North American Hurricane (Hetalia)
Author: Ashynarr
Summary: In the same vein as Bunnies For Your Amusement, I now bring you my collection of oneshots and short stories featuring the North American twins, America and Canada! Now including non-LJ drabbles.
Disclaimer: Hetalia's not mine.
Warning: Random Shit, Bros Being Bros, Feels
Prompt: (Past Part 11, Page 18)
Three things America learned from his adoptive brothers (Spain, France, England)
Anon would like to say that "anything goes", but she'd LOVE if it was Spain who taught young!America to ride.
Just for the record, you don't have to keep the relationship just "brotherly" if you know what I mean...
Title: Teachers Three
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It was Antonio who taught him how to ride.
The first horse Alfred rode was a gentle creature, the oldest mare of the bunch the Spaniard had brought over to the new world. After a thorough lesson on how not to hurt the horse while riding her, Antonio led the dappled mare around the field while Alfred held on, going slowly so that the young colony could get used to balancing on her back.
The muscles moving under him as the horse steadily walked were fascinating, revealing a hidden strength and a much more active youth. The fur was soft to the touch, and the mane easy to hold onto even when using only a tiny fraction of his strength.
At the end of the ride, Antonio showed him how to scrub the horse down and water her so she didn't get sick, then allowed him to feed the mare an apple from the cupboards. Alfred was nervous at first, considering the size of the teeth, but instead of the heavy bite there was only the lightest brush of lips on his palm as she ate the apple.
Years later, after his Civil War all but torn him apart physically and mentally, Alfred would spend almost twenty years in the midwest, raising horses and allowing himself to recapture the feeling of ease and joy he'd had when riding horses as a child.
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It was Arthur who taught him how to love.
Ever since that fateful meeting, the two were as close as could be. Whenever Arthur was able to get away from his duties both in the colonies and abroad, the two would spend time together, Alfred showing his older brother all the new and wonderful things from his land, and Arthur weaving tales of his adventures across the face of the Earth.
When, inevitably, Arthur had to leave, Alfred would know heartache, spending lonely days waiting for his older brother to return. Sometimes it was years before he saw Arthur again, and Alfred would spend the days playing with the children of his people or simply watching them grow and live their short, fragile lives. Such people-watching always made part of him ache, although he didn't understand why, but both aches would go away the moment he saw happy green eyes smiling at him, always with a gift or three.
As he aged - not the slow growth of a Nation, but in leaps and spurts, like a human - Arthur taught him how to write, how to shoot a gun, how to be strong in the face of fear and sorrow. Neither of them realized how all three would be used against him one day.
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It was Francis who taught him how to let go.
Alfred hadn't realized how hard it was to lose the one you loved when Matthew can come to join him and Arthur, with no explanation as to what had happened besides a trade agreement to end the fighting. He'd thought, like his twin, that Francis simply hadn't cared, more than happy to give up 'a useless expanse of ice' for the much warmer and more productive islands elsewhere.
He'd been oh so wrong. Francis had cared too much, so attached to the little boy that symbolized that snowy land that giving him up to his frenemy had all but torn his heart out, leaving the scar to fester. He could still see it in the Frenchman's eyes, the way it hardened briefly, a mix of anger and sorrow buried within.
On the nights where it was too much, though, Francis would come into his tent, as if aware of Alfred's mood, and simply sit with him, running a hand through his hair and humming the same song Arthur had sung to him as a small colony to scare the nightmares away. He understood that while America had cut ties with England, Alfred still hadn't cut ties with Arthur.
Perhaps it was that, more than anything, which gave him the strength to look his older brother in the eye when he declared himself a free Nation, even knowing how much it hurt them both.
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AN: ...whoops, I wrote a thing. Also, Hero Training is progressing and should be out this weekend! (So sorry for the delay but I just got it beta'd whoops).