Chapter Text
20th August, 2010; Paris, France
Always mindful of his gas and electricity bills, Scotland spends the absolute bare minimum of time in the shower at home, never keeping the water running for a moment longer than he needs to complete his extremely efficient cleaning routine.
Even when he’s staying at France’s, he can’t normally bring himself to linger. France might be unconcerned about the extra expense, dismissing it as nothing more than a ‘few cents, at most’, but Scotland knows that a few cents here and there add up to euros quickly enough, and the thought of frittering away that sort of money for no real purpose makes him feel uneasy, whether or not it’s his own.
Besides, he’s never been able to work out what people even do with themselves to drag the whole process out past the ten minute mark if they’re using a shower solely for its intended purpose. He wishes he could, though, as he’s run out of ideas of how to occupy himself further.
He’s read the back of every bottle within reach, diligently left the conditioner on his hair for the full recommended two minutes instead of getting impatient after a handful of seconds as he usually does on the infrequent occasions he uses the stuff, and scrubbed his body inch by scrupulous inch, rinsed, then repeated the process as many times as his rapidly reddening skin can stand.
He still hasn’t managed to make it to twenty minutes, regardless, never mind the half hour France had managed with such apparent ease earlier.
With a great deal of reluctance – and painfully pruned fingers – he turns off the water, wraps a towel around his waist, and then looks despairingly around the bathroom once more, longing for some fresh insight.
He had, however, picked it clean of anything approaching a distraction before resorting to a shower in the first place, and nothing new had presented itself in the interim. The contents of France’s medicine cabinet have all been thoroughly inspected, not a single stray bristle remains on his cheeks or chin, and his reflection has been studied at length from every conceivable angle and wearing a variety of different facial expressions.
He had been desperate enough to check his one possible escape route earlier, but the narrow bathroom window is an impassable barrier even if the five storey drop beyond it is not. He doubts he’d manage to so much as squeeze his shoulders halfway through it. As he because he can no longer pretend at any sort of occupation, it seems, and flight is sadly out of the question, pretty much all that remains to him now is outright deceit.
He could just sit down, stare at the walls, and wait out the rest of the evening in tedious but impregnable solitude. The door is locked, and though France might well try to cajole – and probably, as his temper and patience inevitably wore thin, threaten – him into leaving, Scotland thinks it very unlikely that he’d risk damaging the wood or paintwork by breaking in.
Alternatively, he could feign a headache or, better yet, a stomach ache. Some minor ailment or other that he feared, he would tell France with equally feigned dejection, ruin his enjoyment of the night they had planned. He’s certain that France would grumble and sigh but ultimately agree, then subject him to constant fussing, worried looks, and bland but strengthening broths. Unpleasant to contemplate, but still, Scotland thinks, preferable to the alternative.
Of course, there’s still the window. If he’s miscalculated, then all of his problems would be solved with some shuffling along ledges and then a quick slide down a drainpipe or two to finish. If he hasn’t, then with any luck he’d be stuck long after seven o’clock had safely been and gone.
Or he could, and he does, realise that he’s being pathetically cowardly for entertaining a single one of those thoughts. Dinner will be a disaster, with a high chance of insults, arguments, and the odd contusion, but it’s only a couple of hours of his life, after all. He’s suffered through far worse for France’s sake – and for England's, come to that – and taken no lasting harm from it.
He can persevere.
Newly determined he might be, but any eagerness for the evening ahead remains elusive, so Scotland drags his feet, drawing out the short walk between bathroom and bedroom for as long as he possibly can. An exercise in futility, it turns out, as despite all his best attempts at procrastination, he didn’t kill enough time for France to finish getting ready, much less tire of waiting and stomp off in a huff without him. He’s so engrossed in the complex alchemical process of turning his hair from the soft curls Scotland loves to the gleaming straightness he prefers himself , that it seems probable that he hadn’t even noticed the unusual length of Scotland’s absence at all.
Scotland’s deep sigh elicits no reaction from him, nor does his last ditch effort of slowly sliding his towel from his hips in a way that Scotland had hoped might look as seductive on him as he’s always found it on France.
Standing there afterwards, naked but too embarrassed by his initial failure to make any further attempts to draw France’s attention to that most pertinent of facts, does eventually earn him an exasperated glare, however, and a terse, “Get dressed, Écosse. We’re running late enough as it is.”
With his well of inspiration now completely drained dry, Scotland can think of no other option save compliance, especially as he has been denied refuge in his inability to pick out a decent outfit for himself by France having again taken the liberty Scotland had given him permission for months ago and chosen one himself.
The suit and shoes are Scotland’s own, albeit almost unrecognisable given how neatly pressed and well polished they are respectively, but the bluey-green shirt hanging on the back of the open wardrobe door is new. Their day’s interminable shopping trip had ultimately yielded nothing more than the socks France had bought at the start – which Scotland maintains look no different to any other, even though they should, by rights, have been made from fucking unicorn hair and spun gold given their price – so he can only conclude that France had bought it in advance, saving it for some occasion special enough that would justify the amount of money that the excellence of the material and fineness of the stitching suggest he paid for it.
Scotland can scarcely believe that he’s deemed dinner with England just such an occasion.
Expensive the shirt might be, but Scotland is unsurprised to discover that it apparently shares the same qualities as all new clothing, no matter the price. Namely, it’s inflexible, a little too tight, and will doubtless prove itchy as time wears on.
Scotland stretches out his arms and arches his back, trying to make the fabric settle more comfortably. It remains stubbornly formed to some platonic ideal of someone his size, however; someone who apparently has not an inch of spare flesh anywhere on their body and has a neck roughly the same diameter as a pencil.
He feels like his shirt collars are trying to throttle him at the best of times, and this one seems to be giving a more spirited attempt at it than most. Undoing his top two buttons lessens the pressure somewhat, but brings some seam or other into prickly contact with his shoulderblades.
France scowls at his twitching attempts to shift the seam away from his skin. “Your grey shirt would probably work just as well,” he says, in a tone of voice which suggests entirely the opposite.
“I’m fine,” Scotland says automatically, but after a moment filled with reflection and the prickling feeling spreading out across his back at exactly the point where it’s impossible to scratch without outside help of some kind, he lets his mounting irritation do the talking and adds, “Jesus Christ, France, are you sure you actually want to go tonight? You know it’s going to be an absolute shit show, right?”
France looks oddly serene at the prospect. “Aren’t you looking forward to seeing Canada? Or Prusse? You haven’t spent time with either of them for months, have you?”
The jab at the Canada-shaped soft spot Scotland would never admit to possessing gives him pause, but it’s such a brief one that it’s hardly worth noting. “Aye, but, as I said before, England can’t stand to see the two of them together, and you know what he’s like. He won’t be able to resist making snide comments and sooner or later Prussia will likely punch him.”
That prospect doesn’t appear to trouble France at all, and, to be honest, it wouldn’t trouble Scotland either if they weren’t going to be dining at one of his and France’s favourite restaurants, which he’d really rather they didn’t get themselves barred from for their party making a scene.
“Aren’t you at all curious to see how Angleterre and America are acting around each other now after what happened at America’s birthday party?” France asks. “Angleterre seemed to be going out of his way to avoid their paths crossing during all our meetings since then, and yet he was the one to propose this little get together…”
France trails off into silence, his eyebrows pointedly raised, but Scotland has no answer to give him in response. England has always played his cards close to his chest, and he’s never held any more tightly than those related to America of late.
Not that Scotland is particularly concerned about his brother’s silence on that score – total though it might be, seeing as though, for once, Wales, Jersey and even Portugal seem to be just as much in the dark as Scotland himself – because complete ignorance about England’s romantic life has always been his optimal state of being, in any case.
Still, after all the consideration he and Wales had been forced by circumstance to give that most unpalatable of subjects, and all the anxiety it had caused them, Scotland has to admit that it might well bring a sense of closure to the whole affair to know that their trials hadn’t been in vain.
That they hadn’t damaged anything irreparably with that one stupid fucking misjudgement that Scotland has numbered amongst his deepest regrets for the decade since he’d discovered he’d made it.
“A little curious, I guess,” he admits, reaching for his jacket.