"How could you?"
"Alfred-"
"Matthew, how could you?" the American is white with rage and his hands are balled into fists at his sides, ready to slam into his brother's face if it come down to that. Sky-blue eyes burn with what feels like tears, but none come.
"Please, Al-"
"You're wearing his colours!" he gestures, and it's true. The Canadian's pale skin is even whiter against the crimson of his mud-splattered uniform, "You're fighting on his side!"
"This isn't about whose side I'm fighting-" Matthew begins but is once more cut off by his angry brother invading his eardrums and his personal space.
"YES IT IS!" Alfred screams, jaw tight and eyes ablaze.
"You are being a child, America!" the Canadian snaps back coldly, finally able to get a full sentence out and regretting it almost instantly, even if he thinks it's true.
Alfred bridles, unused to so much resistance from his passive brother with so little provocation. His anger withers and fades, his spine bends and he looks so much more tired than he did a few moments ago, so full of piss and vinegar.
"No wonder you're staying," he mutters as he turns to leave and begins to trudge away, "You sound just like him."
America is some distance away before Canada murmurs his answer. His voice too, his tired, and it's no tart remark or barbed reply he makes, but a lonely confession on a muddy field.
"That's not it. I'm staying because I love him."
Arthur feels his jaw drop and his head swim. It might be blood loss, and it might be fever, but he's pretty fucking sure that it's quiet words from bloodied lips in the middle of this desolate place that make him stop.
"Matthew, lad…?" he asks, quite positive that the other didn't hear him approach.
The colony whips around to face him, face drawn, eyes wide and fearful, like an animal that knows it has no means of escape. Meekly he hangs his head, staring at the dirt on his shoes,
"Yes, sir?"
"Arthur," the Englishman corrects. It doesn't feel right, somehow, to have someone who chose him over their own kin calling him 'sir'. Him, of all people, he can scarcely understand it. What could dear, sweet Matthew possibly love about him? Bad-tempered, stuffy old man that he was. Nothing like the young Canadian; fresh, spry, tender and soft – he feels like France for even daring to think of him that way.
"Pardon me, sir?" Polite as ever, so rigidly formal, and Arthur feels a little pang in his chest to know he raised the boy this way.
"Call me Arthur, lad," Matthew peeks up from under his lashes, slowly raising his head to stare incredulously at the empire, feeling like maybe, just maybe, he isn't being rejected after all.
"Yes, si- Arthur," the colony corrects himself, finding a little smile in the corner of his mouth. He hasn't felt it since this whole sordid mess began. He hates war, and it feels good to smile again.
That little half-smile, the smallest curl of lips and crease of cheek makes the pain in Arthur's chest ease a little. Perhaps he hasn't ruined this fresh young thing after all, "Come on, Matthew, lad, let's go home. I'll make you some tea."
-o-
Years pass, Alfred is long gone, his own country now, and the jewel of North America. Or so the world thinks. Arthur never voices the thought, but he is quite certain that the true gem of that vast and varied continent is sitting beside him, being mother and making sure that the tea is poured exactly the way the Englishman likes it. Milk (just a touch), sugar (even less) and then the tea itself, steeped in his favourite pot.
Matthew is always like this, slow to decide, careful not to offend, and the empire has realised that it's not his own clumsy child-rearing skills that did it, but rather the Canadian's own nature.
Yes, Matthew is the most precious of jewels, a little grubby, perhaps, and not yet cut, but Arthur loves how when looked at from just the right angle, the Canadian simply glows. He sparkles and glimmers so beautifully, like an ice crystal, throwing a thousand rainbows out from every facet.
It takes the island a moment to realise that the other has been calling him for a while now. Matthew looks like he's about to pinch Arthur, just to see if he's in fact awake.
Arthur's hand closes around a pale wrist, stopping the hand that had been flapping in front of his face. He can almost see Canada growing. The Dominion advances day by day, growing, conquering wilderness, inventing and changing, growing, and Matthew is getting taller, filling out. No longer a gangly boy-child on a muddy battlefield, he's almost a man. But still the empire sees the same wide fear in his eyes when he approaches, and the same gentle tenderness; a softening at the corners of his eyes; skin, weathered by harsh climates, wrinkles up into little laugh-lines, although he is still you very young and dear.
"Arthur? Are you there?" the fear is back now, in those aurora eyes, watching him carefully, in case he wants to push the Canadian back, or scold him.
"Matthew, love," the little pet names. He doesn't know when they started, exactly, just that they did. Little endearments for his dear little (no so any longer) colony. Love, pet, dear, poppet. Matthew has been all of these.
"Yes?" the colony whispers, eyes searching. There's something alien in Arthur's eyes, a look of hunger and of wanting, but it's strangely tempered by kindness. As though by some unseen force, they're shifting, turning towards each other, lean in and closer, until Arthur can see cinnamon freckles on Matthew's nose, like dirt on snow, and Matthew can see a pale eyelash that's fallen in battle and lies bowed against Arthur's cheek.
"May I kiss you?"
Canada doesn't grant permission, but takes a risk, a snap decision so out of sorts with his careful personality, and darts forward to press his lips to Arthur's in a brief, hot-and-cold flash-burn of feeling that leaves the both of them reeling. And that was only a peck on the lips.
Dizzier than he's ever been on liquor, Arthur surges forward and kisses Matthew proper, expecting the boy, no, the young man, to bow under his will. But he doesn't, he comes up against a kiss returned so fiercely that it could be an attack. There's will behind it as the colony tests the way their lips fit, his hands on the Englishman's arms, will as strong and daunting as his landscape, and as beautiful, and Arthur meets that will with all the force of an empire.
-o-
Some moments are innocent, like the sunshine on their faces when they share a cup of tea outside, or when Arthur kisses Matthew's messy hair when he won't get up in the mornings. Or even when Matthew, fully grown, throws the island over his shoulder, just for kicks. When Arthur bemoans his aged state, and Matthew says nothing, simply holding his hand, and kissing everywhere he can reach in a sometimes vain attempt to prove that he still wants him, old man or not.
Sometimes the moments are not innocent, but those moments are tender. Like when Matthew slowly kisses a path up Arthur's neck, telling every mark he makes on the island's skin exactly why he loves him, why he finds him beautiful. How he admires his strength, and his compassion, how thankful he is that Arthur taught him so much about being a nation. Sometimes they move in tandem, swallowing each other's gasps and hitching breaths until with a wordless, stuttering cry, they become complete, shaky-limbed and sweating but content in each other.
Sometimes they aren't innocent. Sometimes there are dark secrets and fast and hard and games of cat and mouse that end in screams of delight and pain. Sometimes teeth flash and nip, leaving a tattoo of ownership on the other's body until they both look like Gaelic tribesmen, bathed in woad. Sometimes Matthew has a cane in his hand and a smirk on his lips as he brings the thin white stick down – swish-crack, it zips through the air like an arrow, and lands with a slap and a moan. Sometimes the muscles of the Canadian's arms strain and tremble in the shackles that hold them high over his head, his breath coming hard as he hears the precise click of Arthur's polished boots, nervous anticipation making him quiver. Sometimes it's hard and fast, they slam into walls and beds, tables and chairs, quick and rough, by the end of it, they're more worked up than when they began, and one if not both of them is bleeding.
Alfred got over his objections in the seventies sometime, though Francis still purses his lips on occasion, and Matthew wonders if the Frenchman still thinks of him as a child, while Arthur wonders if he isn't jealous. The Englishman still sees his lover as fresh and young, sharp and cold. Matthew clears his head of muddle and make it easier to just be. Matthew finds his ex-guardian to be warm, and kind, beneath all his propriety and gruffness, and though they're no longer engaged in epic battles, no longer star-crossed allies amid cannon-fire, there are still moments when there are arguments, tiffs, fights, disagreements and quarrels. Over two thousand, or just passed five-hundred, there are still scraped knees and banged heads, grazed palms. And even then, there is always one to help the other up, to dust him off and straighten his shirt. There is always one to kiss the scrape, and say,
"Come on, let's go home. I'll make you some tea."