[Fanfic] The Five Stages 2/5 [USxUK]
Aug. 7th, 2010 05:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
blood_wingedTitle: Stage Two: Anger
Genre: Angst/Romance
Pairing/s: USxUK
Characters: (this chapter) US, Canada, UK mention, Scotland
Rating/Warnings: PG. Rating possibly subject to change.
Summary: When their break-up leaves Arthur devastated and Alfred hurt and steering clear of him, the American nation finds out that love doesn't work like it does in the movies, and sometimes you have to come close to losing something before you realise what you have.
“He hasn’t called me in nearly two weeks!” Alfred fumed as he checked his phone for what must have been the tenth time within an hour. On the other side of the table, halfway through his lunch, Matthew glanced up and seemed to second-guess himself several times before he finally spoke.
“Were you expecting him to?”
“Hmph.” His brother pushed his phone back into his pocket and folded his arms. “He’s probably too drunk to dial anyway.”
“Probably…” Matthew echoed with a quiet sigh. While he was more than used to listening to Alfred complain about the trouble he managed to get himself into, he seemed to be being unusually stubborn even for him. It hadn’t taken the Canadian long to reduce to quiet sounds of acknowledgement and idle nods while his brother ranted on, quickly moving from grasping at excuses to annoyance over what Arthur had done.
“I can’t believe how selfish he is,” he went on. “He’s such a… a…”
“A what, eh..?”
“Something I can’t even find a word to describe!”
Matthew snorted, and shook his head, stunned as ever by the eloquence of his brother. The American nation sat and grumbled while Matthew finished his meal, and watched him walk to the sink to wash the plate. He huffed, and propped up his chin on a closed fist, frowning.
“You’re not even listening to me, are you?”
“Welcome to my world,” was the faintly embittered reply, the plate placed in the drainer as Matthew turned to lean against the counter and sent a flat, almost unfriendly look over to the other man. Alfred stared back, spluttered, and gaped several times before he spoke.
“You’re my brother, you’re supposed to be on my side!” he exclaimed. Irritated, Matthew folded his arms, a defensive gesture that Alfred recognised very well.
“We’ve had this argument before, haven’t we? Do you remember what happened then?”
“Don’t you bring the White House into this.”
“I didn’t start this, Alfred, but it’s on.”
Matthew could be very scathing when he wanted to be, and it was no different this time. Alfred had forgotten most of the things that he brought up now but each one stung like a fresh wound as he went on. The burning, the land disputes, the embarrassment that Alfred had suffered upon realising that he was building a defensive fortification inside Canadian territory. A rant about Britain’s decision to side with America over the issue of Alaska border disputes led to more personal insults, dealing with how Alfred had always been Arthur’s favourite, even though he was a dim-witted boorish idiot who never thought about anyone but himself, and was always making Arthur cry.
“I do not!” Alfred’s protest was immediate, and violent, as he stood up and almost threw a punch while Matthew watched him coldly.
“When you first met, you made him cry. When you decided you were tired of living under his thumb, you made him cry, and despite all of that, despite how much of an insensitive jerk you are, he fell in love with you, and what did you do, instead of accepting who he is?”
“I tried to help him!”
“You tried to fix him!”
“I-I…” Wounded and bewildered, Alfred found himself uncharacteristically lost for words. This was a side of Matthew that he didn't see often - the angry, aggressive side that knew just the kinds of things to say to hurt him. It seemed that this had been something he had wanted to say for a long time, and Alfred wasn't sure that his brother was even completely speaking about Arthur anymore.
“He isn’t like those places you’re always invading, Alfred, he isn’t going to change because you think he should! You just steamroller over people and you expect them to take it, but it doesn't work like that, Alfred, people aren't going to sit and let you walk in and take over.”
“I don’t-”
“You can’t just walk all over him, and expect him to bow to your wishes.” He jabbed his brother’s chest, sharply, with one finger, sending him stumbling back. There was something dark in his eyes – this was about more than Arthur. “Some hero you are.”
“Shut up!” Alfred closed the distance between them, blue on flinty violet behind glass as they glared each other down, and a low, snarling sound rose in Matthew’s throat.
“Are you going to hit me, big brother? Do it. Go on and hit me. Hit me!”
“No!”
He shoved Matthew back and the Canadian nation half fell into the chair behind him, his breathing slightly ragged. Alfred stared at him, trembling, fists clenched tightly at his sides. Slowly, Matthew collected himself, raking a hand through his hair and straightening his clothes, avoiding his brother’s gaze as he turned himself towards the table and rested his arms on it, fingertips tapping against the wood.
“I am his hero. He told me. He told me.”
“Then why don’t you prove it?”
He had always had a hard time admitting he was wrong, most of all to Arthur. It wasn’t because Arthur was his lover, but because Arthur’s disappointment hurt more than anything else. Unable to stand the chilly aura – one that possibly rivalled Russia’s – around his brother he turned on his heel and left the room, feeling Matthew’s eyes on his back until he shut the door. As he headed upstairs he felt the anger bubbling up again, this time with what his brother had just done added to it.
‘How dare he?’ he thought as he entered his bedroom and moved to the en-suite, shedding clothes along the way and setting his glasses to one side. He fumed, not even noticing the water scalding him as he stepped under the shower and turned his face up against the spray. ‘How dare he speak to me like that? I’m America! Who is he? He’s just…’ Lowering his head, he shut his eyes, and let out a short, aggravated sound. A dozen answers to that question came to mind. Canada, my brother, my friend, but one stood out above all the others and he muttered it under his breath as he washed his hair.
“Absolutely right…” Rubbing his face, he sighed. In a way, he was absolutely right. Alfred had expected Arthur to change for him, and when he hadn’t, he’d acted like it was some kind of personal insult. Despite all his flaws, ones that were difficult to admit to even in the privacy of his own mind, Arthur had… loved him? Put up with him? No, he had loved him – those looks and soft touches, the nights they’d spent together, they wouldn’t be borne from a simple tolerance. If he did love him, then why..? Was it Alfred’s fault? Was it something he’d done? He shook his head vigorously, not allowing himself to finish that train of thought, and instead turned to more logical ideas.
“He threw a glass at my head,” he said aloud, working the dirt out from under his nails. “He threw a glass at my head…”
*
He was upset. Angry, and Alfred wasn’t sure why, only that he had picked up a bottle of gin and had been slowly working his way through it, becoming more and more agitated as he went on. The only other person in the house, Alfred had been bearing the brunt of his rantings, watching him pacing back and forth and almost knocking several of his dozens of trinkets from shelves. Alfred wasn’t particularly worried, he knew Arthur would sleep it off and be fine, if horribly hung over, in the morning, but something about this was different and it had him on edge.
They’d argued, and it was the same as always. Arthur seemed to hop from one subject to another with what could barely be called coherence, but then he’d turned on Alfred, saying things that he’d heard hundreds of times from others but hated to hear from Arthur because it was him, and that hurt. He was calling him stupid, inconsiderate, egotistical, all things that he would apologise for in the morning because he never really meant them and sometimes Alfred wasn’t even sure he was referring to him, but he hadn’t been in the mood to deal with it anymore, and he’d fought back.
“Well, you know what they say!” he’d snapped, finally snatching the bottle from Arthur’s hand. “It all comes down to parenting!”
Arthur had blanched then, and stiffened, and then the blood had worked its way back to his face and the glass had come flying at Alfred, stunning him while Arthur shouted at him…
*
It hit him like a ton of bricks, and he stood half in and half out of the still running shower with a slowly growing puddle of water spreading across the floor as his mind ground to a sudden halt. He groaned, and pinched the bridge of his nose, then turned the water off and picked up a towel to rub at his hair as he eyed himself in the mirror, dabbing at the line of stitches. The anger had turned against himself now, mixed with guilt, coiling hot and uncomfortable in the pit of his gut as he dressed and headed back downstairs.
Matthew stood up as soon as he entered the room, and their apologies overlapped then stalled, trailing off into an awkward silence that Alfred broke.
“I’m… sorry,” he mumbled, and his brother shook his head.
“No, I’m sorry. You’re right, I… I’m just tired that’s all. Arthur shouldn’t have hurt you. It’s not right.”
“It… wasn’t his fault.” Matthew’s eyebrows shot up, but he didn’t speak, following Alfred to the front room and sitting down with him, the silence in the room weighing on them both. “Well, it was his fault… but I pushed him to it. I…”
“Alfred, you’re scaring me.”
“You know that saying…? The ones we love are the ones who hurt us the most…? It’s true, Matt. We just hurt each other.”
He felt the prickle of the stitches against his palm as he lowered his head to his hand, and the touch of his brother’s hand on his shoulder. It had been a long time since he’d felt this conflicted, and he didn’t enjoy being so unsure of himself.
“What am I supposed to do?” he wondered out loud. "Go back to him? Back to that? I... I love him, I do, but I can't deal with his temper when he drinks... and he won't stop. He stops for a week, a month, but then something happens and he starts again."
"What do you want to do, eh..?"
“I… I don’t know.” Leaving Matthew stunned by that admission, he got to his feet and muttered something about heading to bed, and left, his body feeling heavy as he climbed the stairs.
Still awake what felt like hours later when he heard Matthew quietly making his way to his own room, he considered following him and crawling into bed with him like he had when they were younger. Though, with no thunderstorm or scary movie as an excuse no doubt Matthew would just think him strange. He rolled onto his back, fidgeted, then turned onto his side, forcing his eyes to close and slowly drifting into an uneasy sleep.
*
Alfred was woken with the orange glow of the street lamps outside still filtering through the curtains, and the telephone on his bedside table ringing shrilly. It was his private number, one that only a few people had access to, and he couldn’t think of any who might call him at such a god-awful time as he groped for the receiver and held it to his ear.
“What?”
“Is thes America?” said a male voice, and Alfred grimaced at the heavy accent, resting the phone on the side of his head and closing his eyes again.
“Uh, yeah, this is. Who the hell are you?”
“Scootlund.”
“Scoo.. what? Who?”
“Scootlund! Mah brither is th' whiny twerp yoo've bin datin'.”
“… I’m sorry?”
“Bludy heel, ye pure ur as deem as they say, arenae ye? Scootlund! Englain's brither, Scootlund!”
Suddenly, it all fell into place, and Alfred sat up quickly, almost dropping the receiver and juggling it for a moment before pressing it to his ear and speaking uncertainly.
“… Scotland?”
“Bingo!”
“Scotland! Uh… hi… what do you want?”
“Ah need ye tae come ower haur as suin as ye can.”
“Need me to… Huh? What for? Wait a second, how did you get this number?”
“It was oan Englain's mobile.”
“W-what? Why do you have his phone?”
“Englain… He's in th' hospital, in a coma.”
-------------------------------
<| Chapter One | Chapter Three |>
Genre: Angst/Romance
Pairing/s: USxUK
Characters: (this chapter) US, Canada, UK mention, Scotland
Rating/Warnings: PG. Rating possibly subject to change.
Summary: When their break-up leaves Arthur devastated and Alfred hurt and steering clear of him, the American nation finds out that love doesn't work like it does in the movies, and sometimes you have to come close to losing something before you realise what you have.
*****
“He hasn’t called me in nearly two weeks!” Alfred fumed as he checked his phone for what must have been the tenth time within an hour. On the other side of the table, halfway through his lunch, Matthew glanced up and seemed to second-guess himself several times before he finally spoke.
“Were you expecting him to?”
“Hmph.” His brother pushed his phone back into his pocket and folded his arms. “He’s probably too drunk to dial anyway.”
“Probably…” Matthew echoed with a quiet sigh. While he was more than used to listening to Alfred complain about the trouble he managed to get himself into, he seemed to be being unusually stubborn even for him. It hadn’t taken the Canadian long to reduce to quiet sounds of acknowledgement and idle nods while his brother ranted on, quickly moving from grasping at excuses to annoyance over what Arthur had done.
“I can’t believe how selfish he is,” he went on. “He’s such a… a…”
“A what, eh..?”
“Something I can’t even find a word to describe!”
Matthew snorted, and shook his head, stunned as ever by the eloquence of his brother. The American nation sat and grumbled while Matthew finished his meal, and watched him walk to the sink to wash the plate. He huffed, and propped up his chin on a closed fist, frowning.
“You’re not even listening to me, are you?”
“Welcome to my world,” was the faintly embittered reply, the plate placed in the drainer as Matthew turned to lean against the counter and sent a flat, almost unfriendly look over to the other man. Alfred stared back, spluttered, and gaped several times before he spoke.
“You’re my brother, you’re supposed to be on my side!” he exclaimed. Irritated, Matthew folded his arms, a defensive gesture that Alfred recognised very well.
“We’ve had this argument before, haven’t we? Do you remember what happened then?”
“Don’t you bring the White House into this.”
“I didn’t start this, Alfred, but it’s on.”
Matthew could be very scathing when he wanted to be, and it was no different this time. Alfred had forgotten most of the things that he brought up now but each one stung like a fresh wound as he went on. The burning, the land disputes, the embarrassment that Alfred had suffered upon realising that he was building a defensive fortification inside Canadian territory. A rant about Britain’s decision to side with America over the issue of Alaska border disputes led to more personal insults, dealing with how Alfred had always been Arthur’s favourite, even though he was a dim-witted boorish idiot who never thought about anyone but himself, and was always making Arthur cry.
“I do not!” Alfred’s protest was immediate, and violent, as he stood up and almost threw a punch while Matthew watched him coldly.
“When you first met, you made him cry. When you decided you were tired of living under his thumb, you made him cry, and despite all of that, despite how much of an insensitive jerk you are, he fell in love with you, and what did you do, instead of accepting who he is?”
“I tried to help him!”
“You tried to fix him!”
“I-I…” Wounded and bewildered, Alfred found himself uncharacteristically lost for words. This was a side of Matthew that he didn't see often - the angry, aggressive side that knew just the kinds of things to say to hurt him. It seemed that this had been something he had wanted to say for a long time, and Alfred wasn't sure that his brother was even completely speaking about Arthur anymore.
“He isn’t like those places you’re always invading, Alfred, he isn’t going to change because you think he should! You just steamroller over people and you expect them to take it, but it doesn't work like that, Alfred, people aren't going to sit and let you walk in and take over.”
“I don’t-”
“You can’t just walk all over him, and expect him to bow to your wishes.” He jabbed his brother’s chest, sharply, with one finger, sending him stumbling back. There was something dark in his eyes – this was about more than Arthur. “Some hero you are.”
“Shut up!” Alfred closed the distance between them, blue on flinty violet behind glass as they glared each other down, and a low, snarling sound rose in Matthew’s throat.
“Are you going to hit me, big brother? Do it. Go on and hit me. Hit me!”
“No!”
He shoved Matthew back and the Canadian nation half fell into the chair behind him, his breathing slightly ragged. Alfred stared at him, trembling, fists clenched tightly at his sides. Slowly, Matthew collected himself, raking a hand through his hair and straightening his clothes, avoiding his brother’s gaze as he turned himself towards the table and rested his arms on it, fingertips tapping against the wood.
“I am his hero. He told me. He told me.”
“Then why don’t you prove it?”
He had always had a hard time admitting he was wrong, most of all to Arthur. It wasn’t because Arthur was his lover, but because Arthur’s disappointment hurt more than anything else. Unable to stand the chilly aura – one that possibly rivalled Russia’s – around his brother he turned on his heel and left the room, feeling Matthew’s eyes on his back until he shut the door. As he headed upstairs he felt the anger bubbling up again, this time with what his brother had just done added to it.
‘How dare he?’ he thought as he entered his bedroom and moved to the en-suite, shedding clothes along the way and setting his glasses to one side. He fumed, not even noticing the water scalding him as he stepped under the shower and turned his face up against the spray. ‘How dare he speak to me like that? I’m America! Who is he? He’s just…’ Lowering his head, he shut his eyes, and let out a short, aggravated sound. A dozen answers to that question came to mind. Canada, my brother, my friend, but one stood out above all the others and he muttered it under his breath as he washed his hair.
“Absolutely right…” Rubbing his face, he sighed. In a way, he was absolutely right. Alfred had expected Arthur to change for him, and when he hadn’t, he’d acted like it was some kind of personal insult. Despite all his flaws, ones that were difficult to admit to even in the privacy of his own mind, Arthur had… loved him? Put up with him? No, he had loved him – those looks and soft touches, the nights they’d spent together, they wouldn’t be borne from a simple tolerance. If he did love him, then why..? Was it Alfred’s fault? Was it something he’d done? He shook his head vigorously, not allowing himself to finish that train of thought, and instead turned to more logical ideas.
“He threw a glass at my head,” he said aloud, working the dirt out from under his nails. “He threw a glass at my head…”
*
He was upset. Angry, and Alfred wasn’t sure why, only that he had picked up a bottle of gin and had been slowly working his way through it, becoming more and more agitated as he went on. The only other person in the house, Alfred had been bearing the brunt of his rantings, watching him pacing back and forth and almost knocking several of his dozens of trinkets from shelves. Alfred wasn’t particularly worried, he knew Arthur would sleep it off and be fine, if horribly hung over, in the morning, but something about this was different and it had him on edge.
They’d argued, and it was the same as always. Arthur seemed to hop from one subject to another with what could barely be called coherence, but then he’d turned on Alfred, saying things that he’d heard hundreds of times from others but hated to hear from Arthur because it was him, and that hurt. He was calling him stupid, inconsiderate, egotistical, all things that he would apologise for in the morning because he never really meant them and sometimes Alfred wasn’t even sure he was referring to him, but he hadn’t been in the mood to deal with it anymore, and he’d fought back.
“Well, you know what they say!” he’d snapped, finally snatching the bottle from Arthur’s hand. “It all comes down to parenting!”
Arthur had blanched then, and stiffened, and then the blood had worked its way back to his face and the glass had come flying at Alfred, stunning him while Arthur shouted at him…
*
It hit him like a ton of bricks, and he stood half in and half out of the still running shower with a slowly growing puddle of water spreading across the floor as his mind ground to a sudden halt. He groaned, and pinched the bridge of his nose, then turned the water off and picked up a towel to rub at his hair as he eyed himself in the mirror, dabbing at the line of stitches. The anger had turned against himself now, mixed with guilt, coiling hot and uncomfortable in the pit of his gut as he dressed and headed back downstairs.
Matthew stood up as soon as he entered the room, and their apologies overlapped then stalled, trailing off into an awkward silence that Alfred broke.
“I’m… sorry,” he mumbled, and his brother shook his head.
“No, I’m sorry. You’re right, I… I’m just tired that’s all. Arthur shouldn’t have hurt you. It’s not right.”
“It… wasn’t his fault.” Matthew’s eyebrows shot up, but he didn’t speak, following Alfred to the front room and sitting down with him, the silence in the room weighing on them both. “Well, it was his fault… but I pushed him to it. I…”
“Alfred, you’re scaring me.”
“You know that saying…? The ones we love are the ones who hurt us the most…? It’s true, Matt. We just hurt each other.”
He felt the prickle of the stitches against his palm as he lowered his head to his hand, and the touch of his brother’s hand on his shoulder. It had been a long time since he’d felt this conflicted, and he didn’t enjoy being so unsure of himself.
“What am I supposed to do?” he wondered out loud. "Go back to him? Back to that? I... I love him, I do, but I can't deal with his temper when he drinks... and he won't stop. He stops for a week, a month, but then something happens and he starts again."
"What do you want to do, eh..?"
“I… I don’t know.” Leaving Matthew stunned by that admission, he got to his feet and muttered something about heading to bed, and left, his body feeling heavy as he climbed the stairs.
Still awake what felt like hours later when he heard Matthew quietly making his way to his own room, he considered following him and crawling into bed with him like he had when they were younger. Though, with no thunderstorm or scary movie as an excuse no doubt Matthew would just think him strange. He rolled onto his back, fidgeted, then turned onto his side, forcing his eyes to close and slowly drifting into an uneasy sleep.
*
Alfred was woken with the orange glow of the street lamps outside still filtering through the curtains, and the telephone on his bedside table ringing shrilly. It was his private number, one that only a few people had access to, and he couldn’t think of any who might call him at such a god-awful time as he groped for the receiver and held it to his ear.
“What?”
“Is thes America?” said a male voice, and Alfred grimaced at the heavy accent, resting the phone on the side of his head and closing his eyes again.
“Uh, yeah, this is. Who the hell are you?”
“Scootlund.”
“Scoo.. what? Who?”
“Scootlund! Mah brither is th' whiny twerp yoo've bin datin'.”
“… I’m sorry?”
“Bludy heel, ye pure ur as deem as they say, arenae ye? Scootlund! Englain's brither, Scootlund!”
Suddenly, it all fell into place, and Alfred sat up quickly, almost dropping the receiver and juggling it for a moment before pressing it to his ear and speaking uncertainly.
“… Scotland?”
“Bingo!”
“Scotland! Uh… hi… what do you want?”
“Ah need ye tae come ower haur as suin as ye can.”
“Need me to… Huh? What for? Wait a second, how did you get this number?”
“It was oan Englain's mobile.”
“W-what? Why do you have his phone?”
“Englain… He's in th' hospital, in a coma.”
-------------------------------
<| Chapter One | Chapter Three |>
