Family Ties [Part 87]
Sep. 27th, 2010 10:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hellzabethTitle: Family Ties
Characters (in this chapter): France, America, Wales, Canada, Belarus, Prussia
Rating: 15
Warnings: A bit too much gore-y detail, brain scrambling levels of headcanon, but then this is future-history, so it's all headcanon really. orz;;;
Summary: Uh, I need to be banned from the kink meme or monsters like this happen? Essentially, Scotland leaves the UK, which gives Northern Ireland an excuse to up and out as well, which leaves England and Wales all alone. Oh yeah, and this somehow leads to World War Three.
France was getting a splitting headache. He rubbed at his temples and prayed that it was just because of the unholy noise level in the hospital, rather than because of some kind of radiation run off spreading down from the Irish sea. He didn't need radiation poisoning on top of this complete madness. The British Isles had been rushed off to the ER, but France knew there would be little they could do for them. He knew his boss was offering safe passage to them, letting refugees across the channel, but the damage wouldn't be undone so easily.
If what was very quickly happening to Scotland's leg was any indication of what was going to happen to the others, boiling water was the least of their problems.
Blackened lumps rose and grew with alarming speed, cancerous tumors rampant. Without skin to cover them it was easy to access them, cut them out before they spread, but it was a horrific sight to see, and more than once the blonde had watched a nurse leave the room with their hand over their mouth, dashing to the nearest toilet.
He wanted to go in, to keep a watch, but he also needed his phone on, in case he needed to be contacted. Quebec had blurted something about having to do something and hung up, but god knew he would call again. Poor boy, born into this kind of war.
Right on cue and as expected, France's phone lit up with Quebec's name. Tapping the button after two rings, he held it to his ear. "Salut-"
"You! France! Froggy NWO bastard!" shouted a voice that was definitely not Quebec, and France didn't need to guess twice at who had snatched the phone.
"Alfred, you seem well." Francis said guardedly. If everything Quebec said was true, then he had to be careful. America was a ticking time bomb, in many senses of the word, and he wasn't about to cut the wrong wire.
"Shut up! What's happened to Iggy? Is he alive? He's gotta be still alive, come on, talk!" America shouted. France held the phone a foot away from his ear and still heard him with perfect clarity.
"Angleterre is not dead, no. Injured, but not dead. It would do you well to calm down a little."
"Don't try to order me around, you socialist sucking asshole." the superpower ordered. Ah, he'd clearly been taking insult lessons from England. "Put England on the line and I'll try to remember not to beat the shit out of you next time I see you."
Clearly he was not up to date on where France's alliances lay at the current point. "I can't, he's in the operating room, phones might mess with the electronics." He leaned his head back against the wall of the hospital corridor, throbbing headache only increasing with the added stress. "I could always update you on his condition if you ask nicely."
"You know what, fuck you, I have a Russian to beat up and I'm not wasting my time on you and your stupid Euro-bull. Iggy's safe, and he's in a hospital, and he'll be fine, or else." America ranted, ending in a growl. "You better make sure of that."
"I'll do my best." France said sarcastically. "Now if you would give Quebec his phone back I'm sure he'd appreciate it."
"Whatever." was the last response, before the bleep of the call ending sounded in France's ear. He let out a rush of air he didn't know he'd been holding in, hands shaking a little. America was certainly acting different from the usual happy-go-lucky teen the world was used to. It was discomforting, concerning.
He worried silently for Quebec, and prayed he wouldn't have to lose another son to this war.
---
"So, um." Wales said into the silence, making the small boy across from him look up from his game of tic tac toe with a curious expression. "What are your names?"
The boy looked over at the girl, who frowned. She was good at that, her small features frozen in a permanent expression of displeasure. "I don't know." she said. "Neither of us do. Gilbert says it's because we touched the doors, but I don't remember that."
"You don't remember anything." the boy added, a slightly proud smile quirking the edge of his mouth. "I remember bits and pieces. I didn't touch a door, I just fell on one."
"Stupid." the girl quipped, frozen expression finally shifting slightly into a smirk. The boy pouted.
"Am not. It was just an accident. You nearly walked through a door, but Gilbert grabbed you." he pointed out, making the girl sulk and look away.
"So what do you remember?" Wales pressed. This would be the proof, what this boy remembered. He didn't want to get his hopes up.
The boy's eyebrows pulled together in concentration. "Umm... snow." he decided. "A lot of snow. And ships, there was something important on the ships, people I wanted to see. Um," he paused again, wracking his brains. "Something soft and warm, I think it was an animal. Oh!" he suddenly pointed at Wales. "And a man with a face like yours! Only not really, he didn't have freckles, and he was bigger, but his eyes were green and his eyebrows were..." he mimed two massive eyebrows, inches thick, over his own. The girl giggled at him. "And a man who looked like me, but older and he had a beard and he called me words like chou et mon cheri et mon petit et..." and his language turned to French as he unknowingly babbled on, but Wales had heard enough anyway.
It really was Canada.
Canada, as he hadn't looked for nearly 300 years, carrying on in stumbling French.
Wales nearly hugged him.
"I do so remember!" suddenly shouted the girl, stamping her foot. "I remember a man! And I loved him! And his name was brother and I found him already, because Gilbert's our brother! I remember him, so there!"
Belarus stomped her way to the other side of the room, where she grabbed a blanket and sat down on a beanbag with it and went back to sulking.
"She'll be over there for a while." Canada whispered, smiling fondly and shrugging. "She gets all upset when you mention her brother."
Wales was going to say that he hadn't mentioned a word about Russia, when Prussia burst through the door.
"Heeeey so who's awesome?" he cried, a massive grin on his face and he hung by one hand off the door frame.
"You are, Gilbert." Canada replied with a roll of the eyes, like this was a rehearsed routine. Wales wouldn't put it past him to make kids affirm his awesome every time he walked into a room.
"Sehr gut! You are 100% correct, mein Freund!" He ruffled the little blonde's hair, and turned his attention to Wales. "Okay, so I have some good news and some awesome news. The good news is that I talked to the big guy and got North a deal. Ain't that great for you. The awesome news is that I have myself a new partner!"
Wales stared, understanding dawning too quickly for his mouth to catch up with. "Woah, wait, what?" he held up his hand for a moment, a universal gesture to stop. "Are you trying to tell me North, Northern Ireland, is going to become like you?"
Prussia made a thoughtful face, looking skyward and gesturing as he tried to think of the right words. "Well, sorta, yes and no, it gets complicated there."
"Don't you try and mysteriously talk your way around this, Prussia, I'm at perfect ball-punching height." Wales glared. Prussia mimed the smaller Nation's words back at him.
"Yeah yeah, lemme get to it. It's not a permanent thing, it's just until shit settles down. After the merge with North and South Italy I had Romano on my hands for a while and that was a steaming pile of shit let me tell you. Still got ringing in my ears." he twisted his pinky finger in his ear to punctuate the point. "More likely than not there will be a need for both him and his sister to exist, so rather than going through the, quite frankly painful process of getting him back from the afterlife after he's gone and is needed again, he's got a job to keep him here until he's needed." He grinned, placing his hands on his hips. "Great idea of mine, if I do say so myself."
Wales blinked, then closed his eyes and groaned. "If I think any more about existentialism my head is going to explode."
Prussia chuckled. "Yeah, it does that to ya." A pause, and he looked around. "Hey, where's Canada?"
Wales looked next to him, where the boy had been seconds before. Now there was nothing. Abruptly, Prussia dropped on his hands and knees and looked under the bed.
"Ah shit." He grumbled. "Didn't even get to warn him or wish him luck or say goodbye."
"Where'd he go?" Wales asked, peering under the bed with Prussia. There was nothing there, but a cold draft wafted from nowhere. Prussia sat back on his heels and dusted off his hands.
"Seems like it's more than just North's lucky day. Canada's getting re-established."
Notes:
- If you'll remember the incident with the volcano a couple of months back, you'll remember that prevailing winds from the north often push weather systems down from the British Isles onto France. He has good reason to worry about radioactive clouds bringing the rain to him.
- Sorry for being so late!
Part 88
Characters (in this chapter): France, America, Wales, Canada, Belarus, Prussia
Rating: 15
Warnings: A bit too much gore-y detail, brain scrambling levels of headcanon, but then this is future-history, so it's all headcanon really. orz;;;
Summary: Uh, I need to be banned from the kink meme or monsters like this happen? Essentially, Scotland leaves the UK, which gives Northern Ireland an excuse to up and out as well, which leaves England and Wales all alone. Oh yeah, and this somehow leads to World War Three.
France was getting a splitting headache. He rubbed at his temples and prayed that it was just because of the unholy noise level in the hospital, rather than because of some kind of radiation run off spreading down from the Irish sea. He didn't need radiation poisoning on top of this complete madness. The British Isles had been rushed off to the ER, but France knew there would be little they could do for them. He knew his boss was offering safe passage to them, letting refugees across the channel, but the damage wouldn't be undone so easily.
If what was very quickly happening to Scotland's leg was any indication of what was going to happen to the others, boiling water was the least of their problems.
Blackened lumps rose and grew with alarming speed, cancerous tumors rampant. Without skin to cover them it was easy to access them, cut them out before they spread, but it was a horrific sight to see, and more than once the blonde had watched a nurse leave the room with their hand over their mouth, dashing to the nearest toilet.
He wanted to go in, to keep a watch, but he also needed his phone on, in case he needed to be contacted. Quebec had blurted something about having to do something and hung up, but god knew he would call again. Poor boy, born into this kind of war.
Right on cue and as expected, France's phone lit up with Quebec's name. Tapping the button after two rings, he held it to his ear. "Salut-"
"You! France! Froggy NWO bastard!" shouted a voice that was definitely not Quebec, and France didn't need to guess twice at who had snatched the phone.
"Alfred, you seem well." Francis said guardedly. If everything Quebec said was true, then he had to be careful. America was a ticking time bomb, in many senses of the word, and he wasn't about to cut the wrong wire.
"Shut up! What's happened to Iggy? Is he alive? He's gotta be still alive, come on, talk!" America shouted. France held the phone a foot away from his ear and still heard him with perfect clarity.
"Angleterre is not dead, no. Injured, but not dead. It would do you well to calm down a little."
"Don't try to order me around, you socialist sucking asshole." the superpower ordered. Ah, he'd clearly been taking insult lessons from England. "Put England on the line and I'll try to remember not to beat the shit out of you next time I see you."
Clearly he was not up to date on where France's alliances lay at the current point. "I can't, he's in the operating room, phones might mess with the electronics." He leaned his head back against the wall of the hospital corridor, throbbing headache only increasing with the added stress. "I could always update you on his condition if you ask nicely."
"You know what, fuck you, I have a Russian to beat up and I'm not wasting my time on you and your stupid Euro-bull. Iggy's safe, and he's in a hospital, and he'll be fine, or else." America ranted, ending in a growl. "You better make sure of that."
"I'll do my best." France said sarcastically. "Now if you would give Quebec his phone back I'm sure he'd appreciate it."
"Whatever." was the last response, before the bleep of the call ending sounded in France's ear. He let out a rush of air he didn't know he'd been holding in, hands shaking a little. America was certainly acting different from the usual happy-go-lucky teen the world was used to. It was discomforting, concerning.
He worried silently for Quebec, and prayed he wouldn't have to lose another son to this war.
---
"So, um." Wales said into the silence, making the small boy across from him look up from his game of tic tac toe with a curious expression. "What are your names?"
The boy looked over at the girl, who frowned. She was good at that, her small features frozen in a permanent expression of displeasure. "I don't know." she said. "Neither of us do. Gilbert says it's because we touched the doors, but I don't remember that."
"You don't remember anything." the boy added, a slightly proud smile quirking the edge of his mouth. "I remember bits and pieces. I didn't touch a door, I just fell on one."
"Stupid." the girl quipped, frozen expression finally shifting slightly into a smirk. The boy pouted.
"Am not. It was just an accident. You nearly walked through a door, but Gilbert grabbed you." he pointed out, making the girl sulk and look away.
"So what do you remember?" Wales pressed. This would be the proof, what this boy remembered. He didn't want to get his hopes up.
The boy's eyebrows pulled together in concentration. "Umm... snow." he decided. "A lot of snow. And ships, there was something important on the ships, people I wanted to see. Um," he paused again, wracking his brains. "Something soft and warm, I think it was an animal. Oh!" he suddenly pointed at Wales. "And a man with a face like yours! Only not really, he didn't have freckles, and he was bigger, but his eyes were green and his eyebrows were..." he mimed two massive eyebrows, inches thick, over his own. The girl giggled at him. "And a man who looked like me, but older and he had a beard and he called me words like chou et mon cheri et mon petit et..." and his language turned to French as he unknowingly babbled on, but Wales had heard enough anyway.
It really was Canada.
Canada, as he hadn't looked for nearly 300 years, carrying on in stumbling French.
Wales nearly hugged him.
"I do so remember!" suddenly shouted the girl, stamping her foot. "I remember a man! And I loved him! And his name was brother and I found him already, because Gilbert's our brother! I remember him, so there!"
Belarus stomped her way to the other side of the room, where she grabbed a blanket and sat down on a beanbag with it and went back to sulking.
"She'll be over there for a while." Canada whispered, smiling fondly and shrugging. "She gets all upset when you mention her brother."
Wales was going to say that he hadn't mentioned a word about Russia, when Prussia burst through the door.
"Heeeey so who's awesome?" he cried, a massive grin on his face and he hung by one hand off the door frame.
"You are, Gilbert." Canada replied with a roll of the eyes, like this was a rehearsed routine. Wales wouldn't put it past him to make kids affirm his awesome every time he walked into a room.
"Sehr gut! You are 100% correct, mein Freund!" He ruffled the little blonde's hair, and turned his attention to Wales. "Okay, so I have some good news and some awesome news. The good news is that I talked to the big guy and got North a deal. Ain't that great for you. The awesome news is that I have myself a new partner!"
Wales stared, understanding dawning too quickly for his mouth to catch up with. "Woah, wait, what?" he held up his hand for a moment, a universal gesture to stop. "Are you trying to tell me North, Northern Ireland, is going to become like you?"
Prussia made a thoughtful face, looking skyward and gesturing as he tried to think of the right words. "Well, sorta, yes and no, it gets complicated there."
"Don't you try and mysteriously talk your way around this, Prussia, I'm at perfect ball-punching height." Wales glared. Prussia mimed the smaller Nation's words back at him.
"Yeah yeah, lemme get to it. It's not a permanent thing, it's just until shit settles down. After the merge with North and South Italy I had Romano on my hands for a while and that was a steaming pile of shit let me tell you. Still got ringing in my ears." he twisted his pinky finger in his ear to punctuate the point. "More likely than not there will be a need for both him and his sister to exist, so rather than going through the, quite frankly painful process of getting him back from the afterlife after he's gone and is needed again, he's got a job to keep him here until he's needed." He grinned, placing his hands on his hips. "Great idea of mine, if I do say so myself."
Wales blinked, then closed his eyes and groaned. "If I think any more about existentialism my head is going to explode."
Prussia chuckled. "Yeah, it does that to ya." A pause, and he looked around. "Hey, where's Canada?"
Wales looked next to him, where the boy had been seconds before. Now there was nothing. Abruptly, Prussia dropped on his hands and knees and looked under the bed.
"Ah shit." He grumbled. "Didn't even get to warn him or wish him luck or say goodbye."
"Where'd he go?" Wales asked, peering under the bed with Prussia. There was nothing there, but a cold draft wafted from nowhere. Prussia sat back on his heels and dusted off his hands.
"Seems like it's more than just North's lucky day. Canada's getting re-established."
Notes:
- If you'll remember the incident with the volcano a couple of months back, you'll remember that prevailing winds from the north often push weather systems down from the British Isles onto France. He has good reason to worry about radioactive clouds bringing the rain to him.
- Sorry for being so late!
Part 88
