a scene from a fic iâm currently working on set in may 1861, exploring british-american relations during the american civil war. cw for injury mention and real-life historical events. âmarĂaâ is mexico.Â
ââââââ-
âStill a lying old bastard through and through, arenât you?â Alfred hisses. âWhat comes next? Recognition of statehood, of course. Donât think Iâm oblivious to how some of your people are absolutely giddy at the thought of my undoing. Good riddance to the vulgar mob rule that goes by the name of American democracy, etcetera etcetera.â
âUnhand me at once,â Arthur hisses. Â âConduct yourself with some of the dignity I raised you to have, will you?â
âGlad to know you havenât changed one bit, Lord Father. Good manners rank above morals, honour and any sense of integrity, as always, with you,â Alfredâs smile is dark and bitter, but he releases his grip, flings Arthurâs wrist aside. Thereâs something like sheer hatred now, in his face, but his voice is low, almost quiet. âAnd donât talk about dignity, when you made me this way; you, and all your peopleâs bullshit. I didnât have a choice when you claimed me at Jamestownââ
âI made you this way? Itâs been almost a hundred years since youâve thrown away my name, in case youâve forgotten,â Arthur cuts in. Thereâs something simmering and furious boiling upâthat Alfred always so easily drew out of him. Yorktown. A shot to the jaw, dead-on. Heâd coughed out blood and teeth and bone in front of his men. âDo I make you do anything anymore? Did you not loudly and proudly announce yourself as a naval power? That huge uproar you created in the Far East? Bragging to me how youâd finally matched my feats, dragging another Old World nation out of isolation to rejoin the international community on the threat of war and glories of foreign commerce?â
The fingers of Arthurâs left hand curl inadvertently around his teacup. Itâs burning hot. He continues. âAnd at Jamestown, I saved you. Gave you my name and my protection! When they would have cast you out! Left you to dieââ
âSaved? I was a prize! For your ambition!â This now, from Alfred, is a shout, thunderous and furious. âAntonio had MarĂa, and you wanted to match that! Because being an insignificant, fuckinâ shitheap island with nothing else to your glorified name was too much for your overblown ego. It never is for you diseased, miserable Old World bastards. And I disappointed you at first, didnât I? No gold, no riches, just famine andââ
âAmbition? Overblown ego? You certainly arenât short of it yourself, Alfred,â Arthur sneers. His heart thunders in his breast, and he feels at once hot and icy cold. Oh, heâs just like me. Not at all in appearanceâbut in the soul. So much like me. All that hungry ambition, and always compulsively cruel in our vulnerability. He levels Alfred with a cool stare. âAnd speaking of MarĂaââ He doesnât miss the way his eldest son flinches, that exact same way he did as a boyââyou chose to go to war with her, you aloneâand now the land you seized from her in your victory has torn you asunder, isnât that right?â
some indulgent 1600s nedpan: âlonely ex-warlord and lost castaway have a fling but end up catching feelingsâ is how i see their relationship starting. nations are usually wary about emotional attachment, but imo mutual curiosity and attraction ends up overcoming that. here, thereâs an entirely different language and culture to learn, butâŠwhen youâre otherwise surrounded by humans, thereâs always an instinct to gravitate to another of their kind. after all, who else really understands the beauty, hardship, pain and transcendence of being a nation?Â
inspired by the idea that while maria (mexico) and alfred have a long, complicated relationship thatâs often been difficult (especially after the mexican-american war)âthey were young once. in the 18th century, before independence, before alfred became powerfulâand their dynamic became more unequal, in a world where both their fathersâ shadows loomed tallâthey got to know each other. dissected enlightenment literature, politics and philosophyâand maybe there was a very youthful love, with someone who seemed a kindred spirit. and now, even after things have changed, there are moments when alfredâs at his most relaxed, not commanding attention as a superpower, but just staring up at the starsâand it feels like thereâs a glimpse of the boy she once knew.Â
For prompt 12 "your hands are so cold!" Okay, so this is kind of outside my usual timeline because it's the 18th century and Arthur's being nice to Matt, but I was feeling dangerously tender towards rat man and his ghostly tree baby so the following resulted. Quick note, I set this too early for ships to actually come up the Saint-Laurent but just pretend Arthur's such an amazing sailor it's possible. Also, scurvy was such a common phenomenon in early Canada it was literally just called "spring fever" and everyone just kind of dealt with it until spring kicked in properly and they could eat some greens. But Arthur to the fucken rescue, I guess. I've really got to stop writing while I've got a fever, honestly. Also, my ancestral citrus obsession is showing lmaooooo.
Quebec City, Late 18th Century
Father arrived as the last of the vegetables in the cellar went rancid, and the weather began to turn to the bizarre warmth only Quebec could bring days before another freeze. The world at this time of year was grey, like smoked glass. The river ice broke up into jagged chunks, and olive-green water carried the ice slowly northward. Ships had to fight their way downriver, but under Father's skilled hand, they managed even this early in the year. The only colours in the world were monochrome. The Laurentian mountains sometimes showed a little green when the fogs thinned enough, but the white of winter was gone. Only grey rain and greyer ice and blackened trees.
On another grey day, two nights after landing, Arthur finally disembarqued the ship he always preferred to Quebec and came to stay. There was always rain, and Matthew met Arthur at the docks with his waxed sailcloth cloak pulled over his head and as straight-backed as he could manage.
"Matthew," Father nodded. Matthew was grateful Arthur wore his navy blues in Quebec rather than the hated red coat and was pleased to see he looked well and healthy for someone who had made the winter voyage. He looked less annoyed than usual.
"Father." He nodded back, striving to control himself. After a long winter alone in the little row house in the shadow of the walls of Quebec City with only the single letter from Alasdair that had made it on the last ship of the year before he'd saved to read on Christmas, he was half mad with loneliness and the spring afflictions as stores dwindled to practically nothing. "You look hale!"
He looked grand and important. The miserable freezing rain didn't seem to touch him. Matthew felt pitiful in contrast, huddling under his cloak and the twenty pounds lighter he always was when the spring rationing thinned him down to a shivering shadow of who he was when the harvest was fresh. It was too early even for tapping the sugar maples.
"The governor has readied rooms for you at the ChĂąteau, sir. His men will be down to collect your things."
"I will be staying with you," Arthur said, stone faced.
"Me?" Matthew blinked. Father had never stayed in the narrow little rowhouse squashed between the pharmacy and the bakery. The government had always told him it was too shabby and cramped.
"Yes, lad."
"Are you sure? You'd be more comfortable at the ChĂąteau."
"Yes, quite sure," Arthur said, briskly ordering sailors about as he took off at a quick step up the quay, and Matt had to run to keep up.
"Sir!" He called out, three strides behind. "You really should stay in the high town; they'll be snubbed if you stayed down here with... with me."
"Yes, well, I can't help that. They'll just have to understand a father's need to stay with his child! Come along, lad."
Matthew didn't know what on earth to say to that, except he was suddenly warmer than he'd been in months. Too lightheaded to keep up a run, he had to slow down and heave until he had his breath back. Arthur looked back, paused at the next street, and gathered him under one arm when he caught up. Blocks from the rest of the hard-faced British, Arthur spared him a kind look for the first time, and Matthew buried his face in his side and even received an affectionate squeeze back. They walked the rest of the way to the house at a much more leisurely pace, keeping under the eaves as much as possible.
Matthew retrieved the iron key from his pocket and threw open the door. He hadn't bothered to light the fire that morning. He was always half-frozen, no matter what he did. It wasn't worth the waste of firewood. He rushed to light the hearth and threw open the heavy curtains. He'd cleaned recently, at least enough that he didn't shame himself in front of Father. Still, he sat his father at the table in front of the hearth, poured out the last of the cider he'd been saving for the next cold snap, laid out what bread was left, and dug out what little cheese and venison there was to be had.
"I'm sorry, it's not much," He said, anxiously lighting one of the precious beeswax candles with a taper from the fire. Was it always so dark in his home? He tugged at his clothes, and his father had the grace to give him another kind look.
"We'll purchase more tomorrow." He said. "And I've brought you some things."
Matt thought of the small cache of silver coins he kept in a false book in the small stack he owned, and the thought there'd be more candles and food without spending it made him a bit lightheaded. He didn't live a bad life, minding the expenses and profits of the Kirkland investments in fur and fish this far north, but a lean year was a lean year. They spent the evening chattering away, only eating very slowly. Between sips of cider, he asked of his uncles, the shipping, the navy, and all the other things he only ever received third-hand news of. It wasn't often he got letters, much less a visit, and he babbled away, asking every question that popped into his head. Arthur indulged him until the candles burned low, long after the sun had set. He shouldn't have been muddled on that little cider, even underfed as he and the province were that time of year, but he felt falling down drunk as he climbed the ladder to the freezing loft, automatically leaving the warmest place for guests.
"Matthew, lad, come down."
He awoke in the morning to the same splitting headache and joint pain he'd awoken to every day for nearly a week now before he remembered he wasn't alone in the cold, dark little house and sat up, realizing he'd woken to his name.
His father stood on the ladder to the loft bed, head poking over the floorboards and offering him a hand.
"Come along; I've started the fire and been to the market."
Matt flushed, incredibly embarrassed he'd slept long enough that he hadn't done his own chores.
"I would have done that! You've only just arrived!"
"It's no bother!" Arthur said. Matthew protested but took the offer and let himself be lifted down from the loft. He didn't weigh very much, especially this time of year.
"Your hands are so cold!" Arthur said as soon as his feet were on the floor. Matthew hadn't completely undressed and shivered even in the warmer-than-usual space. He tilted Matthew's face up to look at him more closely in the dim light the windows allowed. "Are you well?"
"As well as anyone is this time of year," Matthew shrugged. "It was a lean year, and a long winter is all."
He expected a scolding, a lecture about how he should have put more away to eat for the year and been more disciplined around the holidays. He was shocked, instead, to find himself being embraced and put to bed in his usual place near the fire where he'd directed his father the night before.
"Oh, lad." His father mumbled as he wrapped Matthew in blankets and put another log on the fire. He slept intermittently, as he often did this time of year, trying to spare what little light and food were left before true spring came with its greens and game fattening on the new grass.
"I'm sorry," He said when Arthur brought him a bowl of soup richer than anything he'd had in weeks as the larder dwindled and made him eat it all still wrapped up warm. "I should do that."
"Don't worry yourself, love."
Sleepy and full, he sank back into sleep. He felt feverish upon waking to his own cough, and the day's last sunlight was already fading. He was alone. Had he dreamed Arthur completely? Being called love? No one called him that. No one said that. He must have conjured it all, his half-mad brain wishing for a company that wasn't the single Christmas letter from his uncle read and re-read until he knew every word.
He woke to arms around his back, pushing him up in bed. He was reluctant to be roused, figuring it was another fire dragging him out of bed to be soaked in frozen water as he stood in the line of a bucket brigade. But there was a hand in his hair.
"I know you want to sleep," Arthur said. "But I've brought you something, and I need you to eat it."
He opened his eyes. He'd convinced himself his father's visit had been a trick of his mind, and he was so happy to see him he almost missed the round bit of sunbeam in his hand. An orange, half unpeeled and split into sections. He buried his face in his father's chest and obediently took a slice of orange from him. He'd had a fresh one only twice before, both in France when the orangeries were new, and he wasn't yet so much a disappointment Papa thought to bother with him sometimes. He stared at the section in his hand and then at Arthur.
"Why?"
"You're getting scurvy."
Matt stared, baleful. Arthur picked up the meaning.
"Because you're my child, that's why." He said firmly. "Now eat."
I'm not sure if I ever posted the original version of this? But here's re remix from Alfred's perspective.
Late 20th century, England.
There's something easier about being in the same room as Arthur after the war. Especially, when alcohol is involved, as there usually is when Arthur can sprawl in his big squashy horse hair chair across from Alfred in its twin. They've got a cigar and a scotch each. The scotch is good, Uncle Alasdair's best contribution to NATO, and they're six glasses in. Arthur's shoulders had begun to relax two glasses in, and now he's slumped over. If anyone else were to sit in that position, the man would yell at them for slouching like a field hand. Alfred threw one leg up over the chair.
"Here's a question for you. What's the scariest thing you've ever seen, old man?"
His father raised and swirled the whiskey in the cut crystal class glass. "Probably you having a shag with my secretary in the middle of the day again. It did so put me off tea."
Alfred snorted. "Jealous?"
"Hardly, the frightening part is how she's sampled at least half the garrison. Quite a thing for yanks that one. But, alas, it's damnably hard to find anyone who can make a decent pot of tea these days."
Alfred flushed. He didn't know that about his partner of choice this afternoon. He downed the rest of his glass and fixed Arthur with another look. "No, really, what's the scariest thing you've ever seen,"
"I've just said,"
"No, like, actually frightening,"
"Truly, lad, even the Marquis de Sade wouldn't enjoy walking in on his children rutting like barn animals."
Alfred groaned. "God, Matt was right,"
"About?"
"Nothing," Alfred shook his head and put down the glass. "Time with you is pointless, you know that, right? You turn everything into a shit show even when you're hammered,"
His father went red. "You're the one asking nonsense questions!"
"What's nonsense about it?" Alfred shot back. "It's got all the parts of a grammatically solid sentence."
"I'm two thousand years old, or near it! The frights are innumerable at my age!"
"Okay," Alfred said. "Narrow it down. Barring history, what is the scariest thing you've seen? In just your life."
"Watching you have a seizure,"
"What?"
Arthur blinked, and Alfred stared. They seemed to have the same shocked reaction. He looked stunned he'd even said the words. Alfred dropped back into his seat.
"I've never had a seizure,"
"No, you wouldn't remember it." He watched as his father tapped his cigar on the ashtray and inhaled again, thinking. "When you were a baby, and I mean a baby... You could walk and your favourite word was no." He gave a faint smile, but it quickly disappeared as he remembered something else. "You were born so strong. You were very rarely sick, you know. But you'd fight it so hard when you were and spike these fevers so fucking high." He took another inhale and shut his eyes. Alfred gawked. "I could tell it had something to do with the fever. As soon as I cooled you down, it'd stop. They call it febrile seizures now, last I read. You'd have to give it a search, I suppose. But I'd never seen it in anyone but the victims of the falling disease having visions."
"Falling disease?"
"Epilepsy, these days." He said and stood, the entirety of his body a coil of emotional energy. He shook his entire body and refilled their drinks. "I thanked god every day when your uncle and I finally figured out it wouldn't be permanent."
His father was still standing, drinking in hand, cigar abandoned in the ashtray, staring out the weather-lashed window. Matt might have a point when he grumbled about Alfred being as bad as Arthur, but Christ, if Americans couldn't hug. Wordlessly, Alfred set down his glass and, full to the brim of something, attacked Arthur with a hug. He nearly dropped his glass but seeing he wasn't about to be released, he eventually and gingerly squeezed him back, then tighter. With an awkward slap of the back the disengaged.
"You've never told me about any of that,"
Arthur cleared his throat, taking up his alcohol again from where he'd left it on the bookshelf just left of the window. "What was there to say? You had outgrown them by the time Virginia was viable. It only happened four, maybe five times? It was insensible of me to find them frightening at all, really."
"Aww," Alfred grinned, desperately trying to normalize the incredible feeling of warmth in his whole body. When was the last time he'd hugged his dad? "You do love me."
He got a swift smack upside the head as Arthur went and flipped over the hollow globe where he kept the really good stuff. "Of course I do; you're my son."
do u think churchill would be disappointed and enraged that arthur feels a very much british and repressed attraction towards francis (who is no marianne thank you very much) and not, well, our fair columbia?
not at all, no. since i personally headcanon a clear father-son / old king-crown prince dynamic between arthur and alfred, that is the framework arthur's prime ministers would understand it as too throughout history. conversely, anytime they feel Alfred's kind of kinda favouring someone else over supporting his old man, it'd be much more about tsk tsk What An Unfilial Son or, if things get particularly maudlin, some sort of "America, nursed at the liberty-loving bosom of Britannia, but abandoning us at this time! Shame! Woe! In Godâs good time, hurry the bloody fuck up!"Â
but yeah to illustrateâ this is how they would understand it (the tiny-ass caption says: "After Many Years: Britannia: Daughter! / Columbia: Mother!")
(As a sidenote, through my historian gogglesâ I personally do take Churchillâs iteration of the Anglo-American r/ship in the 1940s with a huge grain of salt. Besides his perspective being very biased by British imperialism, imo itâs romanticised in certain dimensions and glosses over the known disagreements that existed between FDR and Churchill, such as over decolonisation. Even todayâwe should be mindful that many U.S administrations did not necessarily see the âspecial r/shipâ the same way the British side hoped, though ofc, the cooperation/cultural influence is significant. After â45, this dynamic is also mediated by the wane of the British Empire and the recognition that playing up ties with the US, now that it was the unquestioned superpower, was crucial to limiting the drain of British global influence. I think acknowledging this makes exploring the old king / crown prince dynamic between Arthur and Alfred after 1945 a lot richer and very, very interesting.)
my full piece for the @hwsrazzledazzle zine, and a collab with/based on an idea by @bubbleteahime
âTaiwan visits The Taiwan Exposition of 1935, a grand spectacle put on to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Japanese colonisation. In a series of encounters, she gets confronted with the realities of her nationâs peculiar situation as a prosperous colony in the years just before the outbreak of World War Two.â
âŠthis particular encounter being with South Korea.
(A snapshot, amidst the Battle of Britain. Arthur and Matthew-centric. Notes: Content warning-wiseâinjury mention. No explicit violence. âJackâ is AUS, and âZeeâ is NZ. 800 words).
London, 1940
The morning sun streams in, through the large, expansive windows of Arthurâs office, scattering diamond-shaped patches of light onto the antique carpet and the hardwood floor. On the glass itselfâtape, placed in a methodical, diagonal crisscrossing pattern, accompanied by dark curtains. The standard precautions for nightfall nowadays.
Thus far, the air raid sirens had been silent today.Â
âWell then, what does it say, lad?â Arthurâs right arm is ensconced in a slingâbut as always, his father is no less imposing, in the sharp and neat lines of his olive-coloured dress uniform, the gold of his buttons gleaming and polished. âGo on. Read it out.â
âItâs postmarked from New York.â Matthew slices open the letter.Â
Alfredâs handwriting is bold and hurried, his tone casual and light-hearted. Yo old fartâA whole colourful paragraph on how Billie Holiday and Gregory Peckâ a new but apparently promising actorâhad been in town. The latest jazz concerts heâd attended. The nice cut of sirloin heâd had last night, at the Waldorf-Astoria.
âHe saysâŠâ Matthew skims his brotherâs letter. He jumps to the second last paragraph, ââŠthat heâll be in San Francisco. At the naval facility and shipyard there. Keeping an eye on the Pacific. And that Congress will probably widen the cash-and-carry scheme to include war materiel. He wishes you good luck, and says that thereâs a box of genuine Cuban cigars for you in the mail.â
âWell, I certainly never would turn down a good cigar butâGood luck? Cash and carry?â Father snorts, his tone derisive. âDoes that wretched lad think my gold reserves are unlimited, to pay him for all that?â He turns away from Matthew, the slope of his shoulders tense. âSo, heâs not coming, is he?â
Heâs angry now, Matthew knows. Not the sort of turbulent rage that was a prelude to the sorts of shouting matches Father had with Alfred, but something simmering, like a kettle slowly boiling over on a stove. Anger was what Father preferred to show, over disappointmentâwhenever it came to Alfred.
Matthew resented them both for it, at times. How often had he been the bedraggled mediator and go-between for Father and Alfred? For his brother, the ocean that lay between them and Father was actually a barrier the way it wasnât for Matthew. His brother had always done whatever the hell he wanted, his will as forceful and indomitable as trying to bottle a hurricane.Â
Father had fumed for three decades after heâd burned Alfredâs name off the family tree. But then, as the years went byâheâd mellowed on his brother. Turned back to regarding his eldest son with the sort of grudging respect and recognition he bestowed on an equalâand no one else. Not Matthew, nor Jack and Zee, not even Fatherâs own siblings, let alone anyone else across the rest of his vast empire, no matter how much theyâd bled for King and Country.Â
But Matthew squashes those feelings down for now. It wasnât the time.
âNo. He isnât.â Matthew replies carefully. âHe says his hands are tied by the Neutrality Acts.â
âIs that what he said?â Father laughs, sharp and loud. His green eyes glint as he turns to face Matthew. âSteel bars and the Almighty himself couldnât tie that wretchâs hands, not unless he allowed them to.â
The New World, with all its power and might, Churchill had anointed, waxing lyrical. Alfred, Matthew knew, would squeeze something more through the legal loopholes, sooner or later. Â It wouldnât be nothing, it would helpâbut it would be far short of what Father really wanted. His brother was that way. All those tangled up threads about family that Alfred preferred to avoid upfront, to bury under cheerful irreverence or, on other occasions, spiteful snippiness towards their father.Â
You have me, Dad, is what he wants to say. But he doesnât. âIâll write back to him.âÂ
âYou do that. Maybe heâll listen, if itâs coming from you.â Arthurâs nod is curt. The line of his mouth is thin. His nostrils flare. âGoodness. When I said âin Godâs good timeâ, I meant hurry the bloody hell up, not sit there twiddling your thumbs.â
This, Father says with casual, dismissive annoyance. As though heâs dealing with something no more inconvenient than a tailcoat not being mended on time or being short on his favourite Earl Grey. As though it were something displeasing but ultimately of little import to him and his plans, old and confident as he was in his powerâbut itâs obvious.
How much Arthur really lookedâ in the face of the unfolding disaster before them, with bated breath and carefully-concealed hopeâto his estranged son and Matthewâs older brother. How much he longed to have Alfred by his side.Â
ââuntil, in Godâs good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the oldââ
as i see it, arthur and a lot of people may have naturally looked to alfredâhis eldest son, the heir, the industrial colossusâfor deliverance. but itâs matthew who is by his side from the start. mattâs the second prince; the one at times overlooked and taken for granted by arthur. but itâs matt who steps into the breach in 1940; sending men and women and food and weaponry, so disaster doesnât turn into annihilation. matt, reliable and grimly prepared to do the crucial job of holding the line, whilst americaâs interventionists contended with its isolationists. in my headcanon, heâs quieter and cuts a seemingly less bold figure than his brotherâbut when the time calls for it, heâs icily steadfast and ruthless. the new world stepping forth to the rescue and liberation of the old? yes, but in more ways than one.Â
snowghoul
prguitarman
discoholicmusic
pixelskylines
baratheonpilled
germansingergirl
jacobvanloon
2087
kaledo-art
