A/N - Yes, this fic is Cuba/England, and it's a fic I'm de-anoning from the kink meme. It was written for the rarepairs challenge request, which was basically a challenge to write a pairing that had never before appeared on the kink meme. I'd never thought of this pairing before then, but as World/England is pretty much my OTP, I ran with it and it got really long (it's almost 40 pages on Word). Although the fic is completed, I'm going to post the different parts as separate chapters and I'll post a chapter every day or every couple of days. Expect a lot of historical content (because the request was to show how the pairings would work), an unusual chronology (there's a continuous storyline going on in the present day interspersed with moments from various times in the past) and also some mature content later on (hey, I did write this for the kink meme after all!). The first few chapters are a lot shorter than the rest, but bear with me and I hope some more people will grow to like this pairing~ :)
13 July 2009, José Martà International Airport
The plane landed, and somewhere to the north, America disapproved. More than that, he Disapproved with a capital D, and probably with bold and italics as well, but England shook away the thought of America standing and scowling like a petulant child. He stepped out of the stifling aeroplane, stretching his legs and trying to work the crick out of his neck.
Who cared what America thought anyway? He could ban his own people from visiting Cuba if he liked, but he had no say over who England decided to associate himself with. Besides, he was here on official business. Well. Sort of. The Royal Ballet was dancing in Cuba and England had tagged along to supervise and improve international relations. Or so he had told his prime minister anyway. Whatever the case, he was certainly not here for a holiday.
Following the dancers out of the hot, heavy air and into the weakly air-conditioned terminal building, England wished he was wearing something more suited to the weather than his suit trousers, shirt (albeit short-sleeved) and tie. His suit jacket hung over his left arm while a discreet sports bag containing his hand luggage rested on his right shoulder, hand rooting around in his pocket for his passport.
As he officially entered the country and moved on to wait for his suitcase to appear, England switched his mobile phone back on. Already he had two sulky texts from America accusing him of consorting with the enemy. England rolled his eyes and deleted them without bothering to reply. America did have a point, of course, in a way, but when England thought of Cuba it wasn't politics that immediately sprang to mind. What Cuba meant to England was tobacco smoke, accented Spanish and sugar. But maybe that was because he could mentally separate the country from its government, and the nation from the man. Because when England thought of dreadlocks and liquid brown eyes, Cuba was all he could see.
He saw him now, in fact, waiting with some other official-looking men and women who were greeting the dancers and welcoming them, but England didn't pay attention to what they were saying and walked straight past them, eyes locked on Cuba's bored gaze until he stopped in front of the other nation. There was a pause for perhaps a split second, and then Cuba clapped him on the back, showing pearly white teeth as he grinned at England, and England found his own lips twitching up into a smile in return.
"Hey, what took you so long?" Cuba asked in his Caribbean brand of Spanish that came as a shock to England's system no matter how many times he heard it. "It's about damn time you came and paid me a visit!"
"I could say the same to you," England replied, slipping easily into Cuba's native tongue. It was common courtesy to use the language of the host country, after all, although England generally made an exception with France, just on principle. "Is it really so hard to get on a plane and fly over to Europe instead of whinging while you wait for me to come to you?" Cuba waved his words away with an idle flick of the wrist.
"And freeze to death on your godforsaken island?" he asked. "Not likely." England punched him on the arm and Cuba laughed, drawing the attention of several members of their group. England loved Cuba's laugh. Never one to do things half way, the island nation was loud and unapologetic when showing his amusement. England often told him that he sounded like a dog barking when he laughed, but then Cuba would turn around and reply that at least he did laugh, and he'd do something stupid to try and make England join in. Often he failed, but only because England wasn't about to let him have his way. It was one of his personal policies to never encourage idiots after all.
But as England climbed onto the coach that would drive the ballet company to their hotel, Cuba graciously standing aside and blocking the aisle as he gestured for England to take the window seat, England considered that, for an idiot, Cuba wasn't actually half bad.
Notes:
The Royal Ballet Company really did visit Cuba in July 2009 on a five day visit. It was incredibly popular - every ticket sold within hours of them being put on sale.