Happy birthday to England (on, of course, St George's Day) but, more importantly, happy birthday to Mr William Shakespeare on what also happens to be the 400th anniversary of his death.

To mark the occasion, this fic doesn't just have a sprinkling of Shakespeare. He's pretty much the main event.

The title comes from Shakespeare's lesser-performed King John; the line is spoken by Arthur, Prince of Brittany... who dies by falling off a wall.

And England Keep My Bones

I

"Do you have any idea how depressingly desperate you seem?"

Canada, already dressed for dinner in the doorway, watches America preen, attempting to tame himself into brushed and balding velvet. His suit is out-of-fashion, ancient, barely younger than George Washington. He's had it for years, the only one he owns.

"I don't recall asking your opinion," America retorts, tugging and tugging at his bowtie. It won't sit straight no matter what. He knows he hasn't tied it right but there's no way in hell he'll ask for help from Canada, who is too smug for his own good these days.

Canada, of course, knows how to tie it properly because he paid attention when England taught him. He doesn't say it but they both know that's why.

"It's not really an opinion," Canada says. "It's a fact. People have noticed."

"Oh?" America falters, then rolls his eyes. "What people, exactly?"

"Which people." Canada shrugs. "Francis, of course. He finds it too amusing for words."

"To Hell with Francis. He can get gossip from the back of a matchbook." America scowls at his twin. "Besides, this is all pretty rich coming from you, if you're going to insist on bringing up Francis. Do you think I don't know that you fuck him?"

"Alfred!" Canada starts off the doorframe. "There's really no need for language like that!" he snaps. "To... to be so vulgar–"

"Well, you did start it. Why is it alright for you to roll on your back in the Moulin Rouge for Francis but I cannot even express a passing interest in Arthur without evoking desperation?"

"Because it is quite a bit more than a passing interest," Canada snaps. "Your obsession with him has grown quite unhealthy these past few years – I have seen the letters you send him and some of them are quite lurid. Sonnets they most certainly are not."

"Oh, he opens them? I was not aware. He never replies." America shrugs, checking his cufflinks. "Well, I suppose it can't be helped. He is an Empire, after all, and so busy–"

"And you had not considered that it might be because your letters are borderline sociopathic?"

"They are not."

Canada snorts. "Well, I can tell you that he is not remotely interested in you either way so you might as well give up."

"And I can tell you that it's none of your goddamn business."

"It is my business," Canada says. "I am still part of the Empire. You, as I seem to recall, are most definitely not." He folds his arms. "In fact, I seem to recall you fighting a war to get away from him."

"I do not regret it, if that's what you are inferring."

"It was less than a century ago, still. Are you that fickle or are you sick of your own company already?"

"Neither. I have always loved him – I, however, unlike some people, am not in the practice of telling him so just to please him, nor of bowing to his every whim. I hope you have enjoyed these past hundred years of being his colony."

"Just as I hope you have enjoyed these past hundred years of being steadfastly ignored." Canada looks at his pocket watch. "Come, we had better head down or we shall be late. You will definitely have his attention then."

"My intention, perhaps."

Canada looks him up and down. Despite his best efforts – or what passes for them – he still looks unkempt, sunshine spilling out of his shabby suit. He doesn't often get invited to dine with England in London and it's obvious.

Canada holds the door open. "Won't you come?"

"You never did finish telling me all the many legions of people apparently so acquainted with my unsettling desperation."

"Oh, as if I've the time for that. I was hoping to be in bed by midnight. Perhaps on the passage back."

America grins as they start down the stairs. "I suppose that gives you time enough for invention."

Dinner, though a quiet affair in one of west London's plushest clubs, is not as intimate as America would have liked. Canada's presence, while irksome, he can tolerate: they're twins, he knows him like the back of his hand, he can tell him to shut up. These other men however, six or so, he must school himself with, though he finds them to be varying levels of dull. During dinner – the longest four courses he's ever encountered – he finds himself as far away from England as is possible, plonked instead next to a middle-aged man with a beard and balding elbows. He's a writer, though America forgets his name immediately, and finds to his disappointment that he has not written anything of any real interest.

He learns, in fact, that all of the men around the table are writers of some description, which doesn't surprise him. This is the sort of company England likes to keep on a superficial level: he likes writers far better than politicians but less than soldiers. He's always been a little bit pretentious.

England is resplendent in deep green velvet, glowing against the black jacquard wallpaper of the club. His cravat is like seafoam on the rocks and his pin is shining silver-mounted jet, fashionable with ladies-in-mourning. America often forgets just how fair his flaxen hair is. He supposes he doesn't get out in the fields much, not anymore. Up close he must smell like spices and silks, not hard earth and sweat. America still has flecks of railroad under his nails – quite the contrast to the silver fork and saffron-infused curry. This is how empires dine now. Times have certainly changed.

The young man on England's left is a new find, some upcoming playwright or other with flamboyant clothes and a razor wit. He's sandwiched between England and Canada and enjoying their attention. England isn't exactly hanging on his every word but at least he's paying him some sort of attention, which is more than America has had all night. England barely looked twice at him when they arrived at the club; in fact, he begins to suspect that Canada may have been the one to secure him the invitation to dinner out of sheer pity. A wasted venture, he concludes gloomily, playing with his food. He doesn't like it, it's too aromatic and fussy. He'd kill for some cornbread. He wishes England would look at him, even in disgust.

After dinner they move to one of the back rooms for brandy and cigars. America expects another place of embossed wallpaper and is surprised to find instead a strange old room with a vaulted ceiling and bare stone walls. Instead of the flickering gaslights of the main club, the chamber is lit by dozens of dripping candles set on every surface, flickering off the polished leather of the armchairs scattered throughout. The fire has been set to roaring in preparation for their arrival, the brandy glowing amber at its advent. The strange and sudden faux-Gothicism is so delightfully eccentric that America cheers up immediately. He waits for England to take his seat and skips to its neighbour, flinging himself into it.

"I always knew you were melodramatic," he teases. "Are we having a Halloween party?"

England finally offers him his full attention. He seems irritated.

"I ought to have known that you would be immature about it," he says. "This place was the venue for meetings between myself, Lord Byron and many of his contemporaries. It was decorated to his liking."

America rolls his eyes. He never met Byron personally but legend of his eccentric taste has always far transcended the man.

"Goodness, to have known Lord Byron," the young playwright sighs enviously, sinking into the chair at England's other side. "Indeed, to have called him a friend, to have discussed poetry with him... What a privilege."

"You would have liked him, Mr Wilde, of that I am quite certain," England says. "In fact, I daresay the two of you would have got along like a house on fire."

Wilde smiles, lighting up a cigarette. "Still, how lucky you are, Arthur, to live forever as you do, in full possession of your youth and beauty – if only so you can know all the literary greats that every age has to offer." He grinned. "Myself included, of course."

They share a laugh, Wilde lighting England's cigar for him. America scowls, leaning forward.

"I knew Washington Irving," he says. "Well, I met him in an inn. Once."

Wilde raises his eyebrows at him. "Who on this earth is Washington Irving?"

"He wrote Sleepy Hollow," America says indignantly. He's pretty sure Wilde is just being obnoxious.

"Oh." Wilde is unimpressed. "Didn't you know Poe? Hawthorne? Melville?"

"'Fraid not. I've been busy, you know, building things. I don't have much time to sit around getting drunk and talking about books."

"So it would seem." Wilde averts his gaze back to England. "Lord Byron... was he truly as eccentric as they say?"

"Oh, certainly." England waves vaguely towards the fireplace. "He used to sit there beside the fire, reciting his newest work, drinking wine from a skull."

"A skull?" Wilde repeats delightedly. "A real skull?"

"All too real, I'm afraid. I didn't like to ask where he acquired them from. Between he and Coleridge, it is no surprise that Mrs Shelley conjured such extraordinary horror onto paper."

"Frankenstein," America pipes up. "I really liked that novel."

"Oh, superbly written, of course," Wilde says dismissively, "but rather fanciful. It ought not to be taken seriously at all."

"A shame," Canada mutters near America's ear. "Perhaps you could have built your own Arthur and spared yourself this humiliation. I have told you that there is no getting through to him."

America ignores him, watching England intently. He doesn't seem that interested in anything, not even Wilde at this point, instead staring at his cigarette. He has to arrest him, shock him, hold him captive.

"Hey, well,," he says, raising his voice to fill the room, to stave off Wilde, "all this talk of writers and skulls reminds me of something I read recently in The Argosy."

Another ripple of laughter goes throughout the room, breathed over the rims of crystal-cut tumblers. They are all in on the joke now.

"The Argosy?" one murmurs. "Does anybody even read that?"

"I'd sooner wipe my arse with a ten shilling note than that rag–"

"It's about William Shakespeare," America says firmly, speaking over them. "Who, incidentally, England also knew."

England examines his nails. "I did," he says, "but I don't like to brag."

"What about Shakespeare?" Wilde prompts. "What could The Argosy possibly have to say about Shakespeare that we don't already know?"

America pauses, glancing about the room. Despite their mockery, they are hanging on his every word. The atmosphere – ringed in by stone walls and flickering candlelight – is perfect. He drops his voice, basking in their attention.

"It's the story," he says, "of how Shakespeare's skull was stolen from his grave."

There is a long, taut pause – and then another wave of baying laughter. Wilde can barely contain himself, howling.

"Stealing Shakespeare's skull! Can you imagine...?!"

"Who on this blessed earth would have the nerve?"

"What else can you expect from the hacks at The Argosy?"

America scowls, shrinking back in his seat. This is not the reaction he had envisioned. God, even Canada is laughing...

"I fail to see what is so ludicrous about it," he says icily. "It is well-known that people steal the skulls of the famous. Mozart, Jonathan Swift–"

"You are awfully knowledgeable about these things," England interrupts suddenly. "A ghoulish preoccupation, perhaps?"

"It... it was in the story."

"Indeed – and it is a story," England says, "and nothing more. I, naturally, was at Shakespeare's funeral when he was buried at Holy Trinity Church in 1616. I have seen his tomb. 'Curst be he that moves my bones' is the inscription. What fool would dare to take his skull from his grave in the face of such a dire warning?"

America shrugs. "I don't see what he could do about it if someone did. He's dead."

"Oh, indulge us, then," Wilde says. "Tell us the story, since you seem so keen to share."

America doesn't want to, not after that frosty reception from England, but his sullenness won't stop their staring.

"F-fine." He clenches his fists on the leather of his armchair. "It seems that a young doctor by the name of Frank Chambers was tempted by a bounty offered by a rich noble to anyone who could bring him the skull of William Shakespeare–"

"Typical hack writing," mutters someone. "There's always a rich noble..."

"A-anyway," America goes on, glancing at England – who is staring at the bottom of his glass. "He, uh, Dr Chambers wants the money so he assembles some grave robbers and one night they break into the church where Shakespeare is buried. They shatter the stone slab over his grave and start digging–"

"How could they dig through to the vault?" Wilde interrupts. "There's the flaw in the story right there."

There is a murmuring of agreement throughout the chamber. America scowls.

"There is no vault," he says primly. "They dig with their bare hands to about three feet and find the skull–"

He gets no further, cut off once more by shrieks of laughter from intoxicated writers.

"No vault! No coffin!"

"They did it with their bare hands!"

"And at only three feet! Who buries a corpse three feet deep?"

America clams up, retreating once more, angry and humiliated. Canada leans in.

"I did warn you," he says. "You cannot impress him – least of all here."

"Shut up, Matthew." America turns his face away, looking instead once more – as ever, at England–

Alarmed when he meets his gaze quite unexpectedly. England is staring right at him, unblinking. He looks rather pale, his fingers white around his brandy glass. Wilde hasn't noticed, neither has Canada; nobody, in fact, the strange little gathering in the style of Lord Byron rinsing about them, oblivious.

...Well, he would know, wouldn't he? He was there, after all.

(Oh, yes, he certainly has his attention now.)

This story was inspired by a documentary that aired recently on Channel 4 here in the UK, entitled Shakespeare's Tomb. It was an incredibly interesting investigation of Shakespeare's very weird-looking grave (I have seen it in person, it is indeed very strange, with a much shorter engraved slab than the other four members of his family buried alongside him). Given the inscription on his tomb that warns that he not be moved, the Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-Upon-Avon refuse to open up the grave to investigate (and rightly so!). However, a recent study using Ground-Penetrating Radar (GPR) uncovered oddities about the grave without having to open it: the grave itself is actually much longer than it looks, there is evidence of disturbance/damage and subsequent repair at the head end of the grave and Shakespeare and his family were not, as previously thought, buried in a grand vault. In fact, the GPR showed that not only was Shakespeare buried at a depth of only about three feet, he and his family were buried without any sort of coffin whatsoever.

Alfred's tale about the story of the theft of Shakespeare's skull that he read in New York pulp publication The Argosy is true; the story was published in 1879 and up until now has been dismissed as a lurid tale and nothing more. However, with the new evidence, the fact that the story's author knew that Shakespeare was not buried in a vault (as was previously believed) and was at a depth of only three feet (an unusually-shallow depth, not one you would make up), coupled with the fact that the GPR scans show definite disturbance to the grave at the head end gives credence to the fact that Shakespeare's skull may indeed have been stolen from his grave by trophy-hunters. This was very common at one time, with Alfred's examples of Mozart and Jonathan Swift both being true. Unfortunately, if it is true, it means that nobody has any idea where Shakey's skull actually is.

Maybe Hamlet knows. XD

I tend this to be short and sweet. Well, not sweet. But short. Maybe.