#oc jan

1865

The war was over. Roberto couldn’t quite believe it. He’d been bringing gold east to Alfred to buy more supplies, and now?

He was caught in the middle of celebrations.

The Union states of the northeast and midwest were celebrating with free flowing booze and games of cards and whatever else caught their fancy. The Confederacy was defeated, and the world seemed, to them, almost hopeful. But to Roberto, the war had, even during previous visits to the East, seemed a very distant thing. And now, he stood here, still uncertain where he fit in with these strangers.

How much simpler things were at home, where he was the powerful player, and he had people to rely on. He filled himself a pint of ale, and then sat in a corner, sipping and watching the other states lose their common sense. Even Fatima, who wasn’t supposed to drink, was sipping on a brandy as she talked to the others. The war was over.

And yet, maybe it had just begun.

Roberto was interrupted from his musings by a figure sitting next to him, tall and with his own pint. Once, Roberto had almost cowered from this figure. But now?

“Hello, Jan Kees. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“You brought gold, and haven’t even visited the card tables yet. I’m wondering why.”

Roberto glanced over, watching Elijah run the card games. It reminded him of the knack Sarah had for the same games once he and Carson had taught her.

“House always wins. Farming’s a gamble enough.” He glanced at Jan. “Why do you care?”

“Just thought you might want to loosen up. It’s a celebration, after all. We won.”

“Yeah.” Roberto said, less certain. “We won.”

Lupe was still on the run, so were so many of the others. But Lupe was always on his mind. Lupe was family. And he’d fought her too often now to feel that this was a true victory.

“Hey, snap out of it.” Jan said, snapping his fingers in front of his face. Roberto almost slapped the hand away. “If you’re still thinking enough to be contemplative, then you aren’t drunk enough.”

Roberto gave Jan an appraising look. “And what do you suggest then?”

“Let’s go get more drinks. Strike up the band. Something! The war’s over!”

Roberto let Jan drag him off. He drank more with the other northeasterners, and Massachusetts even seemed civil. He managed to set aside his frustrations for the night until he found anything beyond the moment hard to focus on at all.

He lost a game or two of cards, and then smoked a cigar. Jan got even drunker than he did, and everyone managed to laugh at someone’s drunk shenanigans.

And as people launched fireworks and noisemakers and shot cannons in celebration, Roberto glanced at Jan.

“The next battle’s the railroads.”

Jan grunted. “Well, California. Let’s save that for another night. For now, just savor the damn moment.”

Roberto snorted, and then looked up at the sky. And even if his feelings were far more complicated than some of the others, he did begin to feel some of the burden lift off his shoulders.

It was a get-together for the originally Spanish states. Which really just meant the Southwest, Florida, and all their plus ones.

Still, Marco appreciated in his own way being included as a part of the group. Arizona was bickering with Nevada over something. New Mexico was over visiting with Colorado and California. Roberto looked tipsy already, and Marco managed a lopsided grin, wondering how much prodding it would take to push him over the edge into being their drunk entertainment. Carson probably wouldn't mind. And it wasn't like Alejandra was paying attention to her brother, she and his sister Marisol had already snuck off somewhere quiet.

But before he could put his plans in motion, Lupe dropped down next to him under the shade tree he'd chosen, a bottle of beer in each hand.

"Thirsty?"

"Maybe." Marco popped open the bottle and took a sniff. "Where'd you get this?"

"It reads Deschutes on the label. Where do ya think I got it?"

Ah. Marco looked towards the grill, where Lupe had stationed her boyfriend. Chris was flipping burgers and humming to himself.

"I still don't get you and him." Marco said. "You could do better."

"I can. And I've decided that I don't want too." Lupe popped open her own beer and tilted half of it back in one go. Marco rolled his eyes, and then turned back to look towards Roberto, waiting for his opportunity to cause chaos.

"I noticed you didn't bring a plus one." Lupe says as she lowers the bottle down. "Trouble in paradise?"

Marco frowns, and Lupe pauses, and then her tone changes.

"God, Marco, what did you and him fight about now?"

Marco took a swig from the bottle before answering. "He wants me to go to Europe. To meet Lars."

"And?"

"And why the fuck should I need approval from any European prat?! It's not like I need Antonio's approval to fuck him!" Lupe stares at Marco, and he turns away as she takes a deep breath. "And don't preach at me. I get it enough."

"Marco." Lupe says, tired. "He isn't getting Lars' damn approval. Lars is important to him, for some damn inexplicable reason. He wants Lars to see you're important to him."

"Funny way of showing it." Marco takes another swig, and Lupe sighs.

"You know how Chris showed me that I was one of the most important people in his life?"

"I assume it involves a bedroom and a lot of straight people nonsense."

"Rude, and incorrect." Lupe looks over towards Chris. "He showed me the places and the people most important to him. And I don't mean Beverly and Adam, I already knew them plenty. I mean the graves of the people who raised him. I mean the reservations. He wanted me to see what had made him who he was."

"And what, you think Jan's trying to do something like that?"

"Lars shaped him more than you think. There's a reason he looks like a slightly wonky photocopy of the bastard." Lupe sighed, looking out over the gathering. "New York cares about you. Both of you get real cagey about it, but the rest of us aren't idiots. He wants to take you to Europe to show you that you ain't a fling to him."

Marco's quiet.

"You have to give him a little trust, Marco. Yeah, he's slept around in the past and played the part of the player. But he hasn't done that shit since you and him went steady. He's trying to show you whatcha mean to him. Let him, even if it's weird to you. It'll make him happy."

And with that, she tilts back the rest of her beer, and then, using the bottle, gestures to Roberto.

"Now... how many beers do we think we need to sneak past Carson to embarrass Berto?"

Marco paused, and then let a conspiratorial grin come over his face. "How much whiskey you got in your hipflask?"

"Enough." She says, grinning.

Jan Kees had to admit, it'd been a long time since he'd driven this far out of the northeast. He was used to getting on trains, and only driving for the rare times that he headed Upstate nowadays, or for short distance emergencies. Anywhere else, he usually bought plane tickets and rented a car.

To be fair, he was in a rented car right now, but still.

He'd been in San Francisco, California for a meeting with Roberto when Martha had sent him the message. She'd wanted him to come see the heritage apple orchard, now growing into its prime. Since she'd gotten the grafts from him, and they were the two largest apple producers in the country, it made sense, and he'd accepted. But he had to get to Wenatchee, and that meant either flying into Seattle or Portland on short notice, and then obtaining another rental car.

In the long run, he found it just easier and cheaper to drive north.

The radio stations were few and far between as he got into southern Oregon. Jan flicked through them and their bad signals idly, and debated pulling over and just putting on one of his playlists.

And then, suddenly, one came in much crisper than the others.

It was, of course, country music. Jan nearly snapped the radio off completely. He'd never been much of a fan of the genre (other than Dolly Parton perhaps, and who could blame him for that? 9 to 5 was excellent.) And frankly, he didn’t understand much of the appeal.

But then he heard the lyrics.

I’ve cussed on a Sunday I’ve cheated and I’ve lied I’ve fallen down from grace A few too many times But I find holy redemption When I put this car in drive Roll the windows down and turn up the dial

Jan paused, a little surprised, but then he decided that maybe, this was tolerable until he reached the next exit.

And that first verse stuck with him.

It’d been a long time since he’d stepped into a church for a service. He knew that neither halves of Oregon or Washington were particularly religious, at least in a Christian way, themselves. Beverly was happily a pagan, Chris had some fusion of Christianity, indigenous beliefs, and local animism. Martha and Adam tended to avoid religion like the plague.

But he had a few impressions left of his youth. The meditative silence. The songs raised in worship. As he glanced around at the mountains around him on this stretch of the interstate, he reflected on the vastness of the land around him, something he sometimes forgot about. In the west, the distances were huge, the mountains and trees enveloping. If you got off the main roads and just drove, the emptiness was almost mind boggling to him.

He remembered going somewhere with Martha and Adam several years ago. Adam had been driving, and country music had been playing. But Martha had been singing along to the songs she liked as they drove on the backroads Adam and her preferred, in an almost spiritual act.

It was hard to remember sometimes those days in his youth, but he was struck then with the fact that he remembered running off sometimes, away from England and his church, to sit out in the woods. To be closer to nature and God in his own way.

He turned off the radio as the song ended. As the sounds of the road hummed around him, he took a moment to glance at the landscape around him. He set aside his annoyance at the length of the drive, and his tiredness as best he could. He pulled over at a spot on the shoulder, relaxed, and took in the world around him.

Aaron was hauled inside, the apartment door shut, and Jan snapped out into the empty room. “Elijah, what the fuck is this?”

Elijah, emerging from the kitchen with a sandwich, looked at Aaron, and then at Jan. “Our brother, what the hell is this question?”

“No, look at him!” 

“I am.” Elijah nods to Aaron, deciding to completely ignore Jan. “I’ll make you some lunch, but after that, are you ready to go?”

“Yeah-”

“Not in that clothing.” Jan immediately protested.

“And why not?” Aaron asks in irritation.

“You look like a professor we dragged out of the back of the archives at Harvard.”

“Maybe I like looking like a professor you drug out of the back of Harvard. In case you’ve noticed, I don’t really pull off Elijah’s punk/emo look very well, and I’m not wearing a suit.”

“It’s not punk, I just like wearing dark colors!” Elijah shouted from the kitchen.

“And listening to MCR and Fall Out Boy!” Aaron threw right back at him.

“But you will wear a button down and a sweatervest and khakis in public?” Jan groaned.

“Yes.”

Elijah, returning from the kitchen, hands Aaron a second sandwich. “Eh, kinda matches your personality anyways.”

“Fuck off!” Aaron says, smacking at his older brother’s shoulder, but Elijah just laughs.

“Tell me I’m wrong! You like khakis and weird discussions about history that bore most people! The persona fits the outfit. All you really need now is a tie that matches your sweatervest!”

Jan rolls his eyes, but Elijah shoves him towards the kitchen. “Go on, go eat, you ass, or I’ll shove those leftovers from last night down your throat with my fist.”

“How charming.” Jan mutters dryly, heading into his kitchen, undoubtedly towards his microwave. Elijah just shakes his head with a shit eating grin as he goes, and then sets a hand on Aaron’s shoulder.

“I’ll tell you the same three things I always do, little brother. Wear your Magen David proudly, hold your head high, and never ever ever take Jan Kees’s shit or anyone else’s.”

“Including yours?”

“Especially mine. Now, eat the sandwich. Jan’s getting antsy to go, and we both know how he gets. It’ll save us the pain of dealing with his shit.”

From somewhere in the kitchen, Jan’s voice rose up.

“I heard that, you ass.”

Physical Description

Jan Kees is 5′11, with semi-styled sandy blonde hair, and blue-green eyes. He is of a medium build, and decently fit. He has been referred to as a shorter version of his father, Lars. Neither can deny relationship to the other. He identifies as Dutch-American. His birth year was 1614, and he celebrates his birthday on July 26th.

Jan Kee’s face claim is model Andrej Halasa, his voice claim is Gregg Taylor of Decoder Ring Theatre fame, and as of this moment, he has no singing voice claim.

Personality

Money makes the world go around, the world go around… (Me, starting this section).

Jan is a loud, somewhat egotistical bastard, whose got just enough of a hidden golden heart to be worth knowing, somehow. He’s really good with kids, passionate, and driven to do whatever he decides to do. His passion and drive can play against him at times when he comes off as stubborn and resistant to outside ideas, and aides in many negative perceptions of him. He can also be very indifferent at times to various situations, unless he has a direct stake in it, and pride is a very definite and major downfall he has.

At the same time, he believes strongly in family. While he probably fights with his two brothers more than anyone else, he’ll be right at their side the moment anyone else goes after them. And as for his family back in Europe, he considers himself still very close to his father, and visits him often. He’s also a little bit of a prankster, and he and Seth (@zapphi’s Massachusetts) have gotten into multiple prank wars.

Sexuality and Gender

Jan Kees is queer and cisgender. He has tried ascribing other names to his sexuality over the years, but it has been very fluid at times, so he prefers the overall term of queer. The closest he’s come to using any other name for his sexual orientation was bisexual, but he remained somewhat uncomfortable with the term before switching back to queer.

Jan can additionally be very open with his sexuality at times, and has historically been quite the womanizer and been willing to sleep with about anyone who lets him. When other states joke about the “Promiscusquad”, they count Jan Kees in as a founding member. However, if you’re in a serious relationship with him, he’s a one-person man.

Religion

Jan was raised as a Dutch protestant, and while he remains culturally Christian, indetifies as an agnostic or atheist nowadays. He is very aware of other cultures and religious practices, and tries to be very respectful of them, and has spent a lot of time studying Judaism in particular, as both his brothers are Jewish.

Employment

Jan has two fields in which he’s incredibly passionate and focused in, law and finance. Following World War Two, he has predominantly focused in law, although he continues to invest his money. He used to mainly making a living in finance, but after the Great Depression, felt that law was a more stable career.

Pets

Jan has three pets, all gifts from Lars to celebrate another century of age. In order, he recieved:

Niagara

A Friesian mare Jan recieved on his 100th birthday, Niagara was a very practical gift. He was a growing colony, and although he was now a British colony, Lars felt he needed his own transportation and Arthur was failing to provide him it. Jan and Niagara were pretty inseperable until the age of the automobile. Nowadays, Niagara lives on Jan’s property in upstate New York and enjoys her well-deserved retirement.

Hamilton

A blue and white British Shorthair was given to Jan as his 200th birthday present, and named in honor of Alexander Hamilton. Jan is definitely more of a cat person than a dog person, and Hamilton can about get away with murder. He sleeps on Jan’s chest (which is bad when he weighs as much as he does), loves all of Jan’s “enemies” more than he loves Jan, and loves the smell of mint gum which Jan is sometimes forcefed so he won’t smoke.

Hamilton, you traitor, stop adoring Massachusetts.

When life gives you mint gum, Hamilton glues himself to your face.

Rembrandt

Rembrandt exists pretty much solely because of this picture of Jan’s faceclaim. Rembrandt was a gift for Jan’s 300th birthday, and Rembrandt the hedgehog is living the ideal life in Jan’s apartment. He crawls around on the floor as a walking pincushion, Hamilton is terrified of him and Jan’s terrified of stepping on him, he gets taken out for fun photoshoots by literally anyone who’s ever housesat for Jan so they can spam Jan with pics. His life is amazing.

After reiceiving Rembrandt, Jan has made it clear he has as many pets as he wants, so he didn’t recieve another pet for his 400th birthday in 2014.

Relationships with other States

We’ll start with family.

New Jersey

Elijah, only ten years younger than Jan, has never been someone whose content to be in the shadows OR bossed around by his older brother. Fiercely independent from the start, he resisted assimilation into a Dutch way of life, clinging to his native roots and converting to Judaism very early on. Half the time, they’re at the other’s throats over the smallest things. The other half of the time, they’re about the only person watching each other’s back. They’re a formidable team when cooperating, and Elijah admits he’d miss arguing with him if something happened to the asshole, but don’t you dare tell Jan that!

Delaware 

No art for Aaron, so imagine Elijah, but approximately one inch shorter.

Aaron always felt a bit like the third wheel of the family, and he isn’t entirely wrong (Jan and Elijah can be rather self-centered at times). At the same time, Aaron serves as a peacekeeper between the two and he and Elijah bond over their shared faith.

Yet, some doubts about his place in the family were destroyed when Aaron came out of the closet as trans. Jan Kees and Elijah immediately stopped using Aaron’s deadname, Miriam, and bookended his seat for several meetings, ready to throw down with anyone who challenged Aaron. Jan Kees has even helped financially with some of Aaron’s surgeries and made sure his brother has all the expensive male fashion that he will probably never wear because “I never wore this sort of stuff before, Jan, why would I start now?”

Okay, family section over onto other states

Massachusetts

He’s only around eight inches taller than Seth, but this is what Seth thinks their height difference is. And honestly, Jan gloats over it, so he does too.

Seth Adams Jones and Jan Kees’ relationship with him is one of the most complicated things in Jan’s life. He can’t decide if he loves or hates the guy.

I’d like to thank Talia and also Talia for my life. -Jess

Jan Kees came into the original thirteen colonies in a lot of turmoil, and Seth didn’t help. Jan Kees had lost his only parental figure at the time, couldn’t speak much English, was a Dutch Protestant rather than a Puritan, and had Jewish younger siblings.

Needless to say, when one of the first memories you have of someone is getting into a fistfight with them for stealing your brother’s Magen David, you have gotten off on the wrong foot.

They eventually figured out some sort of antagonistic truce, and half-cooperated long enough to see themselves through the French-Indian War, and during the lead-up to the Revolution, Jan had a horrible realization, that he had a lot of feelings towards Seth. So in classic Protestant fashion, aka conceal, don’t feel, don’t let them know, he pretended those feelings didn’t exist. He went through the revolution as a spy for George Washington wishing that he was literally anywhere else doing anything else like maybe fighting with his crush by his side but also no I don’t have a crush on him God I’m a mess, help me.

Also, kinda awkward when your crush mistakes you for an actual redcoat and shoots you at one point when you’re trying to bring in your spy reports.

Jan’s crush remained pretty steady until after the Civil War, when it slowly began to fade over the next fifty years (in canon, Jan ends up dating @bottot‘s Florida, Marco). However, in many AUs, it just keeps simmering in this idiot forever until eventually, somehow, it slips out.

They continue to have a semi-antagonistic friendship, because really to Jan, is it worth knowing someone if they aren’t at least a bit of a fucking bastard? (He says, crawling out of the Boston Harbor for the sixteenth time this year after Seth threw him in.)

And, when times are tough, they can set aside the bullshit and be there for each other. Because you’re my oldest frenemy, damn it, I need you to help get me through this.

Michigan

Ever end up as the primary mentor of a kid who thankfully ends up nothing like you? That’s Jan Kees and Fatima in a nutshell. Fatima had been around for a while as a very small and sometimes struggling personification, but when the Erie Canal opened, so did a whole new world of settlement from the northeastern states, and trade, with New York being the center of it. 

Jan served as a primary contact between Fatima and the world for a while, and even bought her her first translation of the Quran when she admitted to being curious about Islam. But in some ways, most importantly to her, he introduced her to Elijah. She and New Jersey somehow hit it off, even with totally opposite personalities, and now she’s practically his sister-in-law, so at least she tolerates his bullshit really well.

Florida

This just in: The moment Elijah realizes Jan Kees liked Marco, he had Jan’s type in men pegged to a T.

Marco is a bitter old salt whose approach to life is “Fuck it, if it doesn’t kill me, it’ll be something I can tell stories about later”. Full of salt, short, and ready to argue with anyone who will let him, he and Jan have interactions eeirly similar to some of Jan and Seth’s interactions.

But Marco also has a way of bringing out the kid in Jan again, making him do ridiculous things and actually having him enjoy it. Finally having their first proper meeting right after the Civil War, they were pretty wary of each other at first, but over time, a begrudging respect formed, followed by begruding affection.

They might not admit it, but they’d literally cross a war zone for each other. 

At the same time, they have some things in their relationship that are a little explosive and tense. Marco is jealous of several other states who had short-term relationships with Jan since he used to be very promicious, and can hover a little too much in Jan’s space at times because of that. Meanwhile, Jan can be overprotective and stifle Marco with good intentions and concerns. But they’ll eventually set aside the argument, talk it out, and then go to bed together that night, with Hamilton and Pink treating them as their own private heating pads installed on the mattress.

In the end, they’ll never get used to the other’s weather, but they’ll never stop enduring the heat/cold to see each other either. They’ve both waited long enough to have something good like this, and they’re both too stubborn to let go.

Other States-Brief Thoughts

Vermont- Jackass. Rarely calls Ethan by name, since he fought so damn hard to be Vermont.

Rest of the NE besides Vermont and Massachusetts- Eh, assholes, but I’ll live.

Pennslyvania- Is this actually food or are you poisoning me?

Virginia- Oh, fuck off, you got the capital, but I’ve got the banks.

California- Stealing your money, power, glory, and fame since 1849.

Oregon- Feral tree child.

Washington State- Attractive. Slept with her a few times after WW2. Got threatened by Roberto for it. In retrospect, California was probably right but still. Ouch.

Kansas- Yeah, the appropriate way to get over your crush on Massachusetts probably isn’t to sleep with the girl he considers his daughter. Funnily enough, she ends up dating Washington State later, so that happened.

RANDOM FACTS

-In the Statetalia Canon I’ve created, Jan Kees is the Original Yankee because England misheard his name as Yankee. He referred to Jan as this until Jan knew enough English to correct him.

-He ran away to Canada in 1940 and joined the Canadian Army in response to the invasion of the Netherlands and continued US inaction. Alfred didn’t know until Matthew sent him a telegram that basically said “Yeah, I have custody of New York until the war’s over, bye!”

-Sports team rivalries are his life. I, Jess, know nothing about sports.

-Speaks Dutch, Iriquios, Yiddish, Spanish, Italian, Quebecios French, Mandarin, and English. 

-Major insomniac, has no really well established circadian rhythm.