"Hey, Mattie!" Alfred greeted cheerily.
"Hey, Al. Come in," his quieter brother smiled and stepped aside.
Alfred quickly entered the house. In the living room, he found a cooler next to the couch, where it always was when he came over for this specific reason, and he dropped the beers he had brought into it. He turned back to his brother, "how long?"
Matthew's eyes were bright with excitement as he glanced at his watch, "half an hour. You can pee now and risk needing to pee during the half hour of the game, or we can scramble to pee in the last five minutes before the game. Your choice."
"Hardly a choice," Alfred replied immediately, "it'd be a crime to break a Hockey Night tradition. We're peeing as soon before the game as we can!"
Matthew smiled, "hell yeah, we are!"
Alfred flopped heavily onto the couch and stared at the TV, which had already been turned on, "so, what are we gonna do for the next half-hour?"
Matthew shrugged, "I don't care what you do. I'm gonna go finish my supper, though."
"M'kay," Alfred replied as his brother walked into the kitchen. He sat on the couch for about three minutes before deciding he was bored. He stood and was about to join his brother in the kitchen when something caught his eye.
On one wall in the living room, Matthew had a bulletin board set up. Alfred had seen it many times before and knew for a fact that Matthew used it to keep track of his national and international affairs. It was also, however, littered with newspaper articles that Matthew personally found interesting. The majority of them were Hockey-based. Matthew constantly arranged the papers on the bulletin board, careful to keep it up-to-date, so Alfred had never seen it looking the same twice. Thus time, however, there was a small bare spot where the cork could be seen under all the papers. In this spot, what had attracted Alfred's attention, was the number 2 written directly on the cork in red sharpie.
Curious, Alfred approached the board and pushed a few papers away. It looked like Matthew had written something on the cork underneath. Alfred managed to see 'IL 27' before he had to take some of the papers down.
Of course, he probably shouldn't, he told himself. It was Matthew's board, and the message might be personal. But Alfred never was very good at the whole 'privacy' thing. Besides, Matthew was his brother. He would just remove the papers he needed to see the message, then put them right back where they were and Matthew would never know the difference.
Alfred carefully removed the papers. Slowly, the message came into focus. But...why would he have written /that/?
A lump rose in Alfred's throat. Slowly, he uncovered the last word in the three-word message. It was a date.
It was a date Alfred knew well.
It was a date Alfred hated.
'APRIL 27, 1813'
'Why would Mattie write that on his bulletin board?' Alfred thought to himself. He tried to swallow his heart again and quell the queasy feeling in his stomach.
Like a robot, Alfred turned and faces the kitchen. He slowly walked over to it and entered. Matthew was sitting at the table, eating his pancakes with Maple syrup, while his bear Kumajirou enjoyed its meal on the table.
Alfred's voice sounded strained when he spoke, "Matthew..."
Shocked at the sound of his full name pouring from his brother's lips, Matthew blinked up at Alfred. A small smile spread on his lips, but it faded when he saw Alfred's face, "what's wrong?"
"Wh-Why would you..." Alfred began in a whisper. He cleared his throat and tried again, "why would you write that?"
"What?" Matthew asked, clearly confused.
"On the bulletin board," Alfred's voice was a little louder, but it wavered.
Matthew instany paled when he realised what Alfred meant. In a near-whisper, he said, "Al, I..."
"Why would you /want/ to remember that?" Alfred asked, almost bitterly, "I sure as hell don't want to remember Washington."
"Alfred..." Matthew began quietly. He stood and walked over to where Alfred stood, "i-it's not what you think." He reached out to Alfred.
Alfred jerked away before his brother could touch him, "why, Matthew? Can't we just forget it ever happened? It hurt me, too, you know. You're my /brother/."
"It's not like that," Matthew whispered, "it's not there because I have a grudge against you."
"Then why, Canada?" Alfred demanded.
Matthew cringed at the use of his other name, dripping with spite from his brother's lips.
"I-I suppose it's only fair..." Matthew walked past Alfred, back into the living room. Alfred hesitated a moment before following.
Matthew approached the board. Alfred stood behind him, waiting. Matthew sighed and put one hand over the date, then turned around and faced his brother, "we are the sum of our experiences. We learn from everything that happens to us; our actions, and the consequences of them as well as the actions of others and their consequences. But nothing sticks harder than things that happened to us because of something we did and how we react to it. We're humans, Al. We're countries, yes, but...human. Do you understand? We learn the same way humans do, we feel the same way humans do, we live the same way humans do. We /experience/ the way humans do. That can't be changed, no matter how much I wish it could.
"I wrote this...not to hold a grudge against you. And not to remind me to hate you for it later. I've forgiven you for burning York. I wrote this...to punish me. Not you. It's there to remind me what I did in response to the burning of York. Al...every time I see this I beat myself up over burning Washington. I don't hate you for York. I hate me for Washington. If I could go back and stop myself, stop Arthur...I would do whatever it took to stop that from happening.
"But York...York was your experience. You had to deal with the consequences of that the way I had to deal with Washington. I was hurt from it, and how I acted was my experience, but it was your doing. I can't change that. But if I could, I sure as hell would go back and stop myself from burning Washington."
Alfred blinked at his brother, "but then...why write April 27, 1813 instead of-"
"Instead of August 24, 1814?" Matthew finished for him, "because I can't even bring myself to think about that date. Saying makes me want to puke. I hate myself for what I did. You weren't supposed to find this. And it didn't occur to me that you might...and that you might feel this way about it."
"Matthew..." Alfred began quietly, "Matthew...d-don't. I don't hate you for Washington. But York...I guess seeing that date up there makes me feel the same as you feel about August 24. If I could, I would go back in time and..." He paused and looked away from Matthew, "god, Mattie...I've done so much more than you that I regret. If I could change the French-Indian War, if I could change the Revolutionary War, if I could change the War of 1812...I would. In a heartbeat. I would change all of it. I mean...I've threatened family time and time again. And I never. Fucking. Learn, Mattie. I mean, there you are in the North, with the one thing you regret and here I am regretting everything I've ever done."
He looked back at Matthew and was surprised to see the smallest of smiles on his brother's face. It wasn't condescending, amused, mocking or even sympathetic. It was understanding.
Matthew understood.
"It's okay, Al. I know. I've been there. But you /can't/ go back and change thise things. But if you hadn't done them, you wouldn't be who you are," Matthew stated.
Alfred chuckled bitterly, "you say that, but you don't live it. You're beating yourself up, too, remember?"
Matthew was silent for a moment. His expression was neutral. Slowly, it shifted to pensive. After a minute, he spoke, "then...let's make a pact. Nothing official. Not Canada and America. Matthew and Alfred. As brothers. I can't make up your mind about the French-Indian War or the Revolution, but I can ask you - plead with you - as your brother...let's end this. We can't go back and change York and Washington, so let's stop wishing we could. It is what it is and we are who we are because of it. So let's stop looking back and look forward." He extended his arm to Alfred.
Alfred hesitated, then a bright smile broke out on his face, "you got it, bro! No more looking back! We gotta keep going forward!"
He grasped Matthew's forearm, which was clearly not what Matthew had expected, judging by the look on his face, and pulled him close in a tight hug. Matthew didn't hesitate, despitehis surprise, to return the embrace.
The two brothers stayed like that for a while, then moved away. They smiled into each other's eyes for a while longer, then moved away.
After a while longer, Matthew turned to the bulletin board, "help me cover this up. I'll get a new one later...one that doesn't have that date written on it."
Hiya!
It's been a while...my bad. I meant to upload stuff sooner, but...well, part of it is I'm lazy. The other part is all the oneshots I intended to upload have magically turned into multi-chapters and they're no where near ready to be uploaded yet.
But I do have a PruHun fic finished (this is where the laziness comes in) I just haven't typed it up yet. So, as soon as I get off my lazy ass and do that, you'll have a new fic (assuming you ship them)!
So, yeah, I hope you enjoyed this quick little...thing. I typed it up in about an hour on my Ipod and I'm too lazy to proof read it, so let me know if there are any errors and I'll eventually get around to fixing them.
For those of you who don't know, April 27, 1813 was when the Americans burned York (which is now Toronto) and looted it during the War of 1812. On August 42, 1814, Canada/England (Canada was an English colony) retaliated by burning various important buildings in Washington, such as the White House (which was called something else at the time, but I can't remember what...). They burned more than that, but I can't quite remember what else they burned.
Anyway, Canadian history isn't really my strong point (the perks of being a Canadian growing up in an American-curriculum school: there are none. All you learn is American history and I can't really be bothered to care about it anymore considering it's not my country and it's the only history I've ever studied). Hell, history in general isn't really my strong point. I know trivia, but that's about it. So, let me know if I'm wrong on any of that. I tried to keep it vague enough in the fic that it wouldn't matter, but my explanation may not be quite right.
Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed!
~Maya