61 - A Sky As Pure As Water
Title: A Sky As Pure As Water
Characters: America. Brief appearences by Russia, France, England, and Germany.
Rating: PG
Summary: 1969 - The moon landing has been a long, long time coming.
TCE is co-written by wizzard890 and pyrrhiccomedy.
---
The first thing America ever saw was blue. Blue that went up to heaven.
Grass tickled his ears, and cheeks, and he thought: this is grass!
He lay on his back, very happy with this deduction, for a long time. It was warm, that was the sun, big and shiny, and it sort of hurt to look at it so he didn’t look at it, he looked at the blue instead. There were fluffy things and those were clouds, and something walked across his hand and that was a ladybug. America liked the ladybug, and he liked the clouds, and he liked the warm and the grass, but most of all he liked the blue.
He sat up, after a while of this, and blinked around at the dark green slopes of mountains, and the hush of the distant ocean, and the swaying of the yellow grass and the bobbing heads of the flowers and the robins in the trees, everything spread out beneath the endless arc of the sky--and he thought: this is all me!
And people were coming!
---
“America come down from there right this second!”
America squeaked and slipped. Three sharp feet of shredding leaves and cracking twigs flew past him before he caught himself again. He looked down and beamed. “England!”
England stood at the foot of the tree, wide-eyed, his arms half-upraised to catch America. America watched as England wet his lips and swallowed a few times before he could speak. “All right, now, don’t panic, just...stay where you are, do you understand? I-I will bring the ladder-“
“No, it’s okay!” America looked up through the glowing leaves combed through with sunlight. “But I’m almost there! I want to go up and then I’ll come right back down, I promise!”
“You will do no such thing, you’re almost where?” England’s voice sounded faint and far away. “I told you, it isn’t safe to climb so high! Come down here this instant!”
America felt for the next branch up and scrambled against the tree trunk until he could pull himself onto it. The trunk bent hard under his weight--
“America!”
“But I can almost reach it!” America protested. The leaves were sparser, this high up, and the whole treetop swayed a foot or two in the wind. “The sky!”
He caught the next branch above his head. It cracked. He skidded six inches, and then his foot slammed into a knot in the trunk and stopped his fall.
“That isn’t...” England’s voice cracked. America peered down at him. England had gone as pale as the belly of a fish. “You can’t reach the sky by climbing trees. The sky is higher than that.”
America bit his lip.
“Come down.” England wasn’t shouting anymore. He was just...asking, with a tiny shake in his voice. “What if you fell? Please, climb down, you won’t be in trouble.”
America took one last, long look at the gold-glowing sky through the sprinkled lace of oak leaves...and then he picked his way towards the ground. England let out a shock of air as soon as he could reach him, and he swung America off the tree by the waist and tucked him into a fast hug. Then he set America on the ground and knelt before him, neatening America’s clothes and flicking twigs and grit out of his hair.
“Look at you,” England murmured. “You’re filthy, you’ve ruined your trousers, your hands are a disaster...”
He cupped America’s face between both hands for a long, sweet spell, then breathed out.
“You said I wasn’t in trouble,” America said, guarded. England's hands were warm against his cheeks.
England dropped his head forward, then stood up. “Quite right, so I did. Well, inside you go, then. Wash your hands before dinner, and we’ll say no more about it.”
America hopped, spun, and skipped off towards the house. “Okay!”
He looked over his shoulder just once. From the ground he could see more sky than ever.
---
They lay side by side on the muddy hilltop, he and France, their bedrolls just touching, their hands folded beneath their heads. They gazed up at the midnight sky.
“If you could make one wish,” America began, and adjusted his heel on his opposite knee-“What would it be?”
“To see England’s face at the moment he realizes he will lose this war,” France replied after a few seconds of reflection.
America glanced at him and wrinkled his nose. “That’s a terrible wish.”
“I am a terrible person,” France returned, amicable. He tugged the ribbon out of his hair and shook his hair loose on his bedroll. “If you would prefer a less uncharitable wish, then I suppose my heart’s delight at the moment would be for a warm fire, a feather bed, and a bottle of wine.”
America huffed a sigh and felt for something to play with on the ground. After a few seconds, he found a pebble. He wiped it off on his pant leg and turned it over and over between his fingers. “That’s not very, um, ambitious?”
France’s eyebrows rose. “It has to be ambitious?” A pause. “For my king to clear the outrageous debt he has incurred on your behalf?” he suggested.
America chucked the pebble at him. It slipped into France’s open coat. “You’re no fun.”
“You said I could have one wish, darling, but you seem to keep giving me more in the hopes that I will get it right.” France’s long white hand dipped into his coat and retrieved the pebble. He held it up towards the sky, inspected it. “Why, what would you wish for.”
America gazed into the bottomless black between the stars. “I’d wish I could fly.”
France smiled, a bit. “And where would you go, if you could?”
“Up,” America answered, reverent.
France chuckled. “You wouldn’t wish for a successful revolution?”
America’s brow knotted together. He grabbed the pebble out of France’s hand. “I don’t need to wish for that.”
France laughed again. “Good boy.” And then, “What do you think you will find, up?”
“Anything,” America chirped. “I don’t care, there’s stuff up there, right? There’s planets and the moon and the stars, and, like, rocks and whatever...I’d just keep going up until I found something cool.”
Kindly, France remarked, “Your plan is not a very practical one.”
Something weakened in the line of America’s shoulders. His foot slipped off his knee and thunked into the bedroll. “It’s just a wish, it’s not a plan.”
France stretched, his back arching for a second off the ground, and shut his eyes. “You would be happier, I think, if you wished for things that were obtainable.”
America didn’t say anything. He gazed up into the cold, still night.
---
“Fuck yes-fuck yes, fuck yes, fuck yes! Fuck yes!”
There was a cheer all down the crowd. America punched his fist into the air. December wind blew cold down the front of his jacket. The plane rattled past them, engine howling, its propellers blurred invisible, the wings lifting-lifting-
“Fuck yes!” America cheered and lept into the air himself. He’d do a somersault, if he could, he’d throw a cartwheel, the thing worked, Wilbur and Orville’s crazy machine worked! He didn’t feel his eyes sting, or his eyelashes go heavy: his heart was pounding too hard and he was smiling too much to care.
Twelve seconds later, the plane hit the ground, but that wasn’t important!
America could fly!
---
He stood on his porch with a drink in his hand and a wild grin on his face, and leaned against the railing and stared up at the moon.
The screen door opened behind him. Germany spoke. “You have been out here for a long time.”
America knew it was rude to talk to someone with his back turned, but if he turned around he would have to look away from the sky, and that sort of-wasn’t, really-going to work out right now, so-“Yeah I know, I’m super sorry, I mean it’s my party and you guys all came alll the way out here just to be with me when they landed, just give me five more minutes, okay? Just five more minutes.”
Germany paused, then went back inside. America adjusted his grip on the railing. Everything tasted like champagne, and the air still smelled like the barbecue they’d had this afternoon, and the sky was clear and the moon looked beautiful, beautiful. White and smooth and his.
He went up until he found it.
The screen door opened again. America laughed, “Oh, wow, has it been five minutes already, I swear I’ll be right in, I’ve just gotta-gotta-“
“It’s been nearly twenty minutes since Germany came to check on you,” England replied, “But I didn’t come out here to disturb you. It’s just that Russia is on the telephone.”
America blinked.
“Doing his diplomatic duty, I expect,” England added.
“Right,” America started. He turned away from the pristine night and flashed England a smile. “Yeah, I should take that.”
“It would be wise,” England agreed. He raised his glass of scotch in America’s direction as they pressed inside and the door banged shut behind them. “Congratulations again, by the way.”
“Thank you-I mean it, and thanks so much for coming out here-“
America crossed through the living room. It turned into a five minute trek through cheering and back claps and handshakes from all his allies. He reached the kitchen in a daze. It was very quiet and empty by comparison.
He picked up the phone. “Hi, Russia! This is Russia, right?”
“Hello, America.” Russia’s voice, subdued. “I am calling to congratulate you.”
“Yeah-“ America plunked down his glass and gripped the receiver in both hands in excitement. “Yeah, it’s, uh, wow, you know, it’s been a totally crazy day.”
“Putting a man on the moon is a great achievement,” Russia went on. “You must be very proud of--”
“Thank you,” America didn’t mean to cut him off, it was just-“Thank you, Russia, thank you so much, so much, you have no idea.”
There was a puzzled pause. Russia tried, “Why are you thanking me?”
America hiked his hip against the kitchen counter and clutched the phone against his ear. “Because this wouldn’t, wouldn’t, have happened, if it weren’t for you. With the competition and everything, I mean. That’s why everybody cares.” He pushed off the counter and leaned against the kitchen table instead. He’d been wrestling with a lightweight, shivery kind of joy all afternoon. “If it weren’t for the, you know, the whole thing we’ve got going, then it would just be me that cared, still, like always, and nobody would be willing to go to all that, that effort? And money, and, and everything. Because it was super hard and nobody would have wanted to do it if it weren’t for you. And this is something I’ve wanted my whole life, this has nothing to do with the Cold War, for me, you know? You know what I mean?” He was breathless, giddy and stumbling on his words. “So-just-I mean-thank you, thank you, so much, this is the best thing...”
There was a very long silence before Russia’s voice came through, soft and tinny and hesitant. “You...you are welcome, America.”
“Let’s go together someday, okay?” America bubbled.
Another long spill of quiet seconds. “You should get back to your party,” Russia ventured.
America gave a gust of laughter. “Yeah, I probably should, I’ve been, like, ignoring them, all night, just staring up at the sky...um, goodnight, Russia. Thanks for calling.”
What sounded like a very soft laugh from Russia’s end. “Goodnight.”
They hung up. America stood alone under his kitchen lights, the sounds of the party one room away. He thought of the astronaut’s words for at least the hundredth time.
One small step.
+++
--The Apollo 11 space flight landed the first humans on Earth's Moon on July 20, 1969. The mission, carried out by the United States, is considered a major accomplishment in the history of exploration and represented a victory by the U.S. in the Cold War Space Race with the Soviet Union.
+++
Please read our Rules & FAQ before posting. / Пожалуйста, прочтите Правила и FAQ прежде чем комментировать.
This is a chapter from The Chosen End, a Russia/America collaboration spanning from 1780 to the present day. You can read all of the fics in this story at the Index.
Characters: America. Brief appearences by Russia, France, England, and Germany.
Rating: PG
Summary: 1969 - The moon landing has been a long, long time coming.
TCE is co-written by wizzard890 and pyrrhiccomedy.
---
The first thing America ever saw was blue. Blue that went up to heaven.
Grass tickled his ears, and cheeks, and he thought: this is grass!
He lay on his back, very happy with this deduction, for a long time. It was warm, that was the sun, big and shiny, and it sort of hurt to look at it so he didn’t look at it, he looked at the blue instead. There were fluffy things and those were clouds, and something walked across his hand and that was a ladybug. America liked the ladybug, and he liked the clouds, and he liked the warm and the grass, but most of all he liked the blue.
He sat up, after a while of this, and blinked around at the dark green slopes of mountains, and the hush of the distant ocean, and the swaying of the yellow grass and the bobbing heads of the flowers and the robins in the trees, everything spread out beneath the endless arc of the sky--and he thought: this is all me!
And people were coming!
---
“America come down from there right this second!”
America squeaked and slipped. Three sharp feet of shredding leaves and cracking twigs flew past him before he caught himself again. He looked down and beamed. “England!”
England stood at the foot of the tree, wide-eyed, his arms half-upraised to catch America. America watched as England wet his lips and swallowed a few times before he could speak. “All right, now, don’t panic, just...stay where you are, do you understand? I-I will bring the ladder-“
“No, it’s okay!” America looked up through the glowing leaves combed through with sunlight. “But I’m almost there! I want to go up and then I’ll come right back down, I promise!”
“You will do no such thing, you’re almost where?” England’s voice sounded faint and far away. “I told you, it isn’t safe to climb so high! Come down here this instant!”
America felt for the next branch up and scrambled against the tree trunk until he could pull himself onto it. The trunk bent hard under his weight--
“America!”
“But I can almost reach it!” America protested. The leaves were sparser, this high up, and the whole treetop swayed a foot or two in the wind. “The sky!”
He caught the next branch above his head. It cracked. He skidded six inches, and then his foot slammed into a knot in the trunk and stopped his fall.
“That isn’t...” England’s voice cracked. America peered down at him. England had gone as pale as the belly of a fish. “You can’t reach the sky by climbing trees. The sky is higher than that.”
America bit his lip.
“Come down.” England wasn’t shouting anymore. He was just...asking, with a tiny shake in his voice. “What if you fell? Please, climb down, you won’t be in trouble.”
America took one last, long look at the gold-glowing sky through the sprinkled lace of oak leaves...and then he picked his way towards the ground. England let out a shock of air as soon as he could reach him, and he swung America off the tree by the waist and tucked him into a fast hug. Then he set America on the ground and knelt before him, neatening America’s clothes and flicking twigs and grit out of his hair.
“Look at you,” England murmured. “You’re filthy, you’ve ruined your trousers, your hands are a disaster...”
He cupped America’s face between both hands for a long, sweet spell, then breathed out.
“You said I wasn’t in trouble,” America said, guarded. England's hands were warm against his cheeks.
England dropped his head forward, then stood up. “Quite right, so I did. Well, inside you go, then. Wash your hands before dinner, and we’ll say no more about it.”
America hopped, spun, and skipped off towards the house. “Okay!”
He looked over his shoulder just once. From the ground he could see more sky than ever.
---
They lay side by side on the muddy hilltop, he and France, their bedrolls just touching, their hands folded beneath their heads. They gazed up at the midnight sky.
“If you could make one wish,” America began, and adjusted his heel on his opposite knee-“What would it be?”
“To see England’s face at the moment he realizes he will lose this war,” France replied after a few seconds of reflection.
America glanced at him and wrinkled his nose. “That’s a terrible wish.”
“I am a terrible person,” France returned, amicable. He tugged the ribbon out of his hair and shook his hair loose on his bedroll. “If you would prefer a less uncharitable wish, then I suppose my heart’s delight at the moment would be for a warm fire, a feather bed, and a bottle of wine.”
America huffed a sigh and felt for something to play with on the ground. After a few seconds, he found a pebble. He wiped it off on his pant leg and turned it over and over between his fingers. “That’s not very, um, ambitious?”
France’s eyebrows rose. “It has to be ambitious?” A pause. “For my king to clear the outrageous debt he has incurred on your behalf?” he suggested.
America chucked the pebble at him. It slipped into France’s open coat. “You’re no fun.”
“You said I could have one wish, darling, but you seem to keep giving me more in the hopes that I will get it right.” France’s long white hand dipped into his coat and retrieved the pebble. He held it up towards the sky, inspected it. “Why, what would you wish for.”
America gazed into the bottomless black between the stars. “I’d wish I could fly.”
France smiled, a bit. “And where would you go, if you could?”
“Up,” America answered, reverent.
France chuckled. “You wouldn’t wish for a successful revolution?”
America’s brow knotted together. He grabbed the pebble out of France’s hand. “I don’t need to wish for that.”
France laughed again. “Good boy.” And then, “What do you think you will find, up?”
“Anything,” America chirped. “I don’t care, there’s stuff up there, right? There’s planets and the moon and the stars, and, like, rocks and whatever...I’d just keep going up until I found something cool.”
Kindly, France remarked, “Your plan is not a very practical one.”
Something weakened in the line of America’s shoulders. His foot slipped off his knee and thunked into the bedroll. “It’s just a wish, it’s not a plan.”
France stretched, his back arching for a second off the ground, and shut his eyes. “You would be happier, I think, if you wished for things that were obtainable.”
America didn’t say anything. He gazed up into the cold, still night.
---
“Fuck yes-fuck yes, fuck yes, fuck yes! Fuck yes!”
There was a cheer all down the crowd. America punched his fist into the air. December wind blew cold down the front of his jacket. The plane rattled past them, engine howling, its propellers blurred invisible, the wings lifting-lifting-
“Fuck yes!” America cheered and lept into the air himself. He’d do a somersault, if he could, he’d throw a cartwheel, the thing worked, Wilbur and Orville’s crazy machine worked! He didn’t feel his eyes sting, or his eyelashes go heavy: his heart was pounding too hard and he was smiling too much to care.
Twelve seconds later, the plane hit the ground, but that wasn’t important!
America could fly!
---
He stood on his porch with a drink in his hand and a wild grin on his face, and leaned against the railing and stared up at the moon.
The screen door opened behind him. Germany spoke. “You have been out here for a long time.”
America knew it was rude to talk to someone with his back turned, but if he turned around he would have to look away from the sky, and that sort of-wasn’t, really-going to work out right now, so-“Yeah I know, I’m super sorry, I mean it’s my party and you guys all came alll the way out here just to be with me when they landed, just give me five more minutes, okay? Just five more minutes.”
Germany paused, then went back inside. America adjusted his grip on the railing. Everything tasted like champagne, and the air still smelled like the barbecue they’d had this afternoon, and the sky was clear and the moon looked beautiful, beautiful. White and smooth and his.
He went up until he found it.
The screen door opened again. America laughed, “Oh, wow, has it been five minutes already, I swear I’ll be right in, I’ve just gotta-gotta-“
“It’s been nearly twenty minutes since Germany came to check on you,” England replied, “But I didn’t come out here to disturb you. It’s just that Russia is on the telephone.”
America blinked.
“Doing his diplomatic duty, I expect,” England added.
“Right,” America started. He turned away from the pristine night and flashed England a smile. “Yeah, I should take that.”
“It would be wise,” England agreed. He raised his glass of scotch in America’s direction as they pressed inside and the door banged shut behind them. “Congratulations again, by the way.”
“Thank you-I mean it, and thanks so much for coming out here-“
America crossed through the living room. It turned into a five minute trek through cheering and back claps and handshakes from all his allies. He reached the kitchen in a daze. It was very quiet and empty by comparison.
He picked up the phone. “Hi, Russia! This is Russia, right?”
“Hello, America.” Russia’s voice, subdued. “I am calling to congratulate you.”
“Yeah-“ America plunked down his glass and gripped the receiver in both hands in excitement. “Yeah, it’s, uh, wow, you know, it’s been a totally crazy day.”
“Putting a man on the moon is a great achievement,” Russia went on. “You must be very proud of--”
“Thank you,” America didn’t mean to cut him off, it was just-“Thank you, Russia, thank you so much, so much, you have no idea.”
There was a puzzled pause. Russia tried, “Why are you thanking me?”
America hiked his hip against the kitchen counter and clutched the phone against his ear. “Because this wouldn’t, wouldn’t, have happened, if it weren’t for you. With the competition and everything, I mean. That’s why everybody cares.” He pushed off the counter and leaned against the kitchen table instead. He’d been wrestling with a lightweight, shivery kind of joy all afternoon. “If it weren’t for the, you know, the whole thing we’ve got going, then it would just be me that cared, still, like always, and nobody would be willing to go to all that, that effort? And money, and, and everything. Because it was super hard and nobody would have wanted to do it if it weren’t for you. And this is something I’ve wanted my whole life, this has nothing to do with the Cold War, for me, you know? You know what I mean?” He was breathless, giddy and stumbling on his words. “So-just-I mean-thank you, thank you, so much, this is the best thing...”
There was a very long silence before Russia’s voice came through, soft and tinny and hesitant. “You...you are welcome, America.”
“Let’s go together someday, okay?” America bubbled.
Another long spill of quiet seconds. “You should get back to your party,” Russia ventured.
America gave a gust of laughter. “Yeah, I probably should, I’ve been, like, ignoring them, all night, just staring up at the sky...um, goodnight, Russia. Thanks for calling.”
What sounded like a very soft laugh from Russia’s end. “Goodnight.”
They hung up. America stood alone under his kitchen lights, the sounds of the party one room away. He thought of the astronaut’s words for at least the hundredth time.
One small step.
+++
--The Apollo 11 space flight landed the first humans on Earth's Moon on July 20, 1969. The mission, carried out by the United States, is considered a major accomplishment in the history of exploration and represented a victory by the U.S. in the Cold War Space Race with the Soviet Union.
+++
Please read our Rules & FAQ before posting. / Пожалуйста, прочтите Правила и FAQ прежде чем комментировать.
This is a chapter from The Chosen End, a Russia/America collaboration spanning from 1780 to the present day. You can read all of the fics in this story at the Index.