Disclaimer: I do not own Hetalia. Or Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray. Or Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek and its Evil Spock. Or "Nearer my God to Thee" by Sarah Flower Adams (reportedly played as the Titanic sank).
Warning: Profanity. Some stereotypes. Some OCs for the sake of plot. Some inevitable inaccuracies (historically, culturally, linguistically, and grammatically).
TRIGGER Warning: Fallout from supernaturally induced domestic violence…technically. Harris (who just wears this label now as a button). Depiction of villainous mental illness, stalking, and obsession along with various dark and complicated feelings.
AN: Hey readers! Thank you so much for your reviews! I've been re-reading them as I prepped this chap. Your energy keeps me wired. I appreciate your comments and how many of you have reached out to share how much this series has meant to you. ^_^
Props to Byakaya's Love for their in-depth literary analysis spanning several of my fics. It's super cool when people trace the themes and investigate character arcs. XD And to Lyr: "I can't make it to your ballet recital" tickled me good.
Again, thank you everyone, longtime fans and newcomers alike for reading and reviewing!
Sooo lately, I keep getting all this, 'you'll go down with the ship "Nearer my God to Thee" style, so go to A03-ness?' Where is everyone reading this doomsday stuff? I thought they were just changing servers again? But, don't worry y'all, I've downloaded copies…which was a cruel thing for my computer…making it drink from the firehose like that. -_- MS Office documents don't like to be 300+ pages. Google Docs suffered an aneurysm when I tried to put one there. And it went ): No thank you. X_X
I have created an account on A03 and am testing the waters over there with a Dad-Vader Star Wars AU. Because "fam-fic" is the fanfic genre I love. So, in the spirit of "Evil Spock has a goatee," my A03 handle is...ASnappleofDiscord :{D}
Hope you enjoy this chap! :DDDDDD
Chapter 54: Cosmic Community Service
Alistair clapped a hand on Arthur's shoulder. "Snap out of it, man. Arthur? Bràthair? Where are you?" He knocked gently on the blond's forehead. "Hellooo?"
"Alba," Rhys scolded.
"Albion, come on now!" He rested his sword against a tree to take him by both shoulders for a firmer shake.
"Alistair!" Rhys barked. "He's unwell."
"Ya think?"
"Violence won't correct it."
The Scotsman swore softly. "He can't ride with him, can he?"
"No," Rhys agreed, though it looked like it pained him to say it.
Alistair kept waiting for it to wear off. Dread was starting to set in as it didn't.
He wasn't clever for sticky, tricky things like this. He wasn't a 'find another way' or rousing speech sort of man. He was just direct and hardworking and stubborn once he set himself to a task.
Alistair wasn't someone who froze in a bad situation, but something like shock was slowing him down.
Alistair knew himself. He lacked bedside manners. He wasn't naturally gentle, but Rhys was ordering him to get his arse over there and help him already.
Because Arthur wasn't moving. Arthur, who practically LIVED to fuss over his wards upon discovering his passion for fatherhood, wasn't springing into action.
"Your hands won't shake," Rhys stated, like it was a godsend. "Keep his neck and spine stabilized."
Oh. Well, in that context, he supposed his steady sword hands were helpful.
"Aye."
Rhys took his jacket off, Alistair followed suit.
Being acclimated to a colder temperature and therefore not rating this trip as needing his standard of "winter-thick" clothing, the material of his jacket was thinner and easier to roll.
Rhys set them strategically on either side of the lad's shoulders and back to prevent Alfred rolling from one side or another.
Alistair knelt behind the child's head.
He rested his forearms on his legs and then placed his hands on either side of the child's head. He spread his fingers to make sure he didn't cover the boy's ears as he offered support.
He released a heavy breath in a whoosh.
It felt surreal to finally be using the first aid training he received annually, and on his own kin no less.
Keep him stable. Keep him stable. Keep him stable while Rhys checked Alfred over and asked him questions.
And Arthur did nothing.
The boy wanted his parent.
That was only natural.
How many men and women had Alba witnessed cry out for the same on battlefields and ground zeroes?
The teeth were supernatural and instinct made him rear back.
Instinct struck again at Rhys's hard glare and he leaned back in and tried to act like his previous reaction hadn't happened.
Alfred tried to sit up.
"No!" He and Rhys cried out.
The child struggled at first and Alistair did his damndest to restrain him gently without aggravating his condition.
He looked over his shoulder. "Arthur, please, come help. Mayhaps, you hold him instead? I think he'll lay still for you," Alistair pleaded.
But there was no sign of acknowledgment from the Englishman.
Total shutdown.
"I know I'm different," Alfred announced, "but I'm still the same inside and-"
"Chwb, that…isn't…it isn't what's happening here," Rhys insisted frantically. "Arthur loves you very much. Very, very much. What you look like makes no nevermind to him."
Aye, the teeth thing was a wee bit concerning, but that was more because he remembered Albion being a biter and he wanted to circumvent a case of 'like father, like son.' If little Al bit him...he'd need stitches.
This was just precaution against "violent spite" rather than him finding his nephew genuinely "frightening."
Alfred didn't actually think he was on par with the real monsters!?
Had he gotten a good look at that bodoch last winter?
But it had to have been a looong time since he'd shapeshifted.
Abruptly, Alba remembered stuck up, killjoy Puritan settlements. It was fun to wear kilts on a windy day there.
Maybe for them the laddie would've qualified as scary? He privately thought Alfred's sense of defiance and irreverent attitude would've put them off more though.
His nephew's mouth trembled and his eyes started to fill.
Fuck no! No! He wasn't good with littl'luns crying. The sounds and the snot and no!
"You're a good bairn!" Alistair blurted out somewhat desperately.
Rhys backed him up with similar platitudes, like their combined efforts could make up for Arthur's silence.
Both had scrambled to ask him as many questions as they could to keep him from asking any.
To delay the inevitable.
There wasn't a tidy way to explain it.
That he wasn't being rejected, that Arthur was just unavailable. To all of them. Like a satellite dish giving out during rugby university championships—
And they couldn't know when it would end.
Still, that hollow look in his brother's eyes wasn't as bad as the fragility in his nephew's.
And Arthur had said to "choose the children," so Alistair did just that.
"I'll ride with the bairn."
He waved his arm at the paramedic and let himself be strapped into the basket-cradle to be hoisted up as a guardian.
Alfred stared up at the peeling panels of the helicopter.
His geas was poised to activate. He recognized the dissociative sensation coming over him, like his essence was a balloon leashed to his corporal self. And while he could operate his body, there was a sense of numbness and a delay.
Like, he could feel his uncle holding his hand while the medic inserted an IV.
Then, it happened. A shiver slithered through his soul.
Something was off. Something was terribly off. Something awful was coming.
And he wasn't alone in that estimate.
"What the fuck?" came from one of the paramedics.
The co-pilot radioed it in. "That's right we've got a possible bogie coming in fast at 3 'o'clock. Awaiting orders-"
"What?" Alfred demanded. "What is it?" His neck was in a brace and he couldn't turn. "What IS it? Use your flipping words, Uncle Al, and describe it already! Damn it, this is why no one teams up with you for word games!"
"…"
"Uncle Alistair!"
"Words cannae do this justice, lad!"
Eire stared down at his feet with a wary sort of disbelief.
Good thing his hiking boots had been double-knotted.
"Dia ár sábháil!" What a height!?
What was he thinking? Why did he do it?!
He usually had better sense than to throw himself into an out-and-out mess like this.
"I know! I know!" Tex declared from overhead. "We're a UFO! Damn, Tony's gonna get a kick outta this!"
"Saints preserve us!" Reilley muttered as he clung to Tex's legs.
"Hey Al!" Tex called over the loud whirring of helicopter propellers.
"Tex?" Alfred answered incredulously.
"Yessiree!"
"You're…here!?"
"That ain't the real question!" Alistair roared. "The real question is: why would you bring that!?"
"Well, it kinda split from the bones and when it moved I had to do something, so I did and here we are!" Tex tried to explain.
"Nah, I mean him!" Alistair pointed at Reilley.
The Irishman's eyebrows twitched. The rude kern.
"Things are bad enough already, thank you! Without bringing him!"
"What the hell are you seeing!?" Alfred demanded. "Describe it!"
"There's a book floating alongside our air ambulance and Texas is hanging from it and Eire is hanging from him!"
"…Barrel-of-monkeys style?"
"You better believe it! Can't make this shit up!"
"Go on!"
"Trying to buck us but a book just ain't a bull soooo I got this, Allie!" Tex guaranteed.
"Right! Pilots! Stand down, stand down. I'm General Alfred F. Kirk-uh-Jones." He rattled off a service number. "I'm taking command of the situation. Captain Jones has the adversary in hand? I think."
"Yes sir, I do!" Texas crowed.
"Harris is the book?!" America called out. "The gramarye?!"
"I 'spect so!" Tex called back. "Weird, huh? But I'm thinking he's trying to make a beeline for yeh cuz of that there, uh…um. That word. The Irish one! Al, did ya tell 'em?!"
"…"
"Al?!"
"Nope!"
Tex swore up a storm at that.
"Hell in a handbasket, Al! Ya got the one job you can do in traction! Talk! And you don't?!"
"If it's all the same to you, boys!" Reilley bellowed. "I am holding on for m'dear life and you want to be holding a conversation! Like, let's just have tea up here, the weather's so feckin' nice!"
Tex let out a whistle.
"It's the word. It's cuz the word is tricky. Alistair! Reilley! Allie's gotta do cosmic community service each year, Beltane's Day, witchin' hour! There! Done!"
"Wha?!"
"GEAS!" Reilley guessed. "He's got a geas!"
That was powerful magic right there!
"Yeah! That's the word!" Tex agreed.
Alistair swore.
"I can work with that!" Reilley yelled. "Swing me over! Alis, you gotta catch me!"
"Story of my life, couldn't nip the habit in time!" Alistair groused and then yelled, "well, c'mon, already! Get yer Emerald Isle arse over here!"
Rhys physically shuddered at the presence of blatant evil rapidly approaching them and then stared blankly overhead.
He closed his eyes. Opened them. Repeated this and then pulled out his cell phone and texted: Alba, what am I seeing?!
His phone vibrated with an incoming call.
"Yer seein' what you're seein'!" Alistair struggled to announce over the loud conditions he found himself in. "Now, ack, I'm busy! Stay alive, tend the sassenach, laters!"
The call ended. Rhys lifted his crystal ball and focused it.
It wasn't that evil humans were rare; the corruption of virtue was common. History books, newspaper articles, and moody crime documentaries teemed with human cruelty.
It was the fact that most humans died before achieving such an aura.
It reminded him fiercely of the titular Dorian Gray.
It was gravely concerning that this dark, pulsating energy was fixated on his nephew.
Arthur's horror was palpable.
"Nooo," he whispered. He was gripping Rhys's sleeve urgently, but without strength. "My baby."
Rhys couldn't help being furious at that.
Harris had taken the spirit out of his brother. His youngest brother…who'd always been fierce and passionate and headstrong in all things…
Was broken…
He wrapped his free arm around him as a show of support.
It didn't take much magic on his end to reach out and interpret Harris's feelings. He was like a noxious cloud and it left him horribly nauseous.
Perhaps, it was for the best that Arthur was mentally absent for this portion of their misadventure.
He wasn't sure how Arthur would handle this next development.
Rhys had enough insight now on Alfred's various caretakers through the centuries to observe that:
Arthur was so powerfully possessive in his overwhelming affection for his child that it put him at odds with his duties as a nation and his son's sense of personhood. They needed healthier boundaries.
Osha's responsibilities as a nation often eclipsed her time, attention, and sense of affection to the point of child negligence and other-hood to where her charge considered himself a non-priority and a nonentity. They needed supervised therapy and limited contact.
His crystal ball flashed and his insight deepened into a sickening knowing.
Colonel Bertram Harris considered America his right, his responsibility, and his reason for being.
He'd sensed Alfred's nonhumanity, he'd figured out his abilities as a witch, and then…ultimately confirmed that America was a child nation.
And he found it all wondrous…darkly wondrous…
With a fixed determination, one that he employed to all facets of his life, Harris decided that everything he'd ever experienced up until this point was preparation for the undertaking of a task too enormous, too great, too fatal for that of mere mortals…
And so, it was a matter of course and slick satisfaction that he ascended beyond binary planes of mortal existence where life and death ruled.
Rhys tensed and flinched as memories began flashing through and he realized that, within Bertram Harris, there'd been a quiet, well-contained sort of madness that distracted itself with superficial order until…
Lieutenant Alfred Faer Kirkland…stood at a sloppy attention.
The sun glinted on his wheat hair and his eyes matched the cloudless sky. He was pale but rosy cheeked and slender in form. The uniform was well-tailored and he'd pose a pretty painting for a rich household.
Much too delicate to take seriously. A rank in name only. Kirkland…the name was familiar…
He stared the boy down and the boy didn't notice.
Too gold.
Too blue.
Too red.
Too white.
Too cheery.
Too silly and stupid for the military.
Too much.
Despised him at first sight.
He'd get him dismissed at once.
Too well-liked.
He was being shielded by powerfully placed men.
It was explained bluntly that even if Alfred couldn't be useful to the military then he'd be set aside exclusively for diplomatic work.
The idea of someone so vapid being involved in matters of state with foreign powers…was insulting.
But he was told that England preferred him above all other dignitaries.
And he gradually pieced together that England was a personification.
As was America…
It wasn't a surprise to learn Alfred wasn't human.
He'd watched him lift backbreaking weight.
There, in the dark of night.
Horses shrieking. Women screaming. Men trying to lift a wagon whose wheel had broken after clipping a building. Trying and failing to lift it off of a street vendor who was now pinned beneath it.
Alfred had been leaving a tavern to see about the commotion, and then lingered back, glancing about furtively. When satisfied he wasn't being watched, he approached the wagon from its other side and timed his lift with the struggling men.
Harris had been awed by how easily he bore the weight of it and yet couldn't best a man in a fight.
Ridiculous…
But…
Alfred had always been too strange and contradictory. It made him infuriating. It mad him fascinating. It made him want to watch.
Yes, that was the reason….why his eyes always found him…
Alfred snorting as the other lieutenant leaned in and quietly shared something amusing in his ear.
Alfred leaning back on his chair and balancing it on its back legs as he played with an elegant, outdated eagle feather quill that a relative had supposedly gifted him, which Harris had suspected he'd stolen from a higher-ranked officer's desk.
Alfred outside in the waning light gathering herbs and flowers and drying them out beside his simple homestead while wax hung from cords to be fashioned into candles.
Light glinted on him, on that hair…
His eyes were too blue even at dusk.
He was by nature…unnatural and therefore impossible to ignore or accept.
Harris volunteered to be a part of a small congregation traveling to England in 1810, independent of Alfred. They'd gone to argue against impressment and consequences.
Alfred was there to discuss agriculture (and possibly vent his distress about his sailors being forcibly drafted as well, Harris had worked tirelessly to emphasize the insult being done to them).
Harris's real purpose was to gauge whether America depended too much on his former colonizer. It was proof that his prior complaints and warnings had finally taken root among those higher up in command.
These non-human things were dangerous, immortal beings which could easily plot against mankind.
Well, if they were competent.
America made an absolute fool of himself, following England around like an insistent puppy snapping at his heels for attention.
The other nation though…
England…wore his disdain plainly.
Cold. Harsh. Authoritative.
Sophisticated, intelligent, and well-versed in conquest, he was vastly more disciplined and impressive than his former colony.
Something in the crisp lines of his uniform and posture…
Something America had the potential to become…if could master himself…and his idiotic impulses.
He kept fumbling about with some token gift he was eager to foist off on the older nation and finally fell asleep in a chair while pitifully waiting for England to leave his office and take notice of him.
Perhaps, the older nation's apathy and the resulting humiliation America felt on realizing his own insignificance would cure him of this infantile attachment to his former caretaker.
The door opened.
Admiral Kirkland scoffed at the sight of a drooling American lieutenant—uniform rumpled and hair mussed from sleep.
He stared down his nose at the fledgling nation.
"Idiot. You're lucky this place is well-guarded." Carefully, he slid one arm under the youth's knees and the other supported his back as he lifted him easily.
He began carrying him to his assigned guest quarters…until he realized he was being followed and stopped abruptly in the hallway.
"Are you in need of directions?" The English nation asked without turning around.
Harris felt gooseflesh break out over his skin.
A miscalculation on his part:
Apparently, the tone of voice "Arthur" used with "Alfred" was mild vexation, this…
This was blatant hostility.
"No, sir."
Admiral Kirkland glanced over his shoulder, green eyes narrowed in distrust, lips already curling in a sneer.
Colonel Harris motioned to Alfred.
"I mean to be of service. I can return him," he offered, pointing to the bedroom two doors from the end. "Your time is valuable. And with respect to that and apology for the inconvenience and impropriety, I understand that he's not your responsibility anymore, Admiral Kirkland. Lieutenant Kirkland is mine."
"…"
"Father?" Alfred mumbled and shifted in his sleep, pressing in closer to the elder blond.
Admiral Kirkland compensated for the change in weight and adjusted his hold.
"…"
Harris straightened his stance and tried again. "I am his superior in rank and it is my duty to oversee younger officers and correct their conduct when-"
"Tell me then, of corn, and cotton, and tobacco."
Harris frowned at the non sequitur statement. "Sir?"
"If you are indeed a vital part of Alfred's mission, some knowledge in this subject would be prudent. No experience in crops? Hmm, then impress me with your botanical studies. Second Lieutenant Kirkland of Virginia is well-versed in concepts and applications. That's why he's here to discuss such things with me in great detail."
"Then, I can guide him to swifter summaries during your negotiations." Harris tried to appeal with charm. "I've read his reports and endured his presentations. They can be rather…thorough." It was a running joke of the offices that no one dared ask Alfred to write up a report unless they were suffering insomnia; for he couldn't summarize well and thought everything of note. "I imagine a military man of your reputation might spend his hours in better pursuits than listening to a droning monologue about farms and fields."
"A monologue? I see. Well then, rest assured, good sir. It will be a dialogue, for I am well-versed and deeply interested in the development of land. No society thrives without the support of agriculture. So, there will be no dull moment or lull in conversation...as well as no need for your presence, let alone participation."
Harris suppressed a shiver at the obvious malice there.
"Good night," Admiral Kirkland bit out. "I'm certain you know the way to your own quarters, given that you've memorized everyone else's."
When he walked past Alfred's assigned room, Harris called after him, "Sir?! His room-"
England didn't break his stride as he answered, "There's a leak in the ceiling of that room and a draft. As his host, it's my duty to oversee his accommodations. Nor is it your place to question me in my own-"
"My apologies."
The empire spared one parting glance and warned with a venomous green eye:
"Do not bother us again."
Then, he walked on and turned left down another corridor.
Though they were out of sight, by standing still and quiet, Harris overheard another exchange of:
"Father?"
"Shhh…I am here, sweet."
And no one in their party was given any information on where Alfred's "new" room was.
And no one in their party could stumble upon Alfred alone following that night. From then on, he was always accompanied by one of his "uncles" or "father."
America stayed two months longer and was returned to Jamestown on a fine English merchant ship with parcels of specialty goods and other tokens of "goodwill" that were wholly intended for Alfred and no one else (to the dismay of various political players).
Harris knew then that the affection between nations was a liability.
And he made certain that his superiors knew it, too.
Then, he set to work.
The war figured in spectacularly.
Alfred's relationships with his fellow colonies was spotty to begin with so there wasn't much to worry about there.
He'd always had poor relations with the tribal personifications so severing his ties to the Iroquois Confederation wasn't terribly troublesome. All he needed to do there was stoke America's own paranoia to sour that.
His uncles were simple enough to remove as they were rather self-interested and boorish and didn't often write to their nephew. Blocking his relatives' letters for the safety of the state wasn't particularly taxing.
The Welsh one required a bit more finesse to dislodge; he'd have noticed if none of his letters arrived. Still, ensuring the missives always missed Alfred by three days so the lad could always believe he had the moral upper ground…even when he didn't) were well-worth it and that uncle had such a callous writing style…
And then! At the harbor! The melodrama! Not even Harris could have orchestrated that unfolding so well!
Lieutenant Kirkland had sat at his desk in a daze as he bled through his bandages and a dark spot grew on his blue coatee.
"He…hurt me…"
"But, of course he did. Lieutenant, I keep trying to enlighten you."
Pained blue eyes turned to watch him, and it sent a thrill to finally have his full attention.
"You don't have a family. You have enemies who know you well."
There was always a bit of calculated luck and risk involved in such schemes.
One could set up elements a thousand times and on a thousand-and-one something unplanned for occurred.
And when it happened better than one hoped for...
It was proof! It was fate! It was meant to unfold this way!
Sowing doubt among the humans in Alfred's immediate social circles was especially easy.
Because witches were always a touchy subject. Nightmarish figures from a colonial age…that their nation could never quite outgrow.
And of course it couldn't…
Not when its own personification was—!
That Alfred…
Golden Alfred turned out to be a real Salem witch…made such sense…and inspired such fear.
And to think, in a twist of irony, America lived in a real terror of being found out and what fun that was.
Winding the lad up…
What a pleasure it was to find so many old wives' tales worked on him with brutal efficacy.
It was a wonder watching those too blue eyes widen in fear…
Even horror looked beautiful on him…
And it served him right for thinking he could escape Harris's machinations. That he could simply stay a stunted, spoiled little dandy…with so many depending on him to be something of import.
No, the United States needed a personification worthy of the title.
Harris would do whatever it took to mold him.
Still…
There was always a point where a plan worked so seamlessly that doom was woven in.
In the gaol, when America finally gave in and explained how his geas worked on Beltane's Day and what he needed to restore his sickly failing magic, he should've expected one last trick.
O to look down and see the gramarye he'd gone to such bloody lengths to obtain bound to him…monstrously.
That America…Alfred as he liked to be called…had some bite to him after all.
His father's son…
Glowing blue eyes…
Sharp teeth and hands…
Feral… and formidable and finally genuine.
Beautiful…
More beautiful like this than how he was before…
And he could appreciate it now…with the magic of the gramarye bleeding into him as he was bleeding onto it. He was granted Sight.
And wasn't that something he'd longed for…to truly be a part of all of this splendor? To be on par with inhuman forces?
The world was brighter, more layered, and textured than he'd ever thought possible.
The mystery of Alfred was solved.
That form…that odd mannish form that bothered him was false. What Alfred wore was a spell!
No wonder it was so unnerving…it had been dreamt up by a…
Child.
Beneath he was a child.
Of course.
Magic.
It was magic a child would render—more focused on the shape of a man than the realism, let alone the behavior.
He lacked depth. He had no experience or maturity.
England would be better at mimicking humans because he was older and better practiced.
America wasn't merely young. He was a child.
His failings made sense:
He was soft. He was malleable. He wasn't fully formed.
Whenever a plan worked too well…
He'd handled this wrong.
Because the power of Beltane's Day had smiled on him and granted him insight, he understood Alfred as he never had before…
And the child had more meanness in him than he'd dared hope for…
And didn't plan for…and wasn't that wonderful?
Such potential!
He could grow to be…so much more…
"I'm proud of you…" he offered too late.
Revulsion twisted the young face which was amusing because the little one had wanted that praise from him once.
He'd handled this wrong.
Next time would be better.
Yes. He could feel the nexus of his being moving, changing, transforming into something new and different and longer lasting.
He'd handled this wrong.
Coercion wasn't obedience. Obligation wasn't devotion.
America's loyalty required Alfred's love.
Treacherous thing…he thought affectionately…
He wasn't anymore loyal to their government than he'd been to the crown.
No…
The one he'd been loyal to…
Harris had seen it—a yesterday that wasn't his and had no place in his dying dreams, but the swirling power of Beltane's Day connected them and he saw:
A very small America offered a dripping wet bouquet of waterlilies to his colonizer.
"For you."
Aware…aware in ways that a child so young shouldn't have been,
that he was giving his heart away.
And with that surrender, he'd curbed his own chances
for freedom and greatness and power before it could ever flourish.
"I wuv you."
And he didn't care…because love was worth it.
Harris had wandered the rooms of the manor Lieutenant Kirkland had built more than once since the young nation was imprisoned.
Had walked through it and stared at length at the great oil painting of empire and colony: England and America…Father and Son…
One hard jerk sent the painting crashing to the floor.
The great frame split…
But Alfred was still beautiful…
Still beautiful… with his too blue eyes…
And…Arthur was still there…but not for much longer…
It would take time.
It would take effort…patience and cunning.
But he would finish this.
Next time would be better.
Next time, they could play "happy family" for "Alfred."
Next time, he'd use America's geas to ensure it.
Next time…was NOW!
The Witching Hour of Beltane's Day was here!
Rhys struggled not to drop his crystal ball or wish it was a longbow instead.
He seethed with an unbridled rage he didn't often indulge in because mistakes were often made in the heat of angry passion.
But he could find no calmness of mind, not when…
He couldn't move past it.
Harris wasn't a king, or a sorcerer, or a fae, or a warrior, or—
Alfred had scolded him about that, hadn't he?
Being dismissive of a "commoner?"
That one determined commoner had set out and succeeded in tearing their family apart for centuries and was now poised to do permanent damage after he'd found a means of semi-immortality.
No.
No. Rhys couldn't allow that to transpire. That thing could never be near his nephew again! EVER!
He breathed heavily and pulled Arthur closer.
It was a dangerous thing to do, to provoke his youngest brother deliberately.
But all of Clan Kirkland had an innate thirst for vengeance. And if anyone deserved their combined wrath, it was that pen pidyn!
"Arthur." He gripped his brother's shoulder. "Arthur, listen. Harris-"
Arthur nodded and looked up at the commotion near the helicopter with a haunted expression.
"No, Arthur. Listen. He knew. He knew all along," Rhys hissed. "Manipulated all of us to isolate Alfred. Everything's about Alfred. Harris-he's-he's insane."
"..." England nodded.
"No. Harris knew all along...how much you love your son."
Arthur stilled.
"All of that gaslighting nonsense he spewed at Alfred about you was pure bloody strategy!"
It was hard to speak in English, he was so angry!
"He met us! Once! Just so Goddamned forgettable and he used it! He used it against us-"
Arthur slowly turned to face him.
"Think! If Harris truly believed you didn't care about the boy, he'd have let those letters go. He'd have encouraged Alfred to ask you directly and be rejected and humiliated. No, I'm telling you. This is what he wants! Alfred! He wants Alfred!"
All that torture and torment…
And the way the man's memories glossed over the blatant sadism, like the cruelty he subjected Alfred to hardly merited a footnote!
That awful gaol! The waiting grave?! The physical, psychological, and emotional abuse he regularly employed as a means to an end!
Arthur continued watching him passively.
Rhys braced himself. He had to say it even as it made him want to retch.
"It's patriotism and obsession and something deeply twisted…He…wants…to be in your spot. He thinks it's the best strategic position possible to hold power over Alfred."
A muscle ticked in Arthur's jaw and his eyebrows twitched.
"Arthur, Alfred has a geas."
"Wot?" Arthur's mouth trembled in horror at the doom of that and the myriad of dangerous avenues that opened. "Harris…knows?"
"Yes, Arthur. Harris knows. He's known since 1815. That's what this is all about."
Arthur started breathing hard. "Wot? Wot…does he…want with…my baby?"
Alba would say he was stacking the tarots.
Eire would call it helpful embellishment.
Who knew what their mam would think?
It was probably dramatic to phrase it this way, but it wasn't untrue and if this didn't pull Arthur out of his downcast stupor, nothing would:
"That's just it, Arthur, he wants to replace you! That monster wants your Alfred to love him, the way he loves you!"
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