This kinda happened rather spontaneously, but I might make this more than a oneshot if I'm inspired to continue it otl. This is set towards the end of the Napoleonic Wars and around the time England would have realised he couldn't keep his empire. France and England's relationship, to me, is so beautifully complicated and such a pleasure to write because they're so much more than just friends, just enemies, just lovers. I hope what I've written shows that aha ;;

Song the fic was written to: Sing It For Japan by My Chemical Romance

This was their past, their future, and their present.

England's first tentative steps into the world had been done alone, clutching to a tattered cloak and the knowledge that even if he had never met them, even if they avoided him, there were people like him nearby. For a time the company of the supernatural, of the beings that had existed long before him and would exist long after his life was no more than dust and legend, had been enough. Meadows of dew-dropped grass and forests of endless green; they were who he was, and the creatures that lived there were also him. Their blood was his blood, their spirit was his spirit. His older brothers had once said that they would not exist if not for the magic of their lands, and that this is what they all shared.

It was what bonded him to the family he had never truly had, yet had all the same.

And so he took step-after-step into a world that was more fire and bloodshed than windswept treetops and peaceful pastures, into a world where the small and weak were crushed before those too fearful of fading to see sense nor reason. He remembered shuddering at the sight of Rome, of the skin laced with scars and the eyes dancing with fear and madness. He promised himself he would avoid such a fate but, as time wore on with succession-upon-succession of new kings and the promise of unity, he realised he had to be stronger than he was.

The Nordics taught him as much.

They came with blood-lust and fire in their gazes, weapons wielded and used with such thirst for death that the memory of it still caused him to tremble. War had a bitter taste, and it left him wondering what exactly a nation existed for. To be conquered? To conquer? There was no answer to be found, but as his people drove back the Vikings eager for new shores, as his meager arrows drove back the nations longing for his land, he felt the dim presence of something unspoken grow within him; it grabbed hold of his heart, leaving him giddy and breathless and full of a pride he did not completely understand. He could hear the blood pump furiously through his tiny body, feel a heartbeat drum a steady and powerful rhythm against his rib cage; it was strength, it was his people yelling victorious that this land was their's.

Their wish was his own, and so he began to cling to this unspoken feeling of being alive.

But he was not made for war, not made for the crushing of nations and conquering of peoples; no, he was made for the green hills of home, for the magic that seeped into his soul and claimed him for no other purpose but to be as part of the trees and fields as they were a part of him.

So it was while lying in a quiet meadow, with the wildflowers and heather and fairies for company, that a pair of eyes of cerulean skies peered down at him.

It was an unspoken understanding; he was like him, but also not. He was stronger, with different blood and life flowing through his veins to his own, yet they shared the same golden hair and held the same strength of their people that made them so much more than they were, so much more than the skin and flesh they were encased within. This was spoken through one glance, one meeting of gazes that told them it was okay, for here was another of their kind.

This was what formed the bond between them; the simple understanding that despite their differences they were the same. They were the earth and sky, moss green and cerulean blue; one could not exist without the other, yet they were so very far apart.

Time passed.

Tentative acknowledgement progressed into a bond that could never be described with mere words for they were not friends; they argued and fought and bled each other dry, relishing the other's pain and destruction, yet they were not enemies, for France had taught him about the world, about what lay beyond the shores of his isolated island. He had guided him, helped him with a hand in his own so that he could stand on his own two feet and stand tall. And, as they both aged, new thoughts and new desires came with a curiosity that could only be sated with touch and not words.

And so they became not just friends, not just enemies, but also lovers.

They were not each other's firsts; such a thing was true only in the romantic ideals of poets and writers, of musicians and drifting daydreams. No - they had tasted love before in all its bittersweet beauty, and for nations it was far more bittersweet than beautiful for humans were doomed to a life so short they were a mere candle flame, burning brightly but extinguished so very easily. So it was with weary hearts that had grown tired of greetings and goodbyes in quick succession that they found something in each other's arms that spoke of eternity.

But eternity was not through being committed for they were nations - their lives spanned century-upon-century and a heart is forever wayward as time passes, old love gathering dust in the corners of one's heart, new love taking hold with dizzying swiftness. No, eternity was in forever returning to each other. Eternity was the fact that, no matter how much distance there was between them, they would always come back to each other.

Yet there were times when England truly felt hatred towards him, hatred for the power he held and the girl with the bright eyes who was blessed by god - burnt to ashes as he stood and watched - who held his heart so deeply he feared that he would never again return - he was so dreadfully alone and they still avoided him - and that he would be left alone and desolate and forever needing the solace only France's company could bring, even if such solace was tinged with hatred.

And as they drifted apart, he found himself gripped with loneliness.

It was at a time when his country was tearing him apart, tearing itself apart, with a righteous king sat on a throne of selfish desire that was being torn down piece-by-piece by the people who were meant to obey him, that he found someone to fill the hole in his heart.

He was small, so very small with sky-blue eyes - why did he think of him - and a heart so full of hope and freedom that the weight on his shoulders was lifted from his mere presence. And so he returned to open green fields, to the magic of childhood and innocent naivete, clutching so tightly - so very tightly - to that unspoken feeling from his beginnings that it proved his own undoing, for he had clutched far far too tightly.

And it was this feeling that led to his empire, to the dozens of small eager-faced nations dependent on him - they needed him - to the power that left him elated with his spirit sky-high, reaching ever further forward - too far forward - until he had become what he had always feared; the nation with scars, with fear and madness dancing in his eyes. But he could not let go, could not return to the barren loneliness that left him desolate and cold and so very empty. The one who had always been there seemed so far away, the family and colonies and nations he clung to through law and decree were suffocating under his selfish need to not be alone, and there was no end in sight, no solution, and he was a ship with no anchor that was going to dash itself on rocky cliffs unless he found a way to stop.

And as England came close to his own destruction he found his anchor.

It was not the boy with the sky-blue eyes - the boy who no longer needed him - nor the brothers who feared they'd be taken down with him - the family who did not want him - nor the allies who had fought beside him in endless war-after-war - the allies who were not friends - but the one who had always been there.

The one who was now tearing himself apart with his own madness.

France had fought so hard to have what he had, to be as big as he was, and it took far too long for England to realise that their roles had been reversed; he was no longer the small powerless child looking up to him, but the one looking down from a height he would soon fall from, and what a fall from grace it would turn out to be. And he realised that it was wrong, this power; this empire stretching from sunrise to sunset was killing him, and he had to stop France before he fell like he did, before he dashed himself on rocky cliffs broken and twisted and left by those screaming "abandon ship".

He had thrown himself into battles, thrown himself into bloodshed and the conquer of nations under an unforgiving boot heel, and England had to be the anchor to pull him away from those rocks, away from destruction and depravity. It had been centuries since they were close, centuries since the nights spent in each other's arms, naive promises and tentative hopes soon left to ruination, yet here he stood; he was so very close - yet so far away - so close he could practically reach out and touch the tattered uniform and the skin stained with blood and dirt.

And touch he did, fingertips clutching desperately to trembling shoulders, speaking the words he could not voice, the words he could not say for what else could he say but "stop". He was met with a fist, met with near-hysteria and madness and so much fear that France's eyes were a mirror for his own. Steady footsteps were replaced with a crash to dust-covered floorboards, hands gripping tightly at his hair, his neck, his heart and he was screaming at him to understand, to know that there was no end, no way to stop but to keep going until he no longer could and he was left trembling in the wake of all the emotion he had denied and ignored, shaking under the realisation that this was who he was, that this madness was held rotten and stagnant within both their minds and they both had to stop.

His voice was useless, for what use were words when they had both become so ignorant of the requests of others, so with desperation he buried dirtied fingertips into blood-tinged golden hair and pulled France's parted lips to his own. This was his anchor, this was what held him steadfast on shaky feet to reality, this was what he needed and God be damned he would rather die than let them destroy themselves any longer.

It was desperation. It was clinging to trembling fingertips, clinging to shaking limbs, clinging to the here-and-now of tear-stained kisses and tentative promises. It was abandoning the future with all its grand idealism for the present, for the dust-covered floor, for the person lying by his side with cerulean blue eyes and the promise to stay.

This was the unspoken feeling that would forever bind them together, be it by hatred or friendship or love, and he knew; he knew in the future when France would no longer shake at the sight of the scar on his neck, when he could stand tall and proud despite his beatings, that he would be the anchor for England when he could no longer hold himself together, when his empire crumbled and left him desolate and alone on abandoned shores.

This was their past, their future, and their present; as it always had been, and as it always will be.