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jedishampooTitle: After All, It Was a Great Big World (Part 1 of 3)
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
jedishampoo
Pairing: England/America (Hetalia)
Rating: R-l8 (sex, language)
Summary: Make way for sex and silliness, and cars and planes, in the Nevada desert.
Notes: For the kink meme, the prompt “UK/US, sex in a desert.” Here’s the Kink Meme link (yeah, like nobody knew it was me). It's 19,900 words of silliness and smut, in three parts, but I loved writing it. Thanks to the OP and to my beta,sharpeslass!
After All, It Was a Great, Big World: Part 1/3
Poke. Poke.
England was asleep. At least, he’d used to have been. Now, he was awake. Sort of.
His mouth was dry and full of mostly-dry pillow. His eyelids hurt and didn’t want to open, so he sucked pillow and tried to wake up very, very slowly.
This didn’t taste like his pillow; it tasted like artificial April-fresh scent. Therefore, he was in a hotel room. But where? England let more awake-ness creep in so he could attempt to divine his surroundings. In addition to his aching eyelids, his brain wasn’t functioning properly. Therefore he’d obviously had a tipple or two the evening prior. Amsterdam, maybe?
Poke. Poke.
Someone was poking him.
“Buggeroffyou,” he told his scenty hotel-pillow.
“Good morning! The shower’s yours and I’ve already got a car, whenever you’re ready to go. Up, up!”
America. Right. He’d come to see-- He was in-- America, perhaps not as literally as he’d planned, but-- wait. He rolled over but refused to open his eyes to meet the perky blue gaze he could sense directed at him.
“Car. Where are we?”
“Las Vegas, Nevada, of course. U S of A. Don’t tell me you forgot that. Or our little road-trip?”
“Of course not, dolt,” England lied, and tried to remember. He’d flown in yesterday afternoon. They had toured downtown Las Vegas last night. He’d told America that the light-show and neon were horribly tacky, and somehow America had gotten him to agree to a drive through the desert to see more natural wonders. To console himself he’d drunk something… Something very fruity in a tall, plastic container, with a very long straw. He’d drunk several of the somethings, yes. He’d disparaged them, too, as paltry things, along with the neon and the music.
“Those things didn’t taste like they had any fucking alcohol in them,” he moaned.
“I know! I felt like crap this morning,” America chirped.
England cracked open an eyelid. Even blurred by eyelid goo and haloed in sunlight, America looked glowy and spry. Damp and sexy. Wanker. They hadn’t-- or had they? England raised his head a very few centimeters and looked down at himself. He was fully clothed. With movement, wakeful memory crept back into his brain. The tacky. The natural-wonders coercion. A little gambling, the fruity. A bet, yes.
“I seem to remember that you owe me something,” he croaked, remembering too late for decency what it was.
“Oh, ha ha! A blowjob,” America said, as blithely as you please. “After the sightseeing. C’mon, get up! Hup, hup!”
“Bastard,” England said, cheeks heating. His brain was sluggish but still managed to conjure up an image of America, damp, glowy America, performing fellatio on him. He arose and stumbled to the shower.
“Tea,” he demanded, loudly, through the door.
There was a bottle of water on the bathroom counter. It wasn’t tea but it was wet; England cracked it open and gulped half of it in one go, and immediately felt a little better. The shower was hot and by the time he was clean, he felt almost normal.
As he dried himself off, he noticed that someone, most likely America, had come into the bathroom and put a bottle of sunscreen atop his face-towel. Bollocks. A drive in the sun, the deathly dry desert of… the west. Nevada, right. He swiped a healthy film of sunscreen over his face and forearms.
America was absent when he exited the bathroom to dress. Their hotel room was small but rather spectacular, tastefully furnished and somewhere high up with one of those giant windows that darkened at the touch of a switch. They were somewhere called Encore, very posh and crowded, not nearly as tacky as downtown Las Vegas but still showy in a way that exemplified the very best or worst of America, depending upon how one looked at it.
Secretly, beneath his protective layer of scorn, England was unable to deny the allure of it all. The wondrous sense of height and space out the screened window, the teabags and hot water laid out on the table next to it, the possibilities inherent in their being here, together.
Still, he was glad of the few minutes alone. As irresistible as he’d always, shamefully, found America, it took time to change one’s habits and thought-processes and defenses. Notwithstanding any new developments in their personal relationship, the two of them hadn’t yet managed to dispel the awkward air that surrounded them whenever they met after any time apart. Even before they’d met yesterday, England had endured the long flight with a churning stomach, worked into a state of high tension over the days since he’d say yes, he’d come.
The sight of America waiting for him outside customs, grinning and bouncing on his feet like a village idiot, had sent his twisting stomach up to strangle his heart and he’d found little to say that wasn’t rather nasty, until even America’s excited laughter and inanities had gained a desperate edge he probably hadn’t even been aware of. Sometimes, the ability to read the atmosphere was a skill England would joyfully forego, thank you very much.
The fruity things had helped. At some point he’d loosened up enough to say yes, anything was better than all this flash and noise, and to win a bet he couldn’t remember the gist of, only the outcome. He vaguely remembered his own whispered threats of ravishment in a cab and the brief taste of a hot, sloppy mouth and then… waking up.
The door made an electronic clicking noise and America returned, grinning, and England looked at his partially-open shirt and his mouth, and immediately thought about licking those white, straight teeth--
“Wow, you look lots better!” America said. He was holding one of those giant, sugary, frothy coffee-things.
You look astonishing, England thought, but of course couldn’t say, not in the light of day and with all that heavy, awkward air crushing his lungs. He couldn’t believe he’d even managed to mention that bet, this morning.
“The tea is tepid,” he said.
“Ha ha, that’s too bad! We’ll get you another at Starbuck’s,” America said, still smiling.
“Corporate nonsense,” England said as he stood.
“But good coffee.” America’s eyes narrowed slightly behind his spectacles, though his smile remained intact.
“Where’s my wallet?” England said, patting his trousers pockets.
The wallet was found, along with a pair of sunglasses. But the lift car was crowded and the lobby was horribly crowded and the coffee-shop line was long, and the barista flirted with America. At least the tea was hot.
The young man at the valet kiosk also ogled America and ran off, returning a few minutes later driving a-- a-- a bubble. It was a hybrid car, one of those little Hondas that ran on electric and solar and used little petrol.
The young sprout said something like Here you are, Mr. First as he handed over the keys with a too-excited grin, and England wondered, first in what? The valet positively beamed at whatever gratuity America slipped him.
“Why did I think you’d have gotten a convertible-- a Mustang or Corvette or the like?” England asked with some regret as he climbed through the passenger-side door and slid the seat back a few inches.
“Ah! I’m being green. This baby has low emissions and great gas mileage. And it has a hatchback. It’s practical, right?”
“And Japanese,” England said.
“It’s a global economy,” America told him with a very bland expression.
England was silent as America negotiated the crazy traffic out of the hotel’s massive grounds, then out along Las Vegas Boulevard. He’d have rather ridden in something showy and sporty, and privately thought America had chosen the wrong time to be responsible. But once up on the raised motorway, England was distracted by the vistas he’d spotted earlier from the hotel-room window, the mountains brown against the blue, cloudless sky. America turned off the air-conditioning and opened the windows.
“It’s great weather for April,” he said.
“It’s dry,” England said. When America turned away, possibly to frown, England added, “very temperate, however. Sunny.”
“Drink this.” America handed him a bottle of water plucked seemingly from nowhere. England accepted it gratefully and stared out the window rather than at America, at his tanned arms poking out of his rolled-up sleeves and his bright hair whiffling in the wind. America, everywhere he looked.
It was odd how the city didn’t peter out but simply disappeared: one moment there were clusters of houses and petrol-stations and shops, and the next, long stretches of nothing but road and dirt. It looked much like it had when England had visited the Mojave Desert in the 1950s, when his military had viewed some of America’s nuclear tests. The landscape was not dead, however. England could spot the scattered green of hard-scrabble desert bushes in the never-ending, sloping stretches of brown and red rock. It was massive and majestic.
“It’s kind of pretty, don’tcha think?” America said. “I guess they had a really rainy winter, so there’s actually lots of green, ha ha.”
Again, America behaved true to form. With the crowds one would not think there was a recession going on, and apparently a few stunted, green shrubs could convince Americans that there was no drought.
Even such foolishness had undeniable charm, when captured in the form of America, as long and breezy as these astonishing valleys, an expanse that England wanted to touch and map with his fingers, exploring like hadn’t since New Year’s--
“It is… lovely, in a very stark way,” England said. He swallowed. “So where are we going again?”
“Well, that’s the awesome part. Not only do you get to see the Amargosa Valley, but you get to see something cool that not very many British people have seen!”
England’s alarm began to nudge aside his fantasies of tracking America’s dry valleys. “Where are we going?” he repeated.
“Of course, you can’t tell anyone,” America added.
“Where are we going?” England asked once more, most emphatically.
“You’ll never believe-- oh, fine, don’t look at me like that. Area 51! The Nevada Test Site base. Isn’t that cool?”
“Area 51.” Something tickled at England’s memory, but surely that couldn’t be-- “Not the place with the fucking aliens?”
America laid his index finger over his lips. “It’s just an Air-Force testing center, remember,” he said with a wink.
“What?” England thought of America’s ghastly friend Tony, that little grey bastard with the horrible mind-games who was safely tucked away back in New York or Washington-- somewhere far, far away, anyway. “I thought that was Mexico. Or New Mexico?”
America laughed. “No, that’s just the cra-- well, you’ll get to see some cool planes, maybe. That you can’t tell anyone about. Not even regular military can get in there.”
“Did you arrange this ahead of time?”
“Nah,” America said, waving his hand as if the very idea were a joke. “I don’t have to, ha ha!”
England stared at him and thought for a few moments. A high-security base. This would be a very unofficial visit and he certainly hadn’t completed any of the paperwork that American Homeland Security or the paranoiac American military would have wanted him to complete. Neither had he cleared it with his boss or the RAF. He--they-- could get into some very unofficial trouble. In addition, he might have to consort with that-bastard-Tony’s compatriots.
On the other hand, he might get to see some very high-tech and top-secret planes. America’s planes had evolved into machines that were quite sleek and cool and stealthy. And later, he would get oral sex. From America.
“I look forward to seeing it,” England said. Sometimes being a pervert made decision-making easy.
“I’m really glad to hear that,” America said with a smile so huge and genuine that it made England’s stomach tie itself into a midshipman’s hitch. His vulnerability to the moods of a young, brash twat like America was ever a trial to him, though he should have been well used to it.
America was still staring at him. At least, it seemed so, even through his darkened spectacles. England’s stomach rearranged itself down low, low in his belly.
“Watch the road, dolt,” he said in a voice made rather scratchy with lust.
He would have thought his euphoria by association might have abated when America turned up the radio and started singing loudly and somewhat off-key into the wind-- she was-- an American girrrrllll!-- but it didn’t. He found it to be decent driving music.
“Ohhh yeah! All right!” America was still singing. England looked out the window to hide a rather uncharacteristic and fond grin. He watched the seemingly eternal brown, the spots of green, the occasional glint of white where a motor home hunched in the parched landscape. Huge and all-encompassing. America as a colony clinging to the eastern coast had been so much more manageable than this vast sky, which felt as if it could swallow him whole.
The song ended and an irksome advertiser’s voice took over the airwaves. America turned down the radio. Not one to remain silent, he hummed remnants of the song for a minute or two and then spoke.
“You know, I was so sure that girl was going to get her boyfriend’s name tattooed on her tummy.”
England wondered if he was supposed to know what America was talking about. Somehow, he thought he should. Something-- the vaguest of memories-- danced through his brain synapses.
“Oh?” he said, when he couldn’t catch the trace memory.
“Totally. But you were right.”
“Ah, that. Indeed,” England said. He glanced over at America and nodded, trying to look smug.
America was smiling back at him, but his smile was incredibly bland, like he was so cool that butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. Such a look on America’s open, engaging face was always rather eerie. “You guessed the right one! It’s like you were psychic, or something.”
“Ah,” England said, and looked away. America knew he’d forgotten, the sly bastard. England thought harder, mentally chasing down the memory.
A girl. Blond and… pink? Hair? Cute. Metal in her face. Her lips? She’d been laughing at America and clutching an equally pierced bloke whose beard hung down past his belt. She’d said… she’d liked England’s accent. There’d been nothing particularly remarkable about that; American women tended to go for such things.
America snorted. “You totally forgot, didn’t you? Ha ha.” America’s ha ha sounded quite a bit sharper than usual. “You don’t remember.”
“Nonsense,” England lied. He thought some more. It was… their bet, that America was referring to. They hadn’t gambled money, because that was for regular humans. So in the spirit of drunkenness they’d wagered… sex. He thought harder. He was in serious trouble. There was a chance he could lose his reward--
“What was it, then?”
England closed his eyes. A shop. The fruity things. Color, light, and… “Damned flowery thing with a cross that was a dagger, something ridiculous like that,” he said, with a definite smug look.
America’s grin became a little less bland and more real. “Hey, you’re right! Sort of.”
“’Course I am,” England said, crossing his arms over his middle as if to say so there. “Told her you should never get a tattoo of your lover’s name. It’s the surest way to ruin your love-life. He was daft, anyway.”
“I thought they were sweet,” America said. “Really sweet on each other.”
“She wanted the tattoo so low on her crotch, she’d have been branded. Like livestock.”
“Hmm,” America said, possibly thinking of cattle. Or girls’ nether bits. Animal husbandry. Jesus, England was randy. He wished he could remember more of what had happened after the tattoo shop. In their room. Hot breath and tongue and oh, yes and… nothing. “And here I’d thought you’d forgotten completely.”
England snorted. “I was drinking to excess for centuries before you popped into existence,” he said.
“Hmm,” America said again.
For a while they were quiet, comfortable and uncomfortable by turns, like an eternal metaphor for their relationship. America tapped the steering wheel and hummed and England drank his water and watched the gradual shifts in the landscape. They made the occasional comment about the land formations. America turned the radio up, then down, then up, then finally down when they lost the signals.
The little car went very fast once it got up to speed, and out here there were few traffic controls. At one point America said, oh, almost there! and England spotted a tiny green sign-- Mercury, two miles. The turnoff was barely marked or visible, two small, grey lanes in the grey and brown. A quarter-kilometer or so in they pulled up to a tiny gate with two camouflage-clad guards and a sign reading, “WARNING: Restricted Area.”
America rolled up to the gate and pushed his spectacles to the top of his head, making his hair stick up even more. The approaching guard was middle-aged and stern.
“This area is off-limits to civilians,” he said. England dug in his trousers-pocket for his wallet.
“We’re not civilians, ha ha,” America said with a massive smile, and handed over his identification folio. The guard opened it, took a look, then snapped it shut and handed it back.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Firth. You do not have access. Please leave.”
Firth, not First, England thought.
“What? I--” America, open-mouthed, looked at first dumbfounded and then chagrined. “Wait, that’s the wrong-- Uh. Crap.”
England realized that America had nearly said he’d given the wrong ID, definitely an official no-no. The guard moved his hand down to cradle his radio, or perhaps his firearm, and the other guard watched them closely.
“Let me see your wallet, Arthur,” America said with a strained smile.
“What did you do now, you prat?” England whispered, but handed it over. America passed it to the guard, who examined it a little longer than he had America’s, but eventually shook his head and handed it back.
“You’re not an American citizen. No access, sir.”
“I was here before you,” England blurted. “And I probably have higher clearance--”
“You’ll have to leave.”
“Don’t you have better ID, Mr. Firth?” England said to America.
“I-- But this isn’t even the restricted--” America began.
“A civilian and a British citizen have no business here.”
“Special relationship, my arse,” England muttered.
“Thank you, sir! Sorry for the trouble,” America said in a bright, tight voice, then backed up the car and began turning it around. His eerie smile had returned in force.
“Whose identification are you carrying, Mr. Firth?” England wanted to know.
America ignored him. England spotted the ID folio in America’s lap, and he nabbed it and opened it.
“Colin Firth? You stole identification from Colin Firth?”
“It’s not sto-len,” America said in a sing-song voice. He flipped his spectacles down to hide his eyes.
“I knew this was going to be trouble,” England said. “Of all the aliases you could have chosen, you picked one that was well-known?”
“I wanted to be Brad Pitt, but they’d have known that was an alias. So I picked a name nobody would know, because my boss doesn’t want us spending needlessly, and then I left my real ID behind accidentally, probably at ho--”
“Nobody would know?” England interrupted. “He was nominated for an award from your acting academy, if you remember--”
“I only knew who he was because you made me watch that miniseries with all the sisters. I cried, remember?”
“Pride and Prejudice, twat. Twat, twat, twat,” England said. “Troublesome tw--”
“Don’t worry! I know another way in,” America said, turning his rictus-grin on England. He gripped the steering wheel with intent and looked right frightening. “It’s longer, but it’s way cooler--”
“No, it’s troublesome. Twat.”
“We’re going,” America said, and looked so horrifying around his dark lenses that England didn’t want to argue about it. America turned up the radio until the car was filled with half-music, half-static. He drove. England looked out the window and mouthed twat occasionally.
The radio signal returned, and America turned up the volume even higher and began to sing once more. It was David Bowie.
“Put on your red shoes and dance the blues!” America shouted.
“Your accent is for shit,” England told him, and stared out the window. He was never going to get his oral sex, or anything else, and perhaps he didn’t want it from such a silly twat, anyway, so there. Except he did.
America ignored him. His false accent grew even more outrageous. “Would break mah hahrt in tow!!”
“Now you’re just yanking my chain,” England sniffed.
***
America drove. He drove fast, and he liked it. He’d stopped for water and snacks and gas and a map, and then he’d driven some more. England was sulking with his face pressed against the window. Like he should be the one sulking, the butthead. He was the one who’d fallen asleep in the middle of--
America sighed. He realized too late that he’d also let Pookie slow down, because England noticed something and looked over at him with his most annoying ‘oh-so-proper’ expression.
“Come to your senses, yet?” he asked.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I feel pretty darned sensible right now,” America said. Nyah, nyah, nyah, put that in your pipe and smoke it, mister. Sometimes being around England made him feel like a kid. Mostly when England was being a jerk, like he was now.
“Right,” England said, and went back to staring out the window.
Other than England being a jerk a lot of the time, things were actually pretty cool. England could be all bluster and bullshit on the outside, but he was solid smoosh in the inside. And sometimes England still surprised him. Like with the whole being a sex-maniac thing. That was pretty awesome. When he actually got down to business, that was.
They should never have but they just worked, somehow-- in lots of ways. They’d had to learn to deal; England had always been there, almost from the beginning. America wasn’t sure what he’d do if that was ever not the case. He didn’t like to think about it. He didn’t want to feel melancholy, because he’d really been looking forward to this time together that was not really business, and it was too short to not spend it being happy.
He felt less ticked-off at that last thought. The desert was gorgeous, the sky was blue and the driving was good, and having his long-awaited company was good.
He drove one-handed down a road that seemed to narrow to nothing at the end of the Earth, perfectly straight and grey-black the whole way. He marveled again at his people, who’d carved modern life out of the most forbidding territory.
At some point he saw the sign for his turn northwest, and he checked the gas gauge. He wondered if he should have stopped in Alamo, but then decided that there was gas in Rachel, if they needed it. And Pookie didn’t use very much gas at all, good girl. She may have been a little slow to get going, but she was very environmentally conscious.
England sat up straight when America slowed to make the turn onto Highway 375. He’d seen the sign, oh, shit, even though it was covered in stickers like graffiti. America’s people were such lively jokers, the little twerps.
“The ‘Extraterrestrial Highway?’” England bitched. “Don’t tell me they have fucking settlements, now.”
“Ha ha. It’s a joke,” America said. England just stared at him. “Because of Area 51? Nevada knows it’s popular with UFOlogists? Even though it’s just an airfield?”
England sighed. “Only in America.”
“Because we have a great sense of humor,” America told him, fighting to hold his smile. Jerk jerk jerk--
England snorted and America’s opinion of him changed from bad to worse. England’s company was not good and somebody like France would have been a lot more fun. Why hadn’t he asked France to come out to visit? Of course, France would have been groping him while he tried to drive and why wasn’t England trying to grope him? Because he was busy being a big, fat grump, that’s why.
Highway 375 climbed over a mountain pass and through land even more dry and desolate than they’d seen on the last highway. There were no towns for miles and miles-- except a few ghost-towns, eek-- just the tiny strip of blacktop, and a yellow-dotted line into forever.
This was mostly government land; homesteaders could still have it for next to nothing, but only if they could find water, and what homesteader these days could afford to drill through rock just to get enough water for his trailer? America thought of the pioneers and cowboys and miners of a century and a half ago, the hardy people who’d come and seen the beauty and possibilities in this stark, amazing land. They’d suffered through loneliness and a few scorching, dry summers and most had eventually died or drifted off, like tumbleweeds blown through and never stopping for long.
England coughed and America thought his cough sounded kind of parched. Even in April, the dry air and eighty-degree heat and sunshine could be deadly, especially to an old grump from a damp, foggy island. America reached in the back and snagged another bottle of water from the mini-cooler. He thrust it, dripping, at England.
“Keep drinking water,” he said.
“No, thank you,” England told him. “I’m only a little dry.”
“If you get thirr-sty, it’s all-ready too laaate,” he said in a high voice, as if talking to a toddler. “Dehydration is dangerous.”
England took the water with a scowl but didn’t open it. “I already need to make a necessary break. Where is the next town?”
“Um,” America said, and looked at the odometer. “A long way.”
“Bollocks.”
“Uh. I could stop here. You could hug a yucca!” America told him.
England pushed his sunglasses atop his head and glared.
America laughed. “You know, like the saying, ‘hug a tree?’ Except there aren’t any trees, so it would have to be a yucca? One of those?” He pointed out the window at one of the yucca, a spiky bush that looked like it had palm-leaves growing out of dried corn-husks.
“I can wait.”
“Suit yourself,” America said. He sighed. “You should enjoy this. It’s an adventure.”
“Every moment with you is an adventure of some sort, Mr. Firth,” England said.
America was pretty sure England had meant that comment as an insult, but he thought it was kind of sweet, anyway. He felt a warm, tight little sun radiating from under his ribcage, warmth that had nothing to do with the heat outside.
He couldn’t hold the warmth in: he smiled at England and England saw him and tried to give him a stern glare, but America caught the crinkle at the corners of his green eyes before he flipped his sunglasses down to cover them. The warmth flowed out to America’s fingers and toes, and felt so giddy he wanted to laugh. Or have sex right that minute. But only if England was nice to him, or at least pretended to be nice to him, or if he’d at least pretend he wanted to. He’d sure picked a crappy time to pass out last night, just when things had been getting kinda hot.
Though now, and out here, wasn’t a great time or place to do it, anyway. Planes would have to do. Really goddamned amazing and expensive planes. Planes were good. And food. He’d already eaten all the best snacks, and it was past time for lunch.
But something was wrong, he saw, when they finally reached the little cluster of tin huts that was Rachel, Nevada.
“Oh, shit,” America said as he slowed. “The Quik-Pik is closed!”
“What?” England said, leaning forward to look. “The what?”
“There used to be a nice, little mini-mart and gas station here,” America said before he thought about the wisdom of admitting that he’d been expecting gasoline.
“We need petrol, and they don’t have any? Is that what you’re trying to say?”
“Well…” America began. A tumbleweed bounced lazily through the gas-station parking lot, mocking him and the closed-off pumps. He looked at the gauges. They still had gas, and “Pookie doesn’t need much gas, do you, girl? We’ll be okay.”
“Pookie.” England had that look on his face again. The annoying look.
“Uh.” America realized too late that he’d said that last part aloud. He was beginning to want to smack himself. What a hellacious day! There had better be some fucking awesome planes at the test site. Once they’d made it inside and had his ‘real’ identity cleared, that was. He breathed deeply. “It’s what I named our car.”
“Poo-- Pookie.” England snickered as he said it.
“Lunch! Let’s get lunch. I’m starved. Look-- there's a Nevada landmark, a real tourist attraction: The Ale-E-Inn!”
“You mean to tell--”
“No real aliens! Part of the joke. Ha ha?” America smiled, big.
England sighed. “I’m a little peckish, I suppose.”
“Great!” America pulled into the restaurant’s gravel lot. The Ale-E-Inn was basically a double-wide trailer, all scrunched inside, but air-conditioned. They had a restroom break and then burgers and fries, both of them. England even waved off the offer of beer and stuck to cold water.
The only other customers turned out to be a British couple, and they latched onto England once they’d heard his accent. It was really cute, seeing England when he was being chatty and charming to his own people. But eventually they had to get going. America paid their check and bought a stack of Ale-E-Inn tee-shirts.
“I’m giving one to every member of the G-20. They’re awesome, right?” he told England.
England stared at him, silently, and America’s fingernails tingled at the intensity of that stare.
“We’d better get going,” America said to break the acute moment. He tossed the bags of tee-shirts into the hatchback and put his hands on his hips. “Isn’t Pookie a handy little car?”
England, the jerk, gave a low chuckle that spoke straight to America’s dick, and then he stunned America further by grabbing his hand and pulling him a few feet into the shade clinging to the side of the trailer. He pushed America up against it.
“Did I miss my opportunity?” England whispered in a low voice to the skin on America’s face, that sensitive little strip between his ear and his cheek.
“Maybe,” America breathed. He put his hands on England’s hips and held on, anyway.
“Mmm,” England said, and finally kissed him, just sliding his soft lips over America’s. They both sort of sighed and sagged into each other.
“I thought maybe you didn’t--” America whispered after a few moments.
“Idiot. I always--” England told him, crawling his fingers through the hair over America’s ears.
They’d just settled their tongues in each others’ mouths when America heard the sound of tires crunching through gravel. A car was pulling into the lot. England pulled away and stepped back a few paces.
“How much farther is it?” he asked, staring at America’s lips.
“Um. Just up and over the mountain pass,” America said, trying not to look at the sheen on England’s neck where his top shirt-button was undone.
“Onward, then,” England said. He waved at Pookie’s passenger-side door. With some regret, America punched the clicker-button to unlock the doors. Planes. Planes were good. Totally fucking awesome, amazing, and expensive planes.
America was in a kind of horny daze and only noticed a little too late that the dirt road up the mountain was a rough drive for their Pookie. It wasn’t much more than a car-wide trail. The road also went up a lot more steeply than he remembered. It had been a very long time since he’d been out this way.
He hit a nasty bump and the car bounced and her shocks groaned a little. England was using one hand to cling to the windowsill, and with the other he’d grabbed America’s knee.
At being groped at last, America stopped worrying about the road completely and went off into his happy-place.
“Are you sure this is the right way?” England asked, squeezing America’s knee even harder when they hit another rut.
“Absolutely. We’re just fine, yep,” he murmured, patting the steering wheel.
An especially steep grade made Pookie rev scarily and her wheels spin in the dust, breaking America out of his haze long enough to wish he’d gotten a four-wheel drive. He should have thought this entire side-trip out a little better, but he’d been pissed off, both at his own mistakes and at other peoples’ stubbornness at keeping him from doing what he wanted. He’d just stormed off. Maybe England, along with lots of other people, was right when he said that America was frighteningly impetuous at times.
But then England’s fingers slid up the insides of America’s thin cargo khakis, and America glanced over to see England staring straight ahead with a sly-looking smile. America stretched and rubbed his back into the bucket-seat pleather and shivered when England’s fingers brushed across his pants-zipper, then poked, hard--
“Ow--”
“Hold! Hold! Look sharp!” England was yelling. America swerved just in time to avoid a basketball-sized rock in the road, barely visible against the same-colored desert dirt. And it got worse: the road was strewn with rocks, some of them massive. America gunned Pookie up a small incline and then had to stop, because the road that kept going up the mountain was completely blocked by a wall of tumbled, brown and red boulders.
“That’s not supposed to be there,” America said as he killed the engine. England just looked at him and then they both opened their doors.
They stood on a suspiciously-man-made looking flat-cut like a little shelf in the road up the mountain. In front of them, the flat-cut ended at a sheer, sandstone cliff marked by a man-sized, half-crumbled hole into the mountain like an abandoned mine-shaft. To one side the desert sloped down steeply into the wide bowl of the valley they’d just driven through. And the road going forward ran directly under the pile of boulders, reminding America of a road he’d seen in Hawaii once, where a lava flow had crept right over the blacktop and hardened.
“A rockslide,” America said, perhaps unnecessarily.
England stepped up beside him, standing very close. They surveyed the ruined road. England laid a warm hand on America’s already sun-warmed shoulder.
“Isn’t this a complete cock-up?” he said. It sounded like he was laughing.
“I bet if we can climb up a bit, though, we could see another--”
He stopped when England spun him around, grabbed the back of his head in both hands and kissed him again, his soft lips pressing hard. He tasted like desert dust. And instead of worrying over their roadblock, America thought, hooray!
This time England wasn’t all slow and whispery, either. He practically threw America against the rock wall before trying to eat his tongue again. America kissed him back and it was hot, and even in the shade it was hot, and he didn’t think he could take any more hot, though he was willing to give it a try.
After a few minutes of being joined at the mouth, England slid his lips over to bite gently on America’s earlobe. He plucked off America’s glasses and then stared at him, all heavy-lidded and shuddery. He always did that. It had used to bug America, because he thought he looked too young without his glasses. But then he’d considered the possibility that maybe that was all part of England’s thing. So he never said anything about it.
This time he just pulled England’s shirttails out of his pants and ran his fingers over the slightly sticky skin of England’s ribcage.
“Not going to pass out on me?” he asked against England’s lips.
England pffed out a harsh breath that went up America’s nose. “I thought we’d, ah, been over that.”
America shrugged and then shivered when England bit his earlobe again. “I guess I can be over it.”
“Good to know,” England said, and proceeded to kiss him again and try to grind him back onto the cliff with his crotch. America ground back, riding England’s thigh, and God, he was hard. So was the cliff, scraping his back through his thin shirt and khakis, a lot less comfortable to shove against than England.
But then England thrust his hand down the front of America’s pants and discovered just how hard he was, squeezing and stroking with his thumb until it was all America could do to hold on and pant into England’s shoulder. His knees trembled and he started to slide down the cliff wall, but yelped when a sharp, jutting rock tried to take out his kidney.
“What’s wrong with you?” England whispered into America’s hair.
“Um. The rocks,” he said, shifting to the side, trying to find a comfortable spot to be shoved against.
England sighed. “Turn around,” he said. When America did, England gave his shoulders a push that sent him back onto his ass in the dirt. England followed, pressing him flat. He kneeled over him and thumbed open the button on America’s fly, staring down at his face while he did it.
America must have winced. “Now what?” England asked.
“I think the back of my head is bleeding,” America admitted, though he’d been sort of wiling to ignore it.
England sighed again and stuck his hand into America’s pants pocket, not to fondle him but to grab the keys to the car. He pressed the clicker and pushed himself upright. “Stay here,” he said, and stomped over to pop the hatchback. He grabbed a handful of America’s adorable Ale-E-Inn tee-shirts and tossed them onto the ground. He pointed at the pile.
“My tee-shirts!” America protested. He rubbed his hair. He was, in fact, not bleeding.
“It’s them or you,” England said. “I’m not going anywhere until I’ve shagged you senseless. That shouldn’t take long.”
“Jerk,” America said. But the shagging part sounded pretty good. He weighed his options for a millisecond, then shifted over to plant his ass on the pile of shirts. Still, it was kind of an impromptu fuck and he hadn’t really been prepared… “Do you have anything to, uh, help me out, here?”
England sat down on the ground next to America and stretch-leaned back to grab his wallet out of his pocket. He thumbed through it at lightning speed and pulled out a little foil packet.
“Travel-sized lube. Ha ha,” America couldn’t help laughing. “You crafty old pervert, you.”
“I’ll show you old,” England warned.
With all the major hurdles to impromptu sex out of the way, they could finally focus on getting down to business. Business included trying to make out and undress at the same time, and trying to crawl into each other’s skin. They couldn’t seem to be fast enough or clumsy enough, and they managed to knock heads and hit each other with their elbows and knees more than once. America only had one leg out of his cargo pants when England yanked his thigh up.
“This is taking too long. Jesus, it’s been too long,” he said. America got England’s lube-slicked fingers jammed in his ass for a few moments and then no more foreplay, just England’s cock, hard and hot, and his pained-sounding, breathy finally, finally, as he worked it in.
America clenched his teeth and breathed, in and out, willing his body to relax, to let England move inside him. “No blow-job for you,” he pointed out in a strained voice.
“Twat,” England said, as he propped his hands in the dirt on either side of America’s head and jerked his hips in a couple of little bursts, not slowly, but not too fast. “Lovely, lovely,” he murmured.
America liked being called lovely, and he liked being called lovely by England, and he liked the way England caught his lower lip between his teeth while he worked out his rhythm. God, he’d missed him. He’d always missed him. He wondered if England knew that. He hoped not, at least he thought so-- it was hard to think.
He clenched his thighs around England’s waist and arched his back and didn’t care about the rocks tearing into his tee-shirts or anything, only about getting closer, closer, England inside him, hard and fast and this was way better than planes, he’d swear it--
“Good, good,” England whispered and rubbed his fingers over America’s cheek and roughly through his hair and back over his face, pressing a thumb into his mouth while he pounded the ache higher in America’s belly.
That part about senseless had been no joke: America was being screwed off his pile of tee-shirts and back onto the rocks, knocking his head around. Never had it been this urgent, never for him, never for them, and America egged England on, pushing back, whispering go, go, yes, yes around England’s thumb.
“God,” England shoved his nose into America’s ear and licked his cheek. “You,” he huffed. “Hah. You.”
“Ah! Ahgod. Me?” America managed between breaths.
England propped his forehead on America’s to look at him again. “I can’t-- hah-- believe-- hah. You named. The fucking. Car. Hah-- hah--”
America tried to laugh back but England was hitting inside him just right-- god, yes, there-- and staring at him and stroking the head of America’s dick with a thumb covered in America’s own spit. Holy crap, he was intense. America always knew who England was fucking, that was for sure.
His thighs clenched at that thought. “Oh, God. I’m going to-- hah-- come,” he breathed.
“No, you won’t,” England breathed back into America’s mouth, still swiping his thumb over the skin of America’s cock, slowly, slowly, much more slowly than he was shoving America back onto the rocks, the intense bastard. “You can--”
“Ah!” America’s body scrunched up into itself and he came, hard, all over England’s hand and god, he’d needed that--
“Im-patient,” England laughed, and kept going, kept moving, and America held on and let his body ride out the climax, let it go limp so England could keep going, and going, and he was going to go forever, hell, but it still felt good and England could do that, if he wanted. Did England know he was the only one who could do that?
Finally England huffed and slowed, his rhythm all languorous, and slid his forehead off America’s sweaty face into his hair and came, breathing America.
After a minute or two of breathing they peeled their sticky skins apart, slowly. America knew he was covered in come and sweat and dirt and he felt a little itchy but mostly super-relaxed and only hoped there weren’t any ants around.
England got his pants fastened and gave America a very sweet peck on the lips before he rolled off to flop on some tee-shirts that had been tossed about.
“That’s done, then,” he said in a somewhat raspy voice. “Brilliant.”
“Drink some water,” America told him first, and then, “yep.”
England propped himself on one elbow and looked at America. He brushed at America’s stomach absently with one of the less-dusty tee-shirts. He was being downright cozy. “What were you saying about climbing up, anyway?”
“I was thinking if we got high enough, we could see if there was another way we could drive, a detour, to get past the rockslide.” America attempted to re-dress himself, wondering if it was a lost cause. They’d have to find somewhere to clean up before presenting themselves to anyone, that was for sure.
England tossed the shirt-now-rag at him. “We’re not going anywhere. Unless it’s back to the hotel.”
“Uh, yeah we are,” America said, deciding in that instant that it wasn’t a lost cause at all. In fact, he was more determined to go than ever. Turning him down, seriously. What had they been thinking? “So you should probably help me look, right?” He smiled.
“Ridiculous.” England stood up, coughing. America turned up the wattage of his smile but England only went over to pluck a bottle of water out of the hatchback. He took a couple of gulps and then poured some onto his hands to rinse them off. “Don’t smile at me like that. You always try and tell me what to do.”
“I never tell you. I only made really awesome suggestions,” America pointed out.
“You never know when to quit. Like in Vietnam.”
Or the American Revolution. Washington had never quit, and look where the U.S.A. was now! America thought, but didn’t say aloud. He wanted England in a good mood. See? He could be diplomatic. Too bad pointing that out would defeat his purpose. He took a deep breath.
“We won’t go very far. I promise,” he wheedled. “Come on. It’s an adven--”
“Adventure, right,” England said. He brushed ineffectually at the brown dust smudging the front of his shirt. America’s revenge for his head, ha ha! “A very little ways, then.”
“Great!” America said. He could always talk England around, sooner or later.
End Part 1/3
On to Part Two of Three!
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Author:
jedishampooPairing: England/America (Hetalia)
Rating: R-l8 (sex, language)
Summary: Make way for sex and silliness, and cars and planes, in the Nevada desert.
Notes: For the kink meme, the prompt “UK/US, sex in a desert.” Here’s the Kink Meme link (yeah, like nobody knew it was me). It's 19,900 words of silliness and smut, in three parts, but I loved writing it. Thanks to the OP and to my beta,
sharpeslass!After All, It Was a Great, Big World: Part 1/3
Poke. Poke.
England was asleep. At least, he’d used to have been. Now, he was awake. Sort of.
His mouth was dry and full of mostly-dry pillow. His eyelids hurt and didn’t want to open, so he sucked pillow and tried to wake up very, very slowly.
This didn’t taste like his pillow; it tasted like artificial April-fresh scent. Therefore, he was in a hotel room. But where? England let more awake-ness creep in so he could attempt to divine his surroundings. In addition to his aching eyelids, his brain wasn’t functioning properly. Therefore he’d obviously had a tipple or two the evening prior. Amsterdam, maybe?
Poke. Poke.
Someone was poking him.
“Buggeroffyou,” he told his scenty hotel-pillow.
“Good morning! The shower’s yours and I’ve already got a car, whenever you’re ready to go. Up, up!”
America. Right. He’d come to see-- He was in-- America, perhaps not as literally as he’d planned, but-- wait. He rolled over but refused to open his eyes to meet the perky blue gaze he could sense directed at him.
“Car. Where are we?”
“Las Vegas, Nevada, of course. U S of A. Don’t tell me you forgot that. Or our little road-trip?”
“Of course not, dolt,” England lied, and tried to remember. He’d flown in yesterday afternoon. They had toured downtown Las Vegas last night. He’d told America that the light-show and neon were horribly tacky, and somehow America had gotten him to agree to a drive through the desert to see more natural wonders. To console himself he’d drunk something… Something very fruity in a tall, plastic container, with a very long straw. He’d drunk several of the somethings, yes. He’d disparaged them, too, as paltry things, along with the neon and the music.
“Those things didn’t taste like they had any fucking alcohol in them,” he moaned.
“I know! I felt like crap this morning,” America chirped.
England cracked open an eyelid. Even blurred by eyelid goo and haloed in sunlight, America looked glowy and spry. Damp and sexy. Wanker. They hadn’t-- or had they? England raised his head a very few centimeters and looked down at himself. He was fully clothed. With movement, wakeful memory crept back into his brain. The tacky. The natural-wonders coercion. A little gambling, the fruity. A bet, yes.
“I seem to remember that you owe me something,” he croaked, remembering too late for decency what it was.
“Oh, ha ha! A blowjob,” America said, as blithely as you please. “After the sightseeing. C’mon, get up! Hup, hup!”
“Bastard,” England said, cheeks heating. His brain was sluggish but still managed to conjure up an image of America, damp, glowy America, performing fellatio on him. He arose and stumbled to the shower.
“Tea,” he demanded, loudly, through the door.
There was a bottle of water on the bathroom counter. It wasn’t tea but it was wet; England cracked it open and gulped half of it in one go, and immediately felt a little better. The shower was hot and by the time he was clean, he felt almost normal.
As he dried himself off, he noticed that someone, most likely America, had come into the bathroom and put a bottle of sunscreen atop his face-towel. Bollocks. A drive in the sun, the deathly dry desert of… the west. Nevada, right. He swiped a healthy film of sunscreen over his face and forearms.
America was absent when he exited the bathroom to dress. Their hotel room was small but rather spectacular, tastefully furnished and somewhere high up with one of those giant windows that darkened at the touch of a switch. They were somewhere called Encore, very posh and crowded, not nearly as tacky as downtown Las Vegas but still showy in a way that exemplified the very best or worst of America, depending upon how one looked at it.
Secretly, beneath his protective layer of scorn, England was unable to deny the allure of it all. The wondrous sense of height and space out the screened window, the teabags and hot water laid out on the table next to it, the possibilities inherent in their being here, together.
Still, he was glad of the few minutes alone. As irresistible as he’d always, shamefully, found America, it took time to change one’s habits and thought-processes and defenses. Notwithstanding any new developments in their personal relationship, the two of them hadn’t yet managed to dispel the awkward air that surrounded them whenever they met after any time apart. Even before they’d met yesterday, England had endured the long flight with a churning stomach, worked into a state of high tension over the days since he’d say yes, he’d come.
The sight of America waiting for him outside customs, grinning and bouncing on his feet like a village idiot, had sent his twisting stomach up to strangle his heart and he’d found little to say that wasn’t rather nasty, until even America’s excited laughter and inanities had gained a desperate edge he probably hadn’t even been aware of. Sometimes, the ability to read the atmosphere was a skill England would joyfully forego, thank you very much.
The fruity things had helped. At some point he’d loosened up enough to say yes, anything was better than all this flash and noise, and to win a bet he couldn’t remember the gist of, only the outcome. He vaguely remembered his own whispered threats of ravishment in a cab and the brief taste of a hot, sloppy mouth and then… waking up.
The door made an electronic clicking noise and America returned, grinning, and England looked at his partially-open shirt and his mouth, and immediately thought about licking those white, straight teeth--
“Wow, you look lots better!” America said. He was holding one of those giant, sugary, frothy coffee-things.
You look astonishing, England thought, but of course couldn’t say, not in the light of day and with all that heavy, awkward air crushing his lungs. He couldn’t believe he’d even managed to mention that bet, this morning.
“The tea is tepid,” he said.
“Ha ha, that’s too bad! We’ll get you another at Starbuck’s,” America said, still smiling.
“Corporate nonsense,” England said as he stood.
“But good coffee.” America’s eyes narrowed slightly behind his spectacles, though his smile remained intact.
“Where’s my wallet?” England said, patting his trousers pockets.
The wallet was found, along with a pair of sunglasses. But the lift car was crowded and the lobby was horribly crowded and the coffee-shop line was long, and the barista flirted with America. At least the tea was hot.
The young man at the valet kiosk also ogled America and ran off, returning a few minutes later driving a-- a-- a bubble. It was a hybrid car, one of those little Hondas that ran on electric and solar and used little petrol.
The young sprout said something like Here you are, Mr. First as he handed over the keys with a too-excited grin, and England wondered, first in what? The valet positively beamed at whatever gratuity America slipped him.
“Why did I think you’d have gotten a convertible-- a Mustang or Corvette or the like?” England asked with some regret as he climbed through the passenger-side door and slid the seat back a few inches.
“Ah! I’m being green. This baby has low emissions and great gas mileage. And it has a hatchback. It’s practical, right?”
“And Japanese,” England said.
“It’s a global economy,” America told him with a very bland expression.
England was silent as America negotiated the crazy traffic out of the hotel’s massive grounds, then out along Las Vegas Boulevard. He’d have rather ridden in something showy and sporty, and privately thought America had chosen the wrong time to be responsible. But once up on the raised motorway, England was distracted by the vistas he’d spotted earlier from the hotel-room window, the mountains brown against the blue, cloudless sky. America turned off the air-conditioning and opened the windows.
“It’s great weather for April,” he said.
“It’s dry,” England said. When America turned away, possibly to frown, England added, “very temperate, however. Sunny.”
“Drink this.” America handed him a bottle of water plucked seemingly from nowhere. England accepted it gratefully and stared out the window rather than at America, at his tanned arms poking out of his rolled-up sleeves and his bright hair whiffling in the wind. America, everywhere he looked.
It was odd how the city didn’t peter out but simply disappeared: one moment there were clusters of houses and petrol-stations and shops, and the next, long stretches of nothing but road and dirt. It looked much like it had when England had visited the Mojave Desert in the 1950s, when his military had viewed some of America’s nuclear tests. The landscape was not dead, however. England could spot the scattered green of hard-scrabble desert bushes in the never-ending, sloping stretches of brown and red rock. It was massive and majestic.
“It’s kind of pretty, don’tcha think?” America said. “I guess they had a really rainy winter, so there’s actually lots of green, ha ha.”
Again, America behaved true to form. With the crowds one would not think there was a recession going on, and apparently a few stunted, green shrubs could convince Americans that there was no drought.
Even such foolishness had undeniable charm, when captured in the form of America, as long and breezy as these astonishing valleys, an expanse that England wanted to touch and map with his fingers, exploring like hadn’t since New Year’s--
“It is… lovely, in a very stark way,” England said. He swallowed. “So where are we going again?”
“Well, that’s the awesome part. Not only do you get to see the Amargosa Valley, but you get to see something cool that not very many British people have seen!”
England’s alarm began to nudge aside his fantasies of tracking America’s dry valleys. “Where are we going?” he repeated.
“Of course, you can’t tell anyone,” America added.
“Where are we going?” England asked once more, most emphatically.
“You’ll never believe-- oh, fine, don’t look at me like that. Area 51! The Nevada Test Site base. Isn’t that cool?”
“Area 51.” Something tickled at England’s memory, but surely that couldn’t be-- “Not the place with the fucking aliens?”
America laid his index finger over his lips. “It’s just an Air-Force testing center, remember,” he said with a wink.
“What?” England thought of America’s ghastly friend Tony, that little grey bastard with the horrible mind-games who was safely tucked away back in New York or Washington-- somewhere far, far away, anyway. “I thought that was Mexico. Or New Mexico?”
America laughed. “No, that’s just the cra-- well, you’ll get to see some cool planes, maybe. That you can’t tell anyone about. Not even regular military can get in there.”
“Did you arrange this ahead of time?”
“Nah,” America said, waving his hand as if the very idea were a joke. “I don’t have to, ha ha!”
England stared at him and thought for a few moments. A high-security base. This would be a very unofficial visit and he certainly hadn’t completed any of the paperwork that American Homeland Security or the paranoiac American military would have wanted him to complete. Neither had he cleared it with his boss or the RAF. He--they-- could get into some very unofficial trouble. In addition, he might have to consort with that-bastard-Tony’s compatriots.
On the other hand, he might get to see some very high-tech and top-secret planes. America’s planes had evolved into machines that were quite sleek and cool and stealthy. And later, he would get oral sex. From America.
“I look forward to seeing it,” England said. Sometimes being a pervert made decision-making easy.
“I’m really glad to hear that,” America said with a smile so huge and genuine that it made England’s stomach tie itself into a midshipman’s hitch. His vulnerability to the moods of a young, brash twat like America was ever a trial to him, though he should have been well used to it.
America was still staring at him. At least, it seemed so, even through his darkened spectacles. England’s stomach rearranged itself down low, low in his belly.
“Watch the road, dolt,” he said in a voice made rather scratchy with lust.
He would have thought his euphoria by association might have abated when America turned up the radio and started singing loudly and somewhat off-key into the wind-- she was-- an American girrrrllll!-- but it didn’t. He found it to be decent driving music.
“Ohhh yeah! All right!” America was still singing. England looked out the window to hide a rather uncharacteristic and fond grin. He watched the seemingly eternal brown, the spots of green, the occasional glint of white where a motor home hunched in the parched landscape. Huge and all-encompassing. America as a colony clinging to the eastern coast had been so much more manageable than this vast sky, which felt as if it could swallow him whole.
The song ended and an irksome advertiser’s voice took over the airwaves. America turned down the radio. Not one to remain silent, he hummed remnants of the song for a minute or two and then spoke.
“You know, I was so sure that girl was going to get her boyfriend’s name tattooed on her tummy.”
England wondered if he was supposed to know what America was talking about. Somehow, he thought he should. Something-- the vaguest of memories-- danced through his brain synapses.
“Oh?” he said, when he couldn’t catch the trace memory.
“Totally. But you were right.”
“Ah, that. Indeed,” England said. He glanced over at America and nodded, trying to look smug.
America was smiling back at him, but his smile was incredibly bland, like he was so cool that butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. Such a look on America’s open, engaging face was always rather eerie. “You guessed the right one! It’s like you were psychic, or something.”
“Ah,” England said, and looked away. America knew he’d forgotten, the sly bastard. England thought harder, mentally chasing down the memory.
A girl. Blond and… pink? Hair? Cute. Metal in her face. Her lips? She’d been laughing at America and clutching an equally pierced bloke whose beard hung down past his belt. She’d said… she’d liked England’s accent. There’d been nothing particularly remarkable about that; American women tended to go for such things.
America snorted. “You totally forgot, didn’t you? Ha ha.” America’s ha ha sounded quite a bit sharper than usual. “You don’t remember.”
“Nonsense,” England lied. He thought some more. It was… their bet, that America was referring to. They hadn’t gambled money, because that was for regular humans. So in the spirit of drunkenness they’d wagered… sex. He thought harder. He was in serious trouble. There was a chance he could lose his reward--
“What was it, then?”
England closed his eyes. A shop. The fruity things. Color, light, and… “Damned flowery thing with a cross that was a dagger, something ridiculous like that,” he said, with a definite smug look.
America’s grin became a little less bland and more real. “Hey, you’re right! Sort of.”
“’Course I am,” England said, crossing his arms over his middle as if to say so there. “Told her you should never get a tattoo of your lover’s name. It’s the surest way to ruin your love-life. He was daft, anyway.”
“I thought they were sweet,” America said. “Really sweet on each other.”
“She wanted the tattoo so low on her crotch, she’d have been branded. Like livestock.”
“Hmm,” America said, possibly thinking of cattle. Or girls’ nether bits. Animal husbandry. Jesus, England was randy. He wished he could remember more of what had happened after the tattoo shop. In their room. Hot breath and tongue and oh, yes and… nothing. “And here I’d thought you’d forgotten completely.”
England snorted. “I was drinking to excess for centuries before you popped into existence,” he said.
“Hmm,” America said again.
For a while they were quiet, comfortable and uncomfortable by turns, like an eternal metaphor for their relationship. America tapped the steering wheel and hummed and England drank his water and watched the gradual shifts in the landscape. They made the occasional comment about the land formations. America turned the radio up, then down, then up, then finally down when they lost the signals.
The little car went very fast once it got up to speed, and out here there were few traffic controls. At one point America said, oh, almost there! and England spotted a tiny green sign-- Mercury, two miles. The turnoff was barely marked or visible, two small, grey lanes in the grey and brown. A quarter-kilometer or so in they pulled up to a tiny gate with two camouflage-clad guards and a sign reading, “WARNING: Restricted Area.”
America rolled up to the gate and pushed his spectacles to the top of his head, making his hair stick up even more. The approaching guard was middle-aged and stern.
“This area is off-limits to civilians,” he said. England dug in his trousers-pocket for his wallet.
“We’re not civilians, ha ha,” America said with a massive smile, and handed over his identification folio. The guard opened it, took a look, then snapped it shut and handed it back.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Firth. You do not have access. Please leave.”
Firth, not First, England thought.
“What? I--” America, open-mouthed, looked at first dumbfounded and then chagrined. “Wait, that’s the wrong-- Uh. Crap.”
England realized that America had nearly said he’d given the wrong ID, definitely an official no-no. The guard moved his hand down to cradle his radio, or perhaps his firearm, and the other guard watched them closely.
“Let me see your wallet, Arthur,” America said with a strained smile.
“What did you do now, you prat?” England whispered, but handed it over. America passed it to the guard, who examined it a little longer than he had America’s, but eventually shook his head and handed it back.
“You’re not an American citizen. No access, sir.”
“I was here before you,” England blurted. “And I probably have higher clearance--”
“You’ll have to leave.”
“Don’t you have better ID, Mr. Firth?” England said to America.
“I-- But this isn’t even the restricted--” America began.
“A civilian and a British citizen have no business here.”
“Special relationship, my arse,” England muttered.
“Thank you, sir! Sorry for the trouble,” America said in a bright, tight voice, then backed up the car and began turning it around. His eerie smile had returned in force.
“Whose identification are you carrying, Mr. Firth?” England wanted to know.
America ignored him. England spotted the ID folio in America’s lap, and he nabbed it and opened it.
“Colin Firth? You stole identification from Colin Firth?”
“It’s not sto-len,” America said in a sing-song voice. He flipped his spectacles down to hide his eyes.
“I knew this was going to be trouble,” England said. “Of all the aliases you could have chosen, you picked one that was well-known?”
“I wanted to be Brad Pitt, but they’d have known that was an alias. So I picked a name nobody would know, because my boss doesn’t want us spending needlessly, and then I left my real ID behind accidentally, probably at ho--”
“Nobody would know?” England interrupted. “He was nominated for an award from your acting academy, if you remember--”
“I only knew who he was because you made me watch that miniseries with all the sisters. I cried, remember?”
“Pride and Prejudice, twat. Twat, twat, twat,” England said. “Troublesome tw--”
“Don’t worry! I know another way in,” America said, turning his rictus-grin on England. He gripped the steering wheel with intent and looked right frightening. “It’s longer, but it’s way cooler--”
“No, it’s troublesome. Twat.”
“We’re going,” America said, and looked so horrifying around his dark lenses that England didn’t want to argue about it. America turned up the radio until the car was filled with half-music, half-static. He drove. England looked out the window and mouthed twat occasionally.
The radio signal returned, and America turned up the volume even higher and began to sing once more. It was David Bowie.
“Put on your red shoes and dance the blues!” America shouted.
“Your accent is for shit,” England told him, and stared out the window. He was never going to get his oral sex, or anything else, and perhaps he didn’t want it from such a silly twat, anyway, so there. Except he did.
America ignored him. His false accent grew even more outrageous. “Would break mah hahrt in tow!!”
“Now you’re just yanking my chain,” England sniffed.
***
America drove. He drove fast, and he liked it. He’d stopped for water and snacks and gas and a map, and then he’d driven some more. England was sulking with his face pressed against the window. Like he should be the one sulking, the butthead. He was the one who’d fallen asleep in the middle of--
America sighed. He realized too late that he’d also let Pookie slow down, because England noticed something and looked over at him with his most annoying ‘oh-so-proper’ expression.
“Come to your senses, yet?” he asked.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I feel pretty darned sensible right now,” America said. Nyah, nyah, nyah, put that in your pipe and smoke it, mister. Sometimes being around England made him feel like a kid. Mostly when England was being a jerk, like he was now.
“Right,” England said, and went back to staring out the window.
Other than England being a jerk a lot of the time, things were actually pretty cool. England could be all bluster and bullshit on the outside, but he was solid smoosh in the inside. And sometimes England still surprised him. Like with the whole being a sex-maniac thing. That was pretty awesome. When he actually got down to business, that was.
They should never have but they just worked, somehow-- in lots of ways. They’d had to learn to deal; England had always been there, almost from the beginning. America wasn’t sure what he’d do if that was ever not the case. He didn’t like to think about it. He didn’t want to feel melancholy, because he’d really been looking forward to this time together that was not really business, and it was too short to not spend it being happy.
He felt less ticked-off at that last thought. The desert was gorgeous, the sky was blue and the driving was good, and having his long-awaited company was good.
He drove one-handed down a road that seemed to narrow to nothing at the end of the Earth, perfectly straight and grey-black the whole way. He marveled again at his people, who’d carved modern life out of the most forbidding territory.
At some point he saw the sign for his turn northwest, and he checked the gas gauge. He wondered if he should have stopped in Alamo, but then decided that there was gas in Rachel, if they needed it. And Pookie didn’t use very much gas at all, good girl. She may have been a little slow to get going, but she was very environmentally conscious.
England sat up straight when America slowed to make the turn onto Highway 375. He’d seen the sign, oh, shit, even though it was covered in stickers like graffiti. America’s people were such lively jokers, the little twerps.
“The ‘Extraterrestrial Highway?’” England bitched. “Don’t tell me they have fucking settlements, now.”
“Ha ha. It’s a joke,” America said. England just stared at him. “Because of Area 51? Nevada knows it’s popular with UFOlogists? Even though it’s just an airfield?”
England sighed. “Only in America.”
“Because we have a great sense of humor,” America told him, fighting to hold his smile. Jerk jerk jerk--
England snorted and America’s opinion of him changed from bad to worse. England’s company was not good and somebody like France would have been a lot more fun. Why hadn’t he asked France to come out to visit? Of course, France would have been groping him while he tried to drive and why wasn’t England trying to grope him? Because he was busy being a big, fat grump, that’s why.
Highway 375 climbed over a mountain pass and through land even more dry and desolate than they’d seen on the last highway. There were no towns for miles and miles-- except a few ghost-towns, eek-- just the tiny strip of blacktop, and a yellow-dotted line into forever.
This was mostly government land; homesteaders could still have it for next to nothing, but only if they could find water, and what homesteader these days could afford to drill through rock just to get enough water for his trailer? America thought of the pioneers and cowboys and miners of a century and a half ago, the hardy people who’d come and seen the beauty and possibilities in this stark, amazing land. They’d suffered through loneliness and a few scorching, dry summers and most had eventually died or drifted off, like tumbleweeds blown through and never stopping for long.
England coughed and America thought his cough sounded kind of parched. Even in April, the dry air and eighty-degree heat and sunshine could be deadly, especially to an old grump from a damp, foggy island. America reached in the back and snagged another bottle of water from the mini-cooler. He thrust it, dripping, at England.
“Keep drinking water,” he said.
“No, thank you,” England told him. “I’m only a little dry.”
“If you get thirr-sty, it’s all-ready too laaate,” he said in a high voice, as if talking to a toddler. “Dehydration is dangerous.”
England took the water with a scowl but didn’t open it. “I already need to make a necessary break. Where is the next town?”
“Um,” America said, and looked at the odometer. “A long way.”
“Bollocks.”
“Uh. I could stop here. You could hug a yucca!” America told him.
England pushed his sunglasses atop his head and glared.
America laughed. “You know, like the saying, ‘hug a tree?’ Except there aren’t any trees, so it would have to be a yucca? One of those?” He pointed out the window at one of the yucca, a spiky bush that looked like it had palm-leaves growing out of dried corn-husks.
“I can wait.”
“Suit yourself,” America said. He sighed. “You should enjoy this. It’s an adventure.”
“Every moment with you is an adventure of some sort, Mr. Firth,” England said.
America was pretty sure England had meant that comment as an insult, but he thought it was kind of sweet, anyway. He felt a warm, tight little sun radiating from under his ribcage, warmth that had nothing to do with the heat outside.
He couldn’t hold the warmth in: he smiled at England and England saw him and tried to give him a stern glare, but America caught the crinkle at the corners of his green eyes before he flipped his sunglasses down to cover them. The warmth flowed out to America’s fingers and toes, and felt so giddy he wanted to laugh. Or have sex right that minute. But only if England was nice to him, or at least pretended to be nice to him, or if he’d at least pretend he wanted to. He’d sure picked a crappy time to pass out last night, just when things had been getting kinda hot.
Though now, and out here, wasn’t a great time or place to do it, anyway. Planes would have to do. Really goddamned amazing and expensive planes. Planes were good. And food. He’d already eaten all the best snacks, and it was past time for lunch.
But something was wrong, he saw, when they finally reached the little cluster of tin huts that was Rachel, Nevada.
“Oh, shit,” America said as he slowed. “The Quik-Pik is closed!”
“What?” England said, leaning forward to look. “The what?”
“There used to be a nice, little mini-mart and gas station here,” America said before he thought about the wisdom of admitting that he’d been expecting gasoline.
“We need petrol, and they don’t have any? Is that what you’re trying to say?”
“Well…” America began. A tumbleweed bounced lazily through the gas-station parking lot, mocking him and the closed-off pumps. He looked at the gauges. They still had gas, and “Pookie doesn’t need much gas, do you, girl? We’ll be okay.”
“Pookie.” England had that look on his face again. The annoying look.
“Uh.” America realized too late that he’d said that last part aloud. He was beginning to want to smack himself. What a hellacious day! There had better be some fucking awesome planes at the test site. Once they’d made it inside and had his ‘real’ identity cleared, that was. He breathed deeply. “It’s what I named our car.”
“Poo-- Pookie.” England snickered as he said it.
“Lunch! Let’s get lunch. I’m starved. Look-- there's a Nevada landmark, a real tourist attraction: The Ale-E-Inn!”
“You mean to tell--”
“No real aliens! Part of the joke. Ha ha?” America smiled, big.
England sighed. “I’m a little peckish, I suppose.”
“Great!” America pulled into the restaurant’s gravel lot. The Ale-E-Inn was basically a double-wide trailer, all scrunched inside, but air-conditioned. They had a restroom break and then burgers and fries, both of them. England even waved off the offer of beer and stuck to cold water.
The only other customers turned out to be a British couple, and they latched onto England once they’d heard his accent. It was really cute, seeing England when he was being chatty and charming to his own people. But eventually they had to get going. America paid their check and bought a stack of Ale-E-Inn tee-shirts.
“I’m giving one to every member of the G-20. They’re awesome, right?” he told England.
England stared at him, silently, and America’s fingernails tingled at the intensity of that stare.
“We’d better get going,” America said to break the acute moment. He tossed the bags of tee-shirts into the hatchback and put his hands on his hips. “Isn’t Pookie a handy little car?”
England, the jerk, gave a low chuckle that spoke straight to America’s dick, and then he stunned America further by grabbing his hand and pulling him a few feet into the shade clinging to the side of the trailer. He pushed America up against it.
“Did I miss my opportunity?” England whispered in a low voice to the skin on America’s face, that sensitive little strip between his ear and his cheek.
“Maybe,” America breathed. He put his hands on England’s hips and held on, anyway.
“Mmm,” England said, and finally kissed him, just sliding his soft lips over America’s. They both sort of sighed and sagged into each other.
“I thought maybe you didn’t--” America whispered after a few moments.
“Idiot. I always--” England told him, crawling his fingers through the hair over America’s ears.
They’d just settled their tongues in each others’ mouths when America heard the sound of tires crunching through gravel. A car was pulling into the lot. England pulled away and stepped back a few paces.
“How much farther is it?” he asked, staring at America’s lips.
“Um. Just up and over the mountain pass,” America said, trying not to look at the sheen on England’s neck where his top shirt-button was undone.
“Onward, then,” England said. He waved at Pookie’s passenger-side door. With some regret, America punched the clicker-button to unlock the doors. Planes. Planes were good. Totally fucking awesome, amazing, and expensive planes.
America was in a kind of horny daze and only noticed a little too late that the dirt road up the mountain was a rough drive for their Pookie. It wasn’t much more than a car-wide trail. The road also went up a lot more steeply than he remembered. It had been a very long time since he’d been out this way.
He hit a nasty bump and the car bounced and her shocks groaned a little. England was using one hand to cling to the windowsill, and with the other he’d grabbed America’s knee.
At being groped at last, America stopped worrying about the road completely and went off into his happy-place.
“Are you sure this is the right way?” England asked, squeezing America’s knee even harder when they hit another rut.
“Absolutely. We’re just fine, yep,” he murmured, patting the steering wheel.
An especially steep grade made Pookie rev scarily and her wheels spin in the dust, breaking America out of his haze long enough to wish he’d gotten a four-wheel drive. He should have thought this entire side-trip out a little better, but he’d been pissed off, both at his own mistakes and at other peoples’ stubbornness at keeping him from doing what he wanted. He’d just stormed off. Maybe England, along with lots of other people, was right when he said that America was frighteningly impetuous at times.
But then England’s fingers slid up the insides of America’s thin cargo khakis, and America glanced over to see England staring straight ahead with a sly-looking smile. America stretched and rubbed his back into the bucket-seat pleather and shivered when England’s fingers brushed across his pants-zipper, then poked, hard--
“Ow--”
“Hold! Hold! Look sharp!” England was yelling. America swerved just in time to avoid a basketball-sized rock in the road, barely visible against the same-colored desert dirt. And it got worse: the road was strewn with rocks, some of them massive. America gunned Pookie up a small incline and then had to stop, because the road that kept going up the mountain was completely blocked by a wall of tumbled, brown and red boulders.
“That’s not supposed to be there,” America said as he killed the engine. England just looked at him and then they both opened their doors.
They stood on a suspiciously-man-made looking flat-cut like a little shelf in the road up the mountain. In front of them, the flat-cut ended at a sheer, sandstone cliff marked by a man-sized, half-crumbled hole into the mountain like an abandoned mine-shaft. To one side the desert sloped down steeply into the wide bowl of the valley they’d just driven through. And the road going forward ran directly under the pile of boulders, reminding America of a road he’d seen in Hawaii once, where a lava flow had crept right over the blacktop and hardened.
“A rockslide,” America said, perhaps unnecessarily.
England stepped up beside him, standing very close. They surveyed the ruined road. England laid a warm hand on America’s already sun-warmed shoulder.
“Isn’t this a complete cock-up?” he said. It sounded like he was laughing.
“I bet if we can climb up a bit, though, we could see another--”
He stopped when England spun him around, grabbed the back of his head in both hands and kissed him again, his soft lips pressing hard. He tasted like desert dust. And instead of worrying over their roadblock, America thought, hooray!
This time England wasn’t all slow and whispery, either. He practically threw America against the rock wall before trying to eat his tongue again. America kissed him back and it was hot, and even in the shade it was hot, and he didn’t think he could take any more hot, though he was willing to give it a try.
After a few minutes of being joined at the mouth, England slid his lips over to bite gently on America’s earlobe. He plucked off America’s glasses and then stared at him, all heavy-lidded and shuddery. He always did that. It had used to bug America, because he thought he looked too young without his glasses. But then he’d considered the possibility that maybe that was all part of England’s thing. So he never said anything about it.
This time he just pulled England’s shirttails out of his pants and ran his fingers over the slightly sticky skin of England’s ribcage.
“Not going to pass out on me?” he asked against England’s lips.
England pffed out a harsh breath that went up America’s nose. “I thought we’d, ah, been over that.”
America shrugged and then shivered when England bit his earlobe again. “I guess I can be over it.”
“Good to know,” England said, and proceeded to kiss him again and try to grind him back onto the cliff with his crotch. America ground back, riding England’s thigh, and God, he was hard. So was the cliff, scraping his back through his thin shirt and khakis, a lot less comfortable to shove against than England.
But then England thrust his hand down the front of America’s pants and discovered just how hard he was, squeezing and stroking with his thumb until it was all America could do to hold on and pant into England’s shoulder. His knees trembled and he started to slide down the cliff wall, but yelped when a sharp, jutting rock tried to take out his kidney.
“What’s wrong with you?” England whispered into America’s hair.
“Um. The rocks,” he said, shifting to the side, trying to find a comfortable spot to be shoved against.
England sighed. “Turn around,” he said. When America did, England gave his shoulders a push that sent him back onto his ass in the dirt. England followed, pressing him flat. He kneeled over him and thumbed open the button on America’s fly, staring down at his face while he did it.
America must have winced. “Now what?” England asked.
“I think the back of my head is bleeding,” America admitted, though he’d been sort of wiling to ignore it.
England sighed again and stuck his hand into America’s pants pocket, not to fondle him but to grab the keys to the car. He pressed the clicker and pushed himself upright. “Stay here,” he said, and stomped over to pop the hatchback. He grabbed a handful of America’s adorable Ale-E-Inn tee-shirts and tossed them onto the ground. He pointed at the pile.
“My tee-shirts!” America protested. He rubbed his hair. He was, in fact, not bleeding.
“It’s them or you,” England said. “I’m not going anywhere until I’ve shagged you senseless. That shouldn’t take long.”
“Jerk,” America said. But the shagging part sounded pretty good. He weighed his options for a millisecond, then shifted over to plant his ass on the pile of shirts. Still, it was kind of an impromptu fuck and he hadn’t really been prepared… “Do you have anything to, uh, help me out, here?”
England sat down on the ground next to America and stretch-leaned back to grab his wallet out of his pocket. He thumbed through it at lightning speed and pulled out a little foil packet.
“Travel-sized lube. Ha ha,” America couldn’t help laughing. “You crafty old pervert, you.”
“I’ll show you old,” England warned.
With all the major hurdles to impromptu sex out of the way, they could finally focus on getting down to business. Business included trying to make out and undress at the same time, and trying to crawl into each other’s skin. They couldn’t seem to be fast enough or clumsy enough, and they managed to knock heads and hit each other with their elbows and knees more than once. America only had one leg out of his cargo pants when England yanked his thigh up.
“This is taking too long. Jesus, it’s been too long,” he said. America got England’s lube-slicked fingers jammed in his ass for a few moments and then no more foreplay, just England’s cock, hard and hot, and his pained-sounding, breathy finally, finally, as he worked it in.
America clenched his teeth and breathed, in and out, willing his body to relax, to let England move inside him. “No blow-job for you,” he pointed out in a strained voice.
“Twat,” England said, as he propped his hands in the dirt on either side of America’s head and jerked his hips in a couple of little bursts, not slowly, but not too fast. “Lovely, lovely,” he murmured.
America liked being called lovely, and he liked being called lovely by England, and he liked the way England caught his lower lip between his teeth while he worked out his rhythm. God, he’d missed him. He’d always missed him. He wondered if England knew that. He hoped not, at least he thought so-- it was hard to think.
He clenched his thighs around England’s waist and arched his back and didn’t care about the rocks tearing into his tee-shirts or anything, only about getting closer, closer, England inside him, hard and fast and this was way better than planes, he’d swear it--
“Good, good,” England whispered and rubbed his fingers over America’s cheek and roughly through his hair and back over his face, pressing a thumb into his mouth while he pounded the ache higher in America’s belly.
That part about senseless had been no joke: America was being screwed off his pile of tee-shirts and back onto the rocks, knocking his head around. Never had it been this urgent, never for him, never for them, and America egged England on, pushing back, whispering go, go, yes, yes around England’s thumb.
“God,” England shoved his nose into America’s ear and licked his cheek. “You,” he huffed. “Hah. You.”
“Ah! Ahgod. Me?” America managed between breaths.
England propped his forehead on America’s to look at him again. “I can’t-- hah-- believe-- hah. You named. The fucking. Car. Hah-- hah--”
America tried to laugh back but England was hitting inside him just right-- god, yes, there-- and staring at him and stroking the head of America’s dick with a thumb covered in America’s own spit. Holy crap, he was intense. America always knew who England was fucking, that was for sure.
His thighs clenched at that thought. “Oh, God. I’m going to-- hah-- come,” he breathed.
“No, you won’t,” England breathed back into America’s mouth, still swiping his thumb over the skin of America’s cock, slowly, slowly, much more slowly than he was shoving America back onto the rocks, the intense bastard. “You can--”
“Ah!” America’s body scrunched up into itself and he came, hard, all over England’s hand and god, he’d needed that--
“Im-patient,” England laughed, and kept going, kept moving, and America held on and let his body ride out the climax, let it go limp so England could keep going, and going, and he was going to go forever, hell, but it still felt good and England could do that, if he wanted. Did England know he was the only one who could do that?
Finally England huffed and slowed, his rhythm all languorous, and slid his forehead off America’s sweaty face into his hair and came, breathing America.
After a minute or two of breathing they peeled their sticky skins apart, slowly. America knew he was covered in come and sweat and dirt and he felt a little itchy but mostly super-relaxed and only hoped there weren’t any ants around.
England got his pants fastened and gave America a very sweet peck on the lips before he rolled off to flop on some tee-shirts that had been tossed about.
“That’s done, then,” he said in a somewhat raspy voice. “Brilliant.”
“Drink some water,” America told him first, and then, “yep.”
England propped himself on one elbow and looked at America. He brushed at America’s stomach absently with one of the less-dusty tee-shirts. He was being downright cozy. “What were you saying about climbing up, anyway?”
“I was thinking if we got high enough, we could see if there was another way we could drive, a detour, to get past the rockslide.” America attempted to re-dress himself, wondering if it was a lost cause. They’d have to find somewhere to clean up before presenting themselves to anyone, that was for sure.
England tossed the shirt-now-rag at him. “We’re not going anywhere. Unless it’s back to the hotel.”
“Uh, yeah we are,” America said, deciding in that instant that it wasn’t a lost cause at all. In fact, he was more determined to go than ever. Turning him down, seriously. What had they been thinking? “So you should probably help me look, right?” He smiled.
“Ridiculous.” England stood up, coughing. America turned up the wattage of his smile but England only went over to pluck a bottle of water out of the hatchback. He took a couple of gulps and then poured some onto his hands to rinse them off. “Don’t smile at me like that. You always try and tell me what to do.”
“I never tell you. I only made really awesome suggestions,” America pointed out.
“You never know when to quit. Like in Vietnam.”
Or the American Revolution. Washington had never quit, and look where the U.S.A. was now! America thought, but didn’t say aloud. He wanted England in a good mood. See? He could be diplomatic. Too bad pointing that out would defeat his purpose. He took a deep breath.
“We won’t go very far. I promise,” he wheedled. “Come on. It’s an adven--”
“Adventure, right,” England said. He brushed ineffectually at the brown dust smudging the front of his shirt. America’s revenge for his head, ha ha! “A very little ways, then.”
“Great!” America said. He could always talk England around, sooner or later.
End Part 1/3
On to Part Two of Three!
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Date: 2010-05-12 12:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-14 01:32 pm (UTC)