30A/N: Thank you so much, Aivine! Yes, this will definitely be completed and I do try to update on a regular basis. I apologize for the slow start - my stories just tend to turn out that way. If you liked this one so much, have a look at some of my other stories.
Illness
Viscount America relaxed back onto his huge bed in his huge and echoing house. Most of the time its high white walls and vaulting ceilings inspired feelings of freedom, airiness and release in him, but now they seemed like a perfumed prison, high and cold and echoing. The art on the walls was cold and unfeeling, dead, aristocratic faces staring out into dead air, fantasy landscapes and fine houses imprisoned in paint. The house was swathed in gauzy drapes, the epitome of the silkener's art from his holdings in Tibet, fine woods from the Amazon rainforest estates, gold ripped from the ground of South America and other intricate works. Faberge eggs winked and sparkled in the light, their enamel shifting colours with the dim and intermittent lights.
The skies had clouded over as the afternoon wore on, as rising heat from the sweltering city overcame the blue skies and disrupted the chilly jetstreams, sending clouds boiling back down, heavy and laden with thunderbolts and driving, lashing rain.
Motorcars sent sheets of spray arcing up to drench pedestrians in filthy water as the English thunderstorm rolled and raged about the city, laying siege to the crumbled walls and roaring defiance at the elegantly swaying skyscrapers. Rain battered the ground and sent muddy water foaming from the drains, the winds ripped umbrellas from grasping hand leaving those they had sheltered unprotected. Children were hurried inside and dried off by watchful nannies and office workers in short sleeves and no coats groaned inwardly as the rain made rivers of their windows.
Outside, the rain and thunder, combined with the hooting of horns, the squalling of children and the great rush of a city under siege from the rains, raised a great din that struck back from the tall, glassy walls of the skyscrapers with terrible ferocity. The squall of the city rose unto the heavens and set God Himself's teeth on edge.
But inside Viscount America's house, the raging cacophony was dimmed to a gentle drumming of rain on glass and the occasional muted roll of thunder. The mansion was an island of serenity in the imperial city's noise, cascades of water falling from it, gushing down the guttering and into the lake, once a limpid pool bearing the mark of Ingenuity Jones, now a raging white wrath that fought against its bonds, fed and reinforced by the incessant rain.
The garden staff had long since retired to their huts, sipping tea and eating small cakes and watching the rain fall and the rising levels of the lake with concern.
"If this keeps up the Viscount's garden's going to be completely underwater!"
"Not to mention his front hall."
"Someone should go and warn him – you know what he's like about his art." All eyes turned to the blonde gardener.
"Why're you all looking at me?" he demanded.
Their stares intensified. "Oh, all right," he grumbled. I'll tell him. Under protest, mind!"
He stomped out into the rain.
The others looked at each other. "Should we have told him there's a phone in here?" asked a grizzled gardener, his skin tough and tanned from a lifetime outside.
ض
The viscount moved through his home like a solid ghost, his hands trailing over cold marble and icy silver, caressing paint and gilt frames, mahogany lowboys and chill statuary, poses captured for eternity in metal and unyielding stone.
Overhead, the unlit chandeliers filled with thunder-light, sending blue, unearthly radiance lancing across the vast and echoing rooms. He ascended sweeping staircases and stared out at endless expanses of dead and darkly shining floor, bereft of dancing feet and life and joy.
The sky outside reflected his mood, and he stared all uncomprehending as raindrops rolled down the glass.
The dark ballroom was full of the sound of dancing rain.
He stood at the presentation balcony, at the split of the grand staircase, and stared out at the rain-cloaked city. The crest of his family – a sword whose hilt sprouted a brilliant iris bloom crowned with twin wings – glittered dully beneath the ornate marble lip.
There was a change in the city-sounds. The Viscount arose from his stupor and stared as a sleek car swished to a halt in the distance, hurling up sheets of spray. He realized, with an unpleasant jolt, that the garden was under water, and hurried down to the front hall to welcome his visitor.
The bell tolled its sonorous summons. Ordinarily, footmen would have leapt to open it, but America had sent the lot of them home, so he could revel in the silence of the house.
Scowling at the wooden doors, he bad-temperedly hauled one open and swore in astonishment as a wave of water rushed in across the floor. A figure moved swiftly past him.
"For god's sake, America, shut the bloody door. Do you want any more water coming in?"
He complied, and then sighed when he saw the damage the water was doing to the sumptuous rugs on the floor.
"Oh dear."
"Bit of an understatement there, America. Never seen anything like it. Oh, one of your pretty gardeners cornered me and asked me to tell you the garden's underwater."
Lord Canada shucked his coat and looked around in vain for a footman to take care of it.
"Er…America, where are your staff?"
"I sent them home," he said. "Or else I wouldn't have come down to answer the door myself, now would I?"
Canada looked hurt. "Well, you might've recognized my car," he said. "and been nice and come down to greet me."
America snorted. "Not likely."
Canada looked at him. "Does your offer of lemonade and cakes still stand?"
"Of course. But wouldn't you prefer tea to lemonade? It's awful out there."
Canada shot him a grateful look. "That would be wonderful." He started to shiver. "But what about your hallway?"
The viscount looked at him. "Canada, you're one of my oldest friends – almost my only friend – though I'd never admit it in public, you're soaking wet, chilled to the bone, are in serious danger of catching a cold or pneumonia or something dreadfully multiple and you're wondering why I'm not worrying about the state of my Aubusson. There's something wrong with you."
Canada just smiled and leaned heavily on America's shoulder as they ascended the curve of the stairs.
America blushed at the gesture and the warm, heavy weight pressed close to his body as he assisted his friend up the staircase, banishing all thoughts from his mind save for the goal of getting his friend warm and dry and comfortable.
The Viscount's bathroom was, like everything else about his mansion, high and cold and white and echoing. The bath was huge, a great sunken expanse hung with towels, empty. The chandelier hanging in its glassy dome high overhead was unlit, yet glowing with cold thunder-light and the frosted windows let in a cold, harsh radiance that intensified the glare of the marble.
Canada shivered even more. "Cold," he whispered. "So cold."
America smiled. "Soon have you warmed up." His skilled hands went to the taps, and soon the huge sunken expanse of bath was filling rapidly with hot water, foam dancing on the surface. His hands went for a taper, and soon the bathroom was filled with warm, soft light, banishing the cold glow of the storm, making the chamber a haven of light and warmth and serenity in the icy world, shut out by thick drapes and walls.
Canada's clothes were sopping wet, they stuck to him like a second skin, outlining his body perfectly. His shirt had become filmily translucent, tantalising and teasing America.
He squashed the thought almost before it rose in his mind. Canada was his friend, for God's sake!
"Canada," he said gently. "Canada, you need to undress. Get in the bath."
He just shivered even more, prompting a sigh and a halfhearted glare from the viscount, who let his hands strip Lord Canada's sodden clothes off, lingering perhaps a fraction of a second too long on his chest and trailing downwards. America blushed slightly as he lifted Canada out of his sodden trousers, a blush that went nova as the freezing lord wrapped himself around the only warm object in the vicinity – America himself.
"Warm," he murmured.
"Yes, Canada. But the bath is warmer. Get in the bath and have a nice soak while I make tea and cake."
Carefully, he disengaged the arms and legs about him and assisted the man into the water. He sank into it with a grateful sigh, and America turned to leave him.
"Where you going?" he asked. "Join me."
The viscount whirled. "Join you? Oh, no no no, Canada. I…I'm just going to make some nice tea. I think I know how. I watched Jones making it the other day. Should be fairly simple."
Canada's mouth set itself into a hard line. "Join me," he commanded. "Promise I won't do anything."
The answer was there, on the tip of his tongue, 'Pity.' He restrained himself forcibly and stared stonily away from the lord in his bath.
"Please?"
He broke and slipped into the water with Canada, keeping the expanse of the bath between them.
"Happy, Lord Canada?"
Canada yawned. "M'name's Kai. Not Canada."
"Yes, Canada. You've told me before. Like I told you mine."
The man lay back and luxuriated in the warmth of the bath. Something was missing. "America, why are you all the way over there?" he asked lazily. "Closer!"
"Must I?"
"Yes! Hug. Now."
"Canada…I thought you said you wouldn't do anything."
He smiled. "Need hug."
"Canada, no! I indulge your idiosyncrasies, I put up with your acid tongue and less than savoury appetites, but you and I have always known that I am inviolate! I don't punch the living daylights out of you when you annoy me – which God knows is frequent enough – and you don't try to press yourself on me!"
He pouted, but couldn't hold it long; the irate lord standing dripping before him was just too funny. His face broke into a wide smile. "You're so easy to wind up, America." America's fists tightened and shook by his side.
In an almost-inaudible undertone, he added "It was worth a try."
"You are the most impossible, idiotic man I know!" he burst out, but came over and sat by Canada anyway.
Cautiously, gingerly, with much blushing on the part of America and a faint, smug grin on behalf of Canada, they hugged in the water.
Canada was careful not to push it too far, too fast. He was content to lie there, slowly warming through with the warm weight of America around him.
He stretched luxuriously in America's tentative hold, and smiled.
ض
Later, as they both dried out in front of a roaring fire in America's drawing-room, curled up in separate wing-backed armchairs, Canada with a warming glass of brandy and America with an intricate, wafer-thin cup of tea and slice of cake.
Canada's had vanished in four seconds flat; his plate lay between them on an ornate end-table, picked clean of crumbs and chocolate curls.
Now the man was looking around for something to do.
Finding nothing, he sighed and sneezed wetly.
America sighed tolerantly. "You really shouldn't have come all the way out here in this weather, Canada. Now you've got a cold."
Canada glared at him through red-rimmed and puffy eyes. "D'you really think so? Gosh, I never would have guessed! I've got a cold? Oh, do tell, America!"
"No need to be sarky," America informed him tartly. "That's my job. You're supposed to sit there and make jokes and be pleasant about it."
"Well, my head feels like it's been stuffed full of cotton wool but the thunder turns it into a large iron girder, my nose is like the Thames and my eyes ache, so you will excuse me for not being overly pleasant. Look, do you have anything to do?"
"Plenty, my dear Canada." America kept his voice low for the suffering man's benefit. "I have plenty of improving books for you to read, there's a chess set in that globe over there, you could have a look at my art collection…"
Canada groaned. "Is there anything I would like here?"
"You mean dirty books, a television set and a cute fuckable staff member?"
Canada blushed. "Well, I can help with the first two. Porn books are in the glass-fronted cases in the library, and the television's in the sitting room – open the Gibbons cabinet. As to the staff member, I can't help you, and all my staff are off-limits to you or any other member of Society, as Earl Hartington found out to his cost."
Canada winced at the memory. "Did you really have to do that with a pistol? You could have just shot him in the shoulder or something."
America shrugged. "Make the punishment fit the crime."
"It wasn't a crime."
"It should be," snapped back America, quick as lightning and twice as vicious.
"When I think what he tried to do…" America's hands tightened into fists.
"Calm down, America dear," soothed Canada. "That's all past, and Hartington's the very model of public decency and rectitude now. He just adopted an heir, you know – nice kid, I thought. He certainly seems to have a brain in between his ears."
"Not fluff, like yours, then?"
Canada tossed his head. "I'm not even going to dignify that with a response, my dear America."
"You just did," he pointed out.
"America?" said Canada, dangerously.
"Yes?"
"Shut up."
Canada swept out, heading for the library to recover some of his favourite erotic librettos.
America grinned over his tea and tucked into his fudge cake in earnest.
ض