* ~ Monday ~ *

Well, that was weird…

America frowned down at his iPhone, oblivious to the bustle in the room as his co-workers chatted, packed up and left after their long meeting. He hadn't been allowed to turn on his phone all day, and the instant he did he was met with this. He didn't even move to start collecting his own papers and briefcase, too intent was he on trying to work out where the problem lay. Because this just couldn't be right.

Was the Internet not working properly? Was it just constantly refreshing the same page without updating? Was the website itself having some technical difficulty?

No, he realised, leaning back in his seat thoughtfully and staring worriedly at his phone. No, everything was working perfectly. So it really must mean that…

England hadn't left a sarcastic comment on his Twitter in over 24 hours!

This might not have been such great cause for alarm, except that England hadn't posted sarcastic comments on his own Twitter in all that time either.

Even when he wasn't leaving biting criticisms on America's wall, England was always updating his own page with cutting observations about the world around him – other nations, politicians, celebrities, places, current events, food, TV, movies, literature, commercials…None of it was ever good enough to receive a positive review, but England still felt the need to tweet about it in varying degrees of irritation and outrage.

Ever since the older nation had really gotten the hang of Twitter (and boy, was America regretting tutoring him, since it just ended up with his own wall getting bombarded by British insults and spelling) America had been able to count on an update every few hours or so. (Protest as he may, it was clear that either England had nothing better to do or he actually enjoyed complaining that much.) So to hear nothing for a whole day…

Well, he wouldn't say he was worried, but the longest America had ever had to wait between updates before now was only about 8 hours or so. And that was only because England was sleeping.

Perhaps England had just grown out of Twitter, America mused. It was quite possible, since the island nation loudly refused to get involved with most social networking phenomenon – in fact, it was a ridiculously huge surprise when he got Twitter in the first place. Before America, even! (He still felt ashamed that the old man had beaten him to the punch on that one.)

No. Okay. It was probably fine, America thought, rolling his shoulders and leaning back in his chair to try and pretend to himself that he felt casual about this. England had probably just abandoned Twitter. It wasn't his type of thing anyway, as much as he apparently enjoyed complaining to large groups of people at once. England was just bored of being part of the 21st century and had gone back to Jane Austen and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

There was no need to be surprised, and certainly no need to be worried.

Really, America kept telling himself the rest of the evening.

.

.

.

* ~ Tuesday ~ *

He refused to call and make sure England was still alive.

That would just be the most ridiculous and embarrassing conversation ever.

"I noticed you weren't online. Are you okay?"

Jesus, he was not going anywhere near that. Nooooo way.

.

.

.

* ~ Wednesday ~ *

Okay, so maybe he'd spent most of yesterday trying to figure out an excuse to ask Matt if he'd talked to England in the past two days.

"He has my favourite…scarf…and I want it back right now"?

"He owes me a beer and I'm thirsty"?

"I need to ask him a work related question but I can't phone him myself because of reasons"?

But now it was day three with no news from Britain and, okay, he would admit he was getting a little worried. Could someone really just go from religiously tweeting every few hours to nothing? America sure couldn't.

In fact, he was worried enough to just phone Canada and ask if he'd heard from Iggy recently, because he'd noticed that England had stopped bitching about everything online and he was wondering if he should allow himself to hope that it was permanent. 'Cause, you know, England's a dick. Ha ha.

But when he called that morning, it turned out that Canada had had no news from England in the past few days, either.

And when America called back at noon, Canada still hadn't heard from him.

He hadn't heard anything a few hours later, either.

And by dinner time, Canada had stopped picking up the phone.

.

.

.

* ~ Thursday ~ *

Canada had brought up a good point, though; maybe there was a problem on England's end.

Maybe the Internet was down at his house.

…But then he would just go to the library or the office, or something.

Maybe he was visiting his country cottage, which had really bad reception?

…But it was nearly Christmas, and England usually spent that time working hard in London until the big international Christmas party/parallel-universe-invasion/whatever-might-happen-this-year.

It gave America an idea, though. Perhaps if he laid some bait on Twitter then England would bite and he could at least find out if the older nation was alive.

And so America tweeted: "me and tony r gonna go n get us sum mickey ds for reels yall"

It even made him cringe; England wouldn't be able to resist.

Even if the other nation did happen to be without Internet access at the moment, England could sniff out bad grammar (especially where America was concerned) like it was his own personal and incredibly lame superpower. He would find a way to get online and lecture him, Internet access or not. So now America would just have to sit back, and wait…

It was now nearly midnight, and there was no reply –

And that meant something was terribly, terribly wrong.

Alright, he admitted it: he was worried, to say the least.

And after America's fifth desperate phone call in the past hour, Canada had certainly heard enough to say that it was a little more than "the least."

He finally managed to convince his ridiculous brother to just fly over there and see what was wrong for himself. If England had just given up on Twitter, or there was some other reasonable explanation as to why he hadn't tweeted recently, America could just pass the visit off as an excuse to bother his ex-guardian about Christmas presents or something. Although why America wanted an excuse and was so nervous about going to visit England was a mystery.

"Me? Nervous about visiting England's house? Yeah, right, Mattie! That's a good one! Ha ha ha! What would I have to be nervous about? It's just England! Anyway, I guess I can spare some time and go make sure the old man hasn't slipped in the shower, or fallen down the stairs, or killed himself with knitting needles or whatever old people do. 'Cause I'm the hero, after all! I have to help look after the weak. You know, I'm glad I came up with this idea. Gotta go, then. Talk to ya later, Matt!"

America hung up, one hand already clicking at his computer mouse to book a flight to England, while the other hand held his phone, thumb flying over the keyboard as he updated his Twitter.

"Hopping across the pond to visit an elderly relative. Brb."

A/N:

This was written for the Special Relationship Secret Santa project, over on LJ. But it has nothing to do with Christmas.

It also has nothing to with Twitter - I just loved that addition to Hetaween and it incorporated itself into this story.

Expect things to get very different from now on...