Olympics Fic Sprint
Title- Ripples
Rated/Warnings- T for death, possible triggers for drowning, England not being able to swim
Word Count- 1, 081
Summary- England is not scared of water. He's scared of what it has done.
A/N- I'm sorry if I have this wrong ^^' My village has long ceased being a fishing village, but I believe this is still believed in certain parts of the west coast? I believe British people shared these beliefs in the past too, but I say most people have ditched them~ Please correct me if I'm wrong~
(Was anyone watching the women's boxing final? I thought it was a very tough competition o_o)
|Ripples|
“You cant make me do this.”
England couldn’t see America’s face from his position, but he was pretty sure it was either a smirk or a grimace as they were the only two expressions that made sense with America’s personality, but then again, America’s personality didn’t make much sense so it really could have been anything, but yeah, most likely a smirk or a grimace.
A smirk because America had finally found a weakness in England’s hard shell of apathy towards everything remotely scary (besides Russia, but no one was immune to Russia). A grimace because this had been going on for hours at least and he was surely getting as tired of the charade as England was by then.
England could see his reflection in the water; a pathetic image really, him all but hunched over America’s head as his legs formed a grip that would rival a boa constrictor around America’s neck. His hands had grown tired pulling America’s hair in protest so now they just loosely hung on for balance and stability.
“I cant make you, no,” America said and England could hear the smile, “But, just so you know, I can be very persistent.”
England didn’t mind water. If he did he surely would have some trouble taking a bath or shower or being persistently squirted by water guns by Sealand on a hot summers day. He wasn’t afraid of it; he was an island and the waters had kept him safe from most unsavoury visitors in the first few hundred years of his life. Even now the waters made people less likely to just walk into his land, make other countries less likely to bother him and the water allowed him to have that splendid solitude on days that he wished to have it.
He was not scared of water. That did not mean he could swim.
America thought this was hilarious when he had figured it out. He had pestered him and pestered him to come to some beach in his country where it was too hot and women wore bikinis and tan lines, whether they were twenty one or eighty one. When he had sat down to read, America had just hauled him up again and asked him to come into the water.
England was not scared of water so he complied even if it was only to shut America up. He waded in and once the water reached his waist he deemed that he had gone in far enough. America, however, was not so easily discouraged and demanded he swim out a few meters from where he could keep his footing. When England refused, America was less than impressed.
Which was how he ended up in his current predicament. He was so far out that he would not be able to stand correctly on the sea floor without his nose being flooded however America could stand with the water only reaching his neck and splashing around England’s toes. England had stopped feeling the cold an hour before hand, his shivering previously almost knocking him from his perch. The goosebumps that riddled his legs and arms, however, stated that he had probably just gone numb.
America wasn’t going to bring him back to shore unless he swam to it.
But he couldn’t swim.
“This is ridiculous,” he complained again, “I cant swim at all, let alone all the way back to shore.”
“I’d be right there,” America retaliated; an answer for everything, “It’s not like you would drown or anything.”
“You don’t understand!” England wanted to scream, but he managed to keep his voice even and his trashing to a minimum unless he wanted America to grow tired and simply dump him there. He was surprised he had withstood this long. “I cant swim! I cant!”
America never lived by the sea, despite him originally only consisting of east coat states relatively near the sea. America didn’t know fishermen customs and curses and legends. America had never been on a ship with people who deemed it a sin if you knew how to preserve your life if God decided you better sink with the fishes. America didn't know that swimming was pointless and just postpone what was already bound to happen. America didn’t understand that it wasn’t a matter of England not being able to swim; it was that England couldn’t swim.
“Anyone can!” America said, grinning in his voice and on his face as he managed to tip his head back enough for their eyes to meet, “I can, everyone else can. You can too!”
Nowadays fishermen knew how to swim, except in coastal regions and rural fishing villages and small islands on the coasts that still went by the old ways and the old beliefs of quick deaths and seats in heaven. Children were brought into special pools with floats and parental supervision and most of them were swimming rings around lane trainers before they turned eight. Swimming had a purpose now and technology had improved so much that turning up safe and sound after a wreckage was entirely possible. Swimming was not a sin; it was not a matter of natural selection.
He gave America’s hair a feeble tug. “No.”
America’s smile turned down like the sun was setting in the sky. “Yes?” he tried, but England shook his head.
“No, America,” he said.
He had seen men drown before they could reel them in after they fell overboard. He had seen women cry over their fishermen sons who never came home with their catch of the day. He had seen shipwrecks in torrential rain and relentless storms with no survivors left on them. He’d heard the tales of murdered innocents believed to be doing the work of the devil who were thrown into lakes and never managed to make it to shore.
If he let himself believe that all those deaths were in vain over something so shallow as the lingering threat of a legend or a parent's idea of a waste of time, he would go insane.
Sensing he had lost this fight, America visibly drooped, getting his chin wet in the process, as he trudged back through the water, wading his way back to the shore, his forehead set and his mouth straight. “I don’t understand,” he said quietly once England was close enough to the beach that he could get down and make his own way back to where the damp air had curled the pages of his timeless book.
England thought of popping eyes and blue faces, of lifeless white stares and salt wrecked hair, of tattered clothes and gasping breaths filled with salt and water. He thought of a fisherman’s corpse, a victim’s plunge from the sides of a ship and of a young girl’s terrified eyes as they see her family for the last time.
“I’m glad you don’t understand.”
And I hope you never will, is what remains unsaid.
|END|