Caramel [Hetalia: France/England genderswap]
Six in the morning was brittle and thin, and England was thinking of excuses.
It wasn't that she felt the need to explain why they had ended up like this, no, that was simple: France was a vain tart with low standards, and England did not get enough propositions to afford being picky. There was no need to account for what had transpired the night before; that was as natural as any need driving the human body. There was nothing about it to be denied - in fact, it provided the simplest of answers. Sure enough, England liked to assert a modicum of taste and France would make the same claim and mean the opposite, but lust was lust and it had been undeniably present with both of them.
What the purely carnal failed to explain, however, was that rather than kicking France to the bed, England was watching her sleep. The early morning light was filtered through translucent clouds and the unwashed glass of her bedroom windows, but even without poetic sunlight bringing warmth to the picture, France somehow managed to look like something out of a banal romantic painting. A naked arm was resting on the white sheet and curled under her head and her face was mostly buried in the pillow; of course France would claim instant posession of any bed she laid in. The tan waves of her hair were impossibly well-behaved where they fell around her head and shoulders, hardly a strand of it out of place or stuck somewhere where France would hurt herself pulling it out once she moved. England knew without having to look that her own hair was a rat's nest that would take all morning to untangle; thanks to the unexpected company last night, she had neglected to braid it before bed. Mother Nature's blessings was just one item on the long list of things that divided the two of them. England had long since been forced to accept that it was futile for her to even think that she could be France's equal in that department. The solution had been to reject it entirely, and instead mock France for her vanity and her primping, her daily grooming, her expensive clothing and luxurious make-up. But now, still sore from France's hands against her sides and aching with the memory of France's thigh between her own, England found her old resentment absent, and replaced by something threateningly full and glowing, something insiduously whispering that France looked like everything she had ever wanted.
The Nation of Love looked the quintessence of a romantic morning after, even though the night before had been nothing of the sweetness you'd expect from the peace radiating from her slumber. She didn't look like she had been moaning her throat raw, she didn't sleep like a person who had been putting her mouth in places you would blush to mention. Intellectually, England knew that the mirage before her would shatter the moment France woke up and opened her mouth. Intellectually, England knew that it was futile to imagine that something would have changed between them, but that didn't stop a different part of her brain from supplying sketches of a different afternoon, a different tomorrow. For all her annoying personality, you couldn't deny that France's cream skin and honey hair made her the picture of perfect beauty, and England wondered if last night would have happened at all if they'd kept the lights on. The darkness was the very thing that made it possible to deny it or blame it on drink and dreams, but daylight would make any lie futile. The right thing to do would be to get out of bed before France woke up and then never talk about this again, but England knew that when she made a decision and moved to carry it out, the moment would shatter and everything would be as it always had been.
Strictly speaking, the polite thing to do would be for France to have gone home afterwards so that they could've pretended that this never happened, but manners, it was well known, was not something France wasted on persons deemed undeserving. The ugly task of deciding what last night meant had been left for England to shoulder alone, and England's mind was too full of France's presence, too preoccupied by the thick sweetness it inspired, to have any chance of thinking like herself.
She was only startled out of her thoughtless reveries when Globeflower and Bingo scattered in to discover sleeping Beauty, and gleefully dove for her hair. The gentle waves swept perfectly around the minscule bodies, and each strand was like a soft rope in their hands. They buried themselves in the locks, clearly finding their own kind of thoughtless delight in the way it fell around their bodies soft like water.
It was only because of how France would complain, England told herself as her fingers ached to join them, it was only to spare herself thirty minutes of howling later that she reached out to shoo the pixies away. Bingo willingly settled on the nightstand; Globeflower stubbornly kept her hold on a lock of hair wound around her torso. England had to pry it away, sending Globeflower spinning as a gentle yank rolled her out of the curl. It was as silky to the touch as it looked - light, cool and soft against her nervous fingertips.
France slept like a doll, and England's fingers curled tighter into her hair, finally free to touch the forbidden; breath quickening imperceptibly with the memory of those fine-cut tips brushing against taut nipples in the dark.
It had to be such a bother to keep it that way, no person could be born with hair that well-behaved. It looked like butter and felt like silk. England's thumb was gliding along a lock falling across France's cheek, and France stirred a second before blue eyes fluttered open.
England had a milisecond to panic, half a second to realise that she couldn't deny this and another half to accept that France, the unbeliever, would never believe that this wasn't what it had to look like. Finally, just as France's eyes grew clearer, a desperate course of action stood clear before her. England took the plunge, and told herself that this was to spare herself the arguments and accusations of delusion, that it was easier to pretend that this was about France's marvelous clevage and not about how France's stupid hair was being harassed by the pixies. The unthinkable catastrophe would be for France to somehow think that England had been playing with her hair like some lovesick idiot.
She settled her hand firmly against France's face and started leaning down. France was still beneath her, sluggishly staring as the words 'sleeping beauty' through England's head for a fleeting moment, as the pale light of dawn revealed all the milk-pale skin that the night had kept hidden. France's mouth was plump and full and England was a breath away from having it when France swung up an uncoordinated arm and shoved her away with a flat palm.
"Brush your teeth," she slurred, and everything fell apart in shards of sugar.
England had no qualms about trying to smother her with a pillow.
France's blouse was wrinkled after a night on the floor, but that was all that betrayed her at England's kitchen table, where she had condescended to eat toast with honey. The pixies were back, buzzing around her head and trying to tease strands and curls out of the tight grip of her hair clamp. France noticed and didn't notice; she twitched as Globeflower pulled out a curl, she shook her head as Bingo dug her hands into her locks and pulled with all the might her tiny body could muster.
England let pixies be this time, even though France was awake and increasingly perturbed. Her nose was still tender from its impact with France's hand, and the graceless outcome of her attempted seduction burned tender and ashamed. They had entered a truce as they sat down at the table, but a truce was no treaty, and England still resented France for everything that she was. The pixies bothered France, and England never denied herself pettiness when it came to her oldest enemy. It was, at any rate, much easier know that they followed a familiar trail. The ludicrous tenderness from the morning was all but gone, covered again by the syrupy annoyance that was the only thing England and France had ever been to each other. England shuddered to think that one night had been enough to make her try to forget that France was like boiled sugar: she left your kitchen a mess and what limited purpose she had was easily overruled by how the tiniest mistake when handling her would tear her out of your control, and she would stick to everything and be impossible to wash out.
The pixies eventually set their attention to the hair clamp, and a joint action successfully opened it. France cried out in shock as her hair fell loose around her head and shoulders. The clamp caught onto the ends of her hair for a second, before gravity pulled it clattering to the floor. Bingo and Globeflower cheered, but England finally felt some kind of pity onf France, who was helplessly turning around to stare at the thin air behind her shoulders. She'd lifted her hands in reflex and let them hanging in the air before her; her fingers were sticky with honey. England picked up the hair clamp and turned to find France scowling.
"How can you live in this ghost-infested house?"
"It's not haunted." France did not look convinced, but the loose hair changed her face enough to deprive her of the weight that flat stare would normally bear. France never wore her hair down, and the kitchen crusted over with the memory of six o'clock. That had been the fatal mistake - to see France asleep, incapable of pretenses and trickery. France never wore her hair down, and in the dim morning, England had seen a France so well hidden that no-one knew she existed. She forgot what insult she'd meant to answer with, and their well-practiced script went off the rails as her line went unsaid.
France turned back to contemplate her hands, the half-eaten toast, and made an usuccessful attempt at tossing her hair back. Finally, she sighed mournfully.
"I don't suppose you'd have the manners to put it back up?"
England should have told her to go wash her hands. She should have told her to that she was under no such oblitagion. She should have made fun of France's clearly malfunctioning acessories. She obeyed the request without a word. Her fingers tingled as she put the clamp between her teeth and buried both her hands in the thick, wheat waves. The strands fell easily apart between her fingers, with no trace of knots and tangles. It was so easy to shape it and form it, it obeyed in ways England's own hair never did. It had been centuries since the last time she'd touched another woman's hair like this, not since America had been little, and -
She looked down to discover that she had tied France's hair into a thick, stout braid, while France was sitting very still in her seat.
She yanked the clamp from her mouth and pinned the braid against the back of France's head, the motion so hurried that she didn't notice if it was even or not.
France didn't look at her when she sat back down, and not a word was said as France bit into the softened toast and England swallowed cornflakes without chewing. Globeflower and Bingo had disappeared into the garden.
France finished her food before England, and stood up to carry the dishes away. She went into the hallway after that, indubitably to judge England's job at putting up her hair in the mirror there. England intently did not turn around, and ate milk by spoonfulls.
"Your head looks like something that died in a ditch and was left there for a month."
Before England could retort to that in any kind, there were fingers lifting her hair back over her shoulders, and then the familiar pull of her brush - but different, gentle and and with a patience England never had to spare her hair. When the pins met resistance at the back of England's neck, they carefully wrestled out, and the brush set instead to work at the tips.
It was a time-consuming task, but France performed it without speaking or resting. She ran the brush and her fingers through the hair to comb out every knot and tangle, until she could run her fingers through England's hair like a sharp knife through soft butter. The only thing interrupting the silence was the steady thicking of the wall clock, and every curt beat counted a second, a minute too long of this unfamiliar gentleness.
France's part in this scene was to somehow ruin years it had taken England to grow out her hair, and England's was to protest France touching her person without permission. Neither was following the ancient agreed-upon direction, and inbetween the caresses of France's fingers, England was desperately trying to figure out how to get back to familiar territory. France finally pulled her hands away to walk around her and look at her critically. She reached up to unclasp the hair clamp, and shook her head a few times so that the braid disintegratedd into waves and gentle curls around her cheeks and over her shoulders, once again re-creating the strange from her bed that morning. Her face was unreadable, and England still hadn't done a thing to try and take control of where they were going.
She remained still as France once more started pulling at her hair, this time collecting it and twisting it in a practiced motion. The teeth of the clamp momentarily dug into England's skull, and then the entire weight of her hair was carried at the back of her head, leaving her neck and shoulders unnaturally bare.
"You know," said France, her voice distant in time and space, gentle like her hands brushing England's hair, "you should let big sister do your hair more often."
"What?" said England, and then had the sense to bark, "why?"
France should have been smirking, should have been making fun of her, should have been mocking her for everything she wasn't. Instead, she pulled at one of the loose locks of her hair, curled it around her finger in a gesture that on any other person would have been nervous. She looked England straight in the face, and the unhappy pull at her mouth was as unfamiliar as the way she looked without her hair pinned up, as the low quality of her words. "The way you went about my hair this morning certainly seems to say that you'd like to."
It wasn't about that England wailed inside but not out loud, because France didn't believe in pixies.
"It wasn't about that," she ground out as she shot out of her chair and carried her dishes away to send them clattering into the sink, "don't get conceited. I just wanted to see if what'd it take to make it tangle."
She drowned any answer France made with a hard stream of water against the stoneware and kept her back to the kitchen table as she did the dishes. England knew that the denial was futile, she knew that France only believed the things she wanted to believe. She would never hear the end of this; this foolishness would be lobbed at her in every conversation they'd have for the next five years. The only comfort was that it at least had passed without witnesses. If nothing else, her dignity could be salvaged through denial to third parties.
The heavy plates banged precariously against the metal of the sink. She felt like toffee apple, like a hatefully tender core protected only by a brittle crust that anyone could break. If she ever admitted to anything like the things that France thought that England had been thinking this morning, if France ever caught any idea of what was running through England's head in the dim light of the day beginning, then the last thousand years would have been for nought, and every heavy piece of pride that she had hauled along with her and heaped onto the walls around her would be reduced to rubble, and mean nothing.
That was a price so heavy that England had never even considered parting with it.
She turned around to make sure France understood exactly where she was standing on this issue, but the table was empty. England set out for the hallways without knowing why, but stopped short as she caught the sight of herself in the mirror. Just like France, she looked like a different person with her hair pulled away from her face.
She raised a hand to release the hair clamp, to let her hair lose and return herself. But the events of the morning were clinging like melted sugar, and there was something like magic in how England never had noticed her own face like that before. Of course she hadn't really changed, and so there was no need for her to return to a person she still was. You can't just turn someone into a new person with a new hairdo, and somewhere out there, France was probably out being her infuriationg self even with her hair all down. England could still feel the ecchoes of France's fingers in her hair as she tried to grasp the hair clamp one more time, and again, some silly part of her wanted to keep the only reminder of the morning's bizarre tenderness. She didn't even try to squelch it.
Instead, she left the clamp in her hair, and returned to sit at the now empty kitchen table while she tried to remember the France that she absolutely couldn't stand.
England pulled strands of hair out of her brush, and ached.