ominous. He moved to close the door, suddenly eager to be back in bed pulling up the covers.
A sudden sound split the stillness of the night, and America jumped and nearly banged his head against the top of the door, only barely catching himself in time. It sounded like the air-raid signal he’d thought about just a few moments earlier, but that was ridiculous, it couldn’t be-
It cut off, and he heard the faint sound of shouted curses in a familiarly rounded accent, in a familiar gruff voice, from what he vaguely remembered to be the kitchen. Had it been . . . the whistle of a tea kettle? Was England awake? What was he doing up at this hour? America stumbled back to grab his watch off the desk where he remembered leaving it, then fumbled for the switch to the light. It guttered, flickered once, and then switched on, leaving him squinting at the face of the watch in light that was newly startling. The hour hand hovered around the number one. What the hell was England doing up at one in the morning?
America tossed his watch carelessly back onto the desk and picked up his glasses, and carelessly, his dogtags, out of habit, jamming Texas onto his face as he grabbed his jacket off the chair where he’d folded it the night before. He shrugged into it and dropped the dogtags around his neck, heading out into the corridor toward where he thought he remembered the kitchen was.
He stumbled a bit on the stairs, but after he got to the bottom he could remember which way the kitchen was because he could hear England’s cursing, quieter now, but still loud enough that it wasn’t hard to follow. Shadows loomed at him out of the surrounding rooms, and America shuddered and picked up his pace.
There was a light on in the kitchen. America slowed to a walk, then hesitated a moment at the open door. England was standing in front of the sink, his shoulders slumped, and yet taut with tension, and there was the sound of running water interspersed with his now much quieter curses. “Fucking idiot,” he said in a ferocious whisper, “you truly are too stupid to be allowed to go out-” America recoiled, his face flushing hot with hurt for a moment before he realized England still had no idea he was there. He was talking to himself. “Shout and wake America, why don’t you, yes, brilliant, good lord, England, could you have handled the bloody damn thing any worse-”
“England?” America started. “You . . . okay and everything?”
England must have jumped a foot, America was sure of it, before he spun around as if he was expecting some kind of attack from behind rather than the simple question. His shoulders were rigid and set, and his face was stark white, gone so pale that America could see clearly the dark, bruised shadows under his eyes and over his hollowed cheeks, the startled, almost panicked look in his eyes, dark and stretched so wide they seemed to take up half his face. “America?” he gasped, and his voice snarled, choked off, sounding almost . . . almost scared. But England was never scared, or hardly ever, even during the war, England was so tough, England had faced down Hitler without flinching, England . . . “You-you should be in bed,” England stammered out, “I-what the bloody hell do you imagine you’re doing down here?” England’s hands were clenched at his sides, his breath shuddering unevenly. There was something horribly vulnerable about the way he squared his shoulders, his solid, compact form small against the darkness of the cupboards behind him. He looked absolutely fucking terrible, thin and shaking, wrapped in his tattered old robe over his pinstriped pajamas, and something in America’s stomach turned over and clenched up into a tight little ball that hurt, his chest constricting until it felt like it was painfully pushing in against his heart. England clearly didn’t want him down there with him, but even if he didn’t want America around at all he looked like he needed something, something more than what he was getting from his dark kitchen and his tea and his dumb thin robe that clearly wasn’t thick enough, because he was still fucking shaking.
“Heard you cussing up a storm and thought I’d come down and see what I could do,” America said, making an effort to keep his tone light. “What’s the use of having a hero around if he can’t help you out with stuff, right?” He started toward England where he stood with his back against the sink and turned off the water.
England’s mouth opened, then closed. He swallowed, then dropped his hands, his shoulders squaring. “That was . . . quite good of you,” he said in this rough, rasping voice that sounded like it was scraping along the inside of his throat, “but I’m perfectly all right.” He cleared his throat, coughed a bit, and said in a more normal tone, tight and clipped. “You might as well go back to bed.” One hand came up to rub at the other, a restless motion that spoke of discomfort.
“I’m up now,” America said. Gee, England really didn’t want him around. He didn’t examine how painfully that thought made his chest twinge, didn’t want to think about it. Instead he held out one hand, waggling his fingers impatiently. “Lemme see,” he ordered.
“I beg your pardon?” England retorted, his hand tightening around the other as if he could hide it from America’s gaze somehow.
“Your hand,” he said, “lemme see. You hurt it, didn’t you? Probably burned it on the hot water or something-” England’s eyes went even wider, and America knew he’d been right. “What, you forget about it and had to scramble?” he asked with a laugh, and as England snorted derisively under his breath and looked away, hunching one shoulder defensively, knew he’d been right about that, too.
“What could you do?” England demanded in a low, tightly controlled tone that sounded furious. Or maybe not furious, but America didn’t know what else that emotion he was keeping under there could be, and that was pretty typical for England.
America could feel his shoulders slump, and he sighed, swallowing against the lump in his throat until it disappeared. “You won’t know until you try!” he said nonetheless. “C’mon, England, get over here.”
There was one more moment of silence. America was just about ready to give up when England stuck out his hand, scowling, and slapped his palm into America’s hand. “It’s not as if you’ll be able to do anything for it,” he muttered.
America caught it, turned it until he could see the red marks of a faint burn over the skin at the heel of England’s palm, up the side of his first finger. England’s hands felt hard under his, slim, marked with callus and scars and scratches that were at odds with their long fingers, the rounded knuckles, the neat, clipped nails. The skin felt cold, the hand itself shaking slightly. America brought it up to his mouth and bent to press a soft little kiss against the irritated flesh. England gasped, but at least he didn’t wrench it free. “Wh-what-” he started. “What do you think you’re-”
America curled England’s fingers in so he could brush his mouth over his knuckles before he pulled away. “Hey,” he said, “you’re hurt, so I kissed it better. S’my right, as your . . . your . . . best guy,” he finished awkwardly. “Your boyfriend,” he added, to clarify the whole thing, and remind England that they’d been on a whole four actual dates now, war and rebuilding stuff not included. And they’d thought about it and talked about it a lot more than that, and kissed and . . . kissed. More than once, too!
England’s pallid cheeks flushed a deep red. “I . . . suppose you are,” he said. “I-is that the case?”
“Sure is,” America said. “Kiss of a hero! Good for what ails ya.” He released England’s hand, sighing as he did, missing the touch of the firm fingers and hard palm already. “Feel any better?” he asked. His hands wanted really badly to keep hovering around England, but he brought them down, forced them to hang poised by his sides. He leaned against the counter by the stove, trying to seem unconcerned. You know, cool, like the hero of a movie or something.
England looked down, his eyes slanting away, and curled his hand inward. It came up to rest against the collar of his robe, over his chest. “It . . . it actually rather does,” he said, his voice hoarse and low.
America felt warm. “It does?” he asked, then grinned. “Not that I’m surprised! See, I knew you needed me down here, didn’t I? Didn’t I tell you?”
England made a scoffing noise, but didn’t shake his head. America’s chest warmed still further. “So,” he said, leaning toward him, “fill me in.”
England’s head came jerking up, his eyes wide and alarmed. “No,” he said flatly. “There’s nothing to fill you in on. Nothing at all. Why would there be anything? Haha. I mean, I just came down to get a cup of tea, and to-to check on the fairies-why would there be anything out of the ordinary?”
“Don’t give me that bullshit,” America said. “Or maybe you usually spend your nights wandering around your own kitchen?”
England flushed a deep red, scowled, and looked away. America sighed. “Okay,” he said, “have it your way. But sit down, okay? I’ll get you the water and the teapot and shit and you can make your tea.” Before England had a chance to say anything, America was opening cupboards and searching for the teapot, which he found set neatly on the counter by a tin of tea. He brought both over to England, then snagged a cool bottle of milk and set it down on the table along with a spoon. England shook his head at him, but there was a smile playing about his lips, a very slight one, and America felt a thrill of triumph at that. Hell yeah, England was smiling at him, when just a few seconds ago he’d had the blackest scowl he could manage, and with England that was saying a lot. He sat down in the chair beside England and watched in fascination as England made his tea, pale hands quick with the ease of long practice. After a moment the tea was steeping in the teapot, and England sat back in his chair with a sigh, his perfectly square, ramrod-straight shoulders slumping out of military posture. America turned toward him, letting his hands rest loose on the table.
To be continued in Part Two . . .