Home for the Holidays

319

This needs an intro! I signed up for the PruCan Secret Santa Exchange and while chatting with euphoria_anger, she was signing up as well and needed prompts, so I gave her two of them. Then as we were talking, she mentioned that it would be awesome if we got each other as Santas and all. Guess who got her. Yup, I did.

I was going to do all three prompts, but shit happened and I only got to do one. Considering I started it super late, it's super long!

Ironically, when I was writing the door scene, you signed in on MSN and we started talking.

Characters: France, England, America, Canada, Prussia

Prompt: "I am a huge sucker for the FACE family dynamic. College AU. Matthew brings Gilbert home for the holidays to meet his family."

Disclaimer: I totally ran with this one.

Home for the Holidays

When Matthew Williams had been in his last year of high school, he had applied to all sorts of different universities both in his hometown and out of province and country. He hadn't told his fathers or his brother at first, but when the various acceptance letters had started coming in the mail, it had been time to put the cards on the table.

For the most part, his family had taken it well. His brother had asked if he could use his room for his TV, his papa had asked how he would manage to get the money and his dad had shouted "over my dead body!"

Matthew had always been interested in architecture and he had applied to the finest of schools. It wasn't that he had wanted to leave his beloved Ottawa, but sooner or later, he would be leaving the nest and it was getting a bit crowded at his parents.

He loved his family dearly, but Matthew also wanted to experience living on his own, so when he had found out that he had been accepted to Cornell University in New York and that he had also made the hockey team and had gotten a scholarship, an all expense paid scholarship, he had done everything in his power to convince his dad.

With the help of many information booklets, an assuring explanation from Matthew that he would call as many times as possible and come home at every occasion and with the help of his papa, who always knew what to do and tell his dad to get him to calm down, Matthew had been able to accept his admission.

Matthew managed to keep good grades and make a few close friends and amongst them, over his two and a half years at the school, so far, he had found himself a boyfriend as well. He had always had doubts that he might prefer men to women and it had only been confirmed to him in his senior year of high school when he had come to the realisation that the only reason he was speaking to a girl in his year was because he liked her older brother.

His fathers had taken the news of him having a boyfriend quite well and he hadn't seen why they wouldn't. After all, he had two dads. Francis had already started planning their wedding and Arthur had expressed the desire of wanting to meet this "nice young man" after having told him that they better be using protection.

It wasn't that Matthew didn't want his parents to meet Gilbert, or Gilbert to meet his parents, but his parents were not what he considered normal and Gilbert could be a handful when he wanted. That was why, for the past two years, four months and seventeen days, he had constantly made excuses as to why it was that Gilbert couldn't come home with him for Thanksgiving, or the summer holiday, or spring break, or another long weekend, or something else and he would never tell Gilbert that his parents had invited him those many times.

However, this Christmas was different. Matthew would have probably found an excuse again, but it had so happened that when his father had called him to throw him the invitation like he had last year and the year before that, it had been Gilbert who had picked up. (There was a long story behind that. One which involved an end of the term party with maybe a little too much to drink and an eventual make-out session which had led to Matthew dragging Gilbert back to his place and… yeah. It was a long story.)

Matthew remembered hearing how his father had been all happy to finally get to speak to Gilbert, but he had also been able to hear that fatherly questioning tone of why it was that he had found his son's alleged boyfriend answering his son's cell phone at 7h45am. Luckily, his dad had been too happy to get to personally invite Gilbert for Christmas to really get to that point when he had briefly spoken with Matthew afterwards.

That was why, after their last exam, which was on December seventeenth, they had packed their things and headed back to Ottawa. Matthew had tried countless of times to dissuade Gilbert and tell him that he didn't need to come and that he would understand if he didn't want to, but after having told him something like twenty-eight times, Gilbert had gotten fed up and had threatened that if he told him not to come one more time, he would move in with Matthew's parents permanently. That had effectively gotten Matthew to shut up.

Matthew had decided to leave on Monday since there would be less traffic at the border and he was glad that they were taking the train to Ottawa since not only had he not been able to sleep for the past week and a half, but it also meant that he could give all the necessary pointers Gilbert needed to better understand his family.

Gilbert had never quite understood why it was that Matthew nearly always had a mini panic attack every time his family had been mentioned and every time Gilbert had asked, he had gotten the same answer.

"You don't get it; they're weird."

""Matt, I think pretty much all families are weird. That's why they're families."

"You've never met mine."

"Because you won't let me."

"Because they're weird!" And that would be the discussion more or less over and over again.

"Remind me again, why your old man doesn't want me to comment on his cooking?" Gilbert asked as he stared out of the window in their compartment, half asleep. Matthew looked like he was seriously thinking of jumping out of the train as he took a deep breath.

"Dad has issues with his cooking. Alfred always makes fun of it and then he just gets upset when we try to compliment him. Papa usually always does the cooking, but since you're coming and he'll have a guest in the house – just, don't say anything stupid, please?"

"Don't worry Mattie; I'll be awesome! They'll for sure adore me and they'll wish I was part of the family or their own son." That did not seem to reassure him at all.

"That's what I'm afraid of. Thank God papa's picking us up at the train station. Alfred would have probably forgotten and Dad would have asked awkward questions or something and-" He never got to finish his sentence for Gilbert decided to shut him up with a kiss.

"Don't worry; it'll be fine, trust me." Matthew decided to say nothing to that and to try and get some rest. Try being the operative keyword.

As the scenery whizzed by him, he found himself thinking back to the time he had first met Gilbert during his first year. He had been at a hockey practice and Gilbert had happened to be waiting for a friend who was also on the team.

At the end of practice, when Matthew had been about to head back to the locker rooms to change, he had noticed Gilbert standing there, near the edge of the rink, looking straight at him.

Perplexed, he had skated up to him and had asked him if he could be of any assistance. Gilbert had asked him if he had ever played against a team from a school in Ontario called "The Riders" and he had nodded. As it turned out, ironically enough, Matthew had once played against Gilbert's high school team many, many years back and he had been surprised that Gilbert had remembered him and recognized him.

They had gone out for drinks after that, and they had exchanged various anecdotes from their lives following that game.

He had asked Gilbert if he still played and he had found out that after an injury two years ago, he couldn't play like he used to so he had had to quit his team. Matthew had felt bad, but Gilbert had reassured him that he was okay with it and that every winter, he still played with friends. Matthew had then told him that they should play together some time and they agreed on a day and time.

From there, it had become tradition that after every friendly game they had, they would go hang out together. It was through these outings that Matthew had found out that Gilbert was from a small town in Ontario called New Prussia and that he was of Germanic descent. His grandfather had relocated his family to Canada during the Great War and the rest as they said, was history.

Matthew had been happy to have found himself a fellow Canadian friend and the two had become close in no time at all. It had been during their first winter break that Gilbert had admitted to sort of, kind of, actually liking him and Matthew had been more than thrilled. From there, it had been nothing but good memories and many laughs.

Matthew could only hope that this meeting with his parents would be okay.

By the time they got to the train station, some of Matthew's anxiety had been gone thanks to the help of sleep and of his excitement about being back home.

As promised, his papa was there to pick them up and the older man wrapped his son in a tight embrace when he saw him.

"Mathieu, mon cœur! Je suis si content de te voir! Je me suis ennuyé de toi à la maison."/ "Matthew, my love! I am so happy to see you! I missed you back home." Francis Bonnefoy, a tall man with perfectly coiffed golden blonde hair, deep piercing blue eyes and a very French looking pinch said as he patted Matthew on the back.

"Moi aussi j'me suis ennuyé de toi p'pa."/ "I missed you too, papa." Matthew responded with a wide smile. Gilbert sort of felt left out, but he had figured that this would happen anyways.

"Alors, tu me le présente ton copain ou vas-tu le laisser tout seul pour encore longtemps?"/ "So, are you going to introduce me to your friend or will you leave him alone for much longer?" Matthew's eyes widened as he realised that his father was right while the patriarch laughed richly.

"Right… eum, papa, this is my boyfriend Gilbert Beilschmidt and Gil, this is my papa, Francis Bonnefoy." The two men shook hands and Matthew found he could breathe a tad easier.

"Pleasure to meet you, Gilbert. I 'ave 'eard a lot about you." Francis said. Gilbert held the other man's gaze ad they shook each other's hands and that seemed to get him a nod of approval.

"Likewise, sir." Matthew let out a breath he hadn't known he had been holding. So far, Gilbert hadn't said anything stupid, but the night was still young.

"Come now, you can call me Francis. Sir was my fat'er. Now, let us get out of 'ere so we can go back 'ome before your fat'er decides to start dinner wit'out me." The last part was said to Matthew and Gilbert chuckled as his boyfriend shuddered.

The ride to the Bonnefoy-Kirkland-Williams-Jones' house went better than expected. Matthew had thought for sure that there would be many uncomfortable silences or awkward small talk, but since they were with his papa, everything went better than he could have hoped for. Gilbert and his father seemed to be getting along fine and Francis' interest in the other man peeked when Gilbert had told him that he was currently studying international law.

They continued talking amongst the three of them and Matthew was actually starting to think that maybe he had been overreacting, but then the car was parked and he saw that Alfred's car and his dad's car were there as well. All of his anxiety was back tenfold.

As Francis took their luggage and told them to go inside, Gilbert slipped his arm around Matthew's waist and pecked his cheek lightly.

"I still don't get why you're so tense about this whole thing. That went well, no?"

"That was my papa. He's the normal one of the three. Just promise me you'll behave." Matthew told him as he rang the doorbell.

"Don't worry! I'll be awesome, just like I promised." Gilbert decided to further reassure his boyfriend by giving him a kiss on the lips, but just as he did, and just as Matthew decided that it would be a good idea to respond back, Arthur Kirkland, Matthew's other father, opened the door with a bright smile on his face which at first seemed genuine, but quickly turned forced when he found his baby lip locked with a stranger and his husband smiling happily at him. Then it clicked.

"Soooo, you must be Gilbert. It's a pleasure to finally meet you! Do come in!" Arthur watched as the two young adults pushed away from each other and as his youngest turned a lovely shade of red.

"Yeah, nice to meet you Arthur." Gilbert stuck out his hand figuring that all would be well, but little did he know, he had just made a very grave mistake. Whereas Francis was relaxed and calm, Arthur had very straight and strict rules and one of them was that every stranger who got close to his children had to call him Mr. Kirkland until he told them to call him by a different name.

Arthur glared at the taller man in front of him and started finding faults in him and why it was that his Matthew was better and deserved only the finest specimen of a human being.

"It's Mr. Kirkland to you, boy." All pleasantness from the earlier conversation was gone and Matthew mentally hit himself over the head for having forgotten to mention that very small detail.

"Chéri, et si on allait préparer le souper?"/ "How about we go start supper?" Francis grabbed Arthur by the hand and headed towards the kitchen. Things couldn't possibly get any worse.

When they finally sat down for dinner, sometime later, Alfred was chattering away about how cool Seattle was and how much being away from home was, but that he had missed the meals. Alfred had been pretty decent with Gilbert so far and Matthew could only hope that it would remain that way.

"So, Gilbert, do you have any hobbies?" Arthur asked as he put the bowl of mashed potatoes down with much more needed force than necessary. Francis walked out of the kitchen a moment later carrying the roasted chicken and shot him a warning glare that Arthur decided not to notice.

"I used to play hockey and I also play football during the summer." Alfred's ears perked up at the mention of his all time favourite sport.

"Football, really? What position d'you play? I'm usually the quarterback. D'you play with the NFL rules or the CFL?"

"I meant the European sport, none of this wishy washy crap you call football." Strike two. Matthew cringed. He could see his brother's smile change into a deep scowl that looked a lot like the one their father had.

"Football, real football, American football, is not crap! It's a man's sport!" Francis and Matthew sighed as they started serving the food to the others. They had heard this argument a thousand times over by now.

"Is not! There's nothing exciting about it!"

"Then you're not a man."

"Sure as hell am more of a man than you are!"

"Really now, care to tell me how?"

"No need to tell, I'll just show you my five meters of awesomeness."

"Gilbert!"

"Alfred!" Matthew and Arthur both shouted at the same time just as Alfred rose from his seat and looked ready to throttle Gilbert while the other man had also risen from his seat and had brought his hands to his pants, ready to undo them.

Alfred and Gilbert looked to the ones who had just called them and wore matching expressions that clearly stated "what?"

"If I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times; you do not speak badly when we have guests no matter how much we both may wish for their immediate removal!"

"You promised me you would behave yourself! Wait – what?" Matthew went from trying to scold his boyfriend to looking at his father in abject terror. Why had Gilbert answered the phone? Why had Gilbert answered the phone? Why had Gilbert answered the phone? Why had Gilbert answered the phone?

"Fiend! You better count yourself lucky that I have opened up my house to you. Thank goodness we have a guestroom in the basement."

"Arthur! Calme toi, mon cœur. Je croyais que tu voulais rencontrer le copain de Mathieu, pas le mettre à la porte."/ "Arthur! Calm down. I thought you wanted to meet Matthew's boyfriend, not kick him out of the house." Francis said as he tried to dissipate the tension in the room. Matthew looked about ready to curl up in a little ball and disappear while Alfred had already moved on to greater things and was now stuffing his face on seconds of everything.

"That was before I found out that he's a complete ruffian!"

"Dad, please…"

"Je crois que tu exagères, Arthur."/ "I think you're exaggerating, Arthur."

"Such table manners… and just - !"

"I'm still here; you do know that, right?" Gilbert asked, highly amused when all the other men present turned around and gave him a varying glare.

"Can we just have a normal family dinner?" Matthew asked no one in particular. It took a moment, but eventually everyone regained their seats and ate in relative silence. This was going to be the longest week of his life ever.

After the disastrous excuse of a dinner, Matthew showed Gilbert to his room and apologized a hundred times over for the way his brother and father had acted. The first few times he had told the blonde that it was okay, that it wasn't his fault and that his family would warm up to him in a matter of days and that he had nothing to worry about. However, when even that stopped working, Gilbert knew that he had to get his boyfriend's mind off of things so he did the only logical thing he could think of and that was to shut him up with a kiss. It seemed to work, so why the hell not?

It worked out in his favour since Matthew was currently leaning on top of him, kissing him feverishly, hands tangled in his hair and he was enjoying every moment of it.

Gilbert was hoping that Matthew would forget that they were in his parents' basement and that someone could walk in on them at any given moment and just as it seemed that he was going to forget, someone did come to burst their bubble, but in a slightly different way.

"Matthew Williams Kirkland-Bonnefoy, if you do not quit snogging your boyfriend and stop with your indecent behaviour this second, I will make you walk back to school or so help me God!" The words had their desired effect for Matthew quite nearly jumped off Gilbert's lap. They both thought that the older man was downstairs, but as it turned out, Arthur was nowhere near the basement.

"Jesus Christ; he has eyes all over the place!" Matthew whispered to himself having quite forgotten how his father could see everything within his house.

"I heard that, young man." And apparently hear everything too.

"I should go to my room before my dad comes and gets me." Matthew told Gilbert a moment later.

"Yeah, good idea; wouldn't want you to get into trouble with daddy now, eh?" Matthew rolled his eyes but knew that Gilbert was only teasing him so he let the comment slide.

"Night. If you need anything, just let me know."

"How about a goodnight kiss?" Gilbert waggled his eyebrows at him and smirked as Matthew bent over and pecked his lips briefly.

"There, now sleep tight." Gilbert bid him goodnight as well and Matthew then headed to his old room which was two floors up.

Gilbert woke up some hours later with a bad case of the munchies. Since he had emptied out all his secret stashes of food from his backpack, he had no choice but to grab his sweatshirt, cover himself up since it was drastically cold outside of the warm blankets and make his way upstairs to the kitchen to get something to eat.

His plan was to be as quiet as possible and have his snack back downstairs, but when he got to the room in question, he quite literally bumped into Arthur Kirkland himself.

"Oh, Gilbert, I didn't see you there, I'm sorry." The younger man was slightly taken aback by the sudden change of attitude, but he decided to let it pass less he do something to displease the man once more.

"Nah, it's alright Mr. Kirkland. Are you having a midnight snack as well?" He asked to be polite.

"Actually no. Whenever I find myself unable to sleep, I come down here and make myself a cup of tea. It helps soothe the nerves."

"Oh, I see." There was an awkward moment of silence where neither of them knew what to say or do. They both stood silently, the cup of tea cooling down between them. It was finally Gilbert who broke the silence.

"Would it be okay if I grabbed something to eat from your fridge, Mr. Kirkland?" If anyone was ever to tell him that he did not know how to act smooth, then he would have to find a way to bring them to this moment. He was usually brash and obnoxious, but when he had seen how much all of this meant for Matthew, he had decided that he could do his boyfriend a favour and act civilized. It seemed to be working for Arthur was pleasantly taken aback and nodded his head.

Snack in hand, Gilbert walked to the kitchen table and took a seat in front of the other man. One drank, the other ate and after a while, the awkwardness got replaced by comfort of some sorts.

"Listen, Gilbert, I'm sorry if I overreacted at dinner earlier." Gilbert seemed surprised that Mr. Kirkland had come through so quickly. Judging by what Matthew had told him, this step should have only happened a few days later. Then again, he had to take into consideration that what Matthew had told him only concerned people who weren't as awesome as him.

"It's alright, Mr. Kirkland; no harm done." The older man nodded and put his cup down.

"If you promise to treat my Matthew right, I'm willing to give you a second chance." It seemed to be a good enough deal and Gilbert found himself agreeing to it.

In the end, the holiday season went better than Matthew could have hoped for. As much as he hated admitting it, Gilbert had been right, by the time they had to go back to school, his family had taken to Gilbert. However, that did not mean that Matthew would be bringing him on all of his trips. There was just so much stress his poor nerves could handle in one week.

OWARI

Ouf, long is long. But this was fun to do!

Merry Christmas, hope you liked it!

Reviews, no matter how short, even if they are anonymous, mean a lot to me and let me know that my writing brings emotions to you readers out there. I see you, the ones who only favourite, the ones who add me to alert, don't think I don't. Even if it's just an exclamation point, it warms my heart.

Started writing: December 15th 2010, 3:39pm

Finished writing: December 16th 2010, 9:51pm

Started typing: December 22nd 2010, 3:14am

Finished typing: December 22nd 2010, 5:01pm