(AN: Written for the kinkmeme. Prompt was Alfred is sick of the politics and everything and secedes from himself. That's all I have to say.)
"I quit."
He says it with a laugh and a smile, and somewhere deep in your chest, you feel something shatter.
"Al—"
"I quit," He repeats it, letting the words lull around in his mouth. Savoring it as he's so prone not to do with his food. He's always been the type to take huge impulsive bites, but somehow now, the way he lets the words slip so simply, you know this isn't another one of his impulses.
And you cry.
It's two months later before he brings it up again. After you're both sweaty and exhausted and your cells tingling around the borders where they've thoroughly memorized each other. His chest rises and falls beneath your fingers, and even though you know it's impossible, he just feels so mortal right now.
"I'm seceding, Mattie," He kisses the shell of your ear, nuzzling his nose against your neck so sweetly you nearly giggle, but his words lasso you too tightly to let any sound escape.
Aside from a choked little, "Seceding?" Before you look at him with big violet-blue eyes. Opening your mouth to breathe, or protest, or just…just ask for clarification, because it doesn't make any fucking sense.
His eyes soften, drinking in the words you don't even realize you're trying to form (because he can't read the world's atmosphere, but he could always read yours—you've always been so transparent to him, without being invisible, and fuck, you love love /love/ him so much, why is he saying this shit right now?). He squeezes your hand and kisses your cheek. "I can't do this anymore, Mattie. You know I can't. It's…I…" His voice cracks, head burrowing against your shoulder, and all you can do is pet his back and clumsily tell him everything's going to be okay.
Even though it's not.
Especially because it's not.
Sometimes lies taste so much sweeter than the truth.
"I just…I don't want to be all of this. I just want to be…"
You expect him to say the hero. His little fall back answer. He wants to be the hero. He wants to clutch onto the belief that even when he hurts, when his government hurts, that he's still the leading man, the bearer of justice and hope.
"…human," He finally mumbles. Voice muffled as he kisses your neck again, hands clutching you as his body shakes.
He doesn't have to ask you to help him, because he already knows you will. Or maybe because he would never force you to choose like that, to douse the ember that keeps you from spiraling into a complete abyss of frozen nothingness. Invisible ice kingdom that you inhabit, that you are.
You feel like you're promising to be his executioner as you roll him onto his back, nuzzling against his chest as your lips descend on his. Promising you'll do whatever it takes to help him unravel himself.
"You'll die," England says blandly.
And not for the first time, you want to punch his smug face until it caves in on itself.
Even though you were the good colony.
Especially because you were the good colony.
Who the fuck does he think he is, to talk to Alfred like that? And to speak so callously about it?
"I know," Alfred says.
And not for the first time, you want to pull him out of here. To beg him to change his mind. Even though you've supported him through the past three weeks, his plans building, listening to him divide up his estate. "Eventually," He says, "I'll die. I mean, I'll just be a normal human, right?"
"No," England shakes his head. "Your country—your nation—will die." His forehead creases, and he looks so old right then that you take back what you thought about punching his face in. God, you hate yourself for being so hateful. "If you think things are awful now, just imagine how terrible they'll go without any sort of compass."
"That's the thing, though," Alfred (funny, you always think about him by his human name, not his nation's name) says. "I think it's been the compass all along, not me."
The following meeting is agony.
More so than usual.
Not least of which because you know it'll be your last with Alfred, whatever is to come the next few days. You squeeze his hand under the table, kissing his shoulder.
You're the only one allowed to feel him shaking now, the way his body quivers and twitches.
You're the only one who knows how violently sick he'd been last night in worry—his nation, his very heart, protesting and rioting against him. And he hadn't yet used the spell England had finally given them.
Would he feel better afterwards?
Would it tear his physical body apart just as badly as England, as the other nations, claimed it would tear his nation apart?
Alfred is beautiful today, all terror aside. His eyes shine with that natural charisma and optimism he radiates even on his worst days. His cowlick bobs gracelessly through the air of the conference room as he answers each question directed his way.
No, he doesn't just need a vacation.
Yes, he understands it's a permanent decision.
Yes, he understands there are no guarantees his nation (his former nation) can sustain itself without a living embodiment of its values.
No, he's not going to change his mind.
And yes, he understands he's essentially killing himself in the process.
This is where you have difficulty breathing, your fingers tightening around his. Killing himself. Alfred…Alfred's really going to do this, separate from his nation so completely, and all you can do is hold his hand. You can't even talk about it, lips freezing just as thoroughly as your landscape whenever he brings it up.
It's for this reason, you know, and not the angry voices of the nations—the insults, the threats, the open hostility and fear—that Alfred pulls you out of the room.
"Aren't you scared?"
His lips are pressed just beneath your bellybutton as you say it. Sucking on a love bite that could be either days or weeks old, you can't recall.
"Nah," He nuzzles against your stomach. "Why should I be?"
It takes a moment before you see the way his shoulders slump, just the tiniest bit. "…I'm terrified," He confesses. His voice shakes so much, so quiet and airy, that you almost mistake it for your own.
You listen to his heart beat on the inside walls of his chest, the fragile organ screaming his inadequacies and stupidity, as you pull him flush against you, fingers winding into his hair. "Al…"
"They don't…they don't get it. It's killing me already, being like this." He isn't crying, but his eyes are dangerously moist, and especially vulnerable without his glasses blocking their sight from you. You curl him closer, kissing his cheek, trailing your mouth to the corner of his lips, the faint taste of condiments clinging to his skin. "I'm so conflicted, all the time. And I'm…I-I'm failing my people."
"No, Al, you're not—"
"I am, Matthew." Using your full name emphasizes his seriousness. "Staying with my nation like this…it's not helping anybody."
You don't have the guts to tell him to stay for you. Because you can't remember life without him. Because you don't think you can go back to being invisible and forgotten.
Because you love him so much you feel as though your unraveling yourself, splitting away, even though you're not losing your entire identity through this process like he is.
"I just…I have this feeling that…you know, if I go," Alfred swallows sharply. "Everything will work out okay. It'll just…it'll balance." He smiles, twisting the little fragments that remain of your heart. "I just…I don't feel like America anymore. I'm not compatible or something. I…I haven't been, for a long time."
You feel yourself drowning, because you can't understand what he means, and you always did before. And it hurts so much worse that this isn't some quick impulse.
You chant I love yous until your lips go numb and you fall asleep. Clutching onto him as though you're afraid he'll fade away.
"Absolutely not," His boss is the last to be told, and somehow it fits, considering how much he's kept from Alfred throughout all the years. Although logically you know it wasn't this man specifically, but the entire succession of presidents. All hiding the truth of the nation from the very representative himself.
You could throttle him for it. For pushing Alfred towards this decision. The political turmoil that helped push him towards self-secession, self-destruction.
Or reincarnation. You aren't even sure what the words are anymore.
His fingers run over the smooth surface of his boss's desk, Alfred's eyes muted and dull (his smile is fake, but no one else notices but you). "It's funny, you used to really intimidate me." He laughs as his boss scowls (as you cringe and stop yourself from throwing yourself at Alfred in a puddle of desperation).
His boss ignores it (and you can't for the life of you remember his name; they all bleed together). "You're America," He snaps. "You can't just leave."
"Sorry," Alfred grabs your hand and laughs, feigning innocence. "I gotta go, though. Me and Mattie got a movie we were supposed to catch at three."
And you can tell he's afraid during the movie, with the way he clutches to your arm and barely touches the popcorn. And it has nothing to do with the ghosts on the big screen.
Alfred is nearly hugging you as he thrusts, moaning your name so quietly, so purely, you know you'll never forget who you are as long as he's around.
Except tonight might be the last night you're together.
You tilt your head into the pillow and let out a quiet little sob. Fuck, you're weak.
Alfred's thrusts slow, though he stays in you, his hips rotating, and even as he's hitting your prostate, and you're arching in utter physical pleasure, your chest feels like it's breaking open.
And you want to turn off the lights because he deserves better, on what could potentially be his last night of life, than to see you so shamelessly torn open and bleeding your pain all over the clean sheets.
"Mattie, it's okay," He circles a finger over your nipple, doubling over to kiss your chin, nuzzling the tip of his nose against yours, before he finally makes it to your lips, drawing the kiss out as he strikes deep inside you. "It'll be okay, I promise." He cups your face in his hand, and you press against it as you come, back arching and sobbing his name.
Because who knows if you'll ever be able to moan it like this again.
The spell isn't written on any special sort of parchment. Scrawled on the curved side of a paper plate in England's sprawling scroll. The clear signs of a trembling hand behind it all, highlighting the shaky dots to I's and crosses to t's.
Alfred sits in the center of the circle, the crude little diagram you'd drawn as per England's instruction. And he puts all his faith in you with one bat of eyelashes and upturn of lips.
Right now, you could tear up the spell, erase the chalk lines, and deny his months—potentially years—of planning. You alone have the power to talk him out of this. To save him. To condemn him.
"I love you, Mattie," He mouths the words more than actually speaking them, his smile shining with such a rush of affection that it causes a lump in your throat, so hard and thick you can't even speak, sob, breathe for a moment.
When you open your mouth, the unfamiliar incantations spill from your lips. Even as every cell of your body protests it (is this how Alfred feels every day as a nation?).
You don't know if you're setting him free or killing you both.
There are no signs of him in the morning. No McDonald's bags or Superman comics or baseball scores blaring from the TV.
You watch the sun rise and set over Washington DC.
For one day.
For three weeks.
For three years.
For two decades.
Stocks rising and falling, trembling unpredictably. Policies clashing, fights literally breaking out in the Senate. Riots in the street, provoked at the smallest incentive.
And you just watch it all, what Alfred had built up, watch it all falling apart. Feeling yourself grow more transparent with each sunset. Your body freezes in the bed that's much too large, and much too cold, without Alfred to share it with.
"You wanna go grab a bite to eat?"
You're sitting outside the Smithsonian, the bricks worn, but still standing (much like the rest of the nation—worn, but stabilized, reverting to a numb complacency). Too tired to actually go in, too bored to go home. And you huddle over some trashy magazine about celebrities you can't even pretend to care about (but no one else cares, either).
The sun blurs out everything but an outstretched hand. Your eyes narrow a little as you take it in before looking back to your magazine. Whoever it is—a student from one of the local universities, you assume—is obviously talking to someone else.
Nobody sees you anymore.
You hear the sound of clothes rustling as the man shifts, twiddling with the sleeves of your jacket, but his hand still held out. "You just seem kind of down, that's all," He mumbles.
You slam the magazine shut, wishing it had a hard cover to make a louder noise. "Listen," You start. Wanting to tell him to get lost. To take a hint. To grow some fucking eyes just so he can see that he shouldn't be able to see you at all.
But all you see is his hand, broad and inviting. And a flash of baby blue.
And you let him pull you to your feet without another word.
He unloads his life story over Big Macs and McFlurries. He's a graphic artist, but his real passion is comic books. Superheroes. Living his life panel to panel.
"Maybe you can be my sidekick," He teases, and you watch the sun dance off the frame of his glasses.
He's originally from Virginia, and sometimes you can hear the little twinge of an accent in his voice. You don't mean to lean in at the sound of it, or when he laughs, but you can't help your magnetism. Or the way you smile at the way he blushes when you brush ketchup from the corner of his lips.
You walk him back home, his fingers lingering against yours for a moment before he pulls you close, pecking your cheek before disappearing into his single-room apartment. Only leaving because you promise to go out with him tomorrow night to somewhere proper. "I promise, not McDonald's this time," He laughs.
You feel your chest ache with each step you take to your car, to drive back home for a brief respite, replaying every detail of your afternoon, of his smile, of his laugh.
His favorite color is red. He likes country-western and classic rock. His t-shirt was just a little too tight, jacket a little too baggy.
His name is Alfred.