New Year's Eve. 1999.

Sounds like the stereotypical start to any 'coming of age' tale, which I doubt either would be best pleased with. Instead, we'll go straight to the action.

New Year's Eve, and the nations hold a party. There is usually any excuse for a party and since this was the millenia turning around, a lot of the nations found it oddly appropriate to have a party, together. It was the first millennia where everyone was celebrating globally. Where everyone was coming together to celebrate this once-in-a-well, millennia, event. So during a meeting it was decided they'd get together, if anything just for the irony. America was the first one to flail and claim that the party would be held at his of course because the Hero always holds the best parties!- until he was promptly thwacked in the face by France, for once.

"Do not be ridiculous, Amerique. Your alcohol tastes like shit. I shall hold the occasion."

So it was decided.

The party went on as well as any party with the nations had done. Alcohol, pranks, karaoke. The usual. It was getting close to the climax of the evening when England had popped his head out of the skylight, rolled his eyes, and clambered onto the rooftop, holding a glass of wine.

"Knew I'd find you up here." He mutters, sitting beside the Frenchman, who was gazing out at the view before them - streets buzzing with bars full, cars trundling past, and the Eiffel tower, acting as a beacon of culture in it's luminescent glory.

France looks up at this, flashing the Englishman a trademark smirk.

"Hm, yes. You do seem to have quite the talent for it."

He turns around to pick up the glass beside him and takes his time in taking a sip, closing his eyes as he swallows. As he opens them, he splits a grin, and relaxes his body, reaching to whack England on the back.

"So to what can I owe the pleasure of your company, Angleterre? I would have thought you would be being terrorised by Prussia and Spain, or releasing tensions with America. It is the perfect time of year to turn over a new leaf, hm?" He motions to the air. England chokes on his wine, flustering as he grips the glass a little too tightly.

"Hah." He chokes out bitterly, but sighs. "No. Spain's 'releasing tensions' with Romano, and Prussia's off playing pranks on Germany. America's... drunk." He actually emits a chuckle at the words, but stops himself and looks at the watch on his wrist. "... There's not long left till midnight. I was wondering why you weren't being the flirtatious bastard you usually are. I'd have thought that being the host, you'd take all the advantages you could get at being the centre of attention."

"There's a time and place for those things, Angleterre. I am sure they are managing fine on their own."

"Oh yes, and for you that's usually all the time," a pause. An amused smile suddenly spreads on his face. "... And yet you call me out for 'reminiscing' and 'being stuck in the past', you bloody frog..."

Now he'd figured out why he was up there, France just sighs and brings his knees up to his chest again. "Sometimes it is good to remember what brought you to where you are and what made you into who you have become." He looks at the tower in the distance. "You just pine over it."

Before England can make a remark or rant back at him, he pulls a smirk. "People say the world is going to end at midnight, Arthur."

"...In your dreams. If you think I'm going to fall for that lark again then go and find someone else to conquer."

"It was fun while it lasted, I suppose."

"You say that about most things. I rephrase; most things that end up in you being naked."

France opts to ignore this, and instead motions out to the Paris streets below them. "Angleterre, can't you remember? When we were just children. You'd sit there and cry about your brothers or be talking to yourself and I would come along and teach you and make sure your knees weren't too dirty-"

"And then you'd insult my hair and my eyebrows and I would attempt to chase you?"

"Oui! And then there was one time where I fell into the river at the bottom of that dark forest you'd always hide in. And somehow you pulled me out of which I do not even know how to this day."

"I already told you this a million times: it wasn't me, it was the water fey."

They sigh.

"I remember when you finally took over and forced me to learn French."

"I'm frankly amazed your puny English mind remembered such a wonderful language, even to this day."

"Taguelle."

"Oh, the hundred years war. Those were interesting times..."

"Oh yes, Agincourt was a rather fun time had by all, wasn't it?"

"I'd throw this wine at you, but it'd be a waste of decent wine." France sniffs, scowling a little as he feels England's smirk burn at his cheek. He feels something tug at his heart at the smirk, a painful memory. He doesn't throw the image at the Briton aside of him, but instead breathes it out to the breeze, and promptly takes a gulp of his wine.

"...Jeanne..."

The smirk drops, and England looks away. He swishes his own wine between his fingers.

"I-I... I never wanted to kill a girl..." And England looks away, looks away like he did all those years ago as the smoke rose high above the streets of France, away as her remains were thrown into the deepest pits of the Seine...

France breathes it all away. He only opens his eyes as he feels England shift away beside him.

"I suppose you bloody got me back anyway by helping America..." He mutters. He takes a sip of the alcohol.

"Which you in return took away Canada."

"Which you know full well you had the opportunity to take him back at one point and you decided not to."

If this was a normal night and a normal conversation, they both would have been at each other's jugulars right now. Instead, Francis pays Arthur a scowl, before silently looking at him for a moment.

"Angleterre," he pauses, his lips creasing as though trying to tease and consider the words between his lips, "do you... have you ever considered why we fight like we do?"

England looks at him bluntly.

"Apart from the fact you're a git? No."

"Ah, see, that is where it's interesting, I could say. Why was there any reason for us to hate each other? When we first met to me you were just a rather hairy unkempt nation who needed looking after."

"And you know full well I never liked that idea. Then you sort of took over me, and I didn't likethat idea, either. So I fought against that. I'd gotten bloody fed up of my brothers and everyone else trying to take over, so I decided to fight back and get my own bloody land and more, since everyone else seemed so keen to get land for themselves."

"Are you sure that was not simply a desire to not be so lonely? Or would you have not attempted and succeeded in becoming the World's greatest Empire if it wasn't for the fact that we battled so much?"

"... I wouldn't know."

England's glaring at the other for a moment, scowling as though the words hurt him but he's not quite sure how or why. He gives up on the emotion a moment later, the distilling scent of alcohol enticing him to lower the volume in the glass a little more.

"We've always fought," England continued after a hesitation. "We could barely stand each other's faces. We've fought each other so much all the time we've known each other."

"The Rebellions after Norman Reign was instated."

"The Hundred years war."

"The Napoleonic war."

"All the wars we've battled when it was just alliances with the other nations, ahah..."

"The Great War."

"... We didn't fight each other then."

"... Hm, no, we didn't, but we fought together. On the same side. War is the same essence in context, Angleterre. And it was the first time we'd truly allied with each other, I should think. It was - " He takes a drink "- The first time I came to realise your company was more than just an annoyance. It was grating, it was irritable, it was barely bearable, but it was company. And what other two nations have shared the past that we have?" He questions the streets below him, people mingling in preparation for the New Year.

"I'd call them lucky buggers. Who'd like to be stuck with you for a thousand years?" He mused, a grumble on his face.

"Why, you would, of course."

"Don't be bloody ridiculous."

"I'm not. Why would my dear Angleterre be keeping me company rather than enjoying himself with Amerique or even Canada or even Japon if he hated my guts? You are a confusing man, Arthur, but not a particularly complicated one. Which brings me back to my point, and indeed one of the questions I've been wondering this evening; what if we had got along from the start? Would we have become both as powerful as we did? Would we have risen so high to have fallen so far? Would when we finally did come together to fight against a mutual enemy have been so strong?"

A stray firework shot off in the distance. Arthur didn't reply for some time.

"... You reminisce and think about things way too bloody much."

Francis could only smile.

"Well, then, that proves to me certainly where you got it from." He closes his eyes. "But I will tell you this, Arthur - when I surrendered to Germany during the second war, after I had gone to you and we'd exchanged promises - I certainly believe it was only those promises that kept me on my feet. I hated you in some ways; that you were selfish, striving for self-preservation - that most of my men were now in your lands - but at the same time, when haven't I felt such disrespect to you? The point is is that I hated you and depended on you at the same time, and it was at that point that I realised that that was how it always was and how it was always going to be. After all, -"

"- Where's a frog without its rosbif?" Arthur finishes, and he gazes at Francis, arms folded.

"You're an idiot and you frustrate me beyond belief," he adds on, and then he smiles. "But I can't imagine life without you, admittedly. Though it would probably smell less of garlic. Is that what you've been thinking about all evening? Aren't you one for enjoying yourself?"

"We talked about this when you first came onto the roof."

"I guess we are repeating things, but it's like coming full circle. We seem to do that a lot, don't we? We spent the start of the last millennia together, as something vaguely resembling some form of mutuality. No doubt we'll start from the beginning soon enough."

"That is true."

"I can't say I'd have it any other way. I bloody miss times of past, you know that - I miss my colonies, I miss my Empire, I miss my Elizabeth, I miss my victories - and the only ruddy thing to hang about through all my ups and downs has been you. I've hated you so much that I've wanted to kill you horribly time and time again. You're the one consistency in my life that I never quite wanted around, and you stuck around like a bloody gnat to the point that you know what? Life would have one less light in this world if you weren't being the weird Frog that you are. Well," he nods towards the landmark in the distance. "Well, several hundred thousand, I guess. ... What I'm saying is, is that I may have hated you and I'm not exactly 'fond' of you now, but you've always had an effect and changed me, and always will..."

"The feeling is mutual, monpetitsourcil."

"... Good."

"We are tipsy."

"God, at the very least. Don't expect to hear anything from me for the next couple of days after this as a result of death by embarrassment."

"That is to be expected."

"Of course."

Before any more words could be spoken between the two, there was a sudden tense uproar from both inside the house and seemingly from the streets below. People seemed to pause at the second, and a shouted chorus of the countdown from ten in French. The New Year was approaching.

Francis got to his feet, reaching for Arthur's hand. "Let us propose a toast."

Arthur follows him up, raising an eyebrow. "To what? The past, the future, to now? What?"

Francis shakes his head smiling, and gently kisses the Briton, hispetitAnglais, on the cheek.

"Non," he murmurs, "to us."

Their glasses touch, and fireworks burst into the sky all around them.

Illuminating their lives for one more millennium.