Author's Note:

Added here from previous AO3 account.

"Uhhhhgg…"

The first thing Alfred felt when he woke up was the stabbing pain shooting through his eyes upon opening them to the sky. Immediately after, he rolled onto his side ejecting the contents of his stomach onto the grassy ground next to him. At this point, Alfred would have probably been thinking something to the effect of, 'Where am I? What the Hell happened again?' But frankly he was in too much nauseating pain to put any coherent thoughts together. His head whirled in dizziness as he got his bearings. Finally he looked up around him.

Oh yes, that's right. The battle.

He was lying in a large field still in his red white and blue patriot uniform, the sky was gently overcast and there was a slight wind. All around him were bodies. The bodies of his fellow soldiers scattered the land. No one else was in sight. The once pleasant breeze became eerie as he became aware that he was all alone here. Alone and surrounded by only the dead.

Suddenly a sharp pain stung through his forehead, he reached up only to bring down a hand covered in blood from a decent sized gash that tore open his forehead. The pieces came together, he must have been knocked unconscious in battle and mistaken for one of the dead. The bleeding was mostly done, that was good. Slowly and delicately, he brought himself together and stood up.

Dear god, everything on his body hurt. His head, his legs, his feet, his arms- nowhere was safe from the aching pain.

Nonetheless, he shakily stepped forward. Immediately he fell to the ground but got up again, this time more carefully. Eventually he got ahold of his shaky legs and struck out to walk.

He was a little dazed, but still the bodies lying around him didn't phase him. There was simply nothing he could do, there was no way he could help them now and he had to get back to somewhere with people so that he could find his troop, end this war, and most importantly, gain his freedom. So he walked along the deserted grassland shuffling around bodies and hoping to find something useful. Somewhere along the way he wondered where everyone was. Which side won? And why hadn't the winner stayed to take the land or care for their dead?

He picked up a sash from one of his fallen soldiers to wrap around the wound on his head. As he looked around, he couldn't tell who won by the number of dead. Was it his side? Or the British? One thing he did know was that this was one of the bloodiest battles he'd ever seen. He hoped with all his might it was the colonies who won, to give him one step closer to his freedom.

As he went he slowly rounded a hill and at the top of the sloping hill he stopped to look down at the expanse.

Death was everywhere. The blue coats and the red coats all scattered the land. The bodies look evenly distributed, he couldn't tell who had less casualties to give a clue unto which side won. Then something caught his eye in the distance.

It was a flicker of movement. Someone was alive.

Narrowing his eyes, he focused on the figure of a man. He was sitting near the top of the next slope. He looked like he was shuffling around on the ground, maybe looking for something - or scavenging. And wouldn't you know? He was wearing a red coat. Alfred cringed in disgust, but really having nothing else to do, began his descent.

He didn't try to conceal himself, what was the point? They'd both just went through a battle. As he got closer he noticed the other had the same idea. He completely aware Alfred was approaching but he just sat there, waiting in silence.

Alfred bent to pick up a stay rifle and half dragged it behind him, his pace never wavered. He'd just half to pick off this last straggler of the tyrant army himself and then be on his way. The other man saw this, but didn't move a muscle from where he sat. Alfred noticed his light blond hair, stuck to his forehead from sweat and his pale skin. His green eyes never left Alfred as he grew nearer.

"What are you going to do with that?" The other's steely yet calm voice spoke up when Alfred was close, ringing out through the silence in the air.

Alfred stopped, and looked at the other. "Kill you." He said with ease.

"Why?" The enemy soldier hissed and grimaced. "I'm no threat to you."

"Because you're a red coat." Alfred replied.

"And you're ignorant." The other soldier spit.

Alfred paused for a moment, smiling slightly more so to humor the other than out of joy, as he picked up the rifle, aiming it at the other. "Is that really a smart idea to be saying that to the one with the gun?"

"Please," the red coat said dismissively. "I'm as good as dead anyways." He then slumped back, hand slipping from where it was wrapped around his waist to reveal the large wet blotch of dark red stain on his shirt. He'd been shot. The wound was to the side. Pitty, it may have missed his vital organs, but don't worry, the bleeding out and infection would take care of that.

Seeing this, Alfred took a moment to take in the other. He was breathing heavily, his face was much too pale and sweat soaked his face and hair. He took a note at the other man's surroundings. There was a ripped shirt, where the enemy soldier had attempted to make bandages. The rest of the area was littered with odds and ends of other items including a small pair of scissors, a small bowl a bottle of some liquid that suspiciously looked like alcohol and other thing that he must have scavenged in a desperate attempt to stay alive. Nonetheless, this man surely was dying.

Well, Alfred thought, no need to waste the bullets or the energy. And so dropped the gun and sat down on the ground sighing in exhaustion.

The other soldier looked confused.

"What are you doing?" he said.

"I'm exhausted," Alfred said, "and I'm not going to waste the energy in killing you."

The other soldier scowled.

"If you're not going to help me just leave me alone to die!"

"I have to make sue you die." his expression eerily blank.

"Oh, so if I don't succumb to my own injuries then you'll kill me? That's like torture. What kind of sadistic scum are you?" the other hissed.

It was Alfred's turn to scowl. His eyes grew dark but he said nothing. There was a moment of silence before Alfred stood up. "It's getting dark." he said and walked away.

It was indeed getting dark and Alfred had just about had it. That tyrant thinks he's being tortured? The British have been torturing their own people for years, how dare he call him some low life scum? That tyrant isn't any better than all his little British buddies or even King George himself. They're all the same. Arrogant, cold hearted bastards who suppress their citizens, lock them away and ignore them, only to pull them out when they want something. Money.

So fine, he wanted to be left to die alone like all his people deserve? Than Alfred would do just that.

Alfred stumbled his way through the bodies and dimming light once again, around a few hills, got a substantial amount of distance away, where the bodies thinned out before he settled down. It grew dark. It was cold but Alfred tried to ignore it. Curling in on himself in the smallest he could, he waited for sleep.

The cold did keep him awake yes, but what really kept him awake for most of the night was the thought of the dead not far away, and the tiny, minuscule thought that he could have been one of them and no one would ever know. He could still yet be one of them and no one would be the wiser. It was an irrational thought, but the howling wind didn't help at all. Sleep did eventually take him only after he tried his best to keep his mind off the dead only merely yards away. He dare not think about his brother, instead he focused on the soldier he met earlier that day. He would go back to check on the man in the morning. Surely the man would be dead by then.

The only problem was, he wasn't.

Author's Note: I really should have been writing something else but then this little idea popped into my head and then this popped onto this page so it just kind of happened. And there will be more. Haven't really decided if this will be really shippy or not yet, but then again, with Alfred and Arthur how can it not? Even if it is only romantic tension. But ANYWAYS...

See you next time~!