Another day of work was finally done, and Peter saluted his boss before turning on his heels. It was a quick and casual exchange, and in less than a second, the 14 year old boy with bushy eyebrows had run off.
Just a few days ago April had hit Bristol with her veil of sunshine, both to wake people in the morning and to lull them into sleep when the hours got late enough. Though it had used to be Peter's least favorite month for some years, in recent times he had found himself looking forward to her arrival.
Skipping down the street and greeting bypassers with the widest grin, Peter would of course not admit that he hoped there was someone among the home-goers looking intrigued at his festive mannerisms, feeling inspired by him to write the main character of their next writing project. What he could admit, however, was that the bright afternoon sun warming his whole body surely welcomed him to the mindset of a protagonist. Peter was after all going home with an intention, an intention he had been looking forward to ever since he had woken up this morning.
He swore he could already pick up the sweet scent in the air.
It took him half the time to get home – No more than twenty minutes – than what it usually took. The soles of his shoes clacked along the sidewalk as he approached the apartment complex. In the late sunshine, the deep brown blocks that made up its exterior looked almost yellow, matching the lights in the tiny windows. Peter entered the building, and the door slamming shut echoed deafeningly throughout the stairways. As the sweet scent, something entirely different from what he had envisioned earlier, floated alluringly down the staircase, Peter took off through the halls with the corners of his mouth increasingly picking up.
"I'm home!" his voice cracked when he flung the apartment door open carelessly enough that the umbrella hanging from the door handle smashed into the nameplate on the wall reading "Kirkland". Once the door's opening fully welcomed him inside, the sweet and savory, delightful scent hit his face like a- No, it embraced him like a duvet on a cold night, like the kiss of a pretty lady as she held his face gently in her hands.
"How much did you make?" came the ever so piercing, jovial voice of uncle Jack, as he peeked his head past the doorframe to the kitchen to catch Peter's arrival. In the midst of kicking off his shoes, Peter halted for a second to hold up five fingers.
"Five pounds!?" uncle Jack exclaimed as his whole body came into sight. Peter parted his lips to comment, but uncle Jack beat him to it as his surprised stance took on a relaxed tone, and he leaned against the doorframe. "I suppose people really want to know what goes on on the mainland."
"Actually," Peter started and threw his breton onto the hat shelf, "There was this one household that bought like half the papers. Someone was having a hundred-year-old celebration afterparty-thing, and they were so drunk that they just-"
"Grabbed 'em like a bunch of hungry seagulls, I assume?" uncle Jack laughed.
"And they didn't care to look how much they paid me, but they thought I was charming so they paid me what they felt like."
Now it was Wendy's turn to enter the conversation, her statement nothing more than a voice far away in the depths of the living room.
"If we're paying according to someone's looks, you'd have to pay for selling the newspapers," she remarked, most probably returning her attention to some book she was reading. Uncle Jack chuckled and returned to the kitchen counters, Peter repeated her comment in a mocking tone before following uncle Jack.
Peter didn't have to look to know what was being cultivated by uncle Jack's recently improving cooking skills: In a casserole, a beef stew, in the oven that was now turned off but still warm, an apple pie.
"You didn't make all of this," Peter snidely said, shooting uncle Jack a trying smirk. With all the self-acceptance and shamelessness in the world, uncle Jack shook his head.
"Give me five years, and I'll be able to follow baking instructions."
Uncle Jack proceeded to call Wendy to the table as he turned off the stovetop and lifted the heavy casserole. Wendy entered the dining area of the kitchen, swiftly grabbing a trivet for Jack to place the pot on. Peter fetched a carafe of water from the fridge, as well as salt and pepper. The trio found their rightful place by the table; Uncle Jack farthest away from the counters so he had a proper outlook on the kitchen, Peter to his left, and Wendy to his right. On the fourth side was a glass of forget-me-nots, also fully plated with cutlery and a filled pint glass. Uncle Jack folded his hands together in front of his heart and interlaced his fingers, the younger ones mirroring him promptly.
"For what we are about to receive," uncle Jack said softly, commencing the table prayer, "may the Lord make us truly grateful." He looked to the space inhabited by the flowers, and popped a little grin, "And a happy fifty-first to Artie."
"Happy birthday, uncle Arthur," Wendy gently chirped.
"Happy birthday, Daddy!" Peter cheered.
Jack patiently looked at the teenagers until they seemed ready to continue, and he concluded the prayer with an "Amen". They didn't usually do table prayers, but every April 23rd, Peter had kept insisting on doing it, as well as on his own birthday. The three waited for the prayer to reach the sky, having nothing to rely on but Peter's intuition, before uncle Jack gestured to the food with an excited "dig in!".
The savory aroma of the stew emitted once again when Wendy stirred the ladle around a couple of times before scooping some into her bowl. Meanwhile Peter grabbed a flatbread and tore it in half, laying them neatly next to his yet-to-be-filled bowl.
"Did you check the mail today, Peter?" asked uncle Jack as he too got himself some flatbread.
"Yup," Peter said.
"Lies, I did," uncle Jack promptly replied with a hint of mischief in his voice. Peter stared at him with a deadpan expression for a prolonged time while Wendy waited for either of them to take over the ladle, before Peter huffed and returned his attention to the stew.
"Nice try, though," uncle Jack chuckled before resting his cheek in his palm, and his energetic expression softened. "We got a letter from Alfred today."
Cluck, it said when the neck of the ladle fell to the rim of the pot.
Of course, Peter had thought about him all these years and wondered what in the world he was up to. The difference from now and before was that it no longer kept him awake at night. Sometimes he forgot that he had a physical form that still existed, and suddenly the reminder that Peter was waiting for someone hit him like a brick.
Uncle Jack and Wendy had probably been able to predict his reaction, their expressions and body language calm and controlled. Not a hint of surprise, unlike Peter. Uncle Jack gestured with his eyes to the flowers in the glass, and surely there was an envelope resting next to it. Peter grabbed it with all his might and read the sleazy handwriting on the back with the receiver's address. In a moment of hesitation, Peter looked to Wendy and then uncle Jack, receiving various encouraging gestures. While it did take Peter a few moments where he had to collect himself and keep his hands from trembling, once he breathed it out, he ripped the envelope as if there was no tomorrow.
A crumpled paper with more creases than the shirt Peter never cared to iron before work came to sight, and Peter proceeded to read its contents for everyone to hear. With the writer's voice in the back of his mind, he couldn't help but add the little tint of Americanism in the accent.
It didn't take more than the two first words before Peter's eyes welled up and tears spilled over. As the slow realization that he was holding the paper that Alfie himself had been holding dawned upon him, his voice began to tremble as he read the words aloud – With all their misspellings and hard-to-read letters. And Peter could perfectly imagine Alfie as this hard worker who could brighten anyone's day, and probably had been in detention a few times for accidentally doing something he shouldn't have. He could imagine how Alfie encouraged his friends when times were tough. At some point, the letter mentioned the glasses still working perfectly, and uncle Jack chuckled lightly with a satisfied "Good". The letter mentioned Smalltown as Alfie had taken a trip after all these years, it mentioned Matt and uncle Francis, and it mentioned how much he missed his family. And then the letter came to an end.
Peter didn't realize that he was an emotional mess before he looked at the others, and he saw Wendy crying and sniffling every two seconds.
"The hell are you crying for!?" Peter bawled, barely looking at her in order to desperately blink away his own tears.
"Seeing you cry makes me cry!" Wendy protested, also looking away.
"Why must you two hurt me this way," Jack said, quickly wiping the few tears that were stinging in the corners of his eyes. While Peter and Wendy were sobbing farther into the spiral of nostalgia and longing, Jack reached forward to grab the envelope because he thought he had discerned a quadratic shape through the paper. The edges were ever so faint, but he had been right. Carefully, he lifted the stiffer paper, and a sensation as strong as a slap but as sharp as a needle came piercing through his chest, forcing another set of tears to puddle in his eyes. Despite that, there was no way he couldn't mirror the bright, bustling smile depicted.
How was it possible for six years to go by so incredibly fast? Jack had to admit that raising two children in their early teenage stages had caused him several nights of untamed frustration, often second-guessing himself if he were ready for what was to come. He had originally become a caretaker because he found a little girl on the streets one day, and had now ended up on the other side of the world with another kid. What was he, an orphanage? When he thought these things, he always came back to thinking of Arthur, of Alfred, and that in five years or so, Wendy and Peter would probably slip away as well.
But all in due time.
Jack knew that once he showed the kids the picture he now held in his hands – especially to Peter – it would be over for them all.
He did it anyway.
Hiya family!
Missed me? Dont worry, i've missed me too. As in not in a depressing way or anything but I miss me in the family life. Not to be rude but I haven't even gotten to adjust to a new family yet so while yall went ahead and got to bond, I'm still kinda stuck. so kinda depressing. Didnot mean to make this a depressing letter, sorry bout that!
Anyway, the glasses are still working like a charm. an I got myself a part time job on behalf of the school to trim the hedges. So all those years with cliping hedges in Smalltown paid off. Some of my mates saw me trim the hegdes one day and now call me "hedgehog". Jolly, isn't it. Have yall been to Smalltown recently by the way? It's a ghost town i tell you. No body lives there anymore. Ha I swear I almost broke into the mayor's former office to grab some gardening tools the way the park looked. i i also cried like a newborn when i walked into our house. Sadly I have no idea where the other people went. I still think about how I never said sorry to Toris for the way I treated him God. I also miss Lily and Eliza and Gil and Ludwig and Antonio and the Vargases… Oh but I did meet Matt the other day and I cried again. Like, I was CRYING crying. Matt had come to surprise visit me and stayed over at the dorm and we talked about stuff. He and uncle Francis have apparently moved to Toulouse and uncle Francis is a successful hairdresser now! Yall should have seen Matt's fabulous hair. It's longer an with braids n all.
Anyway, i dunno when the letter reaches you guys but I miss yoo. So much. moneys a bit tight so traveling and sending stuff is mighty tricky, but I'll try and come home soon. GERT LUSH talking to ya! Fair dinkum, or whatever.
- Al
A/N: I have never shared a piece of my writing online before I made an acc here on ff, and this story – despite all of its amateurish shortcomings and flaws – has become a creative milestone for me. I can't believe that I've been able to invoke emotions within people just by using words, and I can't describe the feeling I get by knowing that someone wants to invest their time to read my stories. So truly thank you for your time 3
As I'm cultivating my next Big Story, I'll probably upload short-stories every now and then like I used to, and I hope you'll stick around! In fact, I have so many stories I want to write that I have no idea what to start with XD If you want to talk more with me, I have an art acc (I draw lots of Hetalia lol) on IG and Tumblr, both going by yellowcamfer :D
Again, I can't thank you enough for sticking around to this story. The joy of fanfiction for me is the endless ways to interpret canon characters and make them your own in some way, and gosh, this fic was a WHOLE adventure.
Thank you.