De-anon from Kink Meme; prompt was 'first kiss'.

Their first kiss - well; it's not romantic to be quite frank.

It's rather sloppy, really - lips just barely finding lips, slipping and finding cheeks and chins and skin instead, the scent of alcohol nearly overpowering on their breath. They're drunk - drunk on whiskey and the high they get from being here - here in this illegal, crowded, hazy bar, breaking laws but loving it (they've both always been rule-breakers deep down under their skin) - and perhaps just drunk on life, on jazz and cocktails, flappers and foxtrots.

When America reflects on it later, he realizes it is less about them - who they are and what they mean to each other - and more about being close, being readily available - the alcohol clouding their brains wasn't picky.

It's their first kiss together; it's America's first in general - since forever and always - and he wonders if maybe he should feel cheated. (He's a closet romantic - shh, don't tell - who reads fairy tales and women's dime novels, dreams of happily ever after, perfect kisses, and soul mates. And maybe - well, maybe he was waiting for true love, maybe he wanted more than a drunken kiss in a crowded Speakeasy.)

But see, here's the complication - the little detail that America wants to forget more than anything:

he likes it.

The slipping mouths and clumsy movements, the alcohol on his breath and in his mind, the jazz pounding into his skull, Louis Armstrong singing, "I'm confessin' that I love you; tell me, do you love me too?." But most of all he likes the nation in the pin-striped suit and the black fedora who tastes of smoke and cigars. Yeah. He likes him a lot.

Time moves forward, skips over days at a time when they're apart, slows down and pauses, seems to last forever on late-night meetings in illegal bars (they kiss sometimes, always with whiskey on their tongues; America says "I love you," once, but doubles back, pretends he's singing along with Frank Sinatra and hides it all.)

The 20s slip into the 30s and eventually into the 40s; that's when it ends. That's when letters speaking of wars arrive and the other nation realizes it's time to leave - he's nearly been there a lifetime and he hadn't realized.

So he hops on a ship and sails back across the sea. (America swears part of his heart does too; a hidden stowaway on that Europe-bound ship.)

Life changes after the 20s; more than he could have ever imagined, and there is more to occupy America's mind than a cigarette-smoking nation in a black fedora and a pin-striped suit (who makes him think of jazz and the lyrics of love songs). Bombs and planes over Hawaii, his little girl, blood and smoke and death and war - oh yes, that. America mind fills with battle plans and tanks, not smokey kisses or Speakeasies. He sings "when the saints come marching home" sometimes, and covers his Frank Sinatra records with battle plans and newspapers announcing war and death, Germans and tanks and bombs over London, France in chains, atom bombs and Japan in pieces.

(They see each other once - two soldiers on different sides who never wanted war; America raises his gun, cocks it and aims. He doesn't shoot.

The other has his gun raised too, aimed right dead in America's face from twenty feet away. He could shoot and kill him in one shot, America knows.

But he doesn't shoot either.

They part ways, pretend it didn't happen. America hums Frank Sinatra that night, wonders if he still remembers the steps to the foxtrot.)

And then, this: 2004, when America bumps into a familiar auburn-haired male - thinks of lips on lips and hands on skin.

(Frank Sinatra plays in his head, sings, "Your hello will let me know that we're the same as we used to be; oh, ain't cha ever coming back to me?" and he can almost taste smoke and cigars on his lips.)

Maybe he's drunk on life again - on memories of whiskey and jazz, flappers and foxtrots; maybe he's a fool who can't control his tongue.

He opens his mouth and asks without thinking if perhaps they could go on a date sometimes.

Romano, absolutely stunned - brown eyes wide and mouth hanging open - turns and walks off without a word.

(But he doesn't say no; America holds on tight to that little detail.)

Romerica is a pairing that is totally overlooked; it's not necessarily canon but it's based on a historical event which makes it cooler in my opinion.

- Frank Sinatra was a jazz singer popular in the late 30s and 40s; his parents were Italian immigrants and it was rumoured that he was involved with the Italian mafia (The Godfather makes a joke off this in the first scene). For some reason Frank Sinatra = Romerica in my mind
- Speakeasies = illegal bars during Prohibition
- foxtrot = popular dance
- women's dime novels = cheap stories that were usually romances
- the title is a line from a Frank Sintra song (best line by far though is "We should be like a couple of hot tomatoes, but you're as cold as yesterday's mashed potatoes"