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This is the slowest day Matthew’s ever had in all 150-something years of his life. And it’s at an airport waiting for his brother to pick him up.
Sure, most of his days tend to blend together and summarize into ‘wake up, do tasks, check that identity has not been exposed, rest’ cycles. Sometimes he calls France or England- they always insist he calls them by their actual names and not their ‘fake ones’- and they ask who he is for the hundredth time. On the special days he just ends up walking around and looking at the humans around him. But today was long . The TSA made him step through the metal detector multiple times because it kept acting up. His flight was delayed by three hours. At least the environment matched how he felt: empty and quiet at four am on a random Tuesday.
Matthew had been sitting outside for an hour and watching the traveling people from his bench. A diverse wave of beings walking in and out of the terminal, all tired or wired from the early morning hour. He tries not to really feel envious about it, but it’s been a problem he’s had since he first formed and gained consciousness. He’s jealous of humanity: it’s his worst kept secret in the family. Alfred makes fun of it whenever possible, saying that humanity’s jealous of them for their immortality. France says he remembers his jealous era and that he’s embarrassed by it. “You’ll grow out of it eventually,” was what he was told by England. Like it was just a phase of rebellion and not some sort of sign that Matthew may start freaking out over time and his perception of being conscious .
(Faintly Matthew thinks about when he was still younger and bright-eyed, when he wasn’t overcome with the ethics and morality and mortality of everything else around him. France was showing him paintings and portraits of old friends, laughing with a cigarette about their voice or their jokes. When Joan de Arc was finally brought up, France snuffed out his cigarette and didn’t really say anything. He stared at her in the way Matthew’s seen families yearn for their deceased.)
He’s brought out of his downward spiral by a horn, the obnoxious square-jawed form of his brother sticking out the car window. There’s a to-go bag of fast food in the front seat. “Yo, bro!” Alfred shouts, ignorant and uncaring to his own people’s glares at the volume. Matthew tries to ignore the way their eyes- human, internally connected through the optic nerves that he didn’t share.
The drive is fine. Matthew and Alfred don’t really talk: Alfred talks at him and Matthew just listens. It took a bit of time- at least twenty years- but he’s since given up over trying to get a word in. Alfred is larger than life despite only being, give or take, ninety years older. He’s obnoxious and loud, constantly boosting his ego and flexing and showing off. It’s not even like Alfred had to fight for the attention- most people’s ire or curiosity is always drawn to him. Matthew was fine with the sidelines for the most part.
So, the drive is fine. By the time they arrive at one of Alfred’s many sporadic vacation houses, the sun is up and shining over the forest horizon. France is sitting on the porch with a cigarette and England is reading a book, sneering every once in a while when a waft of smoke hits him. Early risers.
“Mattieu!” France calls, all smiles and care, standing up with his arms wide. “Come, come, even though we just saw each other-” they hadn’t, the last time Matthew saw France in person was around five years ago, “-let your old man get a hug.”
“Hi, France,” is the automated response, a one-armed hug and a pat on the shoulder. England doesn’t fully acknowledge him, just a “morning to you, Matthew,” and a sip of tea. His eyes don’t leave the pages, more content to consume literature. Matthew flips him off from behind the door as he goes inside to unpack in the last room.
He sleeps for the morning and keeps quiet for the early afternoon. Alfred’s shouting something and there’s a few distant bangs followed by England yelling. They must be shooting targets again, and if Matthew cared enough he’d go watch. But the spiral is back, pressing against where his frontal cortex would be. Streamlined intrusions and random anxieties go through the metaphorical nerves and synapses, and he flexes his hands- made up of nothing human but still living. He stares at the ceiling, the distant short bangs out of sync with the clock ticking rhythmically.
It feels like centuries when dinner is finally ordered- no one trusts England in the kitchen, and France hasn’t gone out for groceries yet. Both older nations left to go pick it up, and it’s now just Matthew standing on the porch and Alfred in the lawn area. He watches his brother chop wood for the fire later, complaining about something like traffic or how ‘he hates getting into competitions with England’.
He’s staring at the stump Alfred’s chopping wood on. The distance isn’t helping, but Matthew just assumes the stump is somehow older than him. Rings repeat over and over as splinters of wood and cut grooves dig into it from the force of the axe. He watches the repetitive motions of the upward raise and downward swing, how Alfred laughs loudly like some sort of corny hero.
“Alfred,” he hesitantly calls out. “Can I ask you something?”
The spiral is louder now. It’s a spiral , Matthew knows it can’t make a sound, but there’s pressure building in his skull and he feels like he doesn’t have control over his words anymore. He’s going to word vomit, and he is going to hate it.
“What was that?” Alfred asks, digging into his ear with his pinky. He lodges the axe into the ground and crosses his arms. “What’s up, Matt? Need some wisdom from the good ol’ U-S of A?” He’s staring like Matthew just needs to ask about the weather or the flight home. Casual. Content.
“How do you deal with living forever?” Matthew asks, running a hand through his hair. It’s a nervous tick he picked up from France. “I-I just don’t know- every time I meet someone new, Al, they just die naturally. Every friend I make dies eventually. How the fuck do you deal with that?”
Alfred raises a brow and shrugs. “I dunno. Immortality’s not that big of a deal, brah. I mean, I cried when Big G.W. died, sure, but after that it’s just life.” He scratches his jaw and leans on the outside of the house. The spiral is moving to where Matthew’s eyes are, tears building. He can’t cry. He shouldn’t cry in front of the guy who needed a reminder on who he was for thirty years. “Why, someone else die? Another funeral?”
“Christ, man,” Matthew cries, pathetically resting a hand over his eyes. “Do you hear yourself? Do you?”
“Dude, it’s normal . Shit’s not in our control!” Alfred shrugs again, eyes wide and hands up like he’s trying to ease his defense. “But like, does it matter this much to you? I thought all this ‘waah, my friends!’ stuff gets left behind when we’re still young countries. Have you mentioned this to France-!”
“Stop- just fucking stop. Do you hear yourself?! Decades shouldn’t feel like days!” Matthew yells, shoving Alfred’s shoulder. “I’ve been going fucking crazy! A day shouldn’t feel like nothing , Alfred!”
“We’re countries, dude! Immortal! Not human! ” Alfred yells back at him, emphasizing his point with a finger to the chest. “We’re made of weird alien shit that’s not human, get it? You’re acting like a baby over this mortality shit. Maybe you should’ve gotten on wine like France or some shit, cope like the rest of us.”
“I don’t- I don’t want to fucking cope like you guys!” Matthew screams, hands raising to his hair. The pressure is too much, he needs it out- he needs it gone . So he starts pulling. “I hate this forever fucking cycle of watching everything around me die or go to shit and I can’t actually do anything about it!”
“Matt-”
“Shut up , Alfred, for just a goddamn minute! It’s agonizing! Every time I see people, humans , I feel like a goddamn monster! I want to die eventually, Alfred, I’m already fucking miserable and I’m only, like, 158!”
Alfred stares at him. “You are?” He asks, genuine surprise in his voice. “Seriously? No wonder you’re freaking out, dude,” he laughs, shaking his head and putting a hand on Matthew’s shoulder. “You’ll get used to it, trust me. Everyone goes through this!”
Alfred goes inside. Matthew pulls out a clump of hair and throws it into the grass before going inside and showering. He screams into the forest loudly before hyperventilating and falling onto the porch for a few minutes. He can feel the blood on his scalp as he shuffles inside.
He doesn’t join the others for dinner: he lays in bed and cries, softly, holding a pillow to his face and ignoring the slow throb on his head as his hair regenerates.