#036 - An update!

[notbantamweight]

Title: Another Morning
Series: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Written: God knows when.

 

He watches her get dressed in the morning – all soft curves, and long, long golden curls, it’d been two hundred and twenty-something years, and yet he could never, would never, grow tired of watching his Aurora getting dressed in the morning. The morning light spilled gently across her skin, and he thanked his lucky stars that today was a Sunday, and tomorrow was a public holiday, and so he could afford to be lazy. She pauses, semi-dressed, corsetry on, but still unlaced – she needs the help of one of them to do that – and she picks up her hairbrush, solid silver handle, inlaid with ivory and mother-of-pearl and lapis lazuli, just for contrast.

How many times had he watched her pick it up, and slide it through her hair, rendering it softer than silk, curls falling into a vague semblance of order. She turns now, and sees him lying there; awake in their oversized old bed, creaking with the weight of the years, and smiles at him, and the still-dozing form of Nathaniel beside him, sun-black limbs a dichotomy with the white-white linen sheets, threadbare but oh-so-comfortable, and this, this is home to him. Nathaniel murmurs quietly and shifts more into his side, dextrous black fingers sliding unconsciously over hundreds of old scars, most of them medals of valour, awarded during a dozen different wars. They’d been there too, his two unshakeable shadows, even in the deepest darkest tracts of World War Two, when he’d flown for England, and nearly died for England, all over again. Aurora too, had almost died – the Boer War, she could still remember it, the last defiant call of, ‘Shoot straight, ya bastards!’ before the eruption of gunfire.

Five years. Five years before she was Aurora again, the Aurora Australis he’d grown up with, fallen in love with, fought with and beside, the babe who became a girl became a teenager became a young woman, and, thanks to the Great British Empire, became like him. Effectively immortal. She was him, and he was her, and they were both Nathaniel, and he was them, as well, a triad who could never be broken, earthwindwater all in one. Their bonds, forged in the fires of hardship, poverty and war, could never be broken. God knows other Nations had tried, even England had tried to undo the great unholy magic he had wrought, but it seemed to be that there was no going back.

He sits up then, sheets sliding down into a pool around his well-muscled waist. He’s fitter than that sports nut America, but only by the virtue of living on a farm, instead of his northern... trading partner. He’s never quite sure of what to call America, bastard seeming to be the logical choice most of the time. As he slid over to the edge of the bed, Nathaniel tossed and turned some more, before rolling off the bed, falling the 90cms to the cold wooden floor. He flailed madly for a moment, curse word flying as his body was rudely jerked from sleep. Aurora giggles at her partner’s plight and smiles as the other draws near, kissing her good morning. On the other side of the bed, one hand, and then another grips the edge of that traitorous bed and hauls himself upright, gloriously comfortable in his nudity. Idly scanning the floor, Nathaniel asks the ubiquitous question:

“Where’ve my boxers gone?” It’s a mournful question, one that gets asked every morning. To him it truly is a mystery – he goes to bed wearing them, but when he wakes up, they’re long gone! He tosses Nathaniel a look over his shoulder as he looks for his own flannies, and replies with the stock standard answer.

“Mate, I think they’ve gone to where all the left socks in the world go.” Aurora giggles to herself – it’s been over two hundred years, and her boys still haven’t caught onto her little game of ‘Hide the Item of Clothing’, despite her playing it nearly every time they share a bed – which is unsurprisingly often.

“Shut up Bruce, one day I’ll get you back. I know it’s you!” ‘Bruce’ snarls something incomprehensible at Nathaniel, who ignores the sound. Aurora simply shakes her head, and focuses on her mirror image – how is she going to restrain her mane today? Behind her the boys scuffle, nude as the day they were born, and she grins at the reflected things she sees. Maybe up in a bun? Nah, too formal. It’s late summer, but the days are still bone-meltingly warm. Side ponytail, perhaps? She tries it, and shakes her head. Too preppy. What are they doing? She wonders, noting that the grappling figures seemed to have slowed down. She turns to look – ah.

She pauses to watch them, sprawled over each other on the rabbit-skin rug, mouths and hands mingling in a slow, steady ritual. She glances back to the mirror, and shrugs, deciding to simply pull it back, for now. She turns back to watch them, mouths sliding together, down a long dark column of a through, making Nathaniel gasp softly, she watches them move together, slowly, tortously, and slowly, they erode her determination not to get involved, and she too sinks down onto that soft rabbit-skin rug, big enough for all of them, plus more. Idly she traces an indolent finger over Alexander’s bullet-scarred back – for that is his human name, Alexander, not Bruce – but deigns not to further involve herself, content simply to watch Alex’s smirk disappear as Nathaniel turns the tables by reaching down and skating delicately, slowly over delicate southern regions, and she enjoys watching those emerald eyes darken and slide half-mast as he battles to hold himself up on trembling arms as Nathaniel gives a knowing squeeze, and oh, the fire is sliding through her veins now, collecting and oozing its way down as Alex makes the most delicious sounds.

A mischievous mood takes her then, and the fingers which had slowly been tracing kanji on Alex’s back slide back up, towards his typically broad shoulders. A grin sneaks across her face, as she then tickles him most visciously in the armpits, and he shrieks, and she laughs, and Nate jumps with surprise, not expecting the sudden movement of the larger man. Alex bats desperately at her hands, begging for her to ‘stOP! ARGH! No, stop pl-eaaaaseeee, it tickes!’, and when Nathaniel finally regains control of his body, he adds himself to the fray, attacking the backs of Aurora’s knees absolutely without mercy. All three of them roll about, shrieking and laughing so loudly that they wake up the other occupants of the house, who look understandably confused as to why there is so much noise so early on a dratted Sunday morning!

England usually inhabits a murderous state before he’s had his first Earl Gray of the day, but he is shocked out of it by seeing Australia rolling around on the floor of his bedroom in an apparent tickle war with his two companions. He hears a heavy accent behind him murmur,

“It’s too fookin’ early for this kind of shite, so what the crap is the laddie uptah now?” Only Scotland could be that eloquent on three hours of sleep, and Arthur’s hypothesis is confirmed when the taller nation beholds what is taking place on the floor of the master bedroom.

“What the... Artie, what the fook is going on?” When Arthur shrugs in response, Scotland shakes his head, and heads to the kitchen. Just another normal day in Australia’s house.



 

I... yeah. I was being the awesome procrastinator that I am, and wrote this. I was in a fluffy mood, OKAY?!