Jealousy Will Get You Everywhere 2/2

[kahani.livejournal.com]

Title: Jealousy Will Get You Everywhere

By: kahani and alizon

Genre: Humor
Pairing(s): US/UK, UK/Prussia, implied Prussia/Austria/Hungary
Rating/Warnings: PG-13, contains England/not-America content
Summary: England has taken up with Prussia. It's up to America to save him from that Commie-Nazi's evil wiles with the power of true love. And shouting. And public humiliation.

Part Two



After the meeting was over, when America proved thankfully to not be lurking right outside the door waiting to humiliate England further, which had been a serious concern, England made a beeline directly for the nearest bar.

He checked to make certain that France wasn't anywhere within earshot, and ordered himself a drink – in French.  Speaking the local language got you better service, was only polite when he wasn't sure if the bartender even spoke English, and if France ever caught him doing it, he'd never live it down.

He could imagine it now: "You speak French so beautifully when you apply yourself, Angleterre!  It makes your voice sound so much less horrid then when you speak English. You must do it more often."

Fucking bastard.  Of course he wasn't going to show up to crow over England's use of his language – he was likely still too busy laughing until he cried over the public spectacle America had made of them both.

He'd been all but useless for the rest of the EU meeting, periodically looking over at England and bursting into obnoxious little fits of snickering.  Everyone else had at least had the good manners to try to hide the fact that they were all laughing at him.

He'd hardly drunk more than a few sips when someone flung themselves into the seat opposite him, all loud, clomping boots and dramatic, put-upon sighs.

England didn't bother to look up from his drink; only one nation wore ripped jeans and steel-toed boots to EU meetings.  Once upon a time, Prussia had never appeared in public in anything but a uniform – England wasn't sure he'd even owned any other clothes.  Nowadays, he seemed to be in a contest with America to see who could be the most inappropriately casual on official occasions.

"Hungary and Austria are both mad at me, and so is West, as if any of this is in any way my fault."  He stole England's drink, took a sip, and added, "Hungary says she'll castrate me with a dull, rusty sword if I sleep with you again."

England reached across the table, grabbed Prussia's wrist with one hand, and plucked the glass out of his fingers with the other.  It was like babysitting Sealand, honestly.  Then a thought struck him, and with a sinking feeling in his stomach, he said,

"Tell me you didn't seduce me just to make them jealous."

Prussia actually smiled, looking entirely too pleased with himself.  "That's a good idea," he said.  "I'll have to remember it."

If he started banging his head against the table, he'd just give himself a headache, and he planned to have one when he woke up tomorrow morning as it was.  "Why did I have sex with you?"

"Because you were lonely and easy, and I'm hot."  He said it as if it were obvious.  England supposed it was.

"Right.  That about sums it up, doesn't it?"

Prussia picked up England's half-empty glass and tossed back the rest of its contents in one long swallow, then waved his arm over his head to signal the bartender for another round.

Prussia was paying for this one, England decided.

"Where does Specs get off acting like I was cheating on him?  He spends decades being all 'no, my vital regions, ooh Prussia I hate you,' and Hungary is always busy with him and will only sleep with me when he's not around and suddenly I'm their property?"

Methinks the gentleman doth protest too much.  "You know you like it."

"I'm a badass independent kingdom," Prussia said sullenly.  "I'm not anybody's property."

England stopped listening to him, because pointing out that that was no longer true would be pointlessly cruel, and also because he'd been down this road before.  Prussia + alcohol involved three stages.  "I am the most badass amazing nation ever.  I love me.  Let's start a fistfight."  "You guys are the best friends ever.  I love you.  Let's sing."  And the third one, which England had thankfully only witnessed once, "You're the best brother ever, West.  I love you.  Let me cry incoherently into your shoulder and embarrass everyone who's watching."    They were clearly in stage one at the moment.

It must be nice to be so thoroughly immune to embarrassment and humiliation.  He'd gotten the distinct impression that Prussia was proud to have had his sex life discussed at high volume in front of the entire EU.  Meanwhile, England was already wishing that enough alcohol existed to erase the experience from his memory forever, and planning how to avoid France for the next six months.

How could America do that to him?  One would think that, given the spectacular temper-tantrums he threw every time England attempted to give him advice about how to conduct his own life, he might have the courtesy to return the favor and give England the respect and lack of interference he so clearly wanted for himself.

No, stupid question.  He knew exactly how America could do this to him.  Because nothing mattered in America's world but America.

Why did he even care?

Because it was America.

"At least you know he's interested in you.  Going by Israel and Russia, I thought that you weren't ball-shrivelingly terrifying enough for him, but it looks like he wants you anyway."

"Well maybe I no longer want him," England snapped.  "And America's not scared of Israel or Russia.  He's not you.  He's just equally thoughtless about other people."

"I'm very thoughtful," Prussia objected, and proceeded to prove this by continuing to complain about the fact that two people he was attracted to appeared to want to have sex with him.  Possibly at the same time.

America, on the other hand, was almost certainly not "interested" in England.  He was just being a dog in the manger.  America couldn't stand not being the center of attention – he never had – and even if they weren't as close as they'd once been, he still cared about England's friendship and attention.  And therefore couldn't stand seeing England pay too much attention to anyone else.

"... and she's always punching me and hitting me with that frying pan, and not in the sexy way..."

America had always complained about that, even as a child.  "You're always gone, England.  You're always leaving!"  Once, he'd secretly kicked holes in the hull of England's ship to try and prevent him from sailing away, then claimed that they must have been made by ghosts.  Ghosts that planned to eat America if England didn't stay.

He'd never understood that England had responsibilities elsewhere and wasn't leaving by choice, never wanted to understand.  The 17th century had been very... eventful.  He'd had other colonies as well, and a civil war, and wars with France and Spain, and then there'd been the time Cromwell had locked him inside the palace at Westminster and not let him out for three years.

It had been cute when he was small, but America wasn't a child anymore, and hadn't been for centuries.

".. hair smells like flowers," Prussia went on, "and Austria's always nice to her..."

England tuned him out, and waved at the bartender to bring him another drink.

He could still clearly hear the indignant and overly bombastic sound of America's voice, and remember the exact degree of humiliation he'd felt when the entire room had turned and gaped at them.  More alcohol was clearly still in order.


* * *


America didn't like to admit it, but it was possible he hadn't thought through his attempt to intervene on England's behalf and save him from himself well enough.

No, a hero always had to be honest with himself.  It had been a mistake.

He'd been angry at first – he'd been trying to help England out of the goodness of his heart, to keep him from being unhappy with someone who couldn't possibly appreciate him properly, and England had been completely ungrateful and had called him a child – but once he'd cooled down, he'd been uncomfortably aware that maybe he might have humiliated England in public a little.

Okay, more than a little.  If America had for some reason been having sex with Prussia, he sure wouldn't have wanted all of Europe plus those non-Europe countries that were weirdly in the EU anyway to know about it.  (Greece wasn't in Europe, right?  Wasn't he part of Asia Minor or something?)

Germany had yelled at him for a solid fifteen minutes yesterday, when America had tried to do the polite thing and apologize for interrupting his meeting.  He'd tried to protest that it had been important, and that he hadn't meant to cause such a big disruption, but the other nation had steamrollered right over him, delivering a long, angry lecture made even angrier-sounding by the fact that half of it had been in German.

Then he couldn't find England to set things straight – the grownups are talking, really?  And using magic on America when he knew how much he hated it... unless he'd done it on purpose because he hated America now for embarrassing him – or Prussia to give him a good, solid punch for trifling with England's feelings that way, and when he'd asked Greece if he'd seen either of them, he'd just snapped that they weren't letting America join the EU no matter what and stomped off, all the while clutching a fluffy cat to his chest and petting it like a Bond villain.

Greece was weird.

America had made the further mistake of calling Canada for sympathy and to try and figure out what the best way to keep England from hating him was, and his brother had been extremely scathing on the subject of exactly how stupid and thoughtless confronting England in public had been.

Canada knew a lot of cuss words other than "maple," but he usually only used them during hockey games.  Apparently, crashing an EU meeting was almost as bad as a referee missing a call or one of Canada's players failing to smash the other guy's face-mask in violently enough, because his first words to America had been "What the fuck did you do?"  even though France had apparently already called him and given him a detailed rundown.

His next had been "I told you to leave it alone," followed by "But you're going to apologize, right?  Right?"

It was the right thing to do, America knew that, but even so, he hesitated before actually knocking on the door to England's hotel room.  He hated apologizing to England; it was always so awkward, and England always looked so sarcastically unsurprised any time America admitted to screwing up.  Even when it didn't involve him.

Nobody answered the knock, and for a moment, America was tempted to do the completely unheroic thing and slink quietly away before England realized he had been here.  Then he steeled himself and knocked again.

It was seven o' clock in the morning.  Even a fellow morning person like England wouldn't be out eating breakfast yet, not when the first of today's EU meetings started at eight-forty-five and the conference center was only across the street.

"England?" he called, knocking more firmly.  "Are you in there?  I brought pastry-thingies.  The ones that look like croissants with chocolate in them."

The door was yanked open mid-knock.  England growled at him to sod off, and tried to slam it closed again, but America already had his foot in the way.

It hurt, of course, but a hero didn't let pain stop him from doing what was right.  "Good morning," he said cheerfully, plastering on his biggest smile and trying not to look too guilty, or like he was worried about how England might respond.  "I brought you breakfast."  He held the pastries up, aware of how pathetic a peace offering they were.

England made a face, and took a step backwards.  "I don't want them.  Go away."

His face was sweaty, his eyes bloodshot, and his hair even more a disaster than normal.  He was still wearing blue and white flannel pajamas; once, it would have been a disconcertingly frilly nightgown, but he'd thankfully abandoned those decades ago.

Ah.  America should have guessed.  England was usually a morning person, but all that went out the window when he was hung over, and after yesterday... yeah, he should have guessed.  France had probably spent the entire night buying him drinks while still laughing at his expense.

It was lucky he'd come by; otherwise, England would've just huddled in bed pathetically all morning and done nothing to take care of himself, and then been even grumpier than normal at the meeting.

America pushed past England and into the hotel room, depositing the pastries on top of a convenient dresser.  "You should drink some water," he said, going for one of the hotel glasses that England had, predictably, not even unwrapped from its little plastic package.  "Do you have any asprin?  Really, you ought to have Gatorade, but I didn't bring any.  But I could go and get some!"

England squinted at him, rubbing at his temple with one hand.  "Why the hell are you here?"

America steeled himself, managing to keep his smile in place even though it probably looked fake; England wouldn't notice.  He'd just say he was sorry, and then England would forgive him.  He'd gone about all wrong, but he'd only been trying to help.

"I came to," he started.  "I mean..."

England glared up at him with bloodshot eyes.  "What, humiliate me more?  Make inappropriate commentary on my personal life?  Try to 'save me from myself?'"

"I didn't mean to humiliate you," he blurted out.  "I just... he was all wrong for you!  You can do better than Prussia."

England sighed, his shoulders slumping.  "What," he said, with a tired calm that was almost worse than the anger had been, "makes you think that's any of your business?"

"It's not, I know, but... you deserve someone who really appreciates you."

"Sod off, America.  My head hurts too much to deal with you right now."  He turned away, grabbing up the glass of water America had gotten for him and starting back toward his messily unmade bed.

"I'm sorry," America said, miserably, to England's back.  This wasn't going the way he'd planned at all.  He'd imagined multiple different scenarios, and in all of them, England had understood what he'd been trying to do and forgiven him.  Maybe even given him a hug and thanked him for caring about him.  "I want you to be happy.  Just... not with him."  Prussia would never bother to bring England Gatorade and aspirin when he had hangovers, or properly appreciate the way his nose wrinkled when he smiled, or the almost-invisible freckles across his cheekbones, or pretend he believed him about his stupid faeries and unicorns.  Or protect him from terrorists and ghosts, or--

"I could make you happier!" he blurted out.

England dropped the glass he was holding.

America started forward automatically, reaching uselessly to try and catch the falling glass even though he was too far away.  It bounced on the carpet instead of breaking, splashing water all over England's pajama pants, the floor, and the edge of blanket dangling off the bed.

England swore under his breath, some Old English curse that didn't even sound like their language but did sound a lot like it had the word "fuck" in it.

"Sorry," America repeated.  "I'm sorry.  Let me-"

England turned back to face him, raised both hands, and snarled something incomprehensible that filled the room with weird, bluish-green light.

An invisible wall of force shoved at America, and what felt like tiny, invisible hands grabbed at him, pulling him backwards across the carpet and out into the hallway again.

America ignored the tiny hands pinching him viciously through his clothing and took a step  forward again.  "England, wait.  If you would just listen-"

The hotel room door slammed in his face, and he was alone in the hallway again.

Something giggled nastily and yanked, hard, on a chunk of his hair.

Stupid fake faeries.


* * *


The remainder of the EU meeting had been miserable.   America hadn't interrupted again, thank god for small favors, having gone home after the scene in his hotel room, but the damage had already been done.  Those nations that weren't openly snickering at England's expense all felt sorry for him.  Prussia, the bastard, had just sat there, radiating smugness because everyone was paying attention to him, including Austria and Hungary.

A week later, England's mood hadn't improved.

Not only had England lost his temporary sex partner, he'd also lost his drinking-and-bitching-about-France partner, an outlet he sorely missed.  France kept trying to give him ~advice~ on how to either secure America's affections or let him down gently.  England kept hanging up on him.

He wasn't sure whether he already had that opportunity and roundly blew it, or whether America had had no idea what he was talking about and had just blurted out something stupid and random that he didn't actually mean.  It would hardly be the first time.

After several weeks of having Prussia hanging about the place, straightening picture frames and alphabetizing England's spice rack and throwing his wet rain things on top of the furniture, his house felt oddly empty.  It should have been a relief to have dry couch cushions and throw pillows again, and the ability to put the thyme away inside an empty tea caddy and not notice that he'd done so until two days later when his tea tasted funny.

It wasn't that he was lonely.  England never had the opportunity to be lonely, not when his library, kitchen, and garden were continually being visited by fey of one kind of another.

He wasn't lonely.  He'd just... gotten used to having company.  From one of his own kind.  He had plenty of human company during the week, between the Prime Minister and the various MPs who all thought he was some other MP's assistant, and it should have been enough.  A nation didn't need anyone but his people.

England had more than that; he always had.  He had the fairies.

So he wasn't lonely.  He'd just forgotten how much time he spent at loose ends when there was no one around to drag him out at odd hours to go drinking or watch a football game, or slaver all over the entire contents of the Imperial War Museum for the fourth time (half the captured weaponry in there was Prussia's anyway – why was he so enthralled?), or force him to ride the London Eye while talking the entire time about how American roller coaster rides were better.

The sensible thing to do was put the entire affaire behind him and focus on something productive.  So he'd done that – he'd done work, read parliamentary proceedings, cleaned house, cooked, put the grease fire out and cleaned the kitchen again, weeded the garden, dead-headed the roses, and checked on the Rosa × damascene/Rosa foetida cross for signs of black spot.  So far, it was showing a worrying tendency to take after the briar rose side of its heritage rather than the damask side when it came to disease resistance.  He'd finally managed to get the damask scent to breed true in a rich, yellow/ochre-colored bloom, but two of the three cultivars hadn't made it through last winter.

Gardening had taken up an entire morning, but that was all.  Most of the hard work with roses had to be done in the spring, not midsummer.  This late in the year, most of the more traditional European strains weren't even blooming any longer, but it was still too early to harvest rose hips.

The faeries liked the golden hybrid, which was always a good sign.  Then again, they liked almost any flower with a sweet scent.

Most fey had a sweet tooth that rivaled America's – and he wasn't thinking about America.

England swore, and gave up his attempt to untangle a skein of embroidery thread, his latest attempt to distract himself.  He didn't really need dark green thread anyway.  Or blue.  Tying knots in everything from horses' tails to human hair was a favorite trick of some of the more mischievous sorts of faeries, and his entire embroidery basket was a snarled and knotted mess.

He suspected they were trying to distract him to keep him from being sad or upset, but it wasn't working.  The brown wasn't salvageable, either.  Fuck this, he'd just finished the set of white pillow covers; he didn't need colored thread for those.

Stupid faeries, making his life miserable and difficult and humiliating just because they thought they knew what was best for him.  Like France, with his useless advice on how to make America his "cher amour" when England had already put an end to that possibility spectacularly – if it had ever existed in the first place.  America had been jealous and possessive for no good reason, he'd been hung-over and rightfully infuriated, and he'd thrown the first potential sign he'd seen that America wanted England back in his life as more than just an ally back in his face.

Unless... America did keep pestering him online... but England was fairly certain he did that to everyone unfortunate enough to have given him their twitter, instant messenger, or email contact information.  America couldn't stand to be ignored, particularly when he suspected it was in favor of another person.

Which explained everything about the disaster with Prussia, really.  That combined with America's obsession with saving people... he'd obviously built up some tragic narrative about lonely, washed-up has-been England being taken advantage of by Prussia, and seen himself as the hero charging in to save England from his own bad decisions.

As if England hadn't been managing his own life just fine for centuries before America had existed.

He knotted the end of the white embroidery floss, made a few careful chain stitches, and then, just as he'd finished pulling the needle through yet again and was about to pull the needle up through the end of his last stich to complete the next 'link' in the chain when the thread jerked abruptly, obviously grabbed and pulled by something.

The needle jammed directly into his finger, hard and deep enough that a drop of blood welled out.  He pulled his hand away, sucking on his smarting finger, but not quickly enough to keep blood from smearing across both white thread and white fabric.   It was a nice set-up for a fairy tale but a good way to ruin an embroidered pillow-cover.  The blood would dry into a brown smear directly across the center of the design, and there would be no way to hide the stain.

He could wash it out – England knew a number of ways to remove blood stains, both magical and mundane, but he wasn't sure it was worth it.  That the embroidery was worth saving.

England ought to know.  He excelled at ruining things.


* * *


The sky was just starting to turn pink in the west; another hour, and they'd have to move inside before the mosquitos got too bad.  Good thing the hamburgers were almost done.

The coals, of course, were now at the exact perfect stage of glowing readiness, which always happened just when America was finished cooking, because he always got impatient and put the meat on too early.  America spurned gas grills – real men cooked with coals, or wood, or, well, some kind of open flame that didn't come from a propane tank.  Canada had pointed out twice that if he'd been using a gas grill, they wouldn't have had to wait forty minutes for the coals to be just right, which was pure hypocrisy given that Canada himself also refused to use a gas grill.

"I don't see why I couldn't go swimming while you fiddled with that," Canada complained.

"I told you.  It's too late in the year.  The river's full of jellyfish."

"You're exaggerating; there can't be that many of them."

"The Chesapeake Bay region hardly got any rain this spring, or summer.  Trust me, they're everywhere."  As he'd already learned to his cost.  Every year, America hoped he'd be lucky and went swimming in one of his Maryland or Virginia rivers anyway, and every year, he got stung.  The James, the Patuxant, the St. Mary's, the York... all of them were infested, and so was the Bay itself.   Jellyfish loved brackish water.

He'd always gotten stung as a kid, too.  England had never known what to do with him when he cried, swinging between snapping at him, comforting him, and a sort of desperate panic.

The river looked pretty, though.  The setting sun was casting a long trail of scarlet and gold reflections across it, and the osprey nest on the pier piling was silhouetted against it.  It was still the tail end of their nesting season, and he'd been able to watch both parents bringing fish back to the nest for their chicks.

England would have liked it.  Or maybe not, given that the chicks were almost old enough to leave the nest and go out on their own, and England hated that.

He wasn't thinking of England, America reminded himself.  It made him feel guilty, and stupid, and... he wasn't thinking about him.

England hadn't even called him since the EU meeting, or answered America's texts, or responded when he'd IMed him.  He obviously wanted nothing to do with America, either because he was still mad at him, or because America's stupid attempt to explain himself in Belgium had creeped him out.  England had known America when he was a kid, and still seemed to think of him as one sometimes; maybe the idea of America being attracted to him disturbed him.

Because he was.  Attracted to England, that is.  And he was a total idiot for not realizing it sooner, and for blurting it out incoherently at pretty much the very moment he had.

The hamburgers were perfect, as they always were when America cooked them.  Done on the outside, still pink on the inside, with cheese melted all over them and grilled onion slices that he'd stuck on the back of the grill just long enough for them to go translucent.

Kumajiro loomed against the side of the porch as America carried the plates of food over to the table, just to make sure the food-bearing humans didn't forget about him.  He was too polite to actually snatch the entire platter of meat from America's hands, but he could have if he wanted to, and everyone knew it.

Canada ate three of them, and didn't even put cheese curds and gravy or maple syrup or anything else weird on them, which America took as a tribute to his culinary skills.

He'd learned them in self-defense – it had been that, or spend his childhood eating everything either burned or half-raw.   England's complete inability to cook had never made sense to him.  If America could follow precise directions even when they were boring, England should be able to, and that was really all cooking was.  It was like chemistry experiments, only instead of explosions, you got tasty food, which was almost as good.

England did his pretend-magic thing, which involved all kinds of long spells in dead languages and mixing up weird ingredients and drawing complicated symbols on things.  Compared to that, not setting the kitchen on fire by boiling all the liquid out of a pot and then burning a hole directly through the bottom of it should have been easy.

"I ought to invite England over and cook for him," he said, mostly to himself.  "He needs someone to cook for him; he definitely can't do it himself."

"Maybe if you invited him to something other than a Fourth of July cookout, he'd come.'

"No he wouldn't.  He hates me.  He thinks I'm stupid and annoying, and I humiliated him in front of France and Germany and he's never going to forgive me, ever."

"Did you apologize?"

"Yes!  He kicked me out of his hotel room and slammed the door on me.  And I told him I would be better for him than Prussia was, and he didn't even say anything back."

"You would be... are you serious?  You actually made a move on England."

"And he completely shot me down. Because he hates me now."

"I always thought you kind of had a crush on him, but then you didn't do anything about it for so long that I thought you'd maybe outgrown it.  I know you hate it when he pays attention to anyone else, but I thought that was just you being you."

"I don't have a crush on him.  I just want him to be happy and taken care of and with someone who understands and appreciates him, and also to not date anyone else who isn't me.  And I want him to respect me and like me and-"

"The food was just a bribe to get me here so I'd listen to you whine about England, wasn't it?"

It hadn't actually been, but... "Yeah.  But you already ate, so now you owe me."

"Someday, I'm going to have a torrid affair with someone and tell you all about it in even more detail than France and never, ever shut up and repeat myself over and over and over, and you'll have to listen and it will be karma in action."

It was all right for Canada to mock.  He hadn't unintentionally ruined the life of the one nation he most wanted to respect and like him.  "This isn't funny, Canadia.  You didn't see him.  He was really, really mad, and France was laughing like a hyena, and Prussia was just lounging back in his chair and smirking like the jerk he is."  America flung his arm out for emphasis and then grabbed at his water glass to keep it from falling over.  Canada started to say something, probably 'I told you so,' or 'I don't care,' but America was off and running now.  England hated him, he had ruined everything forever, he had only just realized how he felt about him and now it was too late, did he mention England hated him.  "Why did I have to crash the EU meeting like that?" he finished.  "I should have known England would be angry.  Why didn't you stop me, Canada?"

"I told you it was a bad idea and to leave England alone," Canada protested.  He'd finished eating, and was now drawing little designs in the condensation from his water glass.

"What? When?  You never said that."  Or maybe he had, but he obviously hadn't said it with much conviction, or America would have listened.  And now...  Even if Prussia was a smug bastard who was probably just using England for sex – which probably implied that England was good at it, and no, no, that was a bad chain of though.  Even if Prussia was just using England, maybe England had been enjoying it.  Maybe England actually liked Prussia despite the whole communist-Nazi thing and his obnoxious laugh.

America felt a little sick, suddenly, thinking of England alone in his hotel room, miserable and hung-over – when he'd probably been drinking in the first place because America had made him upset – and then alone in his messy, clutter-filled house, shut up with all his old books, pretending he wasn't lonely.

"I shouldn't have said anything," he said, pushing his plate away.  He didn't even want desert – the guilty lump in his throat was too tight.  "England will be all lonely and alone now that I've ruined his thing with Prussia.  Even if he didn't really love him, he shouldn't have nobody.  And France doesn't count," he added, before Canada could bring him up.  "You know he doesn't." Prussia had that weird threesome thing going on with Hungary and Austria, so it wouldn't have lasted forever.  Why couldn't he have just waited for England's fling with him to run its course?

On the other hand, if England had had long enough to have really gotten serious about things with Prussia, he would have been even more miserable when they ended.  And England would have gotten serious about eventually, even if it had started as just a fling.  England got attached to people, and didn't want to let them go.

Canada raised his eyebrows, then ruined the Mr. Spock impression by pushing his glasses back up his nose.  "Since when do you think relationships have to be all about love?"

They didn't, of course; America wasn't naïve, and Israel had offered that one time, and he might, once, have spent a few shameful and embarrassing minutes with Russia in a UN supply closet, but, "I know they don't have to be, but England's should be!  He's a total romantic at heart.  He wouldn't really be happy with anything less."

Canada actually smiled.  "Wow, you are gone on him, aren't you?"

America's face and ears went hot.  "He still thinks of me as a kid, though.  An annoying, stupid kid."  Whereas England, when he wasn't angry and shouting, was always so composed and mature.  He had this way of looking at America like he could see straight through him, and then America always ended up saying the wrong thing.

"He hasn't thought of you as his colony in years.  He thinks you're an annoying, stupid adult."

America buried his flaming face in his hands, his eyes feeling hot.  He wasn't going to cry.  That would be stupid and childish and selfish, when England was the one who had actual reasons to be upset. "You suck."

"You suck more," Canada informed him.

America lowered his hands and glared at his brother through his smudged glasses. "Do not."

"You have the worst health care system in the entire world and I'm already sick of hearing about your stupid presidential election."

A huge, cold nose pressed itself against the back of America's neck, snuffling at his hair, and he reached back to push Kumajiro away.  "It's important!  I could've ended up with "President Sanatorum" as a boss!

Canada snickered, one hand over his mouth.  It was the sort of almost-girly gesture that made people mistakenly assume he was shy.  He'd probably picked it up from France.

"Do you know what his name means on the internet?"  It was a rhetorical question; of course Canada knew, or he wouldn't have laughed.  "Everyone would've made fun of me!"

Canada smiled innocently at him, his head tilted to one side and that one curly bit of hair that never stayed in place flopping into his eyes.  "We already make fun of you," he said, sweetly.

Kumajiro snuffled at America again, edging forward and leaning against him in that vaguely menacing way that thousand-pound polar bears were so good at.   America gave up and slid his plate and the remains of his last hamburger over to the edge of the table.  It was gone in one giant bite.

"You're a terrible brother," he said.  "You're supposed to be helping me feel better.  Come on, you're in the British Commonwealth.  England talks to you about things.  What has he been saying about me?"  He sounded whiney, he knew, but he couldn't help it.

Canada shrugged, handing his own plate to Kumajiro.  "He hasn't been saying anything.  England doesn't talk about his feelings unless he's drunk, you know that."

"You could ask him," America said, trying on his best hopeful and pathetic face.

"No.  I couldn't."

It had been worth a try.

The mosquitoes were out now.  America slapped at one that had landed on the patio table, careful not to hit too hard and crack the glass top.  It was time to head inside.  In a few minutes, it would be too dark to watch the ospreys anymore.  "Well, at least you're still being nicer than Tony.  He just told me I was a fucking moron and to shut the hell up about the goddamn limey."  In those exact words, in fact.  Then he'd gone back to kicking America's ass at Gears of War.

"That's what's nice about your alien friend – he says what everybody else is thinking, but is too polite to actually say."

America sighed, not even angry this time, because it was true.  "I know I'm a moron. 'I could do better,'" he mimicked.  "What a stupid thing to say.  I should have told him that I cared about him and wanted him to be happy the way he deserved to be.  And apologized more.  I could have groveled.  He always likes it when people grovel to him."

Canada reached up and back to rub at Kumajiro's neck.  The polar bear snorted, surprised for a moment the way he always was when Canada petted him, then licked the side of Canada's face, knocking his glasses askew.

Canada wiped at his cheek with the back of his hand, brushing off bear saliva and white fur.  "Or you could just tell him you love him."

America though of England's face at the EU meeting, and the cold menace in his voice as he'd ordered America out, and then the tired slump of his shoulders the next morning in his hotel room.  "I think I might have to grovel first."


* * *


This meeting was going so much better than the last one.   Several hours of discussion, powerpoint presentations, and shouting, and no one had so much as mentioned England's sex life yet.  Or his – at the moment – complete lack thereof.

Not that he actually minded.  England had been much too busy over the past couple of weeks to be lonely or depressed.  Between the mad last minute scramble to get everything in order for the Olympics and deal with all the problems that kept popping up, and the rest of his boss's business, he'd barely had time to think about America.  Or to spend time with Prussia, despite the other nation's cheerful invitations to come and go clubbing with him and Hungary or watch football with him and Austria, which, really, would just have been rubbing salt in the wound.

He was pretty sure Austria and Hungary wouldn't have appreciated his attendance, anyway.

Really, he shouldn't have even come today, because the Olympics were now only a week away and there were probably a half-dozen minor disasters occurring in London during his absence, but unlike some nations, England kept his obligations and never skipped world meetings.  And given that today's meeting was actually about the Olympics...

China had smugly asked him how his opening ceremony preparations were coming along, and England had pretended that the leftover bits of pirate in him were not thrilled at the opportunity for internationally sanctioned showing off.   Russia had spent the whole morning being sullen over the standard accusations that his Olympic judges were all biased.  Greece was actually awake and paying attention, a near-miracle only the Olympics could achieve.

America, of course, had spent the first twenty minutes of the meeting loudly bragging that he was going to win more medals than anyone else.  He was already wearing his Team USA jacket, which featured a prominently placed Nike swoosh; if anything, England was surprised he hadn't started wearing it back in July.  He'd gotten quieter, though, as the morning wore on.

It wasn't as if England had been watching him that closely, but most of the time, America unintentionally dominated every discussion he took part in, through a combination of pure enthusiasm and his tendency to blithely talk over other people.  When he was silent, it was impossible not to notice.

The morning half of the meeting had finally wrapped up, and they were about to break for lunch, largely because Germany had had to go seethe quietly for a while after the inevitable discussion of whether they were really not going to have a moment of silence for anniversary of the Munich bombings during the opening ceremonies.  Israel had brought up the importance of security in case someone decided to mark the occasion with another bomb, and things briefly turned into a free-for-all, capped off with America's unhelpful declaration that anyone who didn't want to have a moment of silence at the opening ceremonies for dead civilian athletes should just, like, get thrown out of the Olympics next time, or something.

It was a good thing Italy had been present.  Normally, he contributed little outside of the occasional piece of stunning and vaguely pornographic art on the meeting room's white board, but he was very, very good at distracting Germany from, well, pretty much anything, bad moods included.

England frowned down at his blackberry – full of un-opened emails – and briefcase full of Olympic-related documents, last-minute proposals, and complaints.  Lunch was a luxury he didn't have time for at the moment; a cup of tea would have to suffice, he decided.  He'd go make himself one, and then come back here and slog through some of his over-stuff inbox.

The side of his face and neck seemed to tingle, as if someone were staring at him, and then he heard a faint, nervous cough from the doorway.

America was hovering just inside the room, fidgeting with the zipper of his red, white, and blue Nike jacket.

"Can I help you, America?" England asked, pointedly.

America jumped just a little, looking faintly guilty.  "I, um, needtotalktoyou."  It came out in a rushed, barely-understandable mumble.  "But, but if now isn't good, we can totally talk later!"

England sighed and abandoned both his briefcase and the hope of tea.  He might as well get whatever it was over with.  He hadn't spoken to America since the ill-fated EU meeting, and now... he tried not to stare at him this morning, tried not to catch America's eye and earn himself either another earnest apology or a too-perceptive question about why he kept staring.  America wasn't stupid, for all that he occasionally liked to pretend that he was; if it hadn't been for his hangover and the fact that he'd still been angry at him, England would have jumped on America's half-hearted and almost certainly not serious declaration that he could be a better lover than Prussia like a starving dog on a bone.  And if he had, America would have backpeddled and retracted the offer and clumsily tried to explain that he had no romantic or sexual interest whatsoever in England but um, that totally didn't mean England wasn't, like, probably really hot and stuff if you were into short nations, or giant eyebrows, or whatever, so he shouldn't feel bad.

If they never talked about it, then eventually, England would have got over this pointless and delusional bit of hope he kept feeling, and have been able to treat America normally again, and then they could've both put it behind them forever.

America could never simply simply let things alone.

"What about?" England asked.  Maybe it was about putting a giant McDonald sign inside one of the Olympic stadiums, or scheduling all the most high profile events in the middle of the night so that they could be broadcast live during American prime time television hours.  Or-

"I really am sorry about last month.  I didn't think.  I should have-"

"You don't have to apologize, America," England said tiredly.  "I've gotten over it."

America's jaw firmed, and he shook his head, that one stray cowlick of hair that never lay flat falling in front his glasses.  "No you haven't, you never get over anything, and I just..."  He waved his hands, as if trying to grab for the correct words, and blurted out.  "England, I really am sorry, please don't hate me anymore!"

It would be so much easier if he'd ever actually hated America.  "I don't hate you, America."

"I know, but... I want us to be friends again."  America stared at him earnestly, blue eyes huge and sincere behind smudged lenses.  Blond as he was, his eyelashes were still dark instead of near-invisibly pale like Prussia's.  They were ridiculously long.  "I really... I care about you, England. I don't want you to be by yourself.  I'm sorry I ruined things for you with Prussia.  I was being stupid and jealous."

It was obvious that he really was sorry, and England felt a ridiculous desire to comfort America and tell him that it was okay, just to see him smile that obnoxiously wide grin again instead of standing there looking guilty and anxious.  "I've always been by myself."  And America hadn't precisely ruined things with Prussia.  Those once-or-twice a century hook-ups never lasted long, though they were generally enjoyable while they were happening.  It was the public humiliation and America butting in to make it all about him like he always did with no regard for what England actually wanted that he minded.

"You don't have to be," America said quietly.

Was this going to be another painful attempt at propositioning England?  Why did fate keep mocking him this way? "You only think you want to be with me because you don't want me to be with anyone else, because you can't stand it when people aren't paying attention to you."  It was crueler than America really deserved, but one always needed to be direct with him.

"That's not true," America protested, looking honestly hurt.  "Well, okay, the part about wanting you to pay attention to me is true, but if you don't want..." he  hesitated, "if you aren't interested in me that way, couldn't we just be friends again?"  He took a half-step forward, starting to reach for England's hands, then pulled himself back before England had a chance to flinch away.  "I miss when we were friends.  It took us ages before we even had that, and we barely talk to each other these days, and... I want to cook dinner for you, and listen to you talk about your imaginary magic, and argue about books and socialism with you, and be more than just another ex-colony and ally."

He trailed off, and England was left groping for how to answer, painfully conscious of America's eyes on him.  The other nation was staring intently at him, as if England were the only thing in the world that mattered.  He hadn't looked at England that way since... he'd never looked at him that way.  Before his revolution, America had always stared up at him, not down at him with pleading eyes and a hopeful little half-smile.

If America wanted to be friends, well, it wasn't everything England wanted, but it was much better than nothing.  "I'd like that,' he admitted, after a long, painful silence.  He felt his face and neck going red.  "I've... missed you, as well."

America's face lit up like a sunrise, and then he was flinging his arms around England and hugging him with zero regard for his strength and the integrity of England's ribs, and really, it was entirely unfair.  America was warm to the touch, almost hot, and solid with muscle, and England's nose was pressed into the hollow just above his collarbone.  He could smell America's aftershave, something spicy and clean, and if he shifted just a little-

Abruptly, America let go and stepped back, a little awkwardly.

Still half-dazed, England almost moved after him, and then Canada's voice sounded quite clearly from behind him.

"Oh, good."

Where had he come from?  England had been facing the doorway the entire time, and he'd been sure everyone else had already left the room.

"You told him how you feel," Canada said.  "Uh, congratulations, I guess?"

England blinked at him.  "Congratulations on what?"

Canada looked away, shrugging a little, while America made flaily 'shut up' hand gestures at him that he obviously thought England couldn't see.  "You didn't tell him, did you?"  He sounded somewhere between disappointed and embarrassed.

England's stomach started to sink.  "Tell me what?"

Canada gave him a nervous smile.  "Nevermind.  I, eh, I think Cuba needs to talk to me.  I can see him waiving at me.  By."  He skirted around America and left the room, moving a little too quickly for the exit to be innocent.

England folded his arms across his chest, trying to ignore the way his stomach had hollowed out.  He should have known reconciling wouldn't be this straightforward.  Nothing between nations ever was.  America had avoided telling him something, something important, going by Canada's swift exit, and now his surprisingly sweet apology was about to be undone.  "Tell me what?"

America turned red from his hairline to his collar.  "That I'm sorry and I love you?" His voice cracked on the final word, and he went, if possible, even redder.  "But, um, it's okay for us to just be friends!" he added, with too much enthusiasm for it to be entirely honest.  "It's great!  That's the important part anyway."

That... he...  That offer in the hotel room had been real?   It was entirely too good to be true, and he knew he was being a fool who was about to regret his actions deeply, but some wild remnant of the pirate he'd once been had taken hold of him.  Once, England had grabbed for what he wanted and damned the consequences, and he did so again now.

The worst that could happen, he thought, as he grabbed America's shoulders and pulled the other nation to him, was public humiliation and America rejecting him, and he had been there and done that already.

England stretched up on tiptoe, pulled America down by his jacket collar, and crushed America's mouth to his.

America had stopped babbling, he thought, a moment later, as one big hand spread across the small of his back and the other cupped the back of his head.  It was ever better than magic.

America opened his mouth and nearly sucked England's tongue in, pulling England against the length of his body.  Prussia would have bitten.  France would have already had his hand down England's pants.  This was sweeter, and it didn't matter that America was clearly less practiced at kissing.  He made up for it by being very, very enthusiastic.

The fact that America wasn't skilled somehow made it even hotter, fired that part of England that he usually tried to bury these days that had always wanted to make things his own.  He should have done this years ago, he'd been such an idiot not to see, to never speak up.

America was pressing his forehead against England's now, his eyes closed, his expression blissful, as if someone had just given him the best present in the world.

In the background somewhere, he could hear France saying something about the beauty of "l'amour." England didn't even bother to flip him off.

~End~