The French-Canadian Way (Hetalia)
Author: Ashynarr
Summary: In canon, Matthew was raised by Francis and Arthur, but didn't turn out too much like either on the surface. What if he'd taken after his founding Nations just a bit more?
Disclaimer: Hetalia's not mine.
Warning: CanAme, French!Mattie
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Mathieu exhaled, slumped against the supply truck and trying to catch what rest he could while his men laughed and discussed their lives at home, wistfully hoping for a quick end to the war so that they could go back to their loved ones and friends. Since they'd started pushing into the European mainland, morale had been raised, the enemy being pushed back further every month.
The Nation himself was tired, having almost burnt out waiting for a way to do more than provide air support to Arthur after the mainland had completely fallen under Axis control. The only thing he wanted when he got home was a long nap, some real food, and-
-"Hey Mattie, wanna hang out?"-
-some time to himself, because dealing with the rest of the world was exhausting even at the best of times.
(He really, desperately hoped there wouldn't be a third world war. He wasn't sure he'd be able to handle the stress if things came to that.)
(At least one good thing came of the conflict, which was a lack of any thoughts related to his neighboring Nation; war did a good job of leaving you too tired to dream generally.)
"Sir?" One of the men asked, the conversation having lulled briefly while he'd drifted between thoughts. Mathieu cracked his eyes open, seeing the others had turned to glance at him.
"Yes?" He asked, wondering if he'd missed something while he'd been half asleep.
"Do you have someone waiting for you back home?" The same man as before asked.
"...my family, I suppose." Mathieu shrugged, knowing most of the provinces would be busy with their own things after the war came to a close and they moved back to a more peaceful economy.
"No pretty women?" Another asked, almost disappointed.
Mathieu was ready to shake his head when Alfred abruptly popped into his thoughts, giving him pause just long enough for them to latch onto it.
"So there is someone!" A third cheered, looking far too pleased at knowing their superior officer wasn't too different from them after all.
"I don't-" He started to deny, only to rethink it when he saw how badly they needed this confirmation of normality in the middle of the defining war of their lives. These men - his men - needed him to play a part, and really, where was the harm in that?
He took a breath, thinking carefully so as not to let slip anything that could mark him as abnormal, and started again. "It's complicated."
The men exchanged looks before leaning forward, all eager to hear what he had to say.
"She's American, for one," Mathieu explained, grinning wryly. "Which means I don't see her all too often; we send letters and occasionally call each other, but it's not quite the same."
"How'd you meet, then?" The first man asked.
"I lived in the States for a few years when I was younger; she was my neighbor then."
(It was easier to lie when you used half-truths and stayed vague - they could fill in the details themselves.)
"She's cheerful to a fault, always has been," He continued, lips twitching up into a smile. "And horrible about taking no for an answer. If you tell her she can't do something, she'll go and do it just to spite you, even if it causes more trouble in the long run."
Mathieu laughed softly, thinking of the time Alfred had spent an entire week learning how to whittle after being told he was too young to know how to wield the knife properly. He was only lucky he healed from those types of wounds, or else he would still be missing a few of his fingers from fumbling the knife more than once.
(He had gone on to, if not master it, at least be able to consistently produce decent pieces without injuring himself.
Mathieu still had a few of the early attempts somewhere in his storage closet.)
"Sounds like an interesting girl," Another one of the men piped up, grinning. "She have a name?"
"Alice," Mathieu offered after a second, figuring it would be easier to avoid slipping up that way. "Alice Jones."
"What makes any of that complicated?" The second man asked.
"Well," The Nation shrugged sheepishly. "I don't know how she feels about me, for one - I think she might see me as a brother, which would make things hard enough. Not to mention I'm not quite sure of my own feelings towards her…"
The men looked between each other, seeming to determine as one that their commanding officer was hopeless and needed the help. Mathieu was almost offended; he'd romanced plenty of women in the past, this was just - different. Because it was a guy. And Alfred at that.
(A small part of him which had long resigned itself to his issue told him he was just trying to ignore the fact that he already knew how to charm people just fine, a thought he firmly pushed away because what he wanted wasn't a one night stand, but…
...well, that part he wasn't certain of quite yet.)
"Do you want to kiss her?"
"Hold her close while you dance to whatever's playing on the radio?"
"Make her smile when she's down?"
Mathieu ducked his head, trying to fight back the flush as he thought about all of those things briefly and concluded they weren't terrible ideas. "I guess so…"
The men laughed, nudging each other. "You, sir, are in deep then."
The Nation shook his head and smiled, at least happy they were enjoying prodding at him even if he wasn't sure he could really call it-
Well. Something that special, anyways.
("Do not ever let yourself get attached."
"You are literally the best, Mattie!")
~0~0~
"Mathieu," Arthur addressed him a few days later, after they'd finished going over their next moves in the region. Alfred and Francis were handling the western front while they were taking the southern route, with Ivan pushing in slowly but surely from the east, leaving the two of them mostly on their own except for their encoded messages over the radio.
"Yes, Arthur?" The Canadian turned back to him, having started to excuse himself from the abandoned and promptly commandeered building to get some rest before the engineers finished clearing the next obstacle.
"There's been some rumors going about the camp since our last holdup," The elder Nation started, offering Mathieu his seat back.
Mathieu raised an eyebrow but accepted, hoping it wasn't anything too terrible. What could have possibly come up since then that-
Oh. Oh no. Tabernac.
"Something about a certain Williams having lady troubles?" The Englishman's lips twitched up in amusement, and if it wouldn't have earned him a smack for impudence or at least a stern talking to, Mathieu would have started swearing, because raising his troop's morale was one thing, but this-
The younger Nation bit down on his thoughts, realizing that he had no one but himself to blame for indulging their curiosity. "Anything else?"
"Well," And here the Canadian felt the first trickles of fear, Arthur's amusement having died away into something a bit more serious. "Something about the lucky woman being American? An old neighbor, even."
Mathieu stiffened before forcing himself to relax, looking Arthur right in the eyes. "I just gave them something that sounded good; it was the first thing that came to mind."
"The first thing that came to mind?" Arthur questioned softly, still not giving away anything about how he felt about all this.
"Yessir," The Canadian replied, not allowing himself to back down just in case he could still get out of all of this intact.
"I see," The Brit replied after a moment, exhaling quietly as he closed his eyes, opening them after a minute to continue his examination of the other Nation. "And here I thought you'd taken after Francis more than myself."
Mathieu blinked, having not expected that response. "Arthur?"
"I've known him for a long time," Arthur continued, looking out the window to wherever his thoughts were taking him. "His habit of picking up women and tossing them away once he's finished is by no means new, and is rather infamous among the rest of us. I suppose that might in part be my fault, but I wasn't aware at the time that there was anything there…"
He exhaled, shaking his head before looking back to Mathieu. "Since you came under my care, you seemed to follow the same tread. I'd assumed, fairly enough, that he'd indoctrinated you to his own philosophy of spreading l'amour wherever possible and that that wasn't likely to change. So imagine my surprise when not only do I hear that you are having 'lady problems', but that you are actually infatuated with said lady."
"It was just an act-" Mathieu argued weakly.
"Alice Jones," Arthur spoke slowly. "Is not a name you make up for an act."
The Canadian could not hold back the hiss of surprise, because it was already obvious the other knew exactly what was happening and was about to kick his sorry sinful ass out of the army before he could even explain himself. "What does that have to do with anything?"
And here Arthur surprised him again, smiling wryly at some private joke. "Surprising as it might seem, you aren't the only one who's been faced with 'lady problems'."
Mathieu opened his mouth to protest two seconds before the words registered, leaving him gaping wordlessly as he stared at his pseudo-mentor.
"I suppose you could have done worse, all things considered," The Englishman continued blithely. "You have a far better chance with your lady than I've ever had with mine, and you haven't had the weary centuries of bitter regrets and fears to weigh down your hopes yet."
"...who?" Mathieu eventually choked out, not wanting to comment on the other part of that quite yet, still reeling at the other admitting to something so- so-
Arthur simply smiled, though it failed to reach his eyes. "I'd rather not say; I've already expended my heart-sopping sob story quota for the decade, and I'm afraid if I go any further I might become Spanish."
The sheer absurdity of the admission had Mathieu laughing, slowly at first and then towards hysterical, tears starting to overwhelm him as Arthur moved around the table to awkwardly comfort him. He'd been so scared of what would happen if anyone found out, and now that he knew he wasn't the only one to suffer like this, he felt both freer and more frightened of the future than ever before.
"Shh, shh," Arthur muttered, rubbing Mathieu's shoulders as he hiccupped into a wet silence. "I know I scared you, but you're safe now. I'm not going to tell anyone what happened here, and we can pretend this didn't happen."
"No, it's fine, I just…" The Canadian wiped away the last of his tears, smiling genuinely at his mentor for what was probably the first time in their shared history. "Thank you, Arthur, for not, well,"
"Booting you from the army for being you?" He grinned in understanding. "I'm afraid you'll have to do far worse than that to get out of here, Williams."
"Yessir," Mathieu replied with a small laugh. "I completely understand."
He never thought he'd see the day where he truly came to respect the older Nation, but it seemed life was full of surprises for him. Not to mention his words had sparked something new in the Canadian, leaving him to wonder just whether what he'd once thought absurd might just, in fact, be possible after all.
(Maybe one day he'd be able to help Arthur in turn; the man did not deserve to look defeated at the idea of his own chances, even if he was English.)
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AN: Ahahaha, I honestly hadn't planned the part with Arthur until after I sat down with my friend's idea of Mattie talking to his men about his crush (without mentioning anything about his lady actually being a guy), but I am really, really happy with how it turned out. And no, I don't have a definite ship for Arthur yet, but I'm considering a rarer pair like EngChu, PrUK, or AsaKiku. (Sorry, FrUK fans, I mean I love the ship but I don't feel like it would quite fit with this fic.)
We are now officially halfway through the fic! And the rest of the chapters should be easy going from here, though I might need to adjust a later chapter or two in order to see what I and Mattie can do for poor, poor Artie.