me at one am: wow let's update shall we :)

ffnet: haha we're down sorry

me: OK i'll sleep on it

me: wait it's 9am, it should be b-

ffnet: haha we're down sorry

me: ...

so that's the reason this chapter is late :/ i apologise greatly!

as always, i do not own the selection nor hetalia. these belong to kiera cass and himaruya hidekaz respectively.

Alfred had lied to him, Arthur thought angrily as he strode through the lavish walls that decorated the palace – rounding towards the corner of Alfred's room. That idiot's juggling too many things at once!

The hallway was strangely devoid of guards; there was just Alfred's maid who was standing quietly outside his bedroom door. Alfred had gotten up early for breakfast, saying that he had wanted to make an early start, and Arthur was left clutching at the sheets, groggily taking a shower and (attempting) to tame his unruly hair.

"Hey, honey!" Alfred cried, as soon as Arthur went through the door with a face painted with frustration – not like it softened or anything when he saw Alfred with a massive bouquet of blue roses. Oh, and Matthew was sitting in the corner, blue notebook in his hand and an endlessly patient expression. "I got you a present!"

"Alfred, darling, you know that your company is enough," Arthur said, placing down his papers and meeting him in the middle with a small peck to the cheek. "Really, though, I didn't ask you to take on three additional projects…I insisted on planning the wedding and it should be my responsibility alone."

"Hey, don't you remember we spoke last night?" Alfred murmured from behind the flowers, planting them on the chair to bring Arthur into a hug. "You said you needed some help with decorations and stuff!"

"I believe the moment where I specifically asked you to quote unquote 'not take on too much work?'" Arthur sassed him back. "But…thank you for the flowers, Alfred. They're wonderful, as usual. Although, you shouldn't spoil me so."

"I'm really happy you like them," Alfred grinned, tucking a stray strand of hair between Arthur's ears and looking deep into his eyes with a gaze that made Arthur blush brightly. "Though, they're not as pretty as you are, and they'll never be."

"A – hem, you two," Matthew said – even though his tone was bright, his eyes were fighting to keep focus, which made the both of them spring apart guiltily. "Alfred, you were going to contact me about the mishap with your planning diary?"

"Uhm, yeah, actually," Alfred said, reaching for the notebook again and flicking hurriedly through the pages. "Before I went for breakfast and stuff this morning, it had all the nice notes that Arthur had left, but when I went back and looked through it, it didn't have jack. I don't know what happened…"

"…what? Alfred, that doesn't just happen," Arthur said quietly, taking the book from him with a seizing feeling in his chest. He was right – it was completely empty. How come…?

"Are you sure you haven't messed it up, somehow? Maybe you were in a rush, and you panicked, and you screwed up the book cover…maybe it's just the wrong book?" Matthew said, climbing off his sofa, a concerned look on his face at how stricken Arthur's expression was. "Al, there might be something different on the cover, let me and Arthur have a look-"

"I'm afraid that won't be necessary," a cool voice said, coming from the entrance of the door that sent shivers up Alfred's spine. "That book may be incorrect, but it worked all the same."

Alfred slowly turned around, the blood draining from his face as he saw a small gaggle of advisors standing in the hallway, their eyes triumphant. Around them, he saw three or four of them fan out around them, holding guns and weapons that made his mouth go dry.

"We heard that you and the new brat were planning for your wedding," Aileen said smoothly, purple badge gleaming on her chest as she strode forward, two men accompanying her with the same badge on their lapels, bearing weapons. "Well. You also tried to expel us from the monarchy, where we belong and you do not – even if you have royal blood, your weakness taints you. And your new bride doesn't even have any!"

Alfred instinctively put himself in between them, Matthew and Arthur to protect the two of them somehow. Damn it, how did he not see it? And Yao wasn't here, and he didn't know if he could pull out his watch in time, and then…

His mind spiralled out of control as soon as he heard Matthew cry out – another advisor had grabbed his brother by the waist behind him and placed the holster of his gun to his forehead. Alfred whipped around, trying to reach for him while holding onto Arthur's arm so tightly that his knuckles turned white. But even he couldn't hold down two people at once and Arthur was wrenched from his grip, lashing out and screaming, the sounds like daggers to his ears.

Aileen simply smiled at his fury, and took the chair from Alfred's desk, arranging her legs and placing her hands on top of her knees, a sickly sweet grin blossoming on her sallow face as she watched him struggle. He was yanked by two advisors flanking him so he was in proximity to hear her words.

"Maybe you'll learn your place in the world, once and for all," she said softly into his ear, resembling a snake's snarl before it engulfed its prey. "Isn't that right, crown prince?"

Is that why the hallway was so empty? Arthur thought to himself, sharing a panicked look with Matthew as the two of them resisted. No, no, no. How did we think it could be so easy…

"You're on lockdown and vulnerable, crown prince!" a woman cried triumphantly, folding her arms over her chest. "Your precious Jack is down at his office, working away merrily, and the other kingdoms are only starting to prepare for a wedding that will never happen!"

"The soldiers in this castle are loyal to the Primary Suit," Alfred spat, blue eyes flashing from where Arthur could see him. "They'll know when something's going on!"

"Ah, that may be true, but we purposely blocked off this corridor so that no one would try to intervene," she continued, and yanked his face to face her. "We mixed up the journal so you'd call both the Ace and the princess over to the room, so we'd be able to stage a coup here."

"You won't get past Yao," Matthew shouted, his arms writhing and the tip of his boots scuffing the carpet. "He'll figure it out soon enough!"

"Always the motherly figure, huh?" she continued, laughing. "He won't even know what hit him. And then the public will turn against him for failing to protect their beloved prince."

"Just like how they turned against you when they found out what you did," Alfred snarled.

Her eyes turned cold, and her stance froze as she yanked at his chin to face him. "Do you want more lashes on your back?!"

Alfred flinched for that one moment, blue eyes creasing in distress, hurt in every movement of his body that Arthur desperately ached to do something. Yes, he could use some sort of spell, but it wouldn't be enough before he was tackled down onto the floor and likely shot. He knew Matthew had never been trained to use his birth given powers in combat, and that left Alfred – but again, it would only be for so long before all three of them were overpowered.

They were trapped.

Arthur tried to thrash around again, gritting his teeth as he lashed out again, but his leg only managed to graze the wall. He jerked violently when the advisor restraining him slammed his elbow against his ribcage, causing him to cry out from the unexpected pain.

"Arthur!" Alfred yelped, ripping his face away from the woman to look helplessly at him. Arthur tried to shake his head, wanting to tear his eyes away from the fingernail marks on his chin, reassuring him, but it did no good.

"Aileen, hurry up!" the man restraining him called, looking a little disconcerted. "We don't have all damn day."

"Quiet," she said frostily, mouth rigid as Alfred dragged his gaze defiantly to face her, his teeth gritted. "I've been waiting for this moment ever since his father died."

"Don't you dare say anything against him," Matthew yelled, thrashing against the arms of his attacker again. "He was nothing but noble up until the moment he died!"

"You're the splitting image of the same man who mocked my father!" Aileen shot right back. "Listen up, blue blood filth. Back when your father married your mother, Diamonds was slowly starting to recover from the disastrous war that they brought upon themselves. Even though they were getting some sort of aid, it would take a while before they'd recover, and they were grasping at strings. Then my father, one of the high ranking officials, found out that there was a strip of land near the border we shared with the Diamonds. He said we could take it without repercussions because the Diamonds were so weak. Guess what your father said?"

"He'd never accept that!" Matthew retorted.

"That's the problem!" she screamed, hitting the surface of the desk in rage. "Instead of rewarding my father, he knocked him down all the way to the bottom ranks of the advisorship and increased the aid so that none of the other kingdoms would try to take advantage. My whole family was mocked. I worked so hard to try to rise up the ranks for something that we should have been rewarded for! And that's why when he had two sons, I knew that they had to pay for the crimes your father committed against my family."

"They were the actions of a just man, which will be more than your father could have ever been," Alfred said darkly, glaring at her with blue poison lacing his gaze.

"I'm sick of your little hero complex," Aileen said. "It has no business trying to rule a country with wasted potential. With all the magic we hold in this kingdom, we can easily conquer the other three. But no, you're letting your bonds and your weaknesses consume you whole! We already know that you're letting your commoner queen be friends with the Queen of Hearts. You'll never be fit to rule Spades!"

Alfred's mouth parted, as if he were going to give her a seething retort and a slap, but she raised her hand.

"I'm sick of all this," she sighed, reclining back onto his desk. "Just killing you all would be easier. He won't agree with my plans. Start with the Ace, you know the drill."

"What?" Arthur whispered under his breath, green eyes whipping around to face Matthew, who was still struggling with clenched teeth. To his absolute horror, an advisor raised a gun to Matthew's hip and shot.

Once, when Matthew was eight years old, he had been climbing a tree in the royal gardens. His mother had been sitting outside on a bench, a plastic box of sandwiches next to her, and his father had been reading a book, sat squat legged on the grass next to the bench, fingers holding a sandwich while Alfred was clutching a toy plane and making enthusiastic noises. It had been a family day; there had been no cameras around.

Matthew had climbed. He had gripped the bark like a lifeline and wrested his legs higher, higher, higher, and closer to that tantalizing apple and farther from his family, his safety. He'd slowly figured out where to put his arms, and was wobbling at the end of a rather long branch when Alfred screamed at him and he had fell, landing with a crash on his side.

Piper had let out a wail, abandoning her meal and running to her son's side, cradling him as if he were a babe and asking Fitz to pick Alfred up, and as a family they had run into the infirmary. When Matthew woke up in his mother's arms, he had been badly stung by shock. His fingers felt numb, and he couldn't taste anything but the dryness of his tongue and his desperate pants.

That's how he felt as his arms instantly slackened and he dragged his field of vision to his wound, where it had lodged into his left thigh. Panic started to set in – shock, his brain had unhelpfully supplied, but there was something else in his delirium. What if it had hit a major artery? He was going to bleed to death in five minutes, if he was lucky. He could hear someone screaming, somehow, but nothing else made sense past his blurry vision and-

"Matthew," someone was saying, but it sounded as if they were saying the words underwater – he couldn't make out who it was, even. "Matthew, I'll be there in a moment!"

"Whaf?" Matthew said, his speech groggy as he pawed at the thin air in front of him. What...who…

"He'll be next!" someone was shouting, but Matthew couldn't figure out who. "The crown prince won't let up, Schmidt, so-"

"ARTHUR!" someone screamed again, and there was this loud bang, and then Matthew just closed his eyes after that. Screaming. Why was there so much screaming?

"Stop it, please, stop it," someone was begging…it sounded familiar… "Let me see him! Please, don't-"

"One minute, boy, then we'll start to end the monarchy," the womanly voice purred. Who was she?

"Arthur, sugar, I'm so sorry," the familiar voice said, hushed. "Are you okay? They got you in the arm, right? Did it hit anything?"

"A-Alfred…" a new voice came, soft and feeble. "Don't mourn us…get out if you can…you can find another…see to Matthew, please…"

"There won't be another," he said firmly, and there was this tender sound, something that sounded familiar but he couldn't place in his befuddled mind. "Alfred, you could-"

"No, I have to," came the reply, but the throbbing of his thigh, the slow din that was his heartbeat, muffled it. "I can't get enough to stop them in time. Get Matt some help when…okay? Say sorry to Yao for me. I love you."

"Alfred, it doesn't have to be this way!"

Matthew blinked one more time, letting his vision clear for a moment before it wavered. Again, again, a woman was pointing a gun at Alfred's head, again, a-

"Alfred," he grunted, before letting his head droop, the pain leaking through his leg until it turned his pants to the colour of black. "Alfred, wait-"

Another shot rang through the air, and Matthew was gone.

Alfred had held him as if it were the last time he'd ever embrace a human being.

Arthur's arms lay dully over his shoulders, his legs slackened as he breathed shallowly into Alfred's shoulder, mouth moving to deliver words that would never come and eyes that wouldn't focus. His irregular heartbeat and ragged breathing brought unease at the root of Alfred's heart.

"Where did they get you?" Alfred pleaded, cupping Arthur's face in his hands. "I-"

"It's just…my arm," Arthur said, shaking his head quickly. "Unl…unless they hit a major artery, I'm going to be fine. Now, Alfred, just go…"

"I won't leave you and Matt," Alfred insisted, touching his face with trembling fingers. "Even if I reach Yao, I don't know if I can reach you two in time. I don't know Matthew's condition, he…it scares me."

"No, Alfred," Arthur insisted, "Please, please don't try to play hero. There's no way out-"

"I can try to manipulate time, Arthur," Alfred said, almost begging him, trying to pull up some of his jacket to staunch his bleeding arm wound. "Please, there's gotta be a way."

"Alfred, I…I'm not sure if there's the strength – I'm not sure if I have any strength," Arthur said weakly, but Alfred was gripping his clammy left hand in his own, pressing the knuckles against his lips as if he was praying for a miracle. "I'm sorry, love,"

"Princess, there's nothing to be sorry for, I promise," Alfred whispered, and Arthur could feel his lips shaking against the surface of his hand. "I should have seen this happening, I should have brought the guards, I should – I should have been stronger!"

"Don't cry, Alfred…my darling," Arthur said, fighting back tears. This was the end. He knew he couldn't bring enough energy from where he had been, and Alfred couldn't manage it all by his own. He had been so close to a happy ending…

I'm sorry, Allistor, Erin, Christian, Cormac…Dylan, Arthur thought of his family, forgetting the dull song of pain in his arm. I should have been stronger for all of you.

"Promise me you'll make it out, Alfred. Promise m-"

He never finished his sentence.

Aileen had tapped the butt of her pistol against the back of Alfred's head, camouflaging itself amongst his blond hair, her smile shining darkly against her face.

"Long live the King," she purred. "Long live the monarchy."

Arthur's pupils dilated, the undersides of his fingers flamed, and everything around them stopped.

haha

replies

CFAA - i mean there has to be some sort of flaw in his character, lmao.

mygenderisunicorn2004 - awww thank you! fluff is something i'm definitely not used to writing, but i hope you enjoyed it

mi chan kizanami - i have to stop sometimes after all or my angst reputation is dead. arthur's either "but i'm going to be queen soon or" "yes, i am a princess, thank you" and thank you for reviewing as always!

russia says hello - is it bad to say that i don't listen as much to coldplay as i should have? i'll give that song a whirl when i can. thanks for the mini ap euro lesson in the reviews, haha. france back then probably subscribed too enthusiastically to the idea of bettering themselves and ended up changing too drastically lmao. i doubt a lot of people could say they lived through all those changes except in france...

vivadragnire - a romp in the forest you say? girl you nasty ;D and well hell, i actually didn't intentionally start it again but whoops

spade sama - oh boy, daisuga is my main pairing in haikyuu fandom and that ship is pure sugar i tell you. they coincidentally make for the best parents!

astrea v - hi and welcome! thank you so much for your kind words! and addressing your second point - that's actually a huge issue on my part that i'll resolve after i've finished this fic for readers. basically, i've been writing this fic since i just started in the fandom (late 2014) to now, so 3-4 years. initially, this story was supposed to be relatively short and was a straight retelling of the original AU, and also a way for me to improve my english as it's not my first language! so yeah, the beginning was a trainwreck. i originally intended to put the fic on hold and rewrite all of the disastrous cringe that was chapters 1-30, but my readers preferred for me to finish the story first and that's why i decided to branch it out and make it a bit of my own! thanks for the criticism, there are so many things that i'd love to change i promise you ;v; p.s. i'm sorry about prucan, they'll...work it out eventually...

n kukuri chan - ma'am you and your super long reviews, one of these days you're going to have to write a mini saga of just reviews HAHA. So many points to cover, so little time for the both of us ;D

gaahh that initial scene in chapter 104 was pretty borderline nsfw, i can assure you! i would still want to leave it up to the reader's interpretation as to what happens, but it was pretty clear cut that it wasn't anything on the plane of holding hands, lmao. since both of them are teenagers feat. that hormone buildup, i know i covered alfred having to deal with this fallout before but i also wanted to show that arthur, albeit having an easier time dealing with it, still struggles with the temptation of being involved with alfred. come to think of it, they have been largely intimate in several points but not to the point of explicit xxxing, so…

yes, alfred does wear a onesie! i'm sure i mentioned this earlier but since this fic is so fucking long i wouldn't put it past anyone to not remember anything anymore lmao. alfred would probably tire the baby out if he's carrying, but there's something else weighing on arthur's mind (another reason he wants to carry it instead of alfred but that's something that'll be explored later as part of his duty) so that's kind of why the conversation went where it went.

als at that vignette that was…i was going out for lunch with a group of friends then i realised what i was reading and i had to hastily turn my brightness all the way down and squint, lol. you'd be better at writing the nsfw than me, honestly! i knew it was those darned rabbits! (also thanks for the fitz analogy – the one reason i chose it was because the F in JFK stood for fitzgerald and i thought it fitting. thanks gilbert, for haunting us)

feliciano is probably too honest for his own good! alfred's too confused all the time, poor lad. i hope he doesn't take it to feli's "translators" (ludwig, lovino and probably antonio ngl) to see what it means because RIP alfred's mind. anna is too smart for her own good so arthur better be holding some ice to attempt to treat his burns! and what is near the end (?) of the chapter without some fluff? ofc ;)

thank you very much for your letter again! x

reviews, favourites and follows are what will keep me writing, so please go ahead and leave them!