Romance

Only France could call what was between them romance.

The flowers, presents, dinners, that one time France had taken him to his Paris and their transportation had broken down in the rain... England had beaten him over the head for that mistake and France had simply laughed. These sort of things England could call friendship. Most of these things he could simply accept as friendship. The sex was just sex. They would fight without restraint and England was just as ready to kill him as to let him into his house.

"But mon cher, romance is fanciful. Romance is what happens to us in our colourful lives. It can be baseless and made up, it can be magical and historical. All of these things make up our lives. And as we spend our lives together... what is between us can only be romance."

"Are you twisting my language around to make your point?" England asked as France poured himself more wine.

"It's your language, which is already twisted around. I suppose you have to be foreign to it to understand."

England was inclined to think that France was just barely on target with his description and ignored the thought.

"What is this?" France asked as England pushed the box across the table.

"A present."

And France smiled, picking it up with his fingertips, those fingertips which would often slide over England's body, those fingertips which had driven in nails and swords and wood into England's body, those fingertips which would simply slide between his fingers to squeeze his hand once in reassurance.

"France, I–"

But he would be an idiot to say it, would he not?

"Yes England?"

"Are you going to open it or what?"

Only France could call what they had romance without ever once having said he loved only him. Unlike what he said to everyone else, never once to him had France said 'Je t'aime. C'est toi, seulement toi, que j'aime. Juste toi.'

They were not romantic. And maybe it was because of that England could believe he did.

These drabbles are for the FrUK fans out there who really need more of these stories to exist and fill their appetite. Plus I just have the need to write with them. So there.