Fic: all which isn't singing [1/3]

[shadow_of_egypt]

Title: all which isn’t singing
Rating: T -> M (future parts)
Characters/Pairings: FrUK, implied/referenced (in this part) EngPort, ScotFran, EngJap, FraGer
Summary: France has a fascination with making a mark on the world - or at the very least, England.
Notes: For the what_the_fruk aftermath…athon event. Which was awhile ago. orz Late is better than never? Prompt was: England has a corset piercing and France likes to play with it. Uh. Fits the prompt (eventually, I promise) but turned a little into an exploration about why/how the fascination got there, and - and this is odd. Sorry. ;;;



*****

What a pity it is that there are so many words! Whenever one wants to say anything, three or four ways of saying it run into one's head together; and one can't tell which to choose. It is as troublesome and puzzling as choosing a ribbon... or a husband.

(Julius Charles Hare, Guesses at Truth)

[French recollections:

The sixteenth century. The middle of it, just after. Around there. (Recollections are vague.) It had been an awkward time. Memorable? Perhaps. Still here, still there, a credit to persistence when they were still waiting for someone to invent a flushing toilet - a wearisome time, in retrospect, days passing ponderously like strings of white pearls through empires’ hands.

Eternal, la Manche had still rested with France on one side and little England on the other - although the wretch had not been so little anymore (more on that). He had grown somewhat since their days in the flower-fields and wastelands, but he’d remained as immensely difficult as always, with a list of taboo topics attached to his good name that had been longer than he was coltishly tall.

Keep the peace, talk not of the Spanish, the Scottish Queen or Calais. Shh.

France had stepped into Elizabeth’s dancing Court with his party still wondering what he actually could talk about, and young ‘Lord Arthur Kirkland’ had stalked forward from the throng of English colours and silenced him with a firm kiss to the mouth.

(Talking was not always required.)

England had smiled into the kiss - a wildcat’s smile was nothing sweet, just short of teeth. Eyebrows raised, France had pulled back to speculatively eye his host (after due consideration. He wasn’t being bitten, but England was English, after all. A kiss was a kiss this side of the sea, and kisses meant things England didn’t usually mean).

Arthur had preened in the attention, something strange, and then delicately ignored it as though it wasn’t there. He was a deceptively pliant stretch of velvet and skin over his sharp fae bones, edges all temporarily tucked in - France had wondered vaguely where his little dandling dear had hidden his claws for the day, for the hour and this moment, pressing his lips lightly to the other’s still-smooth jaw as a mild greeting in return. England had grown, yes, clearly, and was growing still. “Bonjour.”

“Bonne journée,” England had replied, answering nothing, and resolutely taken France’s arm to escort him deeper into the mess of his Tudor Court.

There had not been much, at the end of the day, to remember that visit by. For all his smiles and kisses (and there had been more kisses, brief but just as unyielding as the first) England had never led the way to his chambers, a pretty patter of a ploy they both knew France had seen through and yet kept up with all the same. Fine golden hooks for all of Europe - England had dressed up well for the show; someone had told him then that he looked good in bolder colours (and he did), Spanish black and virgin’s white. Both colours had made a liar of him; Arthur had stepped out of dark corners throughout the visit with mussed hair and a mouth bruised from kissing, utterly unrepentant to France’s level gaze even as his companions took their leave. They’d all been humans, for the most part, but Portugal had called in at Court for more than a few days to ‘pay his respects,’ disappearing with his host Nation on long rides and longer walks in the palace gardens. (Between his dark curls, bright gold and sweet wine it wasn’t hard to see why anyone would gladly sojourn to quiet places with Portugal - but France’s offer to the other man had been met with a politely shaken head, and Portugal’s departure.)

Anyone’s and no-one’s creature all at the same time. England had proven a pretty point.

France had left him to it. Time went on.]

It says something for France’s day that he cannot tell whether it is a) the boredom from (half) listening to the speaker at the latest in a long, long line of EU meetings, or b) the dry-warm stuffiness of a room packed full of bodies for a few hours (too many), that is sending him to sleep. The topic of the day is, as ever, the economy, important but mind-numbing, mind-numbingly important.

The guest speaker of the meeting - Austrian-born, his accent slips into his English and hails from Vienna - is a verbal (original) narcotic, inducing lethargy in all trying vainly, vainly, to direct their attentions at him for more than five minutes at a time. Greece has already hit the table, and Cyprus with him. Finland, Latvia and Luxembourg are all still just awake, but are clearly slowly nodding off in their seats. South Italy seems to be awake out of survival instinct only, edging to the furthest side of his seat away from a rather pained-looking Germany as is physically possible without falling off - before constantly being reminded of a grinning Denmark on his other side, hastily moving back towards Germany once more. (And repeat, ad infinitum.) France sympathises with him somewhat; the seating is a wonder of German engineering, troublemakers isolated from their usual (responsive) partners-in-crime and put beside those they should have not too much of a quarrel with.

France sits woefully alone. His assigned seat rests between two empty chairs - neither Spain nor Slovenia have shown today, crying off sick, and, a little further around the table, North Italy’s spot beside a disappointed Hungary also sits bereft of its intended occupant. (Feliciano’s sweet sunny presence is sorely missed by both of them.) France, therefore, has no-one to immediately either torment or titillate, forced to flick his attentions to the large windows covering one wall - the German sky outside is an unhelpfully dense mass of uninspiring grey - and then back around the table of Nations, looking for some kind of entertainment. (Anything to keep him awake - he has standards, after all, and has no doubt that, should he choose to join the others in sleep, he will be noticed by Germany and be forced to sit through a scolding lecture at the next Franco-German meeting.) It’s a wretched state of affairs, by all accounts. Fortunate are the few too sick - or too sly - to attend today.

Across the other side of the table, Romania catches France’s eye. The other Nation blinks once, twice, out of sleepiness and into wide-eyed dismay, hastily glancing away from France’s immediate pout and focusing fiercely on the speaker as Portugal switches his attention from the front to the Nation’s sudden movements beside him. How rude. France wishes great boredom upon Romania, and moves his gaze on - ah, Sweden is awake, but focused entirely on communicating with Belgium by eye-signals alone to prop up Finland from where the slight Nation, having finally succumbed to slumber, is sliding out of his seat. (Belgium seems only too happy to rearrange Finland, carefully propping the other Nation in his seat and placing his beret just so to cover his closed eyes.) Austria seems much taken with the rhythmic beat the Netherlands’ fingers make as they absently drum the tabletop; Hungary is whispering and doodling with the Czech Republic; Estonia is watching his laptop, and Poland appears to be suggesting to Lithuania that they try and braid Portugal’s hair. Slovakia is raptly studying the ceiling and Bulgaria seems entranced with prodding the now-snoring Cyprus with the end of his pen, Belgium reaching across to confiscate the weapon once Finland is satisfactorily propped up to her liking. Malta is watching Austria beside him watch the Netherlands, and Ireland sits, tilted away from the Czech Republic beside her -

Unabashedly, France looks at Ireland. Fair Erin has always been one of the better dressed of her family (and family the Kirklands are, vexed as they are to admit it most of the time, with the same sharpness to their features and other worlds in their eyes), auburn hair pinned up into sleekness and long-sleeved shirt buttoned up the lines of her slim wrist. She wears her tiredness like silver cobwebs at all her corners - economic toil still touches all of them, some of them still harder than most - but lets a faint smile linger on her face, a ghost of a chance. Things claw their way to improvement, and she has entertainment for the moment - her brother, when he finally leans into France’s view from his hiding-place behind the harangued Lithuania (braiding plans appear to be failing), such strange happenchance is this.

Angleterre sits representing the United Kingdom as usual - or unusually, perhaps, since he has been so queerly quiet today. Perhaps someone has slipped sedative in his tea? Mais non - he seems animated enough with his sister, both of them paying the barest scraps of their attention to the speaker to instead continue bridging the gaps between them, tenuous and tense as they’ve been all these years, but now, now in much less turmoil.

England’s face is turned away from France this time, embroiled in his conversation - but ah, the most expressive thing about Arthur has always been the things he doesn’t say, slight gestures, the tilt of his head and the sweep of his hands. Somewhere, sometime, someone (or something) had taught England to take care when under scrutiny, to guard himself, but in long lazy moments Arthur forgets, unfolding his hands like a long-loved book being flicked open and leaning forward into easy conversation, coolness fading to a familiarity that’s either utterly unconscious or deliberately insulting.

Now seems to be all serenity between the two Kirkland siblings at the meeting, a cautious bonding, and though England is looking away France can see what must be a reflection of his rival’s expression on Ireland’s face. Truly, the two are their mother’s glass, a seemingly endless April, the old Nation’s many gifts distributed amongst those who inherited her lands and peoples. In somehow resembling her the siblings have always somehow resembled each other, little things that have trickled down even further to the former British colonies and dominions over the long, long years. (On strange days that are bad days that are foul, angry grumpy days for all of them, England and America will clash, sometimes, like meeting like and putting all the Nations wearily watching them in the mind that what they are seeing is little more than one fiercely disgruntled parakeet squaring off against itself in a funhouse mirror, with the same ruffled feathers and the same snapped beak. Children inherit mixed traits, both good and bad, and God knows with their histories the younger of their kind have their pick of guardians to select their genes from.)

The air is close - a storm sweeping in, be it metaphorical or meteorological, would be deeply appreciated, anything to either clear the air or give all the Nations in the room some form of diversion. They’re all wilting, languishing in stupor, and France can feel his new shirt sticking uncomfortably to his spine, long strands of hair pasting themselves to the sweat on the back of his neck. England, too, seems affected as France stares at the back of the younger Nation’s neck - with rolled-up sleeves and jacket discarded England ruins good (and bad, very often very bad; after all, they’re British) clothes, careless in the stuffy-hot boredom hanging over the whole assemblage and raking fingers through the dun-blond hair at the nape of his neck, pulling it away from his skin. He needs a trim, badly, as ever, an amendment to the bedraggled nest he calls a style on the top of his head -

He needs an explanation too, for why twin glints of silver metal gleam like stars on his skin for that brief instant, collar badly crumpled and hair pulled away for the blink of the blink of an eye, snaring France’s attention like a fish on baited hook. An interesting revelation, and even as his stomach swoops at the possibilities France is jolting forwards in his seat to get a better view of his distraction and sate his abruptly burning curiosity - doing so so suddenly, in fact, he draws the attention of their devoted speaker, one startled gaze followed by a whole roomful of expectantly curious eyes.

Ah.

It’s a little like falling, every time. (It’s such a beautiful way down.)

[England has always had a predilection for things that are shiny. It’s something leftover from his childhood, France thinks, possibly cultivated because of and throughout his childhood - dim distant days lurk on the edges of the mind, a little lost boy with eyes greener than the winter forest, in the woods, lovely, dark and deep. The flutter of a green cloak and footprints like rabbit-tracks in the snow - these are the things France had once taught himself to look for to find the skinny feral child who lived across the salt-water between their two lands, a small belly’s rumble, a pink maw caught mid-yawn and dun hair like dirty feathers all ruffled up.

Albion, some of the wiser people in the villages had called the boy before, would call the boy over the years, and the name still strums the lyre-heart strings of France’s earliest memories, somewhere in the murky mists with his own small hands still clutching at his mother’s skirts. An island of green-eyed children and their mother with the hair that looked like summer’s end, deer-footed and bird-boned, a laughing baby’s hand leaving a sticky smear of blue paint down France’s protesting cheek. Crow feathers, beads and the mother-of-pearl sheen found inside shells plucked out of the sea, still gritty with salt and sand, the rough wind and Alba’s rude laughter. When the nights had fallen Albion had mewled like a kit and fallen asleep in fox furs, one tiny fist buried at the throat of his mother’s clothes, fascinated by the way the firelight had reflected on the pretty bronze and gold she’d worn around her neck.

Albion (Anglaland, eventually; Þǽr ætbéon Anglaland) had gained gold of his own - a torc curled around his own scrawny neck, flaunting his status even as he fled into those evergreen dark, dark woods he called his own, where France had never had a hope of finding him. The one time France - oh, whatever the changing peoples had called him then - had reached out to touch the torc Anglaland had hissed, snarling and snapping with sharp teeth that were startling white on his muddy face. France had never tried again after that, called his little beast of a neighbour a thousand names and stormed north to seek solace with the brat’s brother.

“Mither gae him it,” Scotland had explained, over a thousand years later, half-drunk with bad wine and old nostalgia and draped out of France’s sofa, slurring into his Scots, into France’s neck. Pendant l’entre-deux-guerres, it had been - after the Great War most of the world had been like them, aching and breaking but glorying at being still alive; that was a miracle in itself, yes? Yes, it was. After such pain, it had been natural to find a little pleasure in an ally’s bed. England had gone to distract himself with all the wonders of the Orient that he could find in Japan’s solemn eyes, and France - France had found a familiar bed-mate in England’s brother. (Wearying, even in absentia, the conversation had tilted England’s way. Drink did strange things to the mind.)

Empires and the world’s turn, downturn - Europe was old, but older Nations had come and gone before them, and that, that Scotland had confessed then, something of the memories of bronze and blue paint and fire-smoke in his haze-green eyes. Of Alba with the dark flame-hair and wolves’ pelts hung around him, laughing and swinging his yowling younger siblings up into the air however much they scratched at him for the indignity. Times long gone by.

The torc had been given to England by the Nation the brothers had called mother, and England had loved it so. Loved it for its intricate beauty, for the glow of gold, and loved it for the one who’d given it to him, when she was gone. (The runt had always liked hanging off of women’s skirts - and yeah, that included France’s, because hadn’t they all thought France was a girl for the longest time?)

England had lost the torc, somewhere in the wash of Viking raids that had plagued the lands touching the North Sea before the ninth century. France had never thought to question it at the time, to ask about a bit of over-gaudy jewellery he wasn’t even allowed to touch in the first place. He’d been far too preoccupied with the invaders on his own lands, and England had been a dirty, distant concern. As long as their peoples had still been able to trade, what had it mattered? The torc’s loss had hardly seemed to have mattered even to England himself; when the Normans had come and made their mark on the British Isles England had been just as tiny, rude and incomprehensible as ever, picking at the gold hem on the nicer clothes Normandy and France forced him into, chasing runaway spools of thread across castle floors for the ladies of the Court.

He’d liked needlework and hid pins in places where Normandy was sure to jab herself with them, and had been kicked and dragged out of the ladies’ chambers on the orders of the man who’d called himself England’s King, to do work as a page - work that England had refused to do, distracted by the sunlight on the metal armour that the Norman knights wore, bright shields and dangerous swords. One shiny fascination exchanged for another, until he’d gotten bored of castle life and escaped rabbit-quick into the woods, squirming out of France’s hold and dashing to the country villages that dotted his barbarous countryside, to the peasants who still spoke his tongue. Like called (calls) to like.]

“What,” England says, when France corners him after the meeting is finally - finally - over, not even pretending to make it a question. His jacket is irritably shrugged on again, briefcase stuffed under one arm, looking like the weary worldwide collapse at the end of a day in one man.

Most of the room is clearing out, the Nations’ assistants meeting them outside the doors with their evening’s itineraries ready - at least, France knows his own lovely assistant will be there with an itinerary, the people France needs to talk to and the places he needs to be. Wilfully ignoring her for a few lingering minutes more feels like a little revolution in itself, as does sidelining England to see the other’s eyebrows draw down like an oncoming storm. (The world will become a very dull place the day vexing England loses its spark.)

France feigns hurt, casually slipping between England and the exit, stepping closer. He has stars in his eyes. “Can’t I come and talk to my favourite little Nation just because I feel like it?”

“Oh, you can, certainly - but you’re a little late.” England adjusts his briefcase and nods towards the door, crisply self-deprecating. “Germany already took his leave.”

“How uncommonly rude of him.”

“After a lecture like that, his behaviour is quite forgivable.” England shifts, as though to step around France, and France fluidly moves to intercept the other once more. They’re the only two left in the room now - overhead, the lights are humming. England looks at France. Meaningfully. “I can’t understand why anyone with half a mind would willingly hang around the memory of such torture for a minute longer than necessary.”

France graciously allows the implication to skim straight over him, with nary a hair ruffled upon his beautiful gold head. “I don’t know, mon cher. Out of all of us gathered here today, you certainly looked like one of the least tortured.”

“I was sitting next to my sister -”

“And she didn’t hit you.” France smiles, beatifically. Remembers a few fond times when Ireland had hit England, bruises like flowers and black eyes for both of them. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t a lack of any sort of physical violence or irritation considered an exceptionally good day with your family?” England doesn’t correct him. “A good day it is, then.”

“I presume you’re here now to ruin it for me?”

“I am flattered you credit me with the ability,” England snorts, “but no.”

One eyebrow is raised. “No?”

“Not…intentionally,” France amends. He leans back on the balls of his feet, away from his cornered companion, hands sliding into his own pockets in an attempt at harmless. England subconsciously relaxes by tiny increments at the gesture, still wary, but waiting, more approachably, watching with those vivid green eyes of his. Floating pond-ferns where the lazy goldfishes swim.

It takes a great deal to pry apart the locked box that is England, spread skin and bones into shivering shudders without the snarls. Not that the snarling isn’t darling in and of itself, but sometimes a slow ember burn is best - and France is curious, plagued by half a glimpse of something that stirred up an overflowing cauldron of memories within him.

(England is at his most enchanting in the lull after a storm, sleepy sepia lamplight on a dim evening whilst the rain drips down the world outside.)

Once upon a time, a world ago, England was more flagrant about certain things.

France only smiles, easy and charming. “Let’s go to dinner.”

England looks at him like France has suddenly grown another head. “What?”

“Dinner!” France dearly misses older times. Things were so much easier when it was still legal to smack idiots with large sticks. “Food, Angleterre. I know you may have some difficulty with the concept judging by what comes out of your kitchen on a regular basis, but it has been far too long since one Arthur Kirkland has deigned to dine with me. I’ve been neglecting your culinary education dreadfully, and I fear for the stomachs of the world should this continue.”

England scowls, a particularly dark expression. “Piss off.” He takes his briefcase in hand at last and steps forward - again, trying to move around France, but again, is blocked. England glares. “France. Move.”

France pouts back at him. “I just invited you out to dinner.”

“You call that an invitation?”

“I admit, perhaps it was not one of my better attempts where you are concerned -” again, England snorts (they really ought to test him for allergies) and France edges a little closer, shiny pointy shoe to shiny pointy shoe. (Alas, not the boots that have always done wonders for England’s legs - another item on the long list of things France laments being lost to the standards of the past.) “But it was quite sincere, all the same.” He softens his voice, a coaxing tone to a recalcitrant cat. Oh, pussycat, pussycat, where have you been? “It has been a long while since we sat down for a meal together that didn’t involve work of some kind.”

England looks away stubbornly. “The work served as a distraction so that we wouldn’t kill each other.”

“Mm, but you see, Angleterre -” England breathes in swift and unprepared when France suddenly swallows up the last steps between them, catching and cradling the other’s sharp jaw between his large palms, wearing low lashes and a knowing smile. Turning those green eyes back towards him, to a pretty proposition. “I’m not in the mood for killing tonight. A few little deaths, perhaps, later on, if you’re agreeable, but nothing unpleasant.”

“Apart from your general company -” France lets one thumb graze the swell of England’s lower lip, almost fascinated. England shutters nicely - breathing is a miracle, even for them. Every moment. “…You’re paying.”

“Of course.” It’s an easy thing to agree to, considering that had been France’s intention from the start. “But in return…” France lets one of his hands drop a little, slipping along the slope of England’s throat and back. Slides his fingertips into the fine hair at the nape of the other’s neck, below there, to where England’s skin is very warm and very smooth, a little clammy from earlier stuffiness (something to curl close to, inside the bed-sheets on a long winter’s morning, here…just here).

England goes fetchingly pink, high on his cheekbones, but doesn’t pull away even as France’s splayed fingers slip below his shirt collar to touch the careful metal edges fixed just under his skin, fitted beads with small hoops screwed into the top set of two, either side of his spine. A different texture.

“In return,” France says, and lets his wide smile settle a little more firmly on his face at the way England’s pulse picks up beneath his spread fingers, the soft something of a noise caught at the back of England’s throat when France’s thumb strokes the curve of the bones of his back, “won’t you show me how far down these go?”

[England had not witnessed the Peace of Paris. A shame. It had stuck in young America’s throat to not see his g- to not see his former guardian and colonial master there, at the table at Paris and Versailles. Shown in a tight little swallow and such a furious flush on his face - ah, America had always been too expressive. Silly boy, golden child; it had never been hard to see why England had so doted on the boy. America was impressionable and had a heart full of burning dreams - like his brother, like a louder version the quiet earnestness Canada possessed that France had always loved (but then, Mathieu had stopped writing some years back, scratched letters on the one last note: Papa, pourquoi? A boy betrayed for a family asunder, and then no more).

In the colonies, France had felt England’s hatred across a whole battlefield. Red, red, violent red, mud and gunpowder smoke on their whites and a body torn up with an angry snarl. And oh - vindication, jubilation - it had felt good. Great Britain had been far too much of an upstart for too long; had it been so much of a surprise to England that Europe wanted to tear him down any way it could? They were old, of the Old World, and didn’t care too much for independence, but oh, for opportunity-! England had overstepped his mark, been foolish and given his heart to a little boy, and France -

(France, for every indignity thrust upon him, for every hurt and every slight England had given him, had taken the great pleasure of ripping that vulnerable heart straight out of his dear rival’s chest.)

America had been a sweet boy changed by war, bleeding out hearts with his big blue eyes. Perhaps he’d wanted to gloat his triumph, in Paris, at the end of it all. Perhaps he’d wanted to say goodbye - either way, England had not been there, and another Nation had politely nodded his head on behalf of the Kingdom of Great Britain. Wales, quiet Pays de Galles, standing wearing a new dark suit and a closed expression.

France had found him in a dark corner, later, Wales picking idly at the threads of his jacket to distract attention from the irritation lining his mouth, the mulish set of his jaw. The firmness hid bruises well; France had left a stark necklace of purple around England’s neck on more than one occasion, a lover’s token - but bruises were far too temporary for their kind; high collars and not giving a damn hid a multitude of sins.

(Intractable beasts the Kirklands were, every last one of them.)

“Could he not bring himself to come and bid goodbye to the boy?”

A startled green glance had flicked up - absorbed into England as he was then, Wales had clearly not been used to all the attention, something of a shade (with a grudge far too fierce to let himself falter). “‘He’?”

“Your brother, faux-Angleterre. Angleterre himself.” It had been a long day - a longer, wearying war - and France’s temper had felt thin. His people had bickered (oh, they had bickered so; the headaches had been memorable, a memory to keep all the years if only in the hope they never came back), and if he could not have had that…he should have had that - there was not half as much fun in victory without the sight of the defeated one’s face. “Where is ‘e?”

“India,” Wales had said, and then, annoyingly so, had said no more. It had always been easier to draw songs from the Welsh mountains than from Wales himself, and France had felt his lip curl. Petty spite.

“Écosse, then. Have you left him at home alone to mind your little fort?”

“He couldn’t come,” Wales had a grim smile, rarely seen, hard-edged like the winged lizards he claimed blew out smoke-rings beneath his hills. “We’re trying to end three wars here, not start another one with him punching you in the face.”

Scotland had never -

“It wouldn’t be good for your face,” Wales had continued on, implacable, head tilted with a thoughtful cant to one side. He’d stopped picking at his jacket some time ago, picking and plucking with his harpist’s hands at France’s threads instead. “You’re already so pale. Are you sick, France?”

What had he truly cared? But then they had spoken to each other, those Nations of Great Britain, winged birds across the ocean - peace at home meant expansionist policies abroad, and, the larger the Empire, the less the little family had to see of each other. (Between themselves the Kirklands could no doubt find all four ends of the earth, and spread themselves out to them.)

“A cold,” France had told Wales, short. Smoothed a hand down his own outfit, blue and gold thread, victory-bright. It had made him look pale - yes, perhaps, but pale had been ever-fashionable at Court, and Versailles had liked to fawn. “From American mud. It will pass.”

“Of course,” Wales had agreed, so politely, bowed head and disbelieving eyes.

Less than a decade later, France had been at war with himself, and England - England had come to his country then, cold green amidst the chaos, ignoring the soldiers and the mobs to stand outside France’s personal home, hands brown with an Indian tan neatly folded behind his back.

He’d never bothered to say hello, toeing the dirt at France’s door. France had hated him utterly, and longed to rip him apart, limb from bloody limb, with his bare hands. Use his nails to gouge out the Englishman’s eyes - England, so dispassionate and cold, golden from Asian sunshine and the stubbornness riveted deep in his heathen bastard bones.

“It is rather muddy,” England had said to him then, little vindictive wretch that he was with that gleam in his gaze, “isn’t it?”]

Dinner is - dinner is good, too much wine and - not French, lamentably, food or wine, because England bristles so unpleasantly all over at anything French out of some misguided attempt at principles,  so it’s rice wine (sake), and food they nearly poke each other’s eyes out with little sticks to eat. But - Japanese food, that’s their compromise (they ducked away from their assistants and then argued about where to go for half an hour), a restaurant with soft lighting and a glowing view over the city as evening comes in.

The light and alcohol smoothes down England’s edges, leaves a shifting shadow in the wrinkle of his nose and down the slant of his throat, shirt collar unbuttoned, jacket and tie discarded. Shirt sleeves rolled up it is England who first leans close (closer), lazily knocks his ankle against France’s calf and leaves it there to beckon attention his way. Raises his saucer towards France, a languid toast. Allons-y.

“Your taste in restaurants seems to have marginally improved.” England is a pleasanter creature with a full belly, a looser lean low in his seat - lower, still, when he knocks back another saucer of sake and carries its heat in his cheeks. “Has someone finally knocked some good sense into you?”

France just smiles, just as lazy - England’s words have no bite, and his shoe drags its way back down France’s calf to the floor. “My taste is as it has ever been, mon cher - perfectly impeccable.”

“In all things?”

“Most certainly in all things - after all, monsieur, I am French.”

“That is precisely why I’m questioning your abilities in the first place.”

France sighs, terribly melodramatic, watches it hook into the corner of England’s mouth and curve the other Nation’s mouth into the start of a smile. They have known each other a long, long time; these are secrets shared. “Just so that you are aware, I am trying to seduce you.”

“Trying would be the key word there.”

“Perhaps not the correct word,” France says, and reaches down to drag England’s chair closer to his, a screech of the legs on tiling. England falls into him with two clutching hands and a yelp, positively glows in red. Everybody stares. France doesn’t care. “Succeeding is better.”

“Wanker,” England hisses, tries to appear non-confrontational to their audience, because God bless, he’s English; he simply cannot make a scene. Attempts to straighten himself out and withdraw from France’s tangle of limbs - France is deliberately disobliging with warm heat in his arms, finds the jut of England’s hip with one hand to keep the other close and squirming. Cloth rasps his fingertips (one day, one day, he will take England shopping, dress him up, take him out, fuck him against a dressing room wall); England’s shoulder pushes back a point into France’s chest. “You - just what do you think -”

“I think many things,” France tells him, nudges his nose against England’s temple and breathes, hotel shampoo and the Channel wind, the western edge of home. “Hush.”

England subsides. Vaguely scratches for words. “This is a highly inappropriate display of public affection.”

Hm. “Yes?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me,” France says, thinks: affection, and reaches out with his free hand to pour a little more sake into his saucer. “What counts as an inappropriate display of public affection in Germany?”

England promptly takes the saucer from France’s grasp, the living legend of perfidious Albion. France thinks about grabbing for the other’s wrist - but no. England flicks his gaze very pointedly over to the saucer and plate France forced him to abandon when he moved the chair, a point made.

“You,” England says, and downs the sake like it’s water, a shine left on his lips he immediately licks clean, “tell me. You’re the one shagging the kraut on a fortnightly basis, are you not?”

Germany has been stressed - lately, it’s more monthly. “He doesn’t think that is very appropriate.”

“It’s Germany. Anyone getting within five metres of another person wearing a smile on their face is considered forward and socially inappropriate.” England snorts at his own joke - before pondering it, leaning back into the shoulder behind him so he can thoughtfully meet France’s gaze. “How haven’t you made him spontaneously combust yet?”

A very good question, but one very terrible for the worldwide economy. France considers it, gives an answer for expectant green: “German engineering is surprisingly durable.”

England stares at him - and then it trips, trembles into laughter, tremors that echo through France and call up his own mirth as England laughs into his side. Perhaps they’ve both drank just - a little - too much, but England is a warm and heavy weight and doesn’t pull away from France’s arm still wound around his waist.

France thinks of silver, of stars studding a path down England’s spine, and that, more than alcohol, makes the heat pool in his gut, uncoil like a drowsy cat to yawn, a pink, pink mouth and pricking kitty teeth. So he digs his fingers into England’s hip just that little bit more (possessively), imagines out the spread of the evening and the night and pushes his mouth to England’s forehead again, against feathery hair and caught breath against his own throat, and this, this is quiet, and this is sincere -

“I would very much like to take you to bed right now.”

Here be revelations.

“…It’s not even ten o’ clock yet.” Alcohol leaves defences down - when he wants something, England has the charming habit of elucidating all his mental arguments against getting that something, elbows out like sharp chicken-wings, just to hear someone else shoot them down. And this one, this one is poor.

So France shrugs it off, feels England still and hear. Repeats. “I would very much like to take you to bed right now, the longer to keep you there.”

(England shares certain recollections too.)

Part 2 >>>>>

Notes:

- The English-owned port of Calais was (eventually) taken by the French in 1558, under the French king, Henri II, and the English queen, Mary I (and her husband, the Spanish Philippe II). It was a time of jubilation in France, to finally have English presence off the continent, and mourning in England. It was a great loss of face for a queen who direly needed a popularity boost at the time. Calais was a bit of a sore point.

- The Scottish Queen.

- Thou art thy mother's glass, and she in thee/ Calls back the lovely April of her prime: William Shakespeare, Sonnet 3.

- Who was seating next to whom at the conference table, if any of you care. XD
Slovakia - Greece - Romania - Portugal - Poland - Lithuania - England - Ireland - Czech Republic - Hungary - space - Sweden - Estonia - the Netherlands - Austria - Malta - Finland - Belgium - Bulgaria - Cyprus - space - France - space - Luxembourg - Denmark - South Italy - Germany

- in the woods, lovely dark and deep: ‘the woods are lovely, dark and deep’ - reference to Robert Frost’s Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening.

- A torc.

- So did you know Mediaeval English needlework was considered some of the finest in all of Christendom?

- The Peace of Paris (1783) was the set of treaties which formally ended the American War of Independence and went some way to dealing with some of the problems of the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War, signed in Paris and Versailles and overseen by representatives from the (newly-formed) United States of America, Great Britain, France, the Dutch Republic and Spain.

- Wales ‘properly’ came under English control with the Laws in Wales Acts/Acts of Union in the sixteenth century. They made it so that England and Wales would be ruled by the same laws, rearranging borders and creating new counties, appointing new powers to provide the king’s justice in the principality. Welsh lords were allowed seats in English parliament and …there was a lot more good things that resulted through the reform - but it was pretty bad for Welsh identity. ‘England’ came to mean ‘England and Wales,’ and an attempt was made to stamp out the Welsh language (as it was ‘nothing like ne consonant to the naturall mother tonge used within this Realme.’) Only Anglicised gentry could profit from the benefits the new laws brought. It took until 1993 to repeal some of these laws.