My whims are my pillars of strength

courage to continue to watch the show

and wisdom to remember i am not a member of the psychotic part  of the fandom

This is an old ask pertaining to WW1, but it prompted some interesting thoughts about the imperial dimensions of the First World War and the British Empire’s colonial soldiers. So; here’s a snapshot in time between two of them. Content warning for injuries and mentions of death. Historical notes are under the cut.

The Somme, France. 1916.

Experimentally, he digs his spoon into the strange, darkly coloured chunk of something. Grimaces. The mud-stained label on the battered can proclaimed it to be Fray Bentos Corned Beef. Personally, Matthew was disinclined to trust that description, given the unappetisingly greyish tone the can’s contents had taken on. Probably spoiled. It looked slimy and smelled dubious. 

Not that the stink of the surrounding trench was much better. Nor the huge fucking swarms of rats.

Being rotated out of the frontline trenches to the support trenches normally meant a reduced risk of having your goddamned head shot off, marginally better living conditions and not having to break out the rations because you were trapped and pinned down by enemy artillery. But of course, a German offensive elsewhere had, infuriatingly, disrupted the supply lines—or so he heard. It was also entirely possible that someone somewhere, in the convoluted hierarchy of the British command, had simply fucked up. Again.

So, his surroundings are lively with the chatter of soldiers attempting to barter their rations for something rather more edible or otherwise appealing. His fathers are for one, doing so particularly noisily at the nearby medical station. 

“Rosbif,” Francis’ voice is sharp and irritated. “For the last time, I am not trading my cigarettes for those ‘biscuits’ of yours. Those things are far better at taking out one’s teeth than serving as sustenance. They are not fit even for stray dogs.” 

Matthew’s not even really paying attention to them, but he can feel the dramatic eye-roll Lord Father must be giving his other parent. From his peripheral vision, he can see that Arthur is sporting several bloodied bandages. 

“They’re perfectly edible and nutritious once you dunk them in some tea, you complete pillock,” Arthur hisses. “If you recall, I bloody well gave you all of my remaining cigarettes last week, when you begged for them! Because I felt sorry for your sodden, lice-ridden arse—”

“As you should have been! I took four bullets thanks to your carelessness!” Francis snaps. His eyes are fierce with a frantic blue fire. “Go and bother some poor private instead, will you! Perhaps you can scare those new enlistees from Birmingham into giving up their mothers’ care packages by pulling rank—”

“—I am absolutely not going to do that and you know it!” Arthur is outraged. “What kind of man do you think I am? I can feel the very terror those poor devils are going through—"

There’s a dark chuckle as someone sits down next to Matthew. “Fine words, but wonder if he ever spares a thought for dragging us out here too.” 

His turban clearly hadn’t escaped yesterday’s brutal offensive unscathed—it’s marred by several bloodstains—but the tall Indian officer who addresses Matthew has evidently done his best to arrange it neatly. A regulation Lee-Enfield rifle is slung across his back, and there’s some kind of vegetable-looking stew in the mug cradled in his hands. 

Matthew snorts. Stabs his corned beef viciously. Thinks longingly of a hot roast and pancakes drizzled with maple syrup. “Of course not, Sir. That would be quite unlike Father.” 

He thinks of warming himself by a fireplace. Of the lush forests turning red and gold at this time of the year back home. Instead of crawling past the blackened, grotesque skeletons of trees ringed by debris and barbed wire, rocked by the fury of the shells bursting overhead. Past the frozen, unseeing gazes of not men but boys strewn across no-man’s land—and all of that, for what? A grinding, bloody stalemate—

“Haven’t I told you to just call me Aditya, Matthew?” The officer says calmly, stirring his soup. Which Matthew realises is hot and smells delicious.  

“Well, you’re older than me,” he offers awkwardly, trying not to stare too covetously at the vegetable stew. Older than Francis. Older than Lord Father. Matthew’s eyes alight briefly on the insignia that adorns the older nation’s uniform. “Be a tad strange if a captain was heard addressing a senior officer rather…uh, familiarly.” 

“Let’s be honest, a number of fellows here—your father included, wouldn’t find it strange in my case, would they?” The dark-skinned man shrugs. The British imperial crown on the shoulder board of his uniform catches the light. Not for the first time, Matthew wonders, discomfited, just whether Arthur even comprehends the elder nation he so casually lords over. 

For his part, Aditya eyes Matthew’s dinner with pity. “In any case, I’m not sure anyone should be subject to that. Want some of this instead?”

“Need you ask?” Matthew finds himself chuckling. In the past two years, he’s had more conversations with Aditya than the previous two centuries combined.  (Weltkrieg, alright.) So, he knows not to let the spoon he’d dug into his corned beef come into contact with the other nation’s soup. 

Instead, he holds his own mug out for the other man to pour some of his stew into. “Shit, where did you get this stuff from?”

“My regiment got priority for a fresh delivery, because we used up all the remaining mutton and vegetables–including the mouldy ones—two days ago. Apparently, they sent some scouts out to barter what they could from the villages behind the lines.”

In response to Matthew’s disbelieving gaze at this display of competence—hadn’t Arthur once forgotten both their winter uniforms, even—Aditya smiles sardonically. 

“Well, Arthur, fool that he is in many ways, has enough…self-interest to recognise that he certainly cannot feed us corned beef rations—or pork, in the case of several of my men, for that matter—if he expects us to continue bleeding for King and Country in these wretched conditions. And to not instead take a bayonet to his buttocks.”

Despite what everyone thinks, Arthur is romantic in his relationship with Francis. Very romantic. In his own way.

He is the one who stares at France thinking how damn pretty his face and body shape are and how his long hair waves with every little move he makes.

He is the one that stays awake all night long because France appears in every word he puts in paper and he can’t write anything else that is not Francis and the way Francis kisses him and touches him and all the love which Francis looks at him. And that’s how he ended up writing a lot of poems and love letters instead of the fantasy book he, in the beginning, pretended to do.

Every time they have sex, he passes his fingers through Francis’ skin the more soft and careful way possible. He takes his time to appreciates how Francis’ body tenses up with each touch and how his breath turns irregular. England blushes and sights dead of love every time France moans his name and whispers that he loves him.

Arthur does not frequently shows how fucking cheesy he is and that’s why no one realizes. But Francis already knows it. He says nothing about it because he doesn’t want England to get embarrassed.

By the way, is when they both argued when Arthur shows his romantic side. He gets drunk and appears at France’s house. 

No matter how many times this happens, Francis is still surprised when a drunk Arthur says “I’m really sorry. I’m an complete idiot, but I’m an idiot who is so fucking in love with you. Please, please, forgive me”. And Francis forgives him no matter what the reason behind the argument was.

Each time, Francis hugs him softly and makes him come into the house. He brings Arthur to the bed, cuddles him and kisses his forehead.

‘oh child, you still have so much to learn.’

sorry it’s not a world meeting but i love garbagedad and trashson interactions:

“What the fuck.” Alfred is very eloquent when he’s in shock. 

Arthur continues munching his scones serenely, as though he hadn’t just upset the underlying order of the universe. “Do you have something to say, lad?” He’s eating with his uninjured arm, comfortably tucked into a floral chintz armchair.  

Alfred only stares, his blue eyes as wide as the first time he’d seen Arthur regenerate his face after taking a shot to his jaw. He’s staring at the wrongness of it all. The vast, boundless expanse between his father’s eyebrows and his hairline. The utter nothingness in between. 

Alfred finally recovers, his voice accusing. “What the hell brought this on, old man? I’m pretty sure they didn’t get singed off by a German bomb!” 

His father raises a thin brow at him—and the sight is so unnatural that it takes all of Alfred’s willpower not to waver at the surreal vision—and stares at him as though Alfred is being particularly slow for not understanding the obvious. Then he has the audacity to chuckle. 

“And to think you were always boasting how much better you could hold your drink than everyone else. You don’t remember?” 

Alfred rolls his eyes dramatically as though he cannot believe the ordeal his father is putting him through, just as he always did as a teenager. “No, so care to finally enlighten me about what brought this on?”

Arthur is amused. Alfred may be considerably taller and broader, no longer clad in blue but brown, the golden oak leaf of a major pinned to his lapel instead of the bars of a lieutenant, but some things never change. 

“If you recall, we went drinking last night. Because you thought that—in your words—‘my old man needs some cheering up after the past few months’. You drank enough to knock out an elephant, flirted with everyone there including the bartender and a lieutenant-colonel, gave out cartons of chocolate you filched from the supply depot—and dared me to ‘prune those caterpillars.’” 

“Fuck.” Alfred is aghast. Then his eyes narrow. “You’re bullshitting me. Since when do you ever do anything I suggest?” His father never does that. Ever. Except when it comes to Lend-Lease. 

Arthur stares at him drily. “Like you, I exercised exceedingly poor judgment due to my inebriation. The only difference being that I remember it all.”

“Oh my god.” This revelation appears too much for Alfred. “I got you to do that and I don’t even remember it? Fucking hell! Where’s the fun in that?” He’s sulking now.