Chained Together (Rusame)

Shopping and Shenanigans

"Today's the day," Florida grinned at his small audience of around 15 states. They had gathered together after America and Russia had left, seizing the perfect opportunity for shenanigans.

"So... what exactly are we doing?" Iowa tilted her head questioningly.

"I will explain," he nodded, "but before that, I'd like to hand things over to California for a moment to explain our overarching goal." Florida felt like a newscaster saying it like that, but this was frickin' entertaining, so he embraced it. He gestured for her, and she walked up to stand beside him in front of the group.

"Operation: Rusame," she announced dramatically, making a flourish with her hands. "Our goal is to bring those two idiot countries closer together." A state raised their hand. "And I don't mean physically." The state lowered their hand.

"I bet locking them in the cellar for 24 hours would do that." Alabama suggested again. Florida sighed in exasperation— what compelled him to be so adamant about this?

California's eye twitched. "Yeah, I don't think shared trauma is the way to go with this. Sorry."

"Dang." He looked disappointed.

Florida was concerned for Alabama's sense of morality.

"Ooh! Maybe we could do like, a little restaurant for them! Set it up all romantic~" North Carolina had a faraway look in her eyes, imagining the scene. "They probably wouldn't even read into the romantic atmosphere, we could play it off as our silly little game."

"Or," Oklahoma proposed, "we could be really blatant about the 'restaurant' being romantic, and they'd reason that themselves."

Florida was glad that they were brainstorming ideas. With a group like this, they could actually execute these ideas. Finding some other states willing to join in wouldn't be too difficult.

Kentucky perked up. "We could do a games night! With snacks, board games, karaoke—"

"And the dreaded twister!" Ohio tackled him.

"How would they even do twister with the handcuffs?" North Carolina brought up a fair point.

"That just makes it twister on hard mode!!" Ohio was excitedly scrambling around on the floor.

Florida snickered at them, before looking to the majority of the group. "I thought they should go on a nice little date in the forest by our house." Florida's grin was more of a smirk now. "But there's no way they'd initiate that on their own... that's why we enact a plan now to get them to go out there, alone."

California was there to back him up. "His plan is interesting, to say the least. I think we should try it." She placed a hand on his shoulder in support.

The small crowd was attentive, ready to hear the idea.

"All right, here's how this will work..."

America couldn't help but grin as they walked into the store. For some reason, he was finding this so utterly hilarious, and was trying not to laugh literally every time Russia had a reaction of any kind. Like when America pulled him a little harder and his eyes widened, or when he would stumble over his feet, or speed up to stay at his side so that the handcuffs would be less visible.

America glanced over at Russia, who was glued to his side and had a light blush on his cheeks. Gosh, just look at that idiot. He was so freaking funny. The most teasable man on the planet.

He understood why Russia was embarrassed— walking through the store buying mundane items while handcuffed to your self-proclaimed worst enemy? Yeah, he's gonna remember this for a while... America had no shame at his point, so he was really just laughing at Russia, who still had a sense of dignity. Image was really important to the man, apparently.