[Fanfiction] Which We Dare Not Invoke
Title: Which We Dare Not Invoke
Fandom: Axis Powers Hetalia
Genre(s): Historical/General/Smut
Character(s)|Pairing(s): fem!England/fem!Prussia
Prompt: “Genderbent England/Prussia femmeslash. They both get drunk while recounting past glories. One thing leads to another and... well.”
Rating/Warning(s): NC-17, graphic sexual content, violence, profanity
Word Count: 4,036
Summary: After the Napoleonic Wars, they sit down to toast each other and let the ghosts of good and ill hover over their shoulders.
Notes: Written for the Hetalia Rare Pairs Challenge. An inversion of a previous fic I wrote, “ Devil Sticks,” by genderbending Prussia along with England.
What Prussia would never admit to anyone:
She knows they, countries, can die. It’s not the hard part, actually. Staying dead is what doesn’t work, well, depending on the situation. Her own father killed Rome. Rome. So she shouldn’t be surprised when Holy Roman Empire followed his namesake (why in Hell did they name him that?). But what does surprise her is how scared she was when she saw his corpse, how scared she still is at the memory of his blank blue eyes. Blue eyes on a detached head on a pile of limbs, all stacked up in a box. She wakes up wanting to scream but she can’t because her jaw locks tighter than a nun’s knees.
Neither of them had worn dresses to the official signings and neither had they relieved themselves of their attire even within the close, private luxury of England’s room.
Prussia’s shirt hung open in thoughtless disarray, almost baring her breasts, or at least, the bandages she wore wrapped about her admittedly small breasts. She wore the full regalia of a Captain still, though she had long abandoned her plumed hat. Her gloved fingers idly held her cards and she gazed at England with hooded red-violet eyes. Eyes as mad as a goshawk’s, eyes more luminous than dusk on endless water, fringed with sparse, pale lashes; these were eyes that might inspire poetry of the disturbing kind (or was it too early for that?).
England wore the garb of an Admiral still, as close and heavy as it was. Her slender shoulders bore all the weight of it, the epaulettes and medals and gold braid and dignity and tradition. Though she looked like a boy at first glance (hair without powder and newly trimmed and its bright blue silk ribbon doing nothing to lend softness or femininity to her), she had the bearing of someone far older, perhaps beyond mere distinctions of “male” and “female.” She smiled faintly and exhaled a long plume of smoke, a cigarette held between two fingers. The bright green of her eyes automatically lent her a feline quality, a quietly predatory air.
“When are you ever going to become a lady, Prussia?” she asked, rhetorically.
The other female laughed coarsely, smoke-roughened voice the aural equivalent of burlap and old metal. “So you can court me, England?”
“I have dealt with worse.” England set down her cards and rubbed her ear with her free hand. A little dimple marred the fleshy part of the lobe. “But not by much.”
Prussia stared down at the pair of Queens and the pair of tens. She nonchalantly put down her own hand on the green felt, grin blossoming across her face like a flame consuming paper. Three Kings and a pair of sevens stared blankly up at England.
“Hellfires,” growled the shorter woman, brow furrowing.
Prussia laughed, hoarse and coarse, as she took the pot, fingers caressing England’s fine antique snuffbox and the watch inset upon its lid.
“Keep it if you want,” said the island kingdom as she gathered up the cards again to shuffle them. “It’s a useless thing.”
Prussia opened the gilt and lavender enamel creation, gazing at the collection of the pale snuff within it and at the delicate, spindly engraving upon the lid. The first line had been long scratched out, rather crudely and deeply in the gold, but the next lines said, “Avec des bénédictions.”
“You got this from France,” Prussia said.
“Took it off her,” replied England as she dealt a new hand of cards.
“Just this?” Prussia closed the box without much care and picked up the new hand.
England shrugged carelessly. “Oh, some other things too. Trifles.”
“Modesty isn’t you, England,” snorted Prussia.
The corners of other female’s lips curved upwards. “Oh?”
Another snort was the only response offered. They silently considered their cards for a little longer. Prussia spoke first.
“You have anything left to bet?”
“More than you would imagine,” replied England. She poured another round of cherry spirits, almost dropping the bottle as her wrist spasmed violently.
Prussia laughed. “I can’t believe you broke that wrist tripping over your own damn boots.”
“My idiot valet,” growled England.
“Two and don’t bother blaming servants for it. Do your own shit yourself.” Prussia slid over two cards. England exchanged one for herself.
She then tossed two gold guineas onto the grass green felt, the coins making muffled thumps. “No wonder your uniform never fits and you look like a stableboy.”
“You don’t wear yours right. Not that yours can even be called a uniform.” Prussia set the snuffbox back, making England blink several times. “You think I use this shit?” laughed Prussia. “Shoving powder up your nose- were you the idiot who thought of that?”
“Spain actually,” replied England. “And you are hardly the icon of simplicity.”
“But can you fight in yours?”
“Probably better than you can.”
Prussia slammed her cards facedown on the table and swallowed down her glass of brandy, a grin contorting her mouth. England added half a dozen shillings to the pot mutely.
“You can’t fight for shit,” said Prussia, out of old habitual bravado.
“Tell me whose country ended up under France’s control.”
“Naval warfare doesn’t count. Old Fritz didn’t see any use in it. The army is the only way.”
“I knew you were going to invoke him,” muttered England as Prussia tossed in a small but heavy leather bag. It thumped and skidded against the felt and its rotting string snapped, spilling out heavy little thalers.
“And if you say any more shit about him, I’ll gut you.” Oddly, Prussia’s voice was almost pleasant, though her disquieting eyes held no mirth.
“Hard to believe he was such a good warlord,” said England neutrally. “I would have given him asylum, probably. If he had made it.”
Prussia’s smile never more resembled the baring of fangs. “But it didn’t happen that way. Now are you going to fold?”
“Call,” replied England, crushing her cigarette into a heavy glass dish at her elbow.
Prussia didn’t curse when England reclaimed the snuffbox along with the pot after a lazy exchange of calls and raises. She just drummed her fingers impatiently along the edge of the table until the cards were handed back to her. Her thin, nervous hands straightened the stiff parchment pieces almost fastidiously before shuffling them. England unbent enough to take her long, gleaming hasp knife to hack off the cracked wax seal atop a bottle of port, prying out its cork and pouring out the first glass for Prussia. The pale-haired country took the glass and sipped it, eyes still noting her companion slipping the snuffbox into an inner pocket far too carefully.
“You sleep with that at night?” Prussia asked with a wide grin.
England’s hand tightened on the dark glass bottle and a single drop of dark port splashed onto the green felt. The stain spread out tiny little tendrils. She put down the bottle with exaggerated slowness.
“It’s not worth betting,” retorted England.
“But you put it in earlier.” Prussia dealt the cards.
“I changed my mind.”
“Typical.”
They contemplated their hands, Prussia breaking the weighty silence with, “You’re not much of an ally, you two timing bitch.” She said this with little anger, with perfect friendliness if anything.
“Oh?” England’s expression had not changed from poised neutrality, though the tiniest of wrinkles had formed between her dark eyebrows.
“You ran out on Austria during the Silesian Wars. And what help you were during the Seven Years.”
England plucked two cards from her hand and slid them across the table. “It is not as though we were wed, in both times,” she replied evenly. “And I kept to my side of our particular agreement.”
“You joined the damned wars because of France. That’s the only damn reason why you join any of them.”
England then smiled but the expression stopped short of her sharp green eyes as she said, acid-sweet, “It is not as though I lie about that.” She arched her eyebrows. “Don’t throw those cards. You will find that they do not fly well.”
Prussia threw the two cards anyways. The parchment fluttered and fell short, though England managed to catch one in midair. Luckily, the other card had landed face down and she pulled it towards her.
“Obsessive bitch,” said Prussia.
To her surprise, England chuckled. Granted, the laugh had little of genuine humor or amusement, but it was something of a laugh. It had the same intonations, the same rise and fall.
“Says the one who makes eyes at Austria every chance she gets,” replied England. But the remark had struck home. Anger flared sharply in her brilliant eyes.
Prussia returned the gaze, easily matching the animosity. The two females remained locked like that, the world oozing around them and time playing its merry tricks on the mind and memory. Their hands fingered the hilt of a glittering saber or the holster of an almost purely ornamental pistol. One more- one more-
Then the two of them started laughing, this time in sudden manic good humor.
Brandy and port still coursed through their veins, after all, bottles of fine vintages that the two of them idly or mindfully stored away for that day. You drank that one last bottle of a good year or good vintage when the worst was to come or if it had already haunted your doorstep (and you had promptly kicked it between the legs and sent it scurrying or crawling away in pain). They both still had their aches because though they had won, they had let enough time pass by to start feeling the pain of the cost.
“I can almost like you anyways,” Prussia said. “Even if this port isn’t worth horse’s piss.”
“Horse’s piss is what you call brandy. No matter how much cherry juice you try to mix with it,” said England.
They both leaned in their chairs, their poses scandalous with their spread legs and red mouths. Not sipping from their heavy-bottomed glasses actually let what liquor they had so readily swallowed settle in their bodies, muddle their minds proper. It ran through their veins, laughing and dulling some senses but brightening others.
At this point, their card game had been forgotten though England scraped the edge of the table with a card idly, flipping it over and tossing it onto the felt. The Queen of Hearts stared up at her blankly, rendered in red and black and yellow. She flipped the visage over and flicked the card away from her. Her gloved fingers drifted over to her newest medal and brushed against its plain silver surface.
Prussia had pulled over the bottle of port and currently sniffed at it in long, snuffling breaths. England’s eyes fixed on the country’s nose, which was still crooked from two slowly healing breaks.
“Did France actually do that?” asked England idly.
Prussia touched the uneven bridge of her hawkish nose and her mouth twisted unpleasantly. “Maybe,” she replied, unable to keep the sullenness from her voice.
And yet the unpleasant sneer of the lips turned back to the characteristic grin. “But I got to break hers during the Seven Years War. That was sweet.” Putting down the alcohol and pushing it away, she stretched like a cat in her seat, boots coming up to balance on the card table as she pushed back her chair to accommodate her legs.
“Ah, so it was you who did that. Thank you for that. Not that it mattered in the end.” They shared a momentary expression of longsuffering irritation at the injustice of it all, England touching along the faintest bump along the bridge of her own nose.
“You gave her the limp,” said Prussia. “That long scar along the inside of her thigh.”
“Not that one. That would have been…” Gathering memories was at once easier and harder under the haze of liquor. England grasped for a date and name. “Actually… I don’t recall her having one.”
“Not you, then?”
“No.” Then England’s brow furrowed. “How do you know about it then?”
Prussia clicked her teeth together sharply a few times. England nodded slowly.
“The last time I saw her naked would have been…” Fingers drummed along the card table, trying to grasp at memory. “Right after the Seven Years War.”
“Was it any good?”
England shrugged. “When she stopped trying to gouge out my eyes.” She traced her throat with her thumb idly before reaching out to pick up the bottle of port, taking a generous swallow. “She didn’t have a scar there.” Her eyes stared hard into the depths of the bottle. “And why are we talking about that bitch, anyways?” she demanded.
“You started it,” Prussia replied.
She got to her feet to stalk over get the bottle. Her strides did not stumble or sway; she walked too firmly for that (like a man, or more than a man, the way they both stepped in their heavy boots). But she still let her hands fall upon England’s shoulders and gripped like the talons of a nervous peregrine.
It could have ended nastily for both of them, but the bottle did not lash out in an unconscious reaction, astonishingly. Coming from war had always been more difficult than going to it, though both were as nervy and touchy as the raptor from which Prussia took her emblem. The two of them had never been good with casual contact. England stared up at her drinking companion and her lips, now flushed like the rest of her face, turned upwards into a smile. The look had none of the charm of France’s brilliant, dazzling expressions that allured man and woman alike. It had none of the blithe sweetness of Spain or the childish good humor of Italy (the northern brother).
No, this was the smile that Prussia wore quite often herself.
She leaned in to kiss the smirking lips, tasting the thick cloying sweetness that England called alcohol. The other’s mouth also tasted sickeningly bitter from the tobacco she smoked, like ashes and burnt sugar mixed with rotting soil. After the second kiss, Prussia decided that it wasn’t all too bad, because she had gotten a brief taste of the sea. It had the flat saltiness of blood, the coarse grit of rusting metal, the wild sharpness of a storm’s end.
Their third kiss bruised each other’s lips and they fought to draw the first blood with snapping jaws and gnashing teeth. England won, her mouth latching onto Prussia’s swelling lower lip and forcing out a steady trickle of blood from the abrasion. Gloved fingers tangled into barely tamed sandy hair, a curse in German punctuating the air. The fingers pulled cruelly, England’s mouth opening in a yelp of pain as the fine silk ribbon in her hair gave up the ghost and her tangled, uneven curls hung free and unfettered.
They stared at each other then, blood smeared on both their lips like grotesque cosmetics. Then the green-eyed kingdom shoved Prussia away from her, standing up unsteadily. “Be damned if I let you get me out of this,” she grumbled as she slid off her coat and hung it with care over the back of her chair. The medals clanged against each other and against the wood.
Prussia watched the other woman fumble with the many little buttons on her waistcoat in sardonic amusement. She stepped forward once again, seized either side of the garment and pulled sharply. Brass buttons flew everywhere, making sharp noises as they landed on the ground and rolled to all corners of the room. She should have expected the blow to her ear.
“Bitch,” snapped England, already at work with ruthlessly stripping away Prussia’s uniform. She couldn’t do much damage to the heavy wool of the officer’s coat but she threw it down thoughtlessly onto the floor anyways.
“You can get another one, with all the money you have,” laughed the other country. She seized England’s face in both her hands and bit both her lips, dealing two wounds for one. Her head tilted back just in time to prevent a third break to her nose by way of England’s incoming brow and she laughed again.
Somehow, they stumbled to the bedroom, shedding clothing (or strips of clothing) along the way. England fell first onto the bed before she sat up to yank off her boots. Prussia, too used to freeing herself from cumbrous footwear, pinned her to the mattress as soon as the second boot hit the floor.
England had left a candle in here, protected in a glass. It only offered the barest glimpses of each other, only making shadows seem to have more shadows. But that was enough for them. England snarled a string of coarse curses as she struggled under Prussia’s grip, a grip as hard as iron.
The Words England would never say to Prussia:
Prussia has the raw beauty of pale cliff, an intense and lupine face. The other woman does not need powder, not when her hair is an unearthly pale blonde, a color almost silver and almost white. She has beauty that terrifies instead of soothes, beauty that no court painter would ever approach for a model. Oh, perhaps one whimsical, mad artist seeking a figure for one of the Furies would try to seek out Prussia. Yes, the Furies. Or Nemesis. Or a wild, terrifying Artemis murdering Actaeon herself.
Even by the dim light of the candle in its clear prison, one could make out the frightening, disquieting hue of Prussia’s eyes. They seemed red, true red. And though England had given up on religion long ago, paid only lip service to a pompous, stolid church, she looked into the gleaming garnet colored eyes and for a moment, saw demons dancing. But only for a moment, because demons were demons and Prussia was human, as human as she was (“How human was that?” one could only wonder). Besides, the unholy eyes blinked, quickly, and wide, thin-lipped mouth opened in a gaping but all too human grin.
“You scared?” sneered the kingdom. But she didn’t wait for an answer, not as she bit hard into England’s neck. She cursed as the country beneath her shifted sharply another way and teeth collided against bone instead of flesh.
“Not of you,” growled England. She yelped again as Prussia bit into her shoulder, worrying what flesh there was there. The other female’s jaws worked as though eating a particularly tough steak.
“You should be.”
England tossed her head. “Never,” she laughed. She hissed as teeth grazed along her nipple without ceremony or warning before biting down hard. “Bitch!”
But Prussia didn’t reply. Her tongue traced over the tip of the nub held between her teeth, hot and wet and faintly rough. England hissed again, folding up one of her legs. Her knee collided into Prussia’s abdomen. The blow was not as hard as it could be but it had just enough force behind it to surprise the other female. One moment was all that it took and she scrambled out from beneath her opponent, panting and gingerly touching at her abused nipple.
Prussia chuckled hoarsely, voice dark with wry amusement. “You’re wet as the Rhine. I can tell.”
“You smell it out like a true bitch, then.”
Their lips met, not because they cared for each other or needed each other, but because the other one was there and there were things that they could do in darkness with drink and memory and pain that needed no explanation at all. They could brandish their own brands of arrogance at each other, sharper and more pointed, but still… it was only because they recognized each other. Two hands reached out almost simultaneously, going between legs and delving past slick folds without ceremony. No gentleness, no tenderness, because neither of them wanted that.
Prussia ruthlessly thrust two fingers into England, not having stripped off her gloves by this time. Her fingers twisted, leather rubbing against intimate flesh, in retaliation for the sensation of cracked, rough fingernails scraping against the same places (a sailor’s life was cruel to fine hands, as was any real work). Despite having the satisfaction of hearing the other country gasp, she bit her lower lip as England’s thumb rubbed against a pinpoint of nerves, tracing around the nub but not quite touching it. They pretended that they did not need to lean against each other as their fingers worked, tormenting and pleasing and exploring.
Both of them panted, low and shallow. England ducked her head to return a bite to the throat, teeth nipping at sun roughened skin. Prussia only seemed as pale as milk; she was nowhere near as soft. Her flesh seemed to retain the taste of gunpowder and charcoal, the mud of a churned up battlefield. Land, not firmament or sea, because she was a soldier at heart and to the bone.
Prussia succumbed first, body shuddering as England trailed her tongue along a nipple just as her thumb flicked the little nub between Prussia’s legs, quickly and almost too harshly. Her inner walls tightened around the bare, rough fingers and she sagged slightly, biting her lower lip as to not make a sound. She tasted blood as she reopened the closing cut.
Perhaps it was England who pushed Prussia down in the next moments or Prussia pulled England forwards, but they ended up in a tangle of limbs on the bed in any case. They paused briefly, about to make the first move without conscious thought. Their breaths briefly synchronized and the candlelight slowly faded.
In the growing darkness, England reached down to put her head at Prussia’s breast, her ear brushing against the pocked skin of an old burn. She fought down a shiver as leather gloved hands found their way between her legs again and rubbed there in long scraping swipes. Not like caressing a lover, not even like stroking the head of a beloved dog or horse. Her hips shifted and she bucked against the fingers that teased her thoughtlessly, hissing in satisfaction, then annoyance as one slipped into her and didn’t move. Frustrated, she moved her hips against the gloved hand, mindlessly.
Prussia laughed hoarsely. England bit along the still soft, still tender skin at her breasts in retaliation. She gasped as a second finger joined the first and twisted in her, curling and scissoring. Her hips shifted and she left marks that would bloom brilliantly red against Prussia’s pale torso in the morning.
There was no use in telling each other that they weren’t enemies, that they were allies. They wouldn’t listen, not Prussia who knew no reason, not England who had long memory (and also knew no reason, deep down inside). In the dark, who knew what they saw or imagined?
England shuddered, exhaling sharply and letting out a low sound, not quite a moan. She fell against Prussia and bit at the gloved fingers that forced themselves into her mouth. Despite the fact that it was now pitch black, England glared anyways and pulled the fingers away herself, getting off the other country to settle against the bed properly. Either of them might have then chuckled, a low rasping sound that seemed more like a growl. In the darkness, they slipped into dreamless slumber without another word.
It was in the morning that England showed rare good humor after they had salvaged their clothes from the floor.
“It’s another day,” she said, smiling with closed lips but her eyes glinting.
Prussia grunted as she raked her fingers through her hair. “Of course it is. Get me another pair of gloves. You ruined this set.”
What England ended up doing:
A few months later, Prussia received a silk covered box from London’s best tailors. It contained half a dozen pairs of ladies’ gloves trimmed in lace.
What Prussia did in response:
She gave the princely gift to the kennels and decided that one particularly vicious pup deserved the name “Albion.” As she watched the dog rip apart the fragile material like parchment, she resolved to send it as a belated return present. It was only fair.
Author’s Notes:
-Though Prussia did have access to the coastline and did have a navy (of sorts), Frederick the Great deemed it unnecessary to have any sort of navy and focused on land-based warfare (though he did set up a basic sort of Coast Guard, to help and protect merchant ships). It was a smart move considering the seas were dominated by England, Sweden, the Netherlands, and Spain, and trying to match their navies would be monumentally stupid. Besides, I like the thought of Prussia being very ill at ease around water (probably drowned at least once and was more traumatized by it than he would ever care to admit).
-Port is fortified wine, or wine that has had additional alcohol added to it usually in form of distilled spirits, that comes from Portugal (hence the name). Generally port is served as a dessert wine because of its sweetness. It became popular in England with a trade treaty between England and Portugal in the 1700s and when France stopped shipping its wine. Prussia drinks cherry brandy (specifically Kirshvasser or vasser, traditionally made from sour cherries) when not drinking beer. It says something Prussia’s alcohol tolerance to be able to down quite a bit of it, considering that it’s traditionally served in little glasses before or after meals.
-Poker was a quite popular game played at this time, as referenced in Jane Austen’s works.
-Tobacco smoking had been popular in Europe for several centuries at this point, and snuff was introduced to Spain in the 1500s as medicine. It quickly became popular for aristocrats and later for sailors (because smoking on a ship is not a particularly bright idea).
- Artemis murdering Actaeon herself: In reference to the Greek myth of a hunter being turned into a stag and ripped apart by his own hounds. This also would have been the period of a renewed interest in Greek and Roman Classics and the Neoclassic movement.
-An apparently deluded friend of a friend remarked that lesbian sex is the only form of nonviolent sex. I beg to differ. Then again, I wrote England and Prussia more like men in women’s bodies (the only way I can picture Prussia, who doesn’t lend easily to genderbending at all). I apologize to anyone amongst my readers who in fact have the experience I feign to have in writing erotica. -head meets desk-
-On that note, I apologize for the lack of the bragging and somewhat more positive reminiscence; it somehow ended up being a lot angrier than anything else.
Fandom: Axis Powers Hetalia
Genre(s): Historical/General/Smut
Character(s)|Pairing(s): fem!England/fem!Prussia
Prompt: “Genderbent England/Prussia femmeslash. They both get drunk while recounting past glories. One thing leads to another and... well.”
Rating/Warning(s): NC-17, graphic sexual content, violence, profanity
Word Count: 4,036
Summary: After the Napoleonic Wars, they sit down to toast each other and let the ghosts of good and ill hover over their shoulders.
Notes: Written for the Hetalia Rare Pairs Challenge. An inversion of a previous fic I wrote, “ Devil Sticks,” by genderbending Prussia along with England.
What Prussia would never admit to anyone:
She knows they, countries, can die. It’s not the hard part, actually. Staying dead is what doesn’t work, well, depending on the situation. Her own father killed Rome. Rome. So she shouldn’t be surprised when Holy Roman Empire followed his namesake (why in Hell did they name him that?). But what does surprise her is how scared she was when she saw his corpse, how scared she still is at the memory of his blank blue eyes. Blue eyes on a detached head on a pile of limbs, all stacked up in a box. She wakes up wanting to scream but she can’t because her jaw locks tighter than a nun’s knees.
Neither of them had worn dresses to the official signings and neither had they relieved themselves of their attire even within the close, private luxury of England’s room.
Prussia’s shirt hung open in thoughtless disarray, almost baring her breasts, or at least, the bandages she wore wrapped about her admittedly small breasts. She wore the full regalia of a Captain still, though she had long abandoned her plumed hat. Her gloved fingers idly held her cards and she gazed at England with hooded red-violet eyes. Eyes as mad as a goshawk’s, eyes more luminous than dusk on endless water, fringed with sparse, pale lashes; these were eyes that might inspire poetry of the disturbing kind (or was it too early for that?).
England wore the garb of an Admiral still, as close and heavy as it was. Her slender shoulders bore all the weight of it, the epaulettes and medals and gold braid and dignity and tradition. Though she looked like a boy at first glance (hair without powder and newly trimmed and its bright blue silk ribbon doing nothing to lend softness or femininity to her), she had the bearing of someone far older, perhaps beyond mere distinctions of “male” and “female.” She smiled faintly and exhaled a long plume of smoke, a cigarette held between two fingers. The bright green of her eyes automatically lent her a feline quality, a quietly predatory air.
“When are you ever going to become a lady, Prussia?” she asked, rhetorically.
The other female laughed coarsely, smoke-roughened voice the aural equivalent of burlap and old metal. “So you can court me, England?”
“I have dealt with worse.” England set down her cards and rubbed her ear with her free hand. A little dimple marred the fleshy part of the lobe. “But not by much.”
Prussia stared down at the pair of Queens and the pair of tens. She nonchalantly put down her own hand on the green felt, grin blossoming across her face like a flame consuming paper. Three Kings and a pair of sevens stared blankly up at England.
“Hellfires,” growled the shorter woman, brow furrowing.
Prussia laughed, hoarse and coarse, as she took the pot, fingers caressing England’s fine antique snuffbox and the watch inset upon its lid.
“Keep it if you want,” said the island kingdom as she gathered up the cards again to shuffle them. “It’s a useless thing.”
Prussia opened the gilt and lavender enamel creation, gazing at the collection of the pale snuff within it and at the delicate, spindly engraving upon the lid. The first line had been long scratched out, rather crudely and deeply in the gold, but the next lines said, “Avec des bénédictions.”
“You got this from France,” Prussia said.
“Took it off her,” replied England as she dealt a new hand of cards.
“Just this?” Prussia closed the box without much care and picked up the new hand.
England shrugged carelessly. “Oh, some other things too. Trifles.”
“Modesty isn’t you, England,” snorted Prussia.
The corners of other female’s lips curved upwards. “Oh?”
Another snort was the only response offered. They silently considered their cards for a little longer. Prussia spoke first.
“You have anything left to bet?”
“More than you would imagine,” replied England. She poured another round of cherry spirits, almost dropping the bottle as her wrist spasmed violently.
Prussia laughed. “I can’t believe you broke that wrist tripping over your own damn boots.”
“My idiot valet,” growled England.
“Two and don’t bother blaming servants for it. Do your own shit yourself.” Prussia slid over two cards. England exchanged one for herself.
She then tossed two gold guineas onto the grass green felt, the coins making muffled thumps. “No wonder your uniform never fits and you look like a stableboy.”
“You don’t wear yours right. Not that yours can even be called a uniform.” Prussia set the snuffbox back, making England blink several times. “You think I use this shit?” laughed Prussia. “Shoving powder up your nose- were you the idiot who thought of that?”
“Spain actually,” replied England. “And you are hardly the icon of simplicity.”
“But can you fight in yours?”
“Probably better than you can.”
Prussia slammed her cards facedown on the table and swallowed down her glass of brandy, a grin contorting her mouth. England added half a dozen shillings to the pot mutely.
“You can’t fight for shit,” said Prussia, out of old habitual bravado.
“Tell me whose country ended up under France’s control.”
“Naval warfare doesn’t count. Old Fritz didn’t see any use in it. The army is the only way.”
“I knew you were going to invoke him,” muttered England as Prussia tossed in a small but heavy leather bag. It thumped and skidded against the felt and its rotting string snapped, spilling out heavy little thalers.
“And if you say any more shit about him, I’ll gut you.” Oddly, Prussia’s voice was almost pleasant, though her disquieting eyes held no mirth.
“Hard to believe he was such a good warlord,” said England neutrally. “I would have given him asylum, probably. If he had made it.”
Prussia’s smile never more resembled the baring of fangs. “But it didn’t happen that way. Now are you going to fold?”
“Call,” replied England, crushing her cigarette into a heavy glass dish at her elbow.
Prussia didn’t curse when England reclaimed the snuffbox along with the pot after a lazy exchange of calls and raises. She just drummed her fingers impatiently along the edge of the table until the cards were handed back to her. Her thin, nervous hands straightened the stiff parchment pieces almost fastidiously before shuffling them. England unbent enough to take her long, gleaming hasp knife to hack off the cracked wax seal atop a bottle of port, prying out its cork and pouring out the first glass for Prussia. The pale-haired country took the glass and sipped it, eyes still noting her companion slipping the snuffbox into an inner pocket far too carefully.
“You sleep with that at night?” Prussia asked with a wide grin.
England’s hand tightened on the dark glass bottle and a single drop of dark port splashed onto the green felt. The stain spread out tiny little tendrils. She put down the bottle with exaggerated slowness.
“It’s not worth betting,” retorted England.
“But you put it in earlier.” Prussia dealt the cards.
“I changed my mind.”
“Typical.”
They contemplated their hands, Prussia breaking the weighty silence with, “You’re not much of an ally, you two timing bitch.” She said this with little anger, with perfect friendliness if anything.
“Oh?” England’s expression had not changed from poised neutrality, though the tiniest of wrinkles had formed between her dark eyebrows.
“You ran out on Austria during the Silesian Wars. And what help you were during the Seven Years.”
England plucked two cards from her hand and slid them across the table. “It is not as though we were wed, in both times,” she replied evenly. “And I kept to my side of our particular agreement.”
“You joined the damned wars because of France. That’s the only damn reason why you join any of them.”
England then smiled but the expression stopped short of her sharp green eyes as she said, acid-sweet, “It is not as though I lie about that.” She arched her eyebrows. “Don’t throw those cards. You will find that they do not fly well.”
Prussia threw the two cards anyways. The parchment fluttered and fell short, though England managed to catch one in midair. Luckily, the other card had landed face down and she pulled it towards her.
“Obsessive bitch,” said Prussia.
To her surprise, England chuckled. Granted, the laugh had little of genuine humor or amusement, but it was something of a laugh. It had the same intonations, the same rise and fall.
“Says the one who makes eyes at Austria every chance she gets,” replied England. But the remark had struck home. Anger flared sharply in her brilliant eyes.
Prussia returned the gaze, easily matching the animosity. The two females remained locked like that, the world oozing around them and time playing its merry tricks on the mind and memory. Their hands fingered the hilt of a glittering saber or the holster of an almost purely ornamental pistol. One more- one more-
Then the two of them started laughing, this time in sudden manic good humor.
Brandy and port still coursed through their veins, after all, bottles of fine vintages that the two of them idly or mindfully stored away for that day. You drank that one last bottle of a good year or good vintage when the worst was to come or if it had already haunted your doorstep (and you had promptly kicked it between the legs and sent it scurrying or crawling away in pain). They both still had their aches because though they had won, they had let enough time pass by to start feeling the pain of the cost.
“I can almost like you anyways,” Prussia said. “Even if this port isn’t worth horse’s piss.”
“Horse’s piss is what you call brandy. No matter how much cherry juice you try to mix with it,” said England.
They both leaned in their chairs, their poses scandalous with their spread legs and red mouths. Not sipping from their heavy-bottomed glasses actually let what liquor they had so readily swallowed settle in their bodies, muddle their minds proper. It ran through their veins, laughing and dulling some senses but brightening others.
At this point, their card game had been forgotten though England scraped the edge of the table with a card idly, flipping it over and tossing it onto the felt. The Queen of Hearts stared up at her blankly, rendered in red and black and yellow. She flipped the visage over and flicked the card away from her. Her gloved fingers drifted over to her newest medal and brushed against its plain silver surface.
Prussia had pulled over the bottle of port and currently sniffed at it in long, snuffling breaths. England’s eyes fixed on the country’s nose, which was still crooked from two slowly healing breaks.
“Did France actually do that?” asked England idly.
Prussia touched the uneven bridge of her hawkish nose and her mouth twisted unpleasantly. “Maybe,” she replied, unable to keep the sullenness from her voice.
And yet the unpleasant sneer of the lips turned back to the characteristic grin. “But I got to break hers during the Seven Years War. That was sweet.” Putting down the alcohol and pushing it away, she stretched like a cat in her seat, boots coming up to balance on the card table as she pushed back her chair to accommodate her legs.
“Ah, so it was you who did that. Thank you for that. Not that it mattered in the end.” They shared a momentary expression of longsuffering irritation at the injustice of it all, England touching along the faintest bump along the bridge of her own nose.
“You gave her the limp,” said Prussia. “That long scar along the inside of her thigh.”
“Not that one. That would have been…” Gathering memories was at once easier and harder under the haze of liquor. England grasped for a date and name. “Actually… I don’t recall her having one.”
“Not you, then?”
“No.” Then England’s brow furrowed. “How do you know about it then?”
Prussia clicked her teeth together sharply a few times. England nodded slowly.
“The last time I saw her naked would have been…” Fingers drummed along the card table, trying to grasp at memory. “Right after the Seven Years War.”
“Was it any good?”
England shrugged. “When she stopped trying to gouge out my eyes.” She traced her throat with her thumb idly before reaching out to pick up the bottle of port, taking a generous swallow. “She didn’t have a scar there.” Her eyes stared hard into the depths of the bottle. “And why are we talking about that bitch, anyways?” she demanded.
“You started it,” Prussia replied.
She got to her feet to stalk over get the bottle. Her strides did not stumble or sway; she walked too firmly for that (like a man, or more than a man, the way they both stepped in their heavy boots). But she still let her hands fall upon England’s shoulders and gripped like the talons of a nervous peregrine.
It could have ended nastily for both of them, but the bottle did not lash out in an unconscious reaction, astonishingly. Coming from war had always been more difficult than going to it, though both were as nervy and touchy as the raptor from which Prussia took her emblem. The two of them had never been good with casual contact. England stared up at her drinking companion and her lips, now flushed like the rest of her face, turned upwards into a smile. The look had none of the charm of France’s brilliant, dazzling expressions that allured man and woman alike. It had none of the blithe sweetness of Spain or the childish good humor of Italy (the northern brother).
No, this was the smile that Prussia wore quite often herself.
She leaned in to kiss the smirking lips, tasting the thick cloying sweetness that England called alcohol. The other’s mouth also tasted sickeningly bitter from the tobacco she smoked, like ashes and burnt sugar mixed with rotting soil. After the second kiss, Prussia decided that it wasn’t all too bad, because she had gotten a brief taste of the sea. It had the flat saltiness of blood, the coarse grit of rusting metal, the wild sharpness of a storm’s end.
Their third kiss bruised each other’s lips and they fought to draw the first blood with snapping jaws and gnashing teeth. England won, her mouth latching onto Prussia’s swelling lower lip and forcing out a steady trickle of blood from the abrasion. Gloved fingers tangled into barely tamed sandy hair, a curse in German punctuating the air. The fingers pulled cruelly, England’s mouth opening in a yelp of pain as the fine silk ribbon in her hair gave up the ghost and her tangled, uneven curls hung free and unfettered.
They stared at each other then, blood smeared on both their lips like grotesque cosmetics. Then the green-eyed kingdom shoved Prussia away from her, standing up unsteadily. “Be damned if I let you get me out of this,” she grumbled as she slid off her coat and hung it with care over the back of her chair. The medals clanged against each other and against the wood.
Prussia watched the other woman fumble with the many little buttons on her waistcoat in sardonic amusement. She stepped forward once again, seized either side of the garment and pulled sharply. Brass buttons flew everywhere, making sharp noises as they landed on the ground and rolled to all corners of the room. She should have expected the blow to her ear.
“Bitch,” snapped England, already at work with ruthlessly stripping away Prussia’s uniform. She couldn’t do much damage to the heavy wool of the officer’s coat but she threw it down thoughtlessly onto the floor anyways.
“You can get another one, with all the money you have,” laughed the other country. She seized England’s face in both her hands and bit both her lips, dealing two wounds for one. Her head tilted back just in time to prevent a third break to her nose by way of England’s incoming brow and she laughed again.
Somehow, they stumbled to the bedroom, shedding clothing (or strips of clothing) along the way. England fell first onto the bed before she sat up to yank off her boots. Prussia, too used to freeing herself from cumbrous footwear, pinned her to the mattress as soon as the second boot hit the floor.
England had left a candle in here, protected in a glass. It only offered the barest glimpses of each other, only making shadows seem to have more shadows. But that was enough for them. England snarled a string of coarse curses as she struggled under Prussia’s grip, a grip as hard as iron.
The Words England would never say to Prussia:
Prussia has the raw beauty of pale cliff, an intense and lupine face. The other woman does not need powder, not when her hair is an unearthly pale blonde, a color almost silver and almost white. She has beauty that terrifies instead of soothes, beauty that no court painter would ever approach for a model. Oh, perhaps one whimsical, mad artist seeking a figure for one of the Furies would try to seek out Prussia. Yes, the Furies. Or Nemesis. Or a wild, terrifying Artemis murdering Actaeon herself.
Even by the dim light of the candle in its clear prison, one could make out the frightening, disquieting hue of Prussia’s eyes. They seemed red, true red. And though England had given up on religion long ago, paid only lip service to a pompous, stolid church, she looked into the gleaming garnet colored eyes and for a moment, saw demons dancing. But only for a moment, because demons were demons and Prussia was human, as human as she was (“How human was that?” one could only wonder). Besides, the unholy eyes blinked, quickly, and wide, thin-lipped mouth opened in a gaping but all too human grin.
“You scared?” sneered the kingdom. But she didn’t wait for an answer, not as she bit hard into England’s neck. She cursed as the country beneath her shifted sharply another way and teeth collided against bone instead of flesh.
“Not of you,” growled England. She yelped again as Prussia bit into her shoulder, worrying what flesh there was there. The other female’s jaws worked as though eating a particularly tough steak.
“You should be.”
England tossed her head. “Never,” she laughed. She hissed as teeth grazed along her nipple without ceremony or warning before biting down hard. “Bitch!”
But Prussia didn’t reply. Her tongue traced over the tip of the nub held between her teeth, hot and wet and faintly rough. England hissed again, folding up one of her legs. Her knee collided into Prussia’s abdomen. The blow was not as hard as it could be but it had just enough force behind it to surprise the other female. One moment was all that it took and she scrambled out from beneath her opponent, panting and gingerly touching at her abused nipple.
Prussia chuckled hoarsely, voice dark with wry amusement. “You’re wet as the Rhine. I can tell.”
“You smell it out like a true bitch, then.”
Their lips met, not because they cared for each other or needed each other, but because the other one was there and there were things that they could do in darkness with drink and memory and pain that needed no explanation at all. They could brandish their own brands of arrogance at each other, sharper and more pointed, but still… it was only because they recognized each other. Two hands reached out almost simultaneously, going between legs and delving past slick folds without ceremony. No gentleness, no tenderness, because neither of them wanted that.
Prussia ruthlessly thrust two fingers into England, not having stripped off her gloves by this time. Her fingers twisted, leather rubbing against intimate flesh, in retaliation for the sensation of cracked, rough fingernails scraping against the same places (a sailor’s life was cruel to fine hands, as was any real work). Despite having the satisfaction of hearing the other country gasp, she bit her lower lip as England’s thumb rubbed against a pinpoint of nerves, tracing around the nub but not quite touching it. They pretended that they did not need to lean against each other as their fingers worked, tormenting and pleasing and exploring.
Both of them panted, low and shallow. England ducked her head to return a bite to the throat, teeth nipping at sun roughened skin. Prussia only seemed as pale as milk; she was nowhere near as soft. Her flesh seemed to retain the taste of gunpowder and charcoal, the mud of a churned up battlefield. Land, not firmament or sea, because she was a soldier at heart and to the bone.
Prussia succumbed first, body shuddering as England trailed her tongue along a nipple just as her thumb flicked the little nub between Prussia’s legs, quickly and almost too harshly. Her inner walls tightened around the bare, rough fingers and she sagged slightly, biting her lower lip as to not make a sound. She tasted blood as she reopened the closing cut.
Perhaps it was England who pushed Prussia down in the next moments or Prussia pulled England forwards, but they ended up in a tangle of limbs on the bed in any case. They paused briefly, about to make the first move without conscious thought. Their breaths briefly synchronized and the candlelight slowly faded.
In the growing darkness, England reached down to put her head at Prussia’s breast, her ear brushing against the pocked skin of an old burn. She fought down a shiver as leather gloved hands found their way between her legs again and rubbed there in long scraping swipes. Not like caressing a lover, not even like stroking the head of a beloved dog or horse. Her hips shifted and she bucked against the fingers that teased her thoughtlessly, hissing in satisfaction, then annoyance as one slipped into her and didn’t move. Frustrated, she moved her hips against the gloved hand, mindlessly.
Prussia laughed hoarsely. England bit along the still soft, still tender skin at her breasts in retaliation. She gasped as a second finger joined the first and twisted in her, curling and scissoring. Her hips shifted and she left marks that would bloom brilliantly red against Prussia’s pale torso in the morning.
There was no use in telling each other that they weren’t enemies, that they were allies. They wouldn’t listen, not Prussia who knew no reason, not England who had long memory (and also knew no reason, deep down inside). In the dark, who knew what they saw or imagined?
England shuddered, exhaling sharply and letting out a low sound, not quite a moan. She fell against Prussia and bit at the gloved fingers that forced themselves into her mouth. Despite the fact that it was now pitch black, England glared anyways and pulled the fingers away herself, getting off the other country to settle against the bed properly. Either of them might have then chuckled, a low rasping sound that seemed more like a growl. In the darkness, they slipped into dreamless slumber without another word.
It was in the morning that England showed rare good humor after they had salvaged their clothes from the floor.
“It’s another day,” she said, smiling with closed lips but her eyes glinting.
Prussia grunted as she raked her fingers through her hair. “Of course it is. Get me another pair of gloves. You ruined this set.”
What England ended up doing:
A few months later, Prussia received a silk covered box from London’s best tailors. It contained half a dozen pairs of ladies’ gloves trimmed in lace.
What Prussia did in response:
She gave the princely gift to the kennels and decided that one particularly vicious pup deserved the name “Albion.” As she watched the dog rip apart the fragile material like parchment, she resolved to send it as a belated return present. It was only fair.
Author’s Notes:
-Though Prussia did have access to the coastline and did have a navy (of sorts), Frederick the Great deemed it unnecessary to have any sort of navy and focused on land-based warfare (though he did set up a basic sort of Coast Guard, to help and protect merchant ships). It was a smart move considering the seas were dominated by England, Sweden, the Netherlands, and Spain, and trying to match their navies would be monumentally stupid. Besides, I like the thought of Prussia being very ill at ease around water (probably drowned at least once and was more traumatized by it than he would ever care to admit).
-Port is fortified wine, or wine that has had additional alcohol added to it usually in form of distilled spirits, that comes from Portugal (hence the name). Generally port is served as a dessert wine because of its sweetness. It became popular in England with a trade treaty between England and Portugal in the 1700s and when France stopped shipping its wine. Prussia drinks cherry brandy (specifically Kirshvasser or vasser, traditionally made from sour cherries) when not drinking beer. It says something Prussia’s alcohol tolerance to be able to down quite a bit of it, considering that it’s traditionally served in little glasses before or after meals.
-Poker was a quite popular game played at this time, as referenced in Jane Austen’s works.
-Tobacco smoking had been popular in Europe for several centuries at this point, and snuff was introduced to Spain in the 1500s as medicine. It quickly became popular for aristocrats and later for sailors (because smoking on a ship is not a particularly bright idea).
- Artemis murdering Actaeon herself: In reference to the Greek myth of a hunter being turned into a stag and ripped apart by his own hounds. This also would have been the period of a renewed interest in Greek and Roman Classics and the Neoclassic movement.
-An apparently deluded friend of a friend remarked that lesbian sex is the only form of nonviolent sex. I beg to differ. Then again, I wrote England and Prussia more like men in women’s bodies (the only way I can picture Prussia, who doesn’t lend easily to genderbending at all). I apologize to anyone amongst my readers who in fact have the experience I feign to have in writing erotica. -head meets desk-
-On that note, I apologize for the lack of the bragging and somewhat more positive reminiscence; it somehow ended up being a lot angrier than anything else.