#2p1p

You fight me by Breaking Benjamin

Love is a Battlefield by Pat Benatar

Demons by Imagine Dragons

A Beautiful Lie by 30 Seconds to Mars

Good Life by Three Days Grace

Killer by The Ready Set

There’s a creak of the door as the baby began to cry, the figure who entered humming as he leant over the cot, smiling down at the babe and starting to hum, reaching in and pulling him up and nursing him against his chest, blankets gathered between thin arms and a chubby baby boy as the figure began to bounce him.

Perhaps this child would be the one, only time would tell. There had been other attempts, an American brat and an obnoxious Australian, all ended in failures when they captured the attention and joy of his counterpart here, but he had so many children now, how would he notice or care if one went missing?

Sighing disappointedly as he hears footsteps, even the softest of steps being given away by the creak of the floor boards, the unknown man puts the baby back in his crib, brushing a soft, freckled cheek with bony fingers and cooing, confused, scared green eyes meeting blue ones not unlike another pair resident in the house, though with a more sinister undertone.

“Goodnight, my precious one”

He whispers then is gone, no trace of him behind.

Arthur pauses as he walks in, greeted only with silence that was only disturbed by the panicked and almost breathless little whimpers coming from the crib. “Hey, hey, big brother’s here, there’s no need to…” He recoils, taking steps back as Patrick starts screaming, unsure of what he had done to warrant such a reaction when usually they had craved and been fine with attention.

The Bit is frozen in place as another brother pushes past, Sean picking up their youngest brother and cradling him close like the figure had before, sending Arthur a glare but that was hardly anything new these days, considering the steadily building resentment between the pair.

“Did you leave the wardrobe door open? You know he doesn’t like it when the wardrobe door is open.”

“It was closed when we put him to sleep, I…I don’t…”

Sean sighs, annoyance clear, moving round and shutting the door but not before checking there wasn’t someone in there, frowning when he found nothing. Sighing once more, he leaves the room with the child, Arthur now alone in the room, not content with leaving the young child in there alone again, never mind just tonight.

---

He was right to assume this one would be the one, climbing through the wardrobe once more to find him alone, back to the figure with eyes and fingers focusing on the broken toy in his hands. A broken toy and a crying child, oh Arthur was just making this easy for him. “What’s wrong precious one?”

A smile tugs at his lips as the child jumps, scrambling to cover up the broken toy and stuttering out apologies in a voice so quiet the man can barely hear it. Patrick isn’t even looking at him, the man flinching as he is called Arthur in the verbal mess that was coming from the boys mouth.

Kneeling beside him, thin hands take the toy in one hand whilst the other sifts through pockets for the needle and thread always in there, the smile on his lips widening as the apologies slow down and the boy begins to fidget, wiping his eyes with his hands.

“So, what’s your little dog’s name?”

“M-Marlow.”

“Little Marlow is just going to have a little operation, he should be fine after wards.”

Patrick moves to sit beside him as he works, brown tatty legs being reattached with blue string, the man chuckling as he sees how impatient the other is getting to get his toy back, clicking his tongue as the other pauses and suddenly looks scared. “Is something wrong, little robin?”

“You’re not Arthur.”

“No, I’m not Arthur. I’m better than Arthur.” He smirks, biting through the thread after knotting it, the operation on the toy complete. Handing it back to Patrick, he chuckles as he carefully looks over the stitch work before looking back up to him, still confused but not as scared as before.

“Who are you then?”

“Me? Why, I’m your Other Brother, silly.”

---

They’re arguing, why would he expect any different from the lesser version of himself and his Irish pet? The notion of that was laughable, humming as he descended the stairs, no colony, nation or human in sight, as to be expected when they argued.

Nobody wanted to be trapped between a man and a mad dog, did they?

He finds his precious little robin in his room, hid under blankets, hands clutched over his ears and toy dog lay strew on his lap, in worse condition than when the Other Brother had repaired it before. Approaching the subject of interacting with the other is difficult at first, gently lifting the sheet to find him crying again.

Why, he doesn’t believe the other four knew what they had with this boy.

“May I come in, little robin?” He smiles at the nod, joining the other under the blanket and waiting, mind thinking over the topic he wished to breech with the other, stroking the others hair as he flinched at the sound of something smashing. “Do you want me to make the shouting stop?”

Patrick nods, too busy looking at his lap and toy to notice the grin split the others lips, the sharpness to it and the abnormal and excited look in his eye. “Where I live there are other versions of your brothers, it’s quiet there and we get along beautifully but we don’t have a North. Will you be our other brother?”

There’s a pause before Patrick shakes his head, still not looking at him, hands fiddling with the dog’s legs instead and a fury begins to build in the Other Brother.

“No? You would stay with these creatures that don’t love you?”

No reply, not even a look and it only serve to increase the irritation and anger, words gathering like venom upon his lips before he spits them out in a slew so bitter and sharp that he cares not when the boy cowers.

“After all I’ve done for you, I cared for you, I played with you, I nursed you and sung you to sleep. I have wasted myself on some stupid little boy that nobody could ever love. Don’t cry for me no more, for you are no brother of mine.”

He’s gone then, Patrick still cowering from fear of his brothers below and the man that just left his hiding place and when the arguing stops and all is silent, he leaves his hiding place to find not only is the Other Brother gone but so is Sean.

---

The war gives him night terrors when he sleeps and a strange form of guilt when he’s awake, a feeling of isolation and loneliness helping to torment him in both states and his voice so quiet it’s barely a hushed whisper. He avoids people, as to be expected, his brothers, the few colonies that remained though most had left. Patrick even avoids the few pets that lingered in the home.

His Other Brother hadn’t come back like he’d said, the frequent almost daily visits over decades having turned into nothing but sheer silence for the past 5 years.

That is, until tonight.

Patrick’s sleep is restless, as always, hot flushes of anxiety enveloping him as his fingers curled into the sheets, whines and whimpers leaving his lips as his body seemingly fights against an invisible enemy, breathes coming in short pants that came in rapid succession.

“Aww, my precious seems to be having a nightmare.”

He perches on the edge of the bed, slender fingers stroking wine red hair, less neat and articulate than before, cooing and pausing as the other wakes, fingers behind the shell of his ear, blinking as the other stars at him, frightened at first before slowly relaxing though there was a level of panic still in his eyes.

“Hello, little bird. Were you having trouble sleeping?” The Other Brother gets no reply straight away, just being stared at like a deer in the headlights as short and panicked breaths started to regulate themselves. Its then he replies, nonverbally like last time, a slight nod and the tight grip on the sheet loosening.

“We’ll have to do something about that then, won’t we?”

A gentle kiss is pressed to his brow, fingers still playing with hair as he began to recite the nursery rhyme, voice soft but that strange hint of something else lingered in his eyes, though Patrick was too tired to either notice or care. “Twinkle, twinkle little star, how I wonder what you are, up above the world so high, like a diamond in the sky. When the blazing sun is gone, when nothing shines upon, then show you little light, twinkle, twinkle all the night.”

He’s asleep, already asleep and he can’t help but smirk. This was too easy, almost too easy, through wars and catastrophes make easy and bountiful opportunities for things to go missing. Homes, belongings, land, and even people and nations, though ti could be argues that this time it wouldn’t be a nation but a lesser one.

“You’ll be home soon, my little robin. You’ll be home with me soon.”

---

Patrick’s not a young boy anymore, teenaged and angry, bitter, rash, and hormonal in his actions and so when the comment of ‘you’re just like him’ is brought up in his argument with Arthur earlier that day it hits a nerve. He knows who ‘him’ is; everybody knew who the man in question was. It wasn’t hard to know considering he had just become independent.

He’d never wanted this, he’d never wanted to be a nation, wanting nothing more than to run from his responsibilities and keep running, even after his legs tired out and ceased to work. So when he appears, his Other Brother, all blue eyes and crooked smiles, he follows him. He’d not taken the offer before when it had been offered but before things had been different.

Things were more complicated and too much now.

The Other Brother leads him up the stairs, seeming uncaring as to if they would get caught, an uneasy feeling welling in the bottom of the new nation’ stomach as they end up on the top floor, Patrick hesitating a little way away whilst the Other Brother halted by the door, turning when he noticed the other had stopped.

“I don’t think this is a good idea.”

“Oh nonsense, you’re just a little nervous, that’s to be expected, come on.” He smiles offering his hand to the red head and grinning as he moves forward to take it, only to stop again, biting his lower lip from nerves and not realising the irritation building in the other again. “Don’t you want to be with a family who love you, a complete family?”

“Yes but I can’t just leave, no matter how much I want to!”

---

He should apologise, he knows. The comment was uncalled for, more so with the situation between Patrick and Sean at the moment. He’d always been strange, from a young age, quiet, withdrawn and unnoticed; it was hard to not feel guilty over it. He should have been a better brother, they all should have been.

Arthur pauses outside the others door, hand poised to knock before pausing at the voices above. Strange, a word that could be used to describe the situation but perhaps wouldn’t cover the full effect. One was Patrick but the other was…himself? It couldn’t be and yet it was, his voice but an octave lower and a seemingly more malicious hint to it.

Like his own in the good old days, if they could even be regarded as much.

Moving to the bottom step, he begins to climb, nervous to what he’d find but at the same time nervous to what was occurring with his younger brother. Arthur finding it hard to keep the concern out of his voice.

“Patrick?”

---

“Why do you always do this to me?! I have been patient, I have been kind and yet you still refuse me. Take my hand and come with me now, Patrick.”

He hates the name, it leaves a taste in his mouth he despises and knows he will change it as soon as the boy does as he is told. The other Northern Ireland disobeyed him and now he was no longer a problem and his replacement wouldn’t be one either.

A snarl is on his lips as he hears the other England call, slamming open the door to cause a distraction and bringing back the fake happy demeanour. “Come on, don’t be a bad boy, Precious, you know I don’t like it when you’re bad, you don’t want to upset me again, do you?”

“N-No, I…”

“Then take my hand and come with me.”

The little robin does as he’s told for one, a promising sign by all accounts, the other brother unable to hold back the chuckle that bubbled in his throat of the way his features seemed to take a more violent, dangerous turn, the teenager taking a step back in fear only to be dragged forward easily. “Ah, now where do you think you’re going, little robin?”

“Patrick…?”

“Arthur?!”

He sighs, disappointed as his new brother stops looking at him, eyes going to Arthur, filled with panic, hysteria and a desperate plea for help. Why must his fun always be ruined? How was any of this fair? It wasn’t, of course he wasn’t. All he wanted was a little brother to love, to nurture, to make and destroy, to cast in his own image, to obey him and only him for as long as he saw fit till he grew bored again.

“Say goodbye to your Other Brother now, Patrick, you’re going home with your brother now.”

It only takes a brief moment of hesitation from the Irish teenager for it all to be over, staring at Arthur and still on his feet before being tugged viciously, the last thing Arthur seeing before the door shut being the look of sheer terror on his brothers face as he mouthed the words ‘help me’ and the deranged look on his doppelganger’s face before the door shut with a click and a scream.