Does anyone ever check in on Matt? π’ You make me sad.
I guess? He has partners and friends and siblings and family. He's just very aware that there's a vast inequity with Alfred that give the things he asks of Alfred are a much bigger deal than the ones Alfred asks of him because of how much more Alfred does in the world. So he doesn't list anyone as his emergency contact because he'd lose control over when he asks for help in those situations but he also stumbles home to his uncle and his Dad when he's still at least slightly shy of dying or having a mental breakdown.
It's not that he doesn't have options, it's just Matt's observant and always looking for the annoyance or frustration in others rather than the worry or the care. He's always running the numbers in his head about how long it's been since he did something useful for someone and if he's built up enough good will to impose himself on someone. And usually it's easier to just deal with the problem himself. And then he doesn't mention it because it'd be a fuss and really phone calls from others shouldn't be taken up with his troubles! They called to vent or inform and it'd be rude to hog all their time with his problems. All of this is bullshit, all of this leads to him going absolutely insane and feral in the woods. But he wasn't born anglo, he was proselytized and now he's something of a zealot in his inability to ask.
Actually, this is bullshit. Man is 400 years old and spent the most important years of his life as part of what I imagine is to most nations a bizarrely close-knit family.
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when people defend theΒ βCis white guy is defaultβ thing like βHeβs meant to be an everyman we can all relate to and project on!β kindly remind them the largest ethnic group in the WORLD is Han Chinese and the highest gender percentage fluctuates so if you want an ACTUAL Β βdefaultβ you want a 40 year old chinese person whose gender changes from year to year. Β
Thinking about how 1,500+ years of life doesn't make Arthur a good father, but it does soften him up.
The rediscovery of Beowulf as the long 19th century begins and the first 100+ years of translations use the root word aglæc to describe both Beowulf and Grendel's mother. For Beowulf, the translators used "heroic." For Grendel's mother, "monstrous."
Arthur spoke that natively, his second language after his mother's Bythronic. He can remember the long house, warm with crowded bodies and the fire, smoky but pleasant. He can remember the voice of the bard rising and falling, the shadows in the shape of heroism on the wall flickering in firelight. He can remember the delight and shudder and communal thrum of each reaction. He can remember the loudest laughs and gasps coming from the great lady at the head of the table, who is the reason he is fed, clothed, and alive, who also holds the seax of all free people at her waist and commands the space.
His youngest two children sit in his Victorian library, perhaps with the neighbors' children, listening to their father at his finest and their uncle at his happiest, telling stories no human has heard in a thousand years. One too many glasses of port at dinner and a glug of brandy, and they're on their feet, telling tales. One or two of his mothers more than populate the compilation of the Mabinogion, and, of course, Arthur's Beowulf. And they listen as he once listened. To his mother, his sister, his brothers, and the bards. Watching shapes on the wall, the delight of triumph, and the grip of the tale.
His eldest, if not his firstborn, is content to listen from a spot apart. Leaned in a doorway, always curious about what came before the Normans made English as much of a mix of French and English as he himself. Actually understanding, born of the effort to please rather than just being entertained as Arthur wheels into a rush of English older than anything, tinged with Mercian vowels.
His next boy, social through and through, reacting as much to a sweep of the arm or an exaggerated face as to the expressions of the other children, running a finger over the illustrated copy open in his lap, eyes flicking between everything, excitement itself, holding onto the sounds because they are musical and there's nothing he loves more than melody. He will learn every song a thousand years and more can teach, but for now, he listens, concentrating on holding still.
And his last child. His girl. The very, very best of him. She holds herself high, back straight with interest, listening intently, following better than the other children despite little more inthe way of knowing. She is mouthing words, memorizing them for later, packing them away, He bounces around in the same language, between the oldest words and the newest. Her hands are on her knees, kinetic with the tale. She can be so still, but now she is alight. He finds himself telling her the story. Looking at her, facing her, orienteering like Jack does. She doesn't hide her expression and the monsters are always her favorite part. Grendel's mother takes action, moving the story, and she frowns. Rhys feigns pulling a sword from a sheath and raising it up, but the expression disappears. Zee is patient; she always has been. Time bounces across a sentence as he continues.
He knows the words of the translation; the book in Jack's lap speaks next. Grendel's mother, a woman, a wretched woman. This from 'aglæcwif', of the same root as speaks to Beowulf's heroism. The men will translate and transform. She becomes a wretch and later hell-bride, monstrous, evil. And later, the women translators will call her a warrior, and a mighty one at that. They are not that far yet, not in this long 19th century, but he can do better. For she is no wretch, no monster, no hell bride but a girl.
He can hear the bards of a millennium before, deferring to the great lady of the hall who sits in the great chair, circlet low on her forehead, brooches gleaming at her shoulders. The way his mother sat was commanding and tall. The bard bowed before her as he spoke the next words. His youngest before him, her back straight, He looks at her, her bright eyes are on the page near Jack's finger, and she is frowning.
Again, he hears the Bard's words and the deference there.
'Grendles mΕdor / ides, aglΓ¦cwif.' He knows the words. He has spoken to them so often, but not for so long. Zee looks up at him. She is not nameless. She is more than his daughter as the great lady was more than wife or mother. She looks at him, and he wonders if she knows this isn't right, what the translation wants to put in his mouth. Neither helll bride nor monstrous nor wretched. He drops to her level, one knee down, more homage than seated. She meets his eye, and he will see steel there before long. He knows the word he wants, what Zee is.
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#every time I read this phrase the same thing happens#I read it as shittable and go wait that can't be right#oh right they were talking about public benches that makes more sense#but public bathrooms available without fees should also be a thing tho#cities should definitely be shittable#it happens EVERY SINGLE TIME
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Written god knows how long ago for a prompt game, but posting for context since the sequel was requested. This one feels very strange to post again in 2026, but it's a good fic, so here it is. Post-Civil War. TB, known as consumption at the time, is often an opportunistic infection that sets in when the body is in distress. I'm not sure what could count as more distressing than a whole Civil War.
He disembarked on muggy September day in 1865 wishing like hell he could be anywhere else. The clipper ship he'd made the journey down from Halifax on rocked gently as it rose on the incoming tide. Beards of algae on the neighbouring dock pilings trailed in swirls on the tide, shiny black mussels occasionally showing through. Somehow the water seemed thicker this far south, and so did the air. An unhealthy climate, he decided, shouldering his rucksack as the gangplank was drawn and the first mate's whistle announced to the anemic group of passengers it was time to disembark. The street stones were slimy in the humidity and his boots slid across them more than once. He flicked sweat from his face. No wonder Alfred was ill.
He'd arrived home to Ottawa from London to a fistful of letters in his brother's larger, looped handwriting that grew shakier and less legible each time Matthew had opened another, at first awkwardly implying he needed help, then saying he probably would be needing help, and then the last one, postmarked from a month before, flat out asked. And even included the word 'please.' That had gotten his ass on a train in a day and then a ship within a week. The letter sat heavy in his trouser pocket, weighed down with Matthew's guilt for not arriving sooner, tied in one of his spare ribbons currently unused as his hair was still cropped short for the purposes of kissing English ass for Confederation. Curls clung uncomfortably to his neck.
He wished he could appreciate his brother's country more, but this far south didn't agree with him. New Orleans was a beautiful, bustling city, bursting with activity. He heard people calling out in a sort of French very different from his own, but still achey and familiar. The damp and heat had him choking. The urge to gag hit him just breathing, the air absolutely choking even though everyone around him was utterly unbothered. London was far worse, as far as stinks went but at least it wasn't hot. Even Ottawa could be sweltering in the summer but this made him want to swoon.
Walking felt more like going for a swim in the humidity even after he unbuttoned his collar and stripped off his coat. Cypress trees hung heavy with Spanish moss as he walked. He paused once to consult the address of Alfred's landlady he'd written on the envelopes and had to ask for directions twice, once in English and then again because Mother of God he had to focus hard to understand, but eventually found the place. He hoped like hell she would have an address for him or a clue as to where the hell Alfred was.
It was a neat middle-class neighbourhood and away from the stink of the city center. The house shaded heavily in trees and it seemed to be easier to breathe. When he knocked on the door frame clean but weathered and warped by the humidity no one came to the door for a moment, but he saw curtains flutter in the window and a neatly dressed woman appeared.
"Yes?" She said, peering suspicious eyes up at him, hand on her hips at the band of her starched apron.
"Ma'am," He said, giving an awkward dip of his head. "I'm looking for a Mrs. Lewis?"
"What for?" She asked, frowning, wary of him.
Digging the well-worn letters from his pocket, he held them out to her, urging her on with, "My brother, an Alfred F. Jones, wrote to me from this address? Do you have any idea where he might have gone?"
"Gone?" The woman laughed, all the caution flung from her face. She put a hand to her hair wrap and gave him a jolly, incredulous look. "Why he's gone nowhere! The poor child's burning up in my back bedroom as we speak! You're the brother, then? From Nova Scotia? We'd nearly given up on you!"
"Yes, ma'am," He said, and as if to punctuate the fact he was indeed just that fucking Canadian, he had to prop himself up on the doorpost as a blow of lightheadedness passed through him like a storm front. "I only received word he was ill when I returned home from England,"
The flush of dizziness that came next had him nearly off his feet and he was honestly surprised it hadn't happened sooner. The further south he got, the more the heat seemed to bother him. He rejected the warmth of the south the way he would a poorly matched blood transfusion. Like Alfred was trying to push him out entirely. The wall turned to mush under him and he might have hit the floor had the landlady not caught his elbow and kept him from keeling over completely.
"You'd best come in, then, Mr... is it Jones?"
He nodded. The American papers in his rucksack, lifted from Alfred's pocket last time he'd come south to look after him in 1863 had been changed and identified him as one Matthew Jones rather than Williams. It was easier to gain access when he had Alfred's last name anyway. It wasn't as if using Alfred's last name instead of his own was any worse than having Arthur's Union Jack on his flag.
"You'd best come in then before you melt, then!" She laughed and cheerfully opened the door to tug him through. The house was neatly furnished in dark stained wood and markedly cooler, thank God. He breathed in a sigh for the first time in ages and wondered how the construction worked to make the coolness so different from the outside.
"Can I offer you some water?" She asked. "You should collect yourself before you see him,"
"Is it so dire?" He said, frowning.
"I'm afraid so," She said, shaking her head. "The poor boy,"
Matthew really didn't like the sound of that. When he had gathered his strength, drank two glasses of water and generally didn't feel like he was about to keel over, Mrs. Lewis showed him to the back of the house. As she opened the door, she had a sad, maternal look to her.
"Mr. Jones, you have a visitor,"
There was no reply but when Matthew took a cautious step into the room he was met with a nod from the landlady.
"Alfred?" He called out, trying to be audible but gentle. "It's me,"
The bedroom was comfortable looking at least, large windows flung open to the warm breeze and least some effort had been made to equip the room pleasantly. There was a large basin and jug, a square side table with a full fruit bowl and a vase of sweet-smelling flowers on it. A corner had been set up as a parlour with two rattan chairs. In the center of it all was the bed. White lacquered ornate iron, it was equipped with two well-stuffed feather mattresses and fresh bedding. He smelled clean linen. At least, he thought, it wasn't a rotting hospital tent this time.
The core of him, the thing in his chest that tied Matthew to Canada fluttered a little as he approached Alfred as if the rustling wings of the angel of death beat around America on the bed. He glanced uncertainly at Mrs. Lewis, who shook her head and tugged uncomfortably at her hair wrap like making herself neat made things less unbearable. She had obviously grown fond of Alfred.
It was with a gasp he rounded the peaks of white linen bedding that he finally saw his brother's face.
"Mattie?" Alfred muttered and loathed himself for his own weakness but just the turning over on his side had left him hacking and breathless. Keeping his eyes tightly closed, he reached out where he thought he heard a faint exhale of breath.
There was a startled heave and Alfred heard muffled profanity, creaking planks and finally, the mattress sank under the weight of a body heavier than his own. He was perfectly still but his body felt like it was pitching to and fro as if at sea. Opening his eyes felt far too risky.
"It's me," He heard Matt say, sounding like he was on the verge of a sob. "Are you awake, Alfred?"
He heard his brother's anxious inhale of breath and two warm hands caught his own between them. Alfred nodded and was immediately filled with regret as the entire world seemed to spin.
"Mattie," Alfred groped with his other hand for Matt's arm. He didn't ask but Matt seemed to sense the question, knowing his thoughts even before Alfred did sometimes. "You came?"
"Of course," His brother said, easily. Because always did when Alfred needed him. Alfred felt a rush of fondness, or maybe it was catarrh because the next thing he knew he was twisted onto his side and hacking, coughs dragging out him like they were snared in his lungs with fishhooks. When the world stopped spinning, he found himself lifted against his brother's shoulder, oddly broad feeling and finally opened his eyes to see the back of what must have been his brother's nice grey serge waistcoat and the snowy linens. He wasn't sitting on the bed anymore but had somehow dragged the chair over.
"God, Alfred," His baby brother said, sounding as near to tears as Alfred felt.
"I know," Alfred said, faking a grin as he gasped for air. "I look like shit, huh? Congrats on being the sexiest brother now,"
Matt snorted, more startled than amused but Alfred felt him shake his head in that fond way of his that meant "God, you're hopeless." Alfred clung there in the not-quite a hug for a long moment, letting Matthew hold him. His baby brother felt like the most real thing in the world just then and by far the sturdiest. After a long squeeze, Matt arranged the pillows and set him against them, at least giving him the dignity of being a little upright. He even brushed his hair from his face and it only made Alfred want to cry a little.
"What the hells wrong with you anyway?" Matt asked after a long moment.
"Consumption," Alfred said, knuckling his bony sternum, urging himself not to cough.
"Consumption?" Matt sat back in the chair. "Jesus Christ,"
"I know," Alfred said, preparing himself for a rise of emotion from Matthew, even tears, but was shocked by a bolt of laughter from him instead.
"Consumption?" Matthew repeated, this time at a near howl. He grinned. "Jesus Christ, what'd you do? Go and lace your corset too tight, there, Sally?"
"Oh fuck you," Alfred shot back.
"You absolute girl," Matt practically cackled. "Consumption? Really? Alfred, Jesus, when I told you masturbating instead of just having it out with another lad was going to kill you one of these days, this isn't what I meant!"
"Matt,"
"Jesus, Mary and Joseph," Matt dragged a hand down his face and pinched his nose like he had a headache. Alfred did all the time these days. "All this just from a human disease? Jesus, Alfred, I thought you were dying,"
"I am," Alfred said, gesturing to his wasted body.
"I mean dead dying," Matthew hissed, mood souring in an instant. He glanced at the door and his voice dropped to whisper since there were... normal people within earshot. He gripped the arms of the chair with both hands. "I thought the war had actually broken you somehow even with the victory! Jesus Christ, Alfred, you frightened me. How did it even get this bad this fast? Consumption takes years. Even for us."
"It's galloping consumption," Alfred deflected, lifting a sarcastic hand over his heart as if touched, doing his damndest to forget he'd just spent weeks wondering if Matt had abandoned him for good what with the diplomatic shitshow going down with Arthur over Confederate shipping. "Aww, you do care,"
"Of course I fucking care," Matt muttered again and Alfred saw his knuckles were white with tension where he was holding the iron frame of the rattan chair. "For fuck's sake, Alfred. Why haven't you just, you know," He glanced at the door again, making sure they weren't overheard and mimicked cocking and firing a revolver under his chin. "Reset,"
"It's a sin," Alfred hissed. They could do that sometimes, shake off human illness or a particularly bad injury with death but Alfred had never liked it. There were specific passages of the holy book that banned the practice and he was sure of that, even couldn't actually remember which just then.
"Oh, for the love of the holy mother. It's not actually suicide, Alfred! Not when we," Matt gave another paranoid glance to the door. "Not when we don't actually die,"
Alfred glared at him. "It's close enough,"
Matt palmed his face and more too himself than Alfred said, "You can take the boy out of the Puritans but not the Puritan out of the boy,"
Alfred didn't quite know what to say to that because he was most certainly not a Puritan anymore if he ever had been but he was also feeling drained again. While he'd managed to sit up a bit so far, he had to slump against the pillows again, tacked there by exhaustion as firmly as a butterfly was to a collectors frame by pins it the wings. When he could focus again, his brother was leaning forward, his hands on his thighs, brow drawn low.
"Holy hell, Alfred, is that why you wrote me? To come down here and do it for you?" Matthew hissed and his face pinched up in that way it did when he was being angry because he felt guilty for being frightened. "For fuck's sake, sneaking down here is one thing but killing you? We're already in the shit over those blockade runners,"
"No," Alfred said and without being bidden, tears came to his eyes and he had to look down, embarrassed to his core. "No, Mattie, no. Please just listen!"
"Hey," Matt immediately sprang from scolding to something far softer, his cool hands found Alfred's face to turn chin up to look his brother in the eye. "Hey, it's all right, Alfred, okay? I'm listening,"
He didn't know why but somehow Matthew's reassurance made it far worse. He just didn't want to die bloody. Just this once! That was all. The bed creaked and he scoot over awkwardly, forcing Matt to pull his chair forward so he could take Alfred in close. Safely buried in Matt's chest, he let the tears come. Matt held him, pet his hair and made all the right sympathetic noises. His baby brother was good at that, consoling and mothering. When he wasn't being a British shithead at least.
"I'm listening," He said sadly. "It's all right. Alfred, I'm here and I'm listening, okay? We'll do we what we need to do."
Alfred cried on his brother for another moment, letting Matt tell him he'd be okay and taking all the comfort Matt could give him. He knew, somewhere deep down that cost Matt, for all that happened between them in recent months, or between their peoples at least. sob throbbed through his body and his brother made more of those soft, consoling noises like Alfred was a spooked horse about to bolt.
"Mattie, I don't wanna die violent, again," He gasped, coughing again and shutting his eyes tightly, trying to deny the world his tears but utterly unable to do so. He'd been shot, stabbed, starved in the last years. He'd fallen over dead on the march of camp fever or typhoid more than once, been blown to pieces and lost three weeks until his limbs reconstructed. He couldn't fucking bear the thought of another mark on his body, another new scar to join the slew that had come from the too recent civil war.
"Hey," Matt said, and took his hand and pat it. Matt had always been everything tender about North America and as he laid his head down on the mattress next to Alfred's useless fucking body and looked at him so full of apologetic empathy and Alfred's hand in both of his, Alfred loved him so much for it. "Hey, hey, hey. You don't have to. It's okay. It's really okay. We don't have to do that, okay? However you want to do this. However you want to get this done, Alfred, I'll be right there. Swear to God,"
Alfred nodded and reached for his brother again to press his cheek to Matt's sternum. Usually, Matt running a few degrees colder than the normal person was annoying, but Alfred had been running a fever on and off for months and now his brother's cool skin felt like the best thing on all the earth.
"Do you want to go out west to Colorado? That's where people go when they've got consumption, right?" Matt said, running his hand on what was visible of Alfred's forehead to push his damp hair back. "Or California? Maybe you'll get better out there. I'd say British Columbia, but I think the damp would just kill you faster,"
"Home," Alfred croaked. "I want to go home,"
"What, to Virginia?"
Alfred shook his head.
"You mean Massachusetts?"
He nodded into Matt's chest and felt the heave of his brother's sigh rather than heard.
"Alfred, the winter will kill you,"
"I want to be in my own house," Alfred croaked, feeling pathetic. "In my own bed,"
"Which one? The row house in Boston?"
"No. Plymouth," To the little saltbox house with the steep slate roof and the low wall of layered flagstones that he'd put together himself as a gawky child and the fruit trees everywhere he'd ever planted and grafted them.
"Plymouth?" Matt squinted at him.
"Plymouth!" Alfred said. "Remember, my place on the harbour with all the apple trees? I want to go home,"
"Okay," Matt nodded, giving Alfred one of his gentle smiles as he made to stand up. "Okay, I'll take you home. Lets get you packed,"
Alfred grabbed hold of his brother's sleeves, pulling him back into the seat. "Will you stay?"
"What?"
"Would you stay with me?" Alfred let words rush out of him, thinking of when he'd grown taller first and had easily held Matthew on his shoulders and tossed him in the air among the leaves of the apple trees, using that freakish strength of his to make his baby brother shriek with delight. "You called it home when you were still a crabapple,"
Matt made the grumpy pinched-up face at him again. "My home is Canada, Alfred, you know that,"
"Still a goddamn crabapple," Alfred muttered, letting go and trying not to be upset at his brother just for existing so far from him even if the hollow in him made him want to cry on his brother again.
"But I'll stay," Matt said, something dawning on his face, reaching for Alfred's hand and squeezing it. "I won't let you die alone this time, Alfred. Promise. You'll die warm and as comfortable as we can make you, all right? If you don't get better. Does that sound... better, at least? Then the war?"
Alfred nodded, anchoring himself on Matt. "There are worse ways to die,"
As requested, this pandemic-locked-in-my-house fever dream fic is up for reposting. Rated MA for sex, sexual humor, and imperial themes. One of the funniest things I've ever written as a sequel to one of the saddest things I've ever written. Enjoy.
"Fucking Europeans," Alfred muttered to himself as he practically had to climb under a fucking birdcage to get at the girl's thighs. She kissed his throat as he worked, and he gulped. There should have been words said for the act. Something like "Trust me, you won't find yourself in the family way," or "Do you have syphilis?" β but the girl didn't have any English and he could barely speak as it was, so his mouth stopped. He had to focus, on the fucking dress, find the lines.
"Fucking Europeans," Alfred muttered to himself as he practically had to climb under a fucking birdcage to get at the girl's thighs. She kissed his throat as he worked and he gulped. There should have been words said, for the act. Something like "Trust me, you won't find yourself in the family way," or "Do you have syphilis?" β but the girl didn't have any English and he could barely speak as it was, so his mouth stopped. He had to focus, on the fucking dress, find the lines.
He'd walked right out of his trousers, but a fucking birdcage! For fuck's sake β even when he made it under the birdcage, there were more frills and layers and fucking frills. But eventually he found what he needed and pushed the girl back, down onto the tile ledge. Her hand, warm and clean and small, systematically washed back and forth over his cock, and he wondered if he should have looked up the French word for syphilis, because this obviously wasn't the woman's first time. Fucking French! He needed to shut up, stop thinking. Getting him hard took longer than it should have. And he hadn't even coughed up any blood today. Come on, come onβ
Finally, she drew her thumb around the tip and that did it. Blood rushed from his head. She sat back, spread her knees, pulling him with her, hands behind his ass. It was so fucking muggy in here. Alfred awkwardly drew his sleeves up over his elbows and she began to thrust. She had been more eager than him from the start. Alfred put in the bare minimum and tried to focus on the hot pool of reluctant heat at the crux of his thighs. He failed, tried to find somewhere to touch or kiss or something β but she turned her face away when he kissed her and thrust harder. Trust the French to kiss when they said good day, but not for a fuck. Alfred was about had enough when he moaned and gripped the tile walls β
"Goodness, there's a sight no father should witness."
That fucking β no, it couldn't β the blood abandoned his cock and flooded to his face. The girl shoved him away, shrieked and said something rapid and accusing in French, pointing madly at him and throwing her skirts down. Alfred fell away against the wall, and oh God, why couldn't she have just slammed his head into the tile and killed him.
And there was his father, in slippers and a dressing gown, a newspaper under one arm and a gilt teacup in the other hand. He could hear footsteps coming now β men's feet, witnesses to his fornication. It felt like he'd just had a cannon dropped on him.
There was a rush of people: stiff men in crisp white uniforms, women rushing about the girl he'd only just exited, a clamor of accusation. The girl was wailing, Alfred was backpedaling, shoving himself into the corner with shock and confusion. He watched his father roll his eyes, take a sip of tea, shove the cup into the hands of some servant, and say something rather loud in French. Had his French gotten so out of date he couldn't remember anything, or had he just gone deaf?
"Alfred, you will join me for a bit of refreshment that isn't horizontal."
"What?" Alfred said, because he heard the words but they didn't register.
His father was tugging him by the forearm out of the hot rooms and through a pair of arched French doors onto a veranda of sorts. It was still winter in France β all the perfectly coiffed gardens of spring still weeks away, the hardier ones still buried under brown burlap frosted with snow. He inhaled as the sweat on him cooled and shuddered.
"Better?" Arthur said. He'd lowered himself into a chair just inside the glass doors, which had to be freezing in this weather. Father looked just a touch too casual, one pasty ankle resting on the other knee, the newspaper opened in front of him, blocking the world from view.
"Yes," Alfred said shortly, scratching at his hairline where the breeze β or stress, or the fuck β had mussed his hair. He still felt woozy, but much clearer than before.
"Good," his father said in a pointedly crisp tone of disapproval. "Now, would you be so kind as to cover yourself before you catch cold? You are rather grown for me to be doing it."
Alfred looked down. His suit pants, complete with drawers and suspenders, were hanging loose around his feet. Oh, Lord have mercy. He scrambled to dress himself. The snap of the suspenders on his shoulders hurt his head, but he sat down across from his father, closing the doors behind him when he was finished. Arthur folded his newspaper.
"Fancy meeting you here," he said. It was sarcastic and biting. "I would have thought you'd be in Ottawa with your brother. Celebrating his independence."
Alfred snorted. Shiny new shackles with a fancy name were still shackles. Arthur looked at him, one eyebrow raised in that dry sort of way that meant annoyance. Alfred sidestepped the argument.
"And a French sanatorium of all places!"
"I'm supposed to be dodging you, actually."
Arthur snorted heartily. "Mucked that up, didn't you, lad?"
"Obviously," Alfred muttered bitterly.
"Come to take the waters, have you? Is the war still lingering, then?"
"None of your fucking business."
"My goodness, you are hostile. I suppose you're right. Though your arse is none of my business either, and yet I've seen more of it on this fine morning than I have since before you were breeched."
Alfred could feel his face turning red β his face hot and the rest of him impossibly cold. He had no comeback.
"Tea?" his father said coolly.
"No."
"Really? You look rather chilled."
"I'm fine. I'm just going to sit here until they've gone."
"That's likely to be a while. Didn't you hear the chatter? She's claiming to have been seduced by a slick rake from America. And there are rather few of those in these parts. Really, Alfred! Fornication is one thing. Fornication with a stranger? God's own blood, lad! What did I tell you about sex!"
"That I'd go blind if I masturbated? She came on to me while I was having my breakfast. It's not my fault."
"Well, all we saw was you certainly coming into her," Arthur said, smirking. He was enjoying this far too much, but he cleared his face and took up the teapot and poured himself a cup. "Sure you won't have any?"
"I hate tea."
"I'm well aware. Unfortunately for you, I haven't ordered coffee. But lucky for me, the nearest harbor is miles away β even if you were tempted." He poured out a second cup on the fussy saucers, dumped a stupid amount of sugar in it, stirred, and pushed it at Alfred, looking smugly benevolent. The bastard had always taken advantage of his sweet tooth, using it to bribe him since birth. Steam rose invitingly, wavering the air just above the cup.
Alfred clenched his hands and shoved them under his thighs to stop himself β but a moment later he was picking it up, holding it against his aching chest and breathing in the steam. The taste was something he'd never liked, but it was sweet and smoothed over the rough edges in his mouth and down his throat, filled his belly and eased something in his chest that had hurt since he marched through the burning cotton fields with Sherman. The march to the sea. He must have made some sort of noise, because Arthur glanced up from his paper on the table, then looked firmly back down β and Alfred half felt like he'd just caught a voyeur staring at him naked from a tree outside the window.
"You look dreadful," Arthur said, and it was a voice Alfred only half remembered from boyhood. Kindness without threat behind it. Soft. It sounded like flickering fire and rain on a roof and a table creaking under the weight of food and a small happy family of three. It felt warm. Good.
Then the switch flipped.
That voice had been the same one to say: "Don't talk to strangers. Don't trust anyone except me."
And Alfred hadn't trusted him in nearly a century.
The transformation wasn't even conscious. Not really. He grinned, leaned back in the chair, kicked his feet up on the table, and gave Arthur a mocking toast with the teacup.
"But that debutante was making eyes at me! When was the last time a girl like that gave you the eye, old man?"
He saw the flicker of something fail in his father's face, and it almost felt as good as shooting his fucking jaw off at Yorktown had, eighty-six years earlier.
There was a half-hearted harrumph, but the flash was gone. Father was gone, and the British Empire was back.
"You make it sound as if mounting a Frenchman is some sort of difficulty. Unless something remarkable happened, I've always found the reverse to be true. Ah β you never did like listening to anything you didn't want to hear. But it's a touch like bridge, son. If you don't have a good partner, you'd best have a good hand."
Alfred choked on his tea.
"You might find Michigan gives your knob a polish better than engaged French heiresses."
With half-scalding liquid in his nose, Alfred coughed and spluttered. "Engaged?"
"Oh, didn't you know? To a rifle manufacturer. Quite the captain of industry."
Alfred's smile fell off his face. Now Arthur was satiated.
"Oh, look at the time. I really must be going β late for my massage. Feel free to finish your tea and let yourself out." He dug in his pocket for a few coins and placed them on the table with a prim little click. "Tip the maid." He turned to go, then looked back. "With money, not your tallywacker β if you would be so kind."
My toxic fandom take is that I think that it's awful how much we can talk to creators and get answers from them word of god style. We should be out here in a godless place rooting for scraps of lore in the media like truffle pigs out in the fields
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