Chapter Text
Early 1600s
Alfred was uncharacteristically quiet as Arthur ran the brush one last time through his golden hair. Arthur wasn’t quite sure what to do with him. The tiny nation had gone out to play with his rabbits and Arthur had worried, because the land was still wild and untamed, and no matter how strong Alfred was, he was still a child, young enough that he couldn’t yet pronounce his words properly. He told himself that Alfred was just outside, just a shout and a dozen paces away, and turned as much attention as he could to his paperwork.
Then Alfred had return, his happy expression at odds with how he looked: muddy with grass and twigs tangled in his hair, his scrapped knees visible through the patches in his smock and a scratch across his cheek just barely scabbed over, and the worry Arthur had been holding in all afternoon blossomed into outright panic.
He had said “Alfred, what happened?” in a quiet, stricken voice that hid none of his worry, and Alfred had looked up at him, surprised, before bursting into tears. Arthur picked the little nation up and cleaned him up before tending to the scratch, and when Arthur left to fetch a warm mug of milk, Alfred had yet to say a word.
Arthur held out the mug, and when Alfred didn’t respond, set it on the bedside table. “Alfred?”
Alfred looked up, and leapt at Arthur, arms reaching for Arthur’s shoulders and clinging tightly. “I’m sorry. Are you angry at me, Arffur?”
Arthur sighed, and curled his arms around the tiny nation. “No, I’m not angry. I was just worried. I didn’t think you would get hurt.”
"It’s not ‘cause I was muddy? ‘n tore the cwothes you gave me?”
Arthur shook his head. “No, Alfred. I was worried about you. About how you got so muddy, and how you received this.” He brushed his fingers lightly over the thin scratch on Alfred’s cheek.
"T’was an accident,” Alfred said, but he continued looking at Arthur with anxious eyes, and Arthur didn’t know what to do.
He held Alfred close and stroke at his hair, and as he often did when he was out of sorts, blurted out the first thing that came to mind. “You know, I was reading a book of sonnets by one of my poets.”
Alfred looked up, curious.
"He was a rather talented fellow, penning plays and poetry alike.” Arthur glanced at the heavy wooden desk he used, and the published compilation of sonnets he had brought along with him. “And now that I think about it, one of those sonnets could apply to your circumstance.”
"What?"
"'In faith, I do not love thee with mine eyes, for they in thee a thousand errors note; but ‘tis my heart that loves what they despise, who, in despite of view, is pleas’d to dote.’” Arthur smiled at the confused look on Alfred’s face. “It’s written for a different person and for a wildly different scenario, but the idea applies. It’s not how you look, Alfred, but who you are that I care for and protect.”
Alfred’s face was still scrunched in confusion, but he loosened his grip on Arthur’s shirt and nodded.
Arthur placed him back in bed, and reached over for the blanket at the foot of the bed. Alfred looked like he was still thinking about what Arthur had said, when a sudden smile spread across his face. He reached over and tugged at Arthur’s arm and Arthur leaned over.
"I like Arffur for who you are too,” Alfred said clearly, and hugged Arthur.
*
1783
Arthur remembered those first few months after the Revolution as a blur of white noise, like he was standing in a crowded marketplace and could hear everything and nothing all at once. Perhaps if he reached out, he could catch hold of one of those memories, to see it in clear-cut detail, but he never bothered. Arthur couldn’t ignore the memory he wanted most to forget, of a musket clutched tightly in his hands and rain and blood soaking into his red coat; it was hard enough dealing with just that one.
He oscillated between furious anger and something deeper, more painful and sorrowful over the next few years, and somehow touched a sort of cold calm by the time 1783 and the inevitable treaty came.
He wasn’t in the best of moods when they arrived in France, and left Hartley to deal with the last minute diplomacies and procedures at their hotel. He was trying to avoid France anyway, lest he punch out the wine bastard’s face, and he most certainly wanted to avoid the representatives until he’s forced into a room with them and their nation.
He’d be prepared by then, but not now, not yet.
He was staring out into the Seine when the robin alighted on his shoulder, stroking its head across his cheek in a fond caress. Arthur pulled off his gloves and held out his hand, and the little bird hopped onto his fingers, balancing itself on one leg so Arthur could untie the tiny roll of paper. He didn’t like using his national bird as messengers – they weren’t carrier pigeons – and he wasn’t sure how this one followed him from England or how Hartley knew to use the robin. Perhaps the fairies talked the little bird into it.
He stroked the robin’s head with a gentle finger, and set it aflight to read the note. It simply read sir, treaty shifted to hotel, neutral ground, with a signed H penned right on the very corner.
Arthur crushed the note in one hand, feeling something hot and painful run down his chest. So they wouldn’t even consider stepping into the British Embassy, would they? His hands trembled and in a flash he was atop the ledge separating him from the Seine’s cold waters and hurling the tiny crumpled note as far away as he could.
"Et tu, Brute?” Arthur snarled into the wind that snatched at both his words and his coat, whipping the latter into a frenzy around his form. He clenched his jaw tightly against the following words and swallowed the then fall, Caesar, because he wouldn’t fall, he refused to be defeated by something like this.
He stayed up on the ledge until his heartbeat no longer pounded in his ears, then leapt down, buttoning up his coat tight and straightening his cravat and pulling on the black leather gloves he was never without anymore.
The United States of America. That thought stung, much worse than that flimsy roll of paper, but Arthur straightened his shoulders, steeled himself, and headed back to the Hôtel d'York. It was late, and he needed whatever semblance of rest he could snatch tonight. Tomorrow would be the first time he would see the other nation in nearly seven years, and Arthur was not one to show any weakness, not even to Al—America.
*
1940
It was raining.
It rained all the time in back in his own country. Arthur was used to the slow, clammy clinginess that spread as water seeped through the layers of his jacket and undershirt to his bare skin, and dashing raindrops from his bangs and eyes was as familiar a movement as breathing.
He just wasn’t used to being stuck in a cramped, dark trench in one of the worst spring squalls yet, nursing a dozen bruises and bullet grazes and angry lingering burns while standing ankle deep in squelchy mud.
Arthur wasn’t one to complain, but the circumstances were pushing it.
He wiggled his toes experimentally to make sure they were still functional, then turned his attention to his rifle when he ascertained that the damp hadn’t managed to creep its way through his tall boots to soak his socks. He touched one gloved hand to the holster at his hip to his handgun and never felt more thankful that they had moved on from firearms that needed to be reloaded with gunpowder after every shot.
He’d love to take a shot at Germany’s blond head right now, for putting them in this dank, depressing mess, amongst others. Amongst many others.
"Hey England, the rain’s always depressing at your place but I think I found a place where it’s even worse,” an irritatingly cheerful voice came from beside him, and Arthur turned around to glare at America.
Yes, yet another reason why the world seemed to hate him this year.
"Stay in these trenches for a month in between fighting to keep your skies clear before you even think of complaining,” Arthur growled half-heartedly, glancing once at the other nation before going back to staring at the top of the trench wall. It took too much energy to be angry at someone who was supposed to be his ally. Nursing an ember-hot grudge against Germany was enough to keep him operating.
Arthur knew about the conscription, the agreements his boss and America’s had signed in the past months. He just wasn’t sure what America himself was doing in Europe when he hadn’t formally entered the war.
America laughed, that annoyingly loud laugh that carried and probably alerted all their enemies to their location, but it sounded muted today.
The rain and these circumstances can dampen even your optimism, it seems.
Annoyance prickled at him even more and that emotion distracted him enough that Arthur thought he was being attacked when something plunked on his head, scrunching his hair down and obscuring his vision.
He struggled against whatever it was and felt firm hands surround his wrists. “It’s just me, England, geez, get it straight,” he heard America say. He jerked his hands free from America’s grasp and reached up to push the – the military cap up enough that he can see again.
It hadn’t taken the rain long to soak through America’s hair – it dripped down his bangs onto his cheeks, rain plastering the blonde mass down in the minute or two since he took the cap off, although Nantucket continued flicking upwards defiantly. Arthur wasn’t sure how the other nation could see with water streaming down Texas.
There was a strange, strained smile on America’s face before he caught Arthur staring at him. The smile flickered and became his usual wide grin. “No thank yous, England? A hero can’t let an old man like you catch a cold in the rain! I can kick Germany’s ass for you, but you wanna do it yourself, don’t you?”
Arthur’s right hand drifted to his left shoulder, where one of the worst burns from Germany’s blitzkrieg lingered. He glanced up, and America’s eyes were now flinty, the blue almost black in the thunderstorm.
Arthur was abruptly sick of the waiting game.
He pulled Alfred’s military cap tightly onto his head and leaped up the sharp slope, catching a tight handhold and glaring over the top of the trench. “Hey, you bloody Kraut!” he yelled across the battlefield, and fired at the first thing he saw moving before strong arms wrapped around his waist and pulled him down into safety as the air above and around him erupted in a sudden barrage of bullets.
"What the hell, Arthur!” Alfred yelled in his ear, somehow still audible above the rain and the gunfire, pulling him close with one arm as they huddled flat against one wall to avoid the worse of bullet fragments and broken barbwire. “Have you finally gone senile?”
Arthur twisted in Alfred’s hold to reload his gun, noting that Alfred’s other hand held his trusty firearm. He didn’t bother replying – he wouldn’t waste breath trying to be heard in the cacophony; he just wanted the fighting to end, before the war of attrition wore all of them down to nothing but skin and bones and violence.
He needed Alfred to join the war, in any way he was willing to contribute, but it didn’t mean he liked it. No one deserved to be in this war, or what would happen or had happened to them because of it – not Francis, and not Alfred.
Arthur noticed Alfred shaking his head to throw the rain off his hair, and wiped at Texas with his gloves, wishing with all his might that he could control the wind and rains, to make the tempest turn against Germany the way Prospero ran his traitorous, usurping brother’s ship aground on his island with Ariel’s help.
... now that was a thought, wasn’t it?
He had one of his spellbooks back at base, and chalk was worthless in a war but he could etch out a magic circle easily enough in one of the storage rooms, with flour and water if he really had to. Arthur couldn’t control the weather or make a servant out of the wind, but he was a master at curses – both kinds.
He huddled in closer to Alfred as gunfire screamed over their heads again, mentally going through his list of black spells, and realized that although Alfred had yet to release his hold on him, he didn’t hurt. Somehow, Alfred had miraculously avoided pressing against any of his burns, despite the several times Arthur had shifted.
Arthur smiled grimly, and straightened Alfred’s cap on his head. He’d take any small miracle, and send a few curses the Axis’s way.
They couldn’t let the usurpers have their way, could they?
*
Early 2000s
There are few places and circumstances where Arthur felt thoroughly at ease. His little cottage home was one, located out in the countryside, where unicorns wandered at will and the fairies frolicked around his well-kept gardens, adding a little of their magic to blooming roses, pansies and tiny, star-shaped London prides.
And then, there were his theatres.
The private balcony afforded him one of the best views of the stage. Arthur had seen a great many Juliets in his lifetime, but there was something about this particular actress, whose dark eyes and clear white skin were only overshadowed by her talents. The child had a rich, expressive voice, and when she spoke the famed lines – “Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo?” – Arthur smiled, letting the familiar words wash over him. He would have to thank her later tonight, for both gracing the stage and the Bard’s work with her presence and for gifting him an enjoyable night.
Although the talented actors upon the stage weren’t the only reason why Arthur’s heart felt so light tonight.
Alfred’s hand was warm around his, Arthur’s slender fingers fitting in perfectly between Alfred’s. He glanced down at his lap, his gloved right hand clutching the other black glove. He tugged it off moments before reaching over in the dark for Alfred’s hand, lying palm up and inviting on the arm of the seat, if only so he could touch Alfred directly, without a barrier of leather between them, no matter how thin his gloves were.
Arthur had trained his eyes on the stage, losing himself in the play during the first act, because if he looked at Alfred, he would never stop looking. They had grown close in the decades after the war, but this… this togetherness, so full of warmth and soft touches and easy banter, was new, and Arthur couldn’t help the fierce protectiveness he felt, not for Alfred himself (they had been there, once upon a time when rain and the damp Virginian air didn’t smell like grief and loneliness), but for this precious, fragile thing between them.
It was at the end of the first act when Arthur felt something slant against his shoulder. Alfred’s blonde bangs brushed against his cheek as Arthur turned, slightly alarmed, but Alfred was only asleep. He lifted Texas gently off and tucked them securely in Alfred’s front pocket, and Alfred turned his head closer, breath warm against Arthur’s shirt.
Arthur spent the next half an act gazing at Alfred.
"My ears have not yet drunk a hundred words of that tongue's utterance, yet I know the sound: art thou not Romeo and a Montague?” Juliet said, and Arthur impulsively whispered the responding lines along with Romeo into Alfred’s hair. “Neither, fair saint, if either thee dislike.”
He stopped at a soft chuckle, and Alfred shifted, tipping his head to gazed at up him through half-lidded eyes, brilliantly blue in the dark.
"'re supposed ‘a be watching the stage, not me,” Alfred murmured, his voice low and sleep-rough. His lips curled up in a sleepy smile. “I know I’m gorgeous ‘n all, but—“
Alfred yawned, wide-mouthed, and Arthur smiled before he could help it. “And you’re supposed to watch the play, not sleep through it,” he said, and soften the sting of his words by stroking his thumb against Alfred’s hand.
"Sorry,” Alfred said, but instead of sitting up and moving away, he slumped closer, turning his head so he could look out at the stage. “Ah, balcony scene! Awesome! Sweet dress, Juliet.”
Arthur turned back to the play as well. Blue and purple lights shrouded the stage in an emulation of the night, and Romeo gazed upwards toward Juliet, who was clad in a white, flowing nightgown. “Romeo and Juliet. I didn’t expect you to choose this of all plays.”
"Why not? You and Shakespeare probably went way back. ‘sides, I almost forgot what the original’s like, with all the adaptations my movie industry’s been making. They’re great, you know. You should watch them.”
"I have,” Arthur huffed, because he really did, back when they were theatre adaptations, then screen and television variations, first because Alfred was always bothering him about them, then because he could see flashes of Alfred in them, how he could take something that was quintessentially Arthur’s – his plays, his words, his culture – and make it his own.
"And? What do you think?”
He shouldn’t have looked down, because once he caught Alfred’s eyes, seemingly larger and brighter without the pane of glass before them, he couldn’t even lie his way out. "... I’ll admit that they weren’t all terrible.”
"There, it didn’t kill you to admit that, right?” Alfred squinted a little, then sighed and rubbed at his eyes.
"Can you see without your glasses?”
"Don’t need to see all the details to enjoy it. Though it’s a bit hard to hear, ‘specially with all that ancient Shakespearean English. Even worse that your stodgy English, Arthur.”
"You—you brat,” Arthur spluttered, but Alfred was laughing; Arthur could feel it where Alfred was pressed up against him. Alfred’s eyes fluttered shut again, and Arthur was curling his free hand against the curve of Alfred’s cheek before he could stop himself, touching gently at the dark smudges under Alfred’s eyes.
And because Alfred was an idiot who was up to his ears in paperwork and dealing with the economy and forgoing sleep for all of it, and yet still flew all the way out to London to spend time with him, Arthur didn't berate him for his drowsiness. Instead, he shifted so Alfred lay more comfortably against him and turned to glance towards the stage.
"My bounty is as boundless as the sea,” Arthur said with Juliet, keeping his voice low so it wouldn’t travel beyond their balcony, but following all the nuances and stresses and tones that any Shakespearean actor would. “My love as deep; the more I give to thee, the more I have, for both are infinite.”
Alfred’s fingers tightened against his, although his eyes remained shut. Arthur felt his cheeks flush, then finished the rest of Juliet’s lines and continued on with Romeo’s.
He went on like that for the rest of the balcony scene, acting out the lines for Alfred, until the other nation’s breathing deepened and his grip on Arthur’s hand slackened, just a fraction.
Alfred didn’t look vulnerable when he slept, just open and peaceful, as if the loud laughs and the occasional dark smirk didn’t truly represent all of him. Alfred without his glasses appeared younger, like the colony once under Arthur’s protection, but Arthur knew better. There were tiny, subtle lines on Alfred’s face that weren’t there before, some stress-induced, but most laugh lines. And whenever Arthur gazed into Alfred’s eyes, he saw a maturity and confidence that Alfred possessed, earned all on his own.
Arthur didn’t think they could have something like this if Alfred had remained his after the Revolution, or if they hadn’t fought together during the Second World War. And he wouldn’t trade Alfred for anyone else, not even the ones in his memories.
"Sleep dwell upon thine eyes, peace in thy breast,” Arthur said as Romeo echoed the last lines of the scene on the stage below. He leaned his head against Alfred’s and closed his eyes.