blood_winged (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
blood_winged) wrote2011-02-07 07:54 pm
blood_winged) wrote2011-02-07 07:54 pm
Entry tags:
[Fanfic] My Brother [England & Scotland]
Title: My Brother
Genre: General
Characters: England, Scotland, mentions of others
Rating/Warnings: U, none.
Summary: First person, England's observations on their relationship.
*****
We have hurt one another, over and over, for so long now that I can barely trace it back to the beginning. It wasn’t my fault, the way that it began, but I can never convince him of that. He looks at me and he sees a traitor, a liar. I look at him… and I am not sure what I see.
He is a brother and an enemy. We cannot spend more than five minutes in a room together without one of us being hurt. Usually me. He has a mean right hook that I never see coming. It is so difficult to believe now that we were friends once, so long ago that it feels like forever. If I hadn’t been so selfish, so foolish, so trusting then perhaps it would still be so. It could be said that we share equal blame but I know that the most fault lies with me, with my lack of action. I drove him to what he did. I drove him from me and into the all too eager waiting arms of that wine drinking bastard. I want to hate him, but I cannot bring myself to. The happy times, brief as they were still linger in my mind like a lasting shadow that refuses to be erased.
I want to hate him. He sits across from me now with a cigarette in one hand, pouring a glass of whisky with the other while the world talks around us. He has not looked at me yet but I know that he feels my eyes on him, wanting the return of his gaze but at the same time fearing it. If he looks at me, that means he has noticed me and if he notices me then it is only a matter of time before he stands up and voices some complaint which I will have to answer to. He has been speaking empty words of being free of me for years, yet he never makes a move to leave. I wonder if it is because, despite the distance between us, he is afraid to be truly alone.
He isn’t somebody that I know anymore. We were wild in our youth, both of us, sitting atop Hadrian’s Wall, back to back, eating pilfered apples and complaining of the sour taste. That boy who would take care of me, make sure that I was safe and cry when we parted was not the same man as the one who now sits, reclining in his chair and drawling out irritated remarks about Libya and the demands they are making of him, smoking despite the disgusted looks that his habit draws.
I try not to cough but my efforts fail, and I feel myself shrinking down as his attention turns to me. A crooked smile on his lips is like a warning that sets off alarm bells in my mind and the room hushes as if in anticipation of a conflict. He reaches over to me, grabs a handful of my tie in one hand and jerks, and the edge of the table digs into my stomach as I lurch forwards, my chair clattering to the floor behind me. I try not to show fear, he always laughs when he sees it. No one moves to help me, but out of the corner of my eye I see two of the younger ones rise from their seats. They will stop him if he goes too far, I know that, but it gives me little comfort.
He locks his eyes to mine and I am frozen in place, smelling the alcohol and smoke on his breath and clothes. It makes my eyes water. I press my lips together and bite down on where the inside is already chewed raw, and he grins. He knows what he does to me.
Bastard Pict.
Neither of us speaks and he releases me after a moment. I pick up my chair and sit down, trying to ignore how my legs are shaking and the way that Russia’s eyes on me are making my skin itch. I don't look at him.
He is acting like nothing happened while I straighten my tie and try to find some comfortable way to sit that eases the near overwhelming urge to fidget. The sound of his humming drifts over to me.
I want to hate him, but I can’t. I want to love him, but he won’t allow me to. I want to put everything behind us, but it has been too long to ever have hope of that.
“Scotland,” I say, the word out of my mouth before I can stop it. He looks at me and lifts one eyebrow.
“England,” he replies, half butchering my name in that heavy brogue of his. He tolerates my silence for a short time before a muscle in his face twitches and I stammer out a handful of disjointed syllables, and then shake my head.
“Nothing.”
Genre: General
Characters: England, Scotland, mentions of others
Rating/Warnings: U, none.
Summary: First person, England's observations on their relationship.
*****
We have hurt one another, over and over, for so long now that I can barely trace it back to the beginning. It wasn’t my fault, the way that it began, but I can never convince him of that. He looks at me and he sees a traitor, a liar. I look at him… and I am not sure what I see.
He is a brother and an enemy. We cannot spend more than five minutes in a room together without one of us being hurt. Usually me. He has a mean right hook that I never see coming. It is so difficult to believe now that we were friends once, so long ago that it feels like forever. If I hadn’t been so selfish, so foolish, so trusting then perhaps it would still be so. It could be said that we share equal blame but I know that the most fault lies with me, with my lack of action. I drove him to what he did. I drove him from me and into the all too eager waiting arms of that wine drinking bastard. I want to hate him, but I cannot bring myself to. The happy times, brief as they were still linger in my mind like a lasting shadow that refuses to be erased.
I want to hate him. He sits across from me now with a cigarette in one hand, pouring a glass of whisky with the other while the world talks around us. He has not looked at me yet but I know that he feels my eyes on him, wanting the return of his gaze but at the same time fearing it. If he looks at me, that means he has noticed me and if he notices me then it is only a matter of time before he stands up and voices some complaint which I will have to answer to. He has been speaking empty words of being free of me for years, yet he never makes a move to leave. I wonder if it is because, despite the distance between us, he is afraid to be truly alone.
He isn’t somebody that I know anymore. We were wild in our youth, both of us, sitting atop Hadrian’s Wall, back to back, eating pilfered apples and complaining of the sour taste. That boy who would take care of me, make sure that I was safe and cry when we parted was not the same man as the one who now sits, reclining in his chair and drawling out irritated remarks about Libya and the demands they are making of him, smoking despite the disgusted looks that his habit draws.
I try not to cough but my efforts fail, and I feel myself shrinking down as his attention turns to me. A crooked smile on his lips is like a warning that sets off alarm bells in my mind and the room hushes as if in anticipation of a conflict. He reaches over to me, grabs a handful of my tie in one hand and jerks, and the edge of the table digs into my stomach as I lurch forwards, my chair clattering to the floor behind me. I try not to show fear, he always laughs when he sees it. No one moves to help me, but out of the corner of my eye I see two of the younger ones rise from their seats. They will stop him if he goes too far, I know that, but it gives me little comfort.
He locks his eyes to mine and I am frozen in place, smelling the alcohol and smoke on his breath and clothes. It makes my eyes water. I press my lips together and bite down on where the inside is already chewed raw, and he grins. He knows what he does to me.
Bastard Pict.
Neither of us speaks and he releases me after a moment. I pick up my chair and sit down, trying to ignore how my legs are shaking and the way that Russia’s eyes on me are making my skin itch. I don't look at him.
He is acting like nothing happened while I straighten my tie and try to find some comfortable way to sit that eases the near overwhelming urge to fidget. The sound of his humming drifts over to me.
I want to hate him, but I can’t. I want to love him, but he won’t allow me to. I want to put everything behind us, but it has been too long to ever have hope of that.
“Scotland,” I say, the word out of my mouth before I can stop it. He looks at me and lifts one eyebrow.
“England,” he replies, half butchering my name in that heavy brogue of his. He tolerates my silence for a short time before a muscle in his face twitches and I stammer out a handful of disjointed syllables, and then shake my head.
“Nothing.”
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