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blood_wingedTitle: Do you believe in magic?
Author: blood_winged
Recipient: didgeridoodle
Ratings/Warnings: G / None, I think..
Prompt: "England performs a magic show solely for America's entertainment, probably as a thinly veiled attempt to prove that his magic is truly authentic. America, being the science nut that he is, tries to figure out the trick behind the illusions - but there's really none."
Notes: This fic really ran away with me. I apologise if it's not what you want! ;-;
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“Show me a trick,” Alfred demanded, leaning across the kitchen table with his head propped up on his hands. Frowning, Arthur looked up at him, meeting his eager blue eyes for a split second before rolling his own and snorting quietly.
“I’m not a court jester,” he replied a little testily, turning over a page of his newspaper and making a disgruntled sound when it was immediately pulled out from under his nose. “Alfred, damnit-”
“Pleeeease. Because you love me?” The American nation smiled disarmingly, nudging his glasses a little way down his nose to peer at Arthur over the top of them, scooting his chair around as Arthur sat back and cracked his fingers. “Haha… gross,” he said, grinning, pulling a pack of cards from his pocket and sliding them over to the older man. With an expression of long-suffering patience, Arthur picked the box up with two fingers, flicking his gaze over to Alfred and allowing a silence to hang in the air before he spoke, no small amount of distaste in his voice.
“… This?”
When Alfred nodded eagerly, Arthur had to resist the near-overwhelming urge to grind his teeth. Out of all the things he could show Alfred, when the younger man was actually interested and paying attention, of all the things he could show him to perhaps even convince him of the existence of magic, and he wanted to see a card trick. He closed his eyes and drew in a calming breath through his nose, opening the pack and taking the cards out, shuffling them deftly while Alfred watched with faintly widened blue eyes.
“You could work in Vegas!” he exclaimed, and Arthur snorted, fanning the cards with one hand and offering them to the younger nation. With his eyes trained on Arthur’s fingers Alfred picked a card, and quickly hid it, peeking at it while Arthur shifted them back into a pile and set it down. The card was slid back in, the deck shuffled, and the English nation extracted a card, something deadpan about his voice as he held up the king of hearts.
“This was it.” He didn’t even wait for the other man to refute it, half scattering the deck over the table and lifting his newspaper back up, trying to ignore the eyes on him as Alfred stared at him in something that looked like half way between confusion and awe. It was almost insulting. Then, Alfred’s look turned sly and he gathered the cards back up, stuffing them inside the pack and wrinkling his nose a little.
“That’s easy.” He tucked the packet back into his pocket and flashed that sparkling hero smile that Arthur wanted to smack off his face every time he did it. “Card tricks are easy, Arthur. You just did something while I wasn’t looking, right? Right?”
“Whatever you say, Alfred…” Arthur replied wearily, beginning to regret offering his home as a place for the American nation to stay while he was in England. He grimaced as Alfred scraped his chair around the table to sit beside him, leaning over his shoulder to peer at his newspaper. He crumpled the paper and slammed it against the top of the table, almost knocking their heads together as he turned to glare at the younger nation. “Oh my God, what do you want?”
“Do something else.”
Honestly, he could have killed him, but Alfred kept his winning smile in place even in the face of Arthur’s stony gaze, and after a few moments, the older nation sighed. “Alright…” He cast his eyes around, humming quietly, fingers working on folding the newspaper in front of him into a shape that became slowly recognisable. Holding it up, he let go, and in a flurry of shredded paper a white dove burst forth and fluttered up to perch on one of the wooden rafters of the high kitchen ceiling. Alfred gawped, and Arthur folded his arms, a somewhat self-satisfied smirk on his face until the American nation looked at him with wide blue eyes and spoke.
“It’s animal cruelty to keep birds in your sleeves like that, Arthur!”
“What the hell do you want from me, Alfred?” Arthur snapped then, smacking his hands down on the table and making the other man jump. Alfred laughed, sounding a little nervous, eyes flicking between Arthur’s clenched fists and the almost-fury on his face, and he scuffed the back of his hair up with a shrug, turning on that smile again.
“I want you to show me some magic,” he said, pushing his glasses a little further up his nose. “You’re always saying you can do it.”
“I can do it. I just turned a newspaper into a bird. Or are you blind as well as stupid?”
“Don’t be so mean,” the American whined, pouting. The dove in the rafters cooed and moved around, and Arthur had to wonder just how Alfred had been able to dismiss it so easily. Clearly the boy had been watching too many ‘magician’s secrets’ shows. Arthur despised those shows. A bunch of overrated, ego-swelled hacks thinking they knew how magic really worked. He knew that he could show them a thing or two. Huffing, he rolled his eyes and rubbed one hand over his face, pinching the bridge of his nose, knowing better than to delve into anything too serious with the American nation around (couldn’t risk accidentally turning him into a teapot).
“Fine, here, what about this?” He cupped his hands together, faint blue flames igniting over his palms. Alfred remained, perhaps unsurprisingly, unimpressed, leaning forwards to peer at the fire and letting out a soft snort.
“Easy, Arthur. You just use methane for that. I could do it,” he scoffed, flapping one hand at the English nation and sitting back in his chair, folding his arms over his chest and simply grinning at the look on Arthur’s face, one he recognised very well – the look that said Arthur would very much like to lose his cool and punch the other in the face. Arthur tried a couple of other things – he turned his teacup into a snow globe of the New York skyline, and made sparks with his fingertips, and finally, made Alfred’s glasses disappear clean off his face. It was only when Alfred began to visibly panic at the loss of his state symbol that Arthur pulled them from his pocket and handed them back, leading Alfred to laugh and claim that he never made them disappear at all.
“Jeeeez, ‘s not a children’s party, you know.” Scooting his chair back, making that scraping sound that set Arthur’s teeth on edge, Alfred folded his arms across the table and rested his chin on them, peering up at the older man over the tops of his glasses. “Tell me what number I’m thinking of,” he demanded.
“I’m a sorcerer, not a mind reader,” Arthur snapped, getting up to find something to catch the dove with. He was beginning to think that a bird may not have been the best option. While he opened a cupboard in the hopes of finding some kind of net, or maybe a broom, he heard Alfred laugh, and felt the hairs on the back of his neck bristle.
“Sorcerer, yeah right,” the younger man snickered, leaning his chair back on two legs and rocking back and forth. “Magic ain’t real, you’re just kidding yourself. I’ve seen all those shows on TV that show you how it works, it’s all mirrors and tricks and science. I know it’s like, probably because you’re old or something, I mean you gotta go a bit funny in the head after being around so long. Not that I’m gonna. You’re a bit of a crazy guy, Arthur. ‘S alright though. I still like you.”
“Right.” Arthur straightened very suddenly, swinging ‘round with a broom in his hand and whacking Alfred lightly over the head, though surprising him enough to knock his chair over. He frowned, moving around the table and grabbing the complaining American by the collar, hauling him to his feet and across the room, pulling a key from his pocket to unlock the door to the basement. “Don’t believe in magic, do you? Well I’ll show you. I’ll bloody show you then you’ll see just how real it is.” His hands were shaking and Alfred was struggling in his grip, showing a sudden unease about venturing into the lower level of the house, but Arthur dragged him down the stone steps and all but threw him into the room at the bottom, a determined fury on his face that made the other nation half cower away from him.
“Heheh… Arthur… What’s going on? ‘S kinda creepy down here…” He looked around the dimly lit room, jumping as a bird twittered in a cage in the corner and the fire popped in the grate. “Eeh- what the hell is that?!”
A red glow cast into the room as Arthur ripped a canvas sheet from a metal frame standing in one corner, the light casting his features into a sharp relief and turning his emerald eyes ruby. He folded his arms, as if this was a simple proof, but once Alfred got over his surprise he crept closer and narrowed his eyes, leaning a little way towards the light.
“Neat trick…” he breathed, clearly impressed though for all the wrong reasons, and Arthur bristled again. “How d’you do that? Lasers? You got some kind of projector? That’s kinda cool, Arthur.”
“Oh, fucking hell.”
Normally he wouldn’t have done it. He wouldn’t have gone this far and exposed Alfred to so much, so fast. He couldn’t help it. He marched forwards, and set his hands to the middle of Alfred’s back, shoving him forwards and hearing the surprised shriek as he disappeared. Arthur paused, eyes a little wide, then shook his head and followed quickly, stepping out to chilled, slightly damp air and stone walls, and a sudden strong grip on his arm.
“Arthur!” The American nation shook him and he sputtered, prying Alfred’s fingers off him and glaring at him. “Is this a movie set or something? Did you chloroform me? That’s not cool Arthur, I felt you push me over, I must have hit my head and then I was here. Where are we?”
Arthur nearly said it. His lips parted and the first syllable almost formed in his throat, then he snapped his mouth shut and took the American by the front of his shirt, pulling him along, taking him past thick iron-barred prison cells and past a guard, up a flight of stairs and finally out into a wide, high, lushly decorated hallway. Making an appreciative ‘ooh’ sound, Alfred looked around with his mouth hanging open, blue eyes trained on two women as they walked past. He blinked, seeming puzzled, and for a moment Arthur thought he had him. Just for a moment, he believed that Alfred knew something wasn’t right here, or in the very least he would admit it, then the American grinned and wrinkled his nose, peering out of a window and pressing his face to the glass, Texas clinking against it, his eyes narrowed as he tried to spy up and down the walls outside.
“Pretty cool. It looks really real! This must have cost a lot.”
“Nrgh,” was all that Arthur managed to say, teeth gritted and jaw faintly set as he walked away with Alfred quickly following behind, making the odd passing comment at how detailed the costumes were and wondering where all the filming crews were. It was driving Arthur insane. He should have thought this through, or better yet, not allowed Alfred to agitate him so much (better yet, he should have just made him stay in a hotel). Camelot. Alfred was walking through Camelot and talking about it as if it was one of his shoddy movie sets. More insult to injury, Arthur thought, and though being in this place normally calmed his nerves it was doing nothing for him now, Alfred’s presence only winding him up further. Every now and then he would quiet, and Arthur would look at him hopefully, only to find that inane grin and another quip about how he could have done something more with the lighting in one of the rooms or it was going to look terrible on film. It was only when they left the building that he was forced to admit that it was a real castle, though he then returned to quizzing Arthur on how the man had got him up here, quickly moving on to how awesome his SUV would look driving around on the surrounding hills.
By the time he’d led the chattering American down to a wide, almost glittering lake, his shoulders were so tense they felt as if they’d been tied in knots. Alfred skimmed a stone over the surface while Arthur crouched and touched the tips of his fingers to the water, standing up and stepping back.
“Whatcha doing?” Alfred asked, leaning down to find another stone. “Why are we out here anyway?”
“Explain this with your science,” the English nation replied, perhaps a little smugly as a waterspout began to form on the surface of the water, eyes flicking between the lake and the almost-impressed look on Alfred’s face as the strange water formation moved towards them, and a woman stepped out of it, her body shimmering and seeming to be moving with the water beneath it. Arthur smiled and bowed at the waist, and she nodded her head, pale blue eyes flicking over to look at Alfred.
“How did you know that would be there?” He heard the younger man speak up beside him and glanced across at him with a small frown, seeing the speculative look on his face and feeling something in his chest sink, not for the first time, as Alfred went into a detailed explanation of how waterspouts formed, all the while wearing an expression of careful observation and talking as if explaining the number tables to a small child. Arthur clenched his fists, and shot an apologetic look over the water, just in time to see the spout collapse with a splash, sending a wave that washed over the tops of both their shoes.
“What did you do that for?” Arthur took a few steps back, feeling the water seeping into his shoes and through his socks.
“Do what? It just collapsed, it’s not like it’s gonna last forever. Awesome special effects with that woman walking out of it. You got one of my teams hiding out around here or something?” Whistling, Alfred turned on his heel and began to make his way back towards the castle in the distance, notably the only building visible as far as the eye could see. Arthur put his hands to his face and groaned, looking out over the water again.
“Sorry, Nimue,” he hissed under his breath, turning away and yelping as the stone that Alfred had earlier skimmed was expelled from the water, hitting the back of his head.
“Now where are we going?” The question was gratingly cheerful as Arthur, already feeling an unpleasant squelching in his shoes, caught up to Alfred. He was completely baffled, looking at the younger man’s face in a mixture of annoyance and perplexity, not understanding in the least how he could just so easily dismiss everything he’d seen. The card tricks and slight of hand had been one thing, but he’d been so sure that the instant he’d pushed him through that portal he would have had to admit that there was something odd going on. Perhaps he’d hit his head and lost enough brain cells to render him permanently stupid. Arthur felt a faint twist of guilt at that thought then wondered why, frowning and not realising that Alfred had been watching him while he was dealing with his internal monologue. “You look like you’re turning simple or something, Arthur,” he said seriously. “Did you hit your head or something?”
“What? No, sod off.” He rubbed the back of his head regardless, as if checking.
“Don’t need to be rude, I was only asking,” Alfred said sulkily, prodding the side of the English nation’s head and grinning as he was batted away. “Dunno why you’re so tetchy.”
Something occurred to Arthur then. Something he hadn’t thought of before because he’d believed that Alfred was so saturated with movies and media that he could have his opinion swayed to anything given the right direction, but his earnest dismissal of everything that Arthur was showing him, from the most basic to the sodding Lady of the Lake, was trying to tell him something. Perhaps Alfred wasn’t as ignorant as he’d imagined. He wasn’t dismissing magic, he was trying to reason it out, to understand it, and suddenly a pang of something like pity shot through the older nation. Though, he couldn’t be entirely sure. There was one thing left, one thing he could show him that would allow him to know for certain if his theory was correct.
He took Alfred to see a dragon.
The darkness of the cave was giving him the creeps, Arthur could tell by the way he made the occasional grab at his hand and let the faintest of whimpers slip out now and then. A faint rumbling reverberated through the cavern, and suddenly Alfred was clinging to Arthur’s arm, whispering a panicked ‘what was that?’ in his ear.
“Drake?” Arthur called out, feeling the younger nation jump, rolling his eyes and listening hard as the rumbling turned into a shifting, thundering sound accompanied by the faint jingle of what sounded like coins rolling over each other, and what had first appeared to be a dark shadow in the back of the cave moved to let a dim, goldish-red light through. Alfred muffled a shriek, mumbling ‘scary, scary, scary..’ against Arthur’s shoulder, until the older man smacked the top of his head and told him to stop being such a baby.
The dragon was magnificent, the stone creaking under its weight as it stepped forward to meet Arthur. As it drew closer, Alfred seemed to become braver, and Arthur’s hope put it down to his finally coming to an understanding. He lifted a hand to touch it against the creature’s nose, resting his forehead against it while the dragon’s breathing echoed. A smile flickered across his face, and then Alfred let out a low whistle, folding his arms across his chest and moving forwards to crouch and rub his hand over one of the large black claws. “Nice work,” he stated. “Looks really real, huh. How do you make it rumble like that?” He picked at the claw, as if trying to remove the paint, and Arthur saw the dragon’s eyes turn pinpoint.
“Uh… Alfred…” he said slowly. “Stop doing that.”
“Oh, yeah.” Alfred stopped, but the low rumbling from Drake deepened and rose in volume despite Arthur’s quiet apologies for his idiot companion’s behaviour. “Don’t want me ruining the paint job, huh. Where’d you even get this thing. ‘S pretty impressive~”
“Alfred.”
“I want to meet the guy in charge of all this… or guys. No way is one person controlling all of this at on-”
“Alfred!”
“What?”
“Get out!”
The fire followed them as they fled across the cavern and out of the narrow entrance, and Arthur wasn’t sure if it was Alfred’s hero complex or an instinct that made him press the smaller man up against the stone and shield him from the worst of the heat as the flames bloomed out of the cave.
“You just had to piss off the dragon, didn’t you?!” Arthur yelled as soon as the heat had died down and he’d wrenched himself away from where he was pinned.
“Chill, Arthur! It’s not like it’s real!” the other nation snapped, his own voice a little high with just a hint of panic. He looked back to the cave and reached back to feel the faintly frazzled ends of his hair, and swallowed once. “… Is it?”
“This is not fucking Disney, Alfred. You wanted me to show you magic, I showed you. You didn’t believe it, and almost got us both killed. Come on. I’m taking you home.”
“A-Arthur…”
“Home.”
The English nation kept quiet as he led Alfred back to the castle, casting occasional looks towards the man as they walked. Alfred had protected him, he realised. He’d protected him from the dragon’s fire and when the castle gate came into sight and Alfred hurried forwards he saw the singed hairs and the way the back of his coat was slightly blackened. One thick eyebrow rose and he rubbed the back of his neck, sighing a little. Chasing the man up to the castle he was somewhat hesitant to inform him that they couldn’t go back yet – the portal needing twenty-four hours to recharge – and it was a faint surprise when Alfred simply nodded, trailing him to the kitchen where he had a hot meal before going straight to bed. It was like taking care of him as a colony again, his words softly spoken and his blue eyes wide and flicking over everything, as if taking it all in.
Arthur didn’t think he liked it.
He tossed and turned for hours after Alfred had settled, his eyes continually flicking to the door that connected his room to where the American slept (one traditionally reserved for the Queen – that was a laugh, he’d been married years ago but she’d long since abandoned him). When he finally fell asleep in the early hours of the morning, it only seemed like blinking before he heard a voice shout his name in what sounded like fear, and he opened his eyes to find sky-blue ones staring back at him.
“Arthur,” Alfred said breathlessly, one arm over him and all but pinning him to the bed. He didn’t have his glasses on and his hair was sleep-ruffled, and Arthur could do nothing but stare at him as he was peered at. “Arthur, what’s going on? I thought I was dreaming I mean I hoped I was but I woke up and I’m still here and the back of my neck hurts and my hair is burned Arthur I-I-I…”
“Alfred.”
“Yeah?”
“Shut up.”
Sitting up, Arthur pushed Alfred away from him and rubbed his head, digging the heel of his hand against his eye and stretching slightly. He let out a short breath through his nose and finally looked at Alfred, taking him by the hand and slipping out of bed, drawing him over to a pair of large glass doors and out onto the balcony. The countryside surrounded them, a lightly smoking cave entrance in the distance, the sun casting a warm glow over everything. Arthur leaned on the balustrade and shut his eyes for a moment.
“… There was a woman in that lake,” Alfred said.
“Yes, Alfred.”
“That dragon…”
“Was a real dragon.”
“And this… this is…”
“This is Camelot.”
“Camelot….” Alfred spoke the word on an exhale, looking over the balcony to the battlements below and blinking a few times. He swallowed, and looked at Arthur, then back down, biting his lip for a moment. “And you… you really can…”
“Do magic.” The older man looked at him, a small frown on his face. “Yes, I can.”
Alfred stared at him for what felt like hours, then tore his eyes from him, pacing a few steps away then back, tapping the tips of his fingers together. He did this a few times, before his head popped up, an odd light in his eyes as he made his way over to Arthur and leaned beside him. “Well, that’s fine,” he said offhandedly. “I can do magic too, you know.”
Looking at him sceptically, Arthur tapped his fingers against the stone and shook his head a little, a faintly disbelieving smile on his face. After all that – all that – Alfred was just going to claim he could do it too? He really had some nerve. “Show me,” Arthur demanded, turning to him and folding his arms over his chest.
“Mkay, but you have to close your eyes first.”
Sighing, Arthur did as he was asked, wondering just what stupid trick Alfred might have up his sleeve this time. He felt the other’s hand on his cheek, and his eyes flew open to find Alfred too close and he tried to jerk back, but found himself pinned to the spot, widened eyes fixed on the other’s face. A fluttering started up in his stomach, and he felt a blush creeping over his cheek. “I thought you were going to show me magic,” he whispered.
“I am,” Alfred replied with a cheeky smile. “I’m making butterflies.”
Author: blood_winged
Recipient: didgeridoodle
Ratings/Warnings: G / None, I think..
Prompt: "England performs a magic show solely for America's entertainment, probably as a thinly veiled attempt to prove that his magic is truly authentic. America, being the science nut that he is, tries to figure out the trick behind the illusions - but there's really none."
Notes: This fic really ran away with me. I apologise if it's not what you want! ;-;
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“Show me a trick,” Alfred demanded, leaning across the kitchen table with his head propped up on his hands. Frowning, Arthur looked up at him, meeting his eager blue eyes for a split second before rolling his own and snorting quietly.
“I’m not a court jester,” he replied a little testily, turning over a page of his newspaper and making a disgruntled sound when it was immediately pulled out from under his nose. “Alfred, damnit-”
“Pleeeease. Because you love me?” The American nation smiled disarmingly, nudging his glasses a little way down his nose to peer at Arthur over the top of them, scooting his chair around as Arthur sat back and cracked his fingers. “Haha… gross,” he said, grinning, pulling a pack of cards from his pocket and sliding them over to the older man. With an expression of long-suffering patience, Arthur picked the box up with two fingers, flicking his gaze over to Alfred and allowing a silence to hang in the air before he spoke, no small amount of distaste in his voice.
“… This?”
When Alfred nodded eagerly, Arthur had to resist the near-overwhelming urge to grind his teeth. Out of all the things he could show Alfred, when the younger man was actually interested and paying attention, of all the things he could show him to perhaps even convince him of the existence of magic, and he wanted to see a card trick. He closed his eyes and drew in a calming breath through his nose, opening the pack and taking the cards out, shuffling them deftly while Alfred watched with faintly widened blue eyes.
“You could work in Vegas!” he exclaimed, and Arthur snorted, fanning the cards with one hand and offering them to the younger nation. With his eyes trained on Arthur’s fingers Alfred picked a card, and quickly hid it, peeking at it while Arthur shifted them back into a pile and set it down. The card was slid back in, the deck shuffled, and the English nation extracted a card, something deadpan about his voice as he held up the king of hearts.
“This was it.” He didn’t even wait for the other man to refute it, half scattering the deck over the table and lifting his newspaper back up, trying to ignore the eyes on him as Alfred stared at him in something that looked like half way between confusion and awe. It was almost insulting. Then, Alfred’s look turned sly and he gathered the cards back up, stuffing them inside the pack and wrinkling his nose a little.
“That’s easy.” He tucked the packet back into his pocket and flashed that sparkling hero smile that Arthur wanted to smack off his face every time he did it. “Card tricks are easy, Arthur. You just did something while I wasn’t looking, right? Right?”
“Whatever you say, Alfred…” Arthur replied wearily, beginning to regret offering his home as a place for the American nation to stay while he was in England. He grimaced as Alfred scraped his chair around the table to sit beside him, leaning over his shoulder to peer at his newspaper. He crumpled the paper and slammed it against the top of the table, almost knocking their heads together as he turned to glare at the younger nation. “Oh my God, what do you want?”
“Do something else.”
Honestly, he could have killed him, but Alfred kept his winning smile in place even in the face of Arthur’s stony gaze, and after a few moments, the older nation sighed. “Alright…” He cast his eyes around, humming quietly, fingers working on folding the newspaper in front of him into a shape that became slowly recognisable. Holding it up, he let go, and in a flurry of shredded paper a white dove burst forth and fluttered up to perch on one of the wooden rafters of the high kitchen ceiling. Alfred gawped, and Arthur folded his arms, a somewhat self-satisfied smirk on his face until the American nation looked at him with wide blue eyes and spoke.
“It’s animal cruelty to keep birds in your sleeves like that, Arthur!”
“What the hell do you want from me, Alfred?” Arthur snapped then, smacking his hands down on the table and making the other man jump. Alfred laughed, sounding a little nervous, eyes flicking between Arthur’s clenched fists and the almost-fury on his face, and he scuffed the back of his hair up with a shrug, turning on that smile again.
“I want you to show me some magic,” he said, pushing his glasses a little further up his nose. “You’re always saying you can do it.”
“I can do it. I just turned a newspaper into a bird. Or are you blind as well as stupid?”
“Don’t be so mean,” the American whined, pouting. The dove in the rafters cooed and moved around, and Arthur had to wonder just how Alfred had been able to dismiss it so easily. Clearly the boy had been watching too many ‘magician’s secrets’ shows. Arthur despised those shows. A bunch of overrated, ego-swelled hacks thinking they knew how magic really worked. He knew that he could show them a thing or two. Huffing, he rolled his eyes and rubbed one hand over his face, pinching the bridge of his nose, knowing better than to delve into anything too serious with the American nation around (couldn’t risk accidentally turning him into a teapot).
“Fine, here, what about this?” He cupped his hands together, faint blue flames igniting over his palms. Alfred remained, perhaps unsurprisingly, unimpressed, leaning forwards to peer at the fire and letting out a soft snort.
“Easy, Arthur. You just use methane for that. I could do it,” he scoffed, flapping one hand at the English nation and sitting back in his chair, folding his arms over his chest and simply grinning at the look on Arthur’s face, one he recognised very well – the look that said Arthur would very much like to lose his cool and punch the other in the face. Arthur tried a couple of other things – he turned his teacup into a snow globe of the New York skyline, and made sparks with his fingertips, and finally, made Alfred’s glasses disappear clean off his face. It was only when Alfred began to visibly panic at the loss of his state symbol that Arthur pulled them from his pocket and handed them back, leading Alfred to laugh and claim that he never made them disappear at all.
“Jeeeez, ‘s not a children’s party, you know.” Scooting his chair back, making that scraping sound that set Arthur’s teeth on edge, Alfred folded his arms across the table and rested his chin on them, peering up at the older man over the tops of his glasses. “Tell me what number I’m thinking of,” he demanded.
“I’m a sorcerer, not a mind reader,” Arthur snapped, getting up to find something to catch the dove with. He was beginning to think that a bird may not have been the best option. While he opened a cupboard in the hopes of finding some kind of net, or maybe a broom, he heard Alfred laugh, and felt the hairs on the back of his neck bristle.
“Sorcerer, yeah right,” the younger man snickered, leaning his chair back on two legs and rocking back and forth. “Magic ain’t real, you’re just kidding yourself. I’ve seen all those shows on TV that show you how it works, it’s all mirrors and tricks and science. I know it’s like, probably because you’re old or something, I mean you gotta go a bit funny in the head after being around so long. Not that I’m gonna. You’re a bit of a crazy guy, Arthur. ‘S alright though. I still like you.”
“Right.” Arthur straightened very suddenly, swinging ‘round with a broom in his hand and whacking Alfred lightly over the head, though surprising him enough to knock his chair over. He frowned, moving around the table and grabbing the complaining American by the collar, hauling him to his feet and across the room, pulling a key from his pocket to unlock the door to the basement. “Don’t believe in magic, do you? Well I’ll show you. I’ll bloody show you then you’ll see just how real it is.” His hands were shaking and Alfred was struggling in his grip, showing a sudden unease about venturing into the lower level of the house, but Arthur dragged him down the stone steps and all but threw him into the room at the bottom, a determined fury on his face that made the other nation half cower away from him.
“Heheh… Arthur… What’s going on? ‘S kinda creepy down here…” He looked around the dimly lit room, jumping as a bird twittered in a cage in the corner and the fire popped in the grate. “Eeh- what the hell is that?!”
A red glow cast into the room as Arthur ripped a canvas sheet from a metal frame standing in one corner, the light casting his features into a sharp relief and turning his emerald eyes ruby. He folded his arms, as if this was a simple proof, but once Alfred got over his surprise he crept closer and narrowed his eyes, leaning a little way towards the light.
“Neat trick…” he breathed, clearly impressed though for all the wrong reasons, and Arthur bristled again. “How d’you do that? Lasers? You got some kind of projector? That’s kinda cool, Arthur.”
“Oh, fucking hell.”
Normally he wouldn’t have done it. He wouldn’t have gone this far and exposed Alfred to so much, so fast. He couldn’t help it. He marched forwards, and set his hands to the middle of Alfred’s back, shoving him forwards and hearing the surprised shriek as he disappeared. Arthur paused, eyes a little wide, then shook his head and followed quickly, stepping out to chilled, slightly damp air and stone walls, and a sudden strong grip on his arm.
“Arthur!” The American nation shook him and he sputtered, prying Alfred’s fingers off him and glaring at him. “Is this a movie set or something? Did you chloroform me? That’s not cool Arthur, I felt you push me over, I must have hit my head and then I was here. Where are we?”
Arthur nearly said it. His lips parted and the first syllable almost formed in his throat, then he snapped his mouth shut and took the American by the front of his shirt, pulling him along, taking him past thick iron-barred prison cells and past a guard, up a flight of stairs and finally out into a wide, high, lushly decorated hallway. Making an appreciative ‘ooh’ sound, Alfred looked around with his mouth hanging open, blue eyes trained on two women as they walked past. He blinked, seeming puzzled, and for a moment Arthur thought he had him. Just for a moment, he believed that Alfred knew something wasn’t right here, or in the very least he would admit it, then the American grinned and wrinkled his nose, peering out of a window and pressing his face to the glass, Texas clinking against it, his eyes narrowed as he tried to spy up and down the walls outside.
“Pretty cool. It looks really real! This must have cost a lot.”
“Nrgh,” was all that Arthur managed to say, teeth gritted and jaw faintly set as he walked away with Alfred quickly following behind, making the odd passing comment at how detailed the costumes were and wondering where all the filming crews were. It was driving Arthur insane. He should have thought this through, or better yet, not allowed Alfred to agitate him so much (better yet, he should have just made him stay in a hotel). Camelot. Alfred was walking through Camelot and talking about it as if it was one of his shoddy movie sets. More insult to injury, Arthur thought, and though being in this place normally calmed his nerves it was doing nothing for him now, Alfred’s presence only winding him up further. Every now and then he would quiet, and Arthur would look at him hopefully, only to find that inane grin and another quip about how he could have done something more with the lighting in one of the rooms or it was going to look terrible on film. It was only when they left the building that he was forced to admit that it was a real castle, though he then returned to quizzing Arthur on how the man had got him up here, quickly moving on to how awesome his SUV would look driving around on the surrounding hills.
By the time he’d led the chattering American down to a wide, almost glittering lake, his shoulders were so tense they felt as if they’d been tied in knots. Alfred skimmed a stone over the surface while Arthur crouched and touched the tips of his fingers to the water, standing up and stepping back.
“Whatcha doing?” Alfred asked, leaning down to find another stone. “Why are we out here anyway?”
“Explain this with your science,” the English nation replied, perhaps a little smugly as a waterspout began to form on the surface of the water, eyes flicking between the lake and the almost-impressed look on Alfred’s face as the strange water formation moved towards them, and a woman stepped out of it, her body shimmering and seeming to be moving with the water beneath it. Arthur smiled and bowed at the waist, and she nodded her head, pale blue eyes flicking over to look at Alfred.
“How did you know that would be there?” He heard the younger man speak up beside him and glanced across at him with a small frown, seeing the speculative look on his face and feeling something in his chest sink, not for the first time, as Alfred went into a detailed explanation of how waterspouts formed, all the while wearing an expression of careful observation and talking as if explaining the number tables to a small child. Arthur clenched his fists, and shot an apologetic look over the water, just in time to see the spout collapse with a splash, sending a wave that washed over the tops of both their shoes.
“What did you do that for?” Arthur took a few steps back, feeling the water seeping into his shoes and through his socks.
“Do what? It just collapsed, it’s not like it’s gonna last forever. Awesome special effects with that woman walking out of it. You got one of my teams hiding out around here or something?” Whistling, Alfred turned on his heel and began to make his way back towards the castle in the distance, notably the only building visible as far as the eye could see. Arthur put his hands to his face and groaned, looking out over the water again.
“Sorry, Nimue,” he hissed under his breath, turning away and yelping as the stone that Alfred had earlier skimmed was expelled from the water, hitting the back of his head.
“Now where are we going?” The question was gratingly cheerful as Arthur, already feeling an unpleasant squelching in his shoes, caught up to Alfred. He was completely baffled, looking at the younger man’s face in a mixture of annoyance and perplexity, not understanding in the least how he could just so easily dismiss everything he’d seen. The card tricks and slight of hand had been one thing, but he’d been so sure that the instant he’d pushed him through that portal he would have had to admit that there was something odd going on. Perhaps he’d hit his head and lost enough brain cells to render him permanently stupid. Arthur felt a faint twist of guilt at that thought then wondered why, frowning and not realising that Alfred had been watching him while he was dealing with his internal monologue. “You look like you’re turning simple or something, Arthur,” he said seriously. “Did you hit your head or something?”
“What? No, sod off.” He rubbed the back of his head regardless, as if checking.
“Don’t need to be rude, I was only asking,” Alfred said sulkily, prodding the side of the English nation’s head and grinning as he was batted away. “Dunno why you’re so tetchy.”
Something occurred to Arthur then. Something he hadn’t thought of before because he’d believed that Alfred was so saturated with movies and media that he could have his opinion swayed to anything given the right direction, but his earnest dismissal of everything that Arthur was showing him, from the most basic to the sodding Lady of the Lake, was trying to tell him something. Perhaps Alfred wasn’t as ignorant as he’d imagined. He wasn’t dismissing magic, he was trying to reason it out, to understand it, and suddenly a pang of something like pity shot through the older nation. Though, he couldn’t be entirely sure. There was one thing left, one thing he could show him that would allow him to know for certain if his theory was correct.
He took Alfred to see a dragon.
The darkness of the cave was giving him the creeps, Arthur could tell by the way he made the occasional grab at his hand and let the faintest of whimpers slip out now and then. A faint rumbling reverberated through the cavern, and suddenly Alfred was clinging to Arthur’s arm, whispering a panicked ‘what was that?’ in his ear.
“Drake?” Arthur called out, feeling the younger nation jump, rolling his eyes and listening hard as the rumbling turned into a shifting, thundering sound accompanied by the faint jingle of what sounded like coins rolling over each other, and what had first appeared to be a dark shadow in the back of the cave moved to let a dim, goldish-red light through. Alfred muffled a shriek, mumbling ‘scary, scary, scary..’ against Arthur’s shoulder, until the older man smacked the top of his head and told him to stop being such a baby.
The dragon was magnificent, the stone creaking under its weight as it stepped forward to meet Arthur. As it drew closer, Alfred seemed to become braver, and Arthur’s hope put it down to his finally coming to an understanding. He lifted a hand to touch it against the creature’s nose, resting his forehead against it while the dragon’s breathing echoed. A smile flickered across his face, and then Alfred let out a low whistle, folding his arms across his chest and moving forwards to crouch and rub his hand over one of the large black claws. “Nice work,” he stated. “Looks really real, huh. How do you make it rumble like that?” He picked at the claw, as if trying to remove the paint, and Arthur saw the dragon’s eyes turn pinpoint.
“Uh… Alfred…” he said slowly. “Stop doing that.”
“Oh, yeah.” Alfred stopped, but the low rumbling from Drake deepened and rose in volume despite Arthur’s quiet apologies for his idiot companion’s behaviour. “Don’t want me ruining the paint job, huh. Where’d you even get this thing. ‘S pretty impressive~”
“Alfred.”
“I want to meet the guy in charge of all this… or guys. No way is one person controlling all of this at on-”
“Alfred!”
“What?”
“Get out!”
The fire followed them as they fled across the cavern and out of the narrow entrance, and Arthur wasn’t sure if it was Alfred’s hero complex or an instinct that made him press the smaller man up against the stone and shield him from the worst of the heat as the flames bloomed out of the cave.
“You just had to piss off the dragon, didn’t you?!” Arthur yelled as soon as the heat had died down and he’d wrenched himself away from where he was pinned.
“Chill, Arthur! It’s not like it’s real!” the other nation snapped, his own voice a little high with just a hint of panic. He looked back to the cave and reached back to feel the faintly frazzled ends of his hair, and swallowed once. “… Is it?”
“This is not fucking Disney, Alfred. You wanted me to show you magic, I showed you. You didn’t believe it, and almost got us both killed. Come on. I’m taking you home.”
“A-Arthur…”
“Home.”
The English nation kept quiet as he led Alfred back to the castle, casting occasional looks towards the man as they walked. Alfred had protected him, he realised. He’d protected him from the dragon’s fire and when the castle gate came into sight and Alfred hurried forwards he saw the singed hairs and the way the back of his coat was slightly blackened. One thick eyebrow rose and he rubbed the back of his neck, sighing a little. Chasing the man up to the castle he was somewhat hesitant to inform him that they couldn’t go back yet – the portal needing twenty-four hours to recharge – and it was a faint surprise when Alfred simply nodded, trailing him to the kitchen where he had a hot meal before going straight to bed. It was like taking care of him as a colony again, his words softly spoken and his blue eyes wide and flicking over everything, as if taking it all in.
Arthur didn’t think he liked it.
He tossed and turned for hours after Alfred had settled, his eyes continually flicking to the door that connected his room to where the American slept (one traditionally reserved for the Queen – that was a laugh, he’d been married years ago but she’d long since abandoned him). When he finally fell asleep in the early hours of the morning, it only seemed like blinking before he heard a voice shout his name in what sounded like fear, and he opened his eyes to find sky-blue ones staring back at him.
“Arthur,” Alfred said breathlessly, one arm over him and all but pinning him to the bed. He didn’t have his glasses on and his hair was sleep-ruffled, and Arthur could do nothing but stare at him as he was peered at. “Arthur, what’s going on? I thought I was dreaming I mean I hoped I was but I woke up and I’m still here and the back of my neck hurts and my hair is burned Arthur I-I-I…”
“Alfred.”
“Yeah?”
“Shut up.”
Sitting up, Arthur pushed Alfred away from him and rubbed his head, digging the heel of his hand against his eye and stretching slightly. He let out a short breath through his nose and finally looked at Alfred, taking him by the hand and slipping out of bed, drawing him over to a pair of large glass doors and out onto the balcony. The countryside surrounded them, a lightly smoking cave entrance in the distance, the sun casting a warm glow over everything. Arthur leaned on the balustrade and shut his eyes for a moment.
“… There was a woman in that lake,” Alfred said.
“Yes, Alfred.”
“That dragon…”
“Was a real dragon.”
“And this… this is…”
“This is Camelot.”
“Camelot….” Alfred spoke the word on an exhale, looking over the balcony to the battlements below and blinking a few times. He swallowed, and looked at Arthur, then back down, biting his lip for a moment. “And you… you really can…”
“Do magic.” The older man looked at him, a small frown on his face. “Yes, I can.”
Alfred stared at him for what felt like hours, then tore his eyes from him, pacing a few steps away then back, tapping the tips of his fingers together. He did this a few times, before his head popped up, an odd light in his eyes as he made his way over to Arthur and leaned beside him. “Well, that’s fine,” he said offhandedly. “I can do magic too, you know.”
Looking at him sceptically, Arthur tapped his fingers against the stone and shook his head a little, a faintly disbelieving smile on his face. After all that – all that – Alfred was just going to claim he could do it too? He really had some nerve. “Show me,” Arthur demanded, turning to him and folding his arms over his chest.
“Mkay, but you have to close your eyes first.”
Sighing, Arthur did as he was asked, wondering just what stupid trick Alfred might have up his sleeve this time. He felt the other’s hand on his cheek, and his eyes flew open to find Alfred too close and he tried to jerk back, but found himself pinned to the spot, widened eyes fixed on the other’s face. A fluttering started up in his stomach, and he felt a blush creeping over his cheek. “I thought you were going to show me magic,” he whispered.
“I am,” Alfred replied with a cheeky smile. “I’m making butterflies.”
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2010-12-25 06:28 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-12-25 06:29 am (UTC)<3
(no subject)
Date: 2010-12-25 08:31 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-12-25 08:40 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-12-25 12:23 pm (UTC)It's so typical of him trying to reason that magic is not real. :D And of course, England needs to show America something dangerous before he understand that it's real...
The ending is awesome too.(no subject)
Date: 2010-12-25 12:54 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-12-25 01:45 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-12-25 07:04 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-12-26 01:36 am (UTC)First of all, thank you - THANK YOU SO MUCH - for doing this for me. I kind of had of crummy holiday, but this was a saving grace. Thanks for that! <3
Alfred could be such a dense moron, sometimes, but that's why we love him, y/y?
I also liked that bit of fanservice with the dragon breathing fire and all.
And was that dragon's name a shoutout to Pokemon's Drake - that Elite Four guy who uses dragons? :)Silly Alfred, not all outlandish things can be attributed to a dream now, can it? :P
Truly, thanks so much for writing this! I thoroughly enjoyed it!
Also ... may we be friends?
(no subject)
Date: 2010-12-26 02:02 am (UTC)Yeswemaybefriends<3
(no subject)
Date: 2010-12-26 12:04 pm (UTC)Sweet! /counteradds
(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-03 09:47 am (UTC)Also, were you implying that our Arthur is also King Arthur? Or am I just being an idiot here?
Um... can I friend you? Pretty please?
(no subject)
Date: 2011-01-03 04:24 pm (UTC)And yes, that was what I was implying O3O Because it's fun >3<;
Finally got to read this =3
Date: 2011-01-07 11:28 am (UTC)So I take it he believe in magic now, or not? =3=
Re: Finally got to read this =3
Date: 2011-01-07 05:52 pm (UTC)Re: Finally got to read this =3
Date: 2011-01-07 05:57 pm (UTC)Then... -Looks at the ending- >A<;;; Freaking tease!! TTuTT
Re: Finally got to read this =3
Date: 2011-01-07 06:51 pm (UTC)Okay, okay, to put you out of your misery...
Yes, he does. xD
Re: Finally got to read this =3
Date: 2011-01-07 07:49 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-05-06 03:47 am (UTC)Now he believes in magic. (Although, too bad it had to took him almost being burned to believe it. XD)
*grins at the end*