#my writing || cacoethes scribendi
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41. “Sleep. I’ll keep you safe.”
This one hurts so good
Unedited fic is unedited. Set in 1918, at the end of the war when Matt is trying to limp his way through the absolute slog of shit that was the proto-blitzkrieg of the last months of the war. Alfred is trying to pretend he's not avoiding trench duty at the Meuse–Argonne because of the trauma of the American Civil War. I was inspired by my Canadian great-grandfather coming home with American buttons on his coat instead of British or Canadian maple leaves that I inherited and made into earrings, lol.
October, 1918
“Give me a hand, Mattie, fuck.” Alfred cursed all the way up as the tailgate of the troop truck dropped. He was stuck on the single cobblestone that managed to give any traction under the three inches of mud. But it may as well have been concrete, for all he could leverage himself out. In the silvery light of the following truck waiting for its turn to round the corner of the checkpoint, Matt was only a hunched-over figure and a pair of gloved hands that grasped him by the wrists and managed to swing him free. His pack landed with a thud ten seconds before he did, and he was pulled roughly to his feet, and his ass finally found a bench. Almost instantly, the cold wood bit through his layers. Matt had disappeared down the benches and into the dark shelter of the canvas cover.
A soldier, looking beat to shit, offered him a light, and he handed out cigarettes, bribing his way into goodwill. They were all lightly dusted in snow, and sleet battered collars turned up even as it got dryer.
“You’re under Lieutenant Williams, yeah? Where’d he get too?”
Weary soldiers nodded up under the cover.
“Mattie!” Alfred handed his cigarette to another man and cupped two hands over his mouth to shout over the engines. “What’re you avoiding me for? Get your sorry ass down here before I start telling embarrassing stories about you.”
No response, no movement. Soldiers looked confused.
“Well, kiddo, guess I’m just going to have to start telling folks about—”
“Just what the fuck is so important—” Matt appeared, just like that, steadying himself on the shoulder of one of his men. They glanced up, a little protective, a little annoyed. Alfred didn’t register it. Matt was a trembling pillar, his face a bright, sharp point above his uniform like a flame over a candle dyed dark with soot.
“You look like shit.” Alfred raised a hand to grab Mattie’s shoulder and he slapped the hand away with a dark expression. The message was clear. He was a leader here, an officer of the British army, not Alfred’s baby brother. Another word and Alfred would be tossed off the back of the truck to enforce the silence.
"Don't use me as a distraction to get out of combat." Matt snapped and disappeared back under the canvas, and Alfred let him. At least it was warmer there. He wasn't avoiding anything.
Soldiers stared at him, and he felt sweaty despite the fall air. He wasn't avoiding anything. Just because he'd had six planes shot out from under him in as many weeks and the thought of another stint in a trench made him want to die didn't mean he didn't care. He offered up cigarettes with a smile, bribing his own Americans up with him.
“Headed up to the line anyways,” He made small talk with the soldiers around him, as popular for his cigarette supply as he was for the chocolate constantly in his coat pockets. Some of them were Americans, volunteering before the US joined the war. Boys from New York, Wisconsin, and other places had easily slid across the border without needing real paperwork. The convoy slid north on the icy roads, following the advance to leapfrog ahead of the infantry currently on the front line and pushing forward to relieve the men presently fighting their way back into Belgium. He dozed between them, one of them. He didn't much like his own under a British flag, but it felt... Solid somehow, that it was with Matt. At least it wasn't the sour old fart. He was thinking about Christmas when he was startled awake.
He awoke to coughing. Everyone had a bit of one, the rough soldier’s coughs that everyone had at some point. But this was horrible, and it was constant, drawing into someone’s lungs. And he recognized it. Alfred was instantly on his feet, weaving through the legs of sleepy men. He flung open a canvas flap and took the lantern swinging on the canvas, support in hand.
Matt was sitting, barely supported between two soldiers, his helmet off, the pale of before replaced with a violent flush, mouth open to breathe, trying to suck in air. His chin was tucked into his chest, and the coughing had not stopped.
“You don’t look so good, sir.” One of the sergeants said. Matt looked up.
“Just cold.” He said, trying to smile. “Everyone’s just cold. We’ll get moving and warm up, eh?”
The laugh he forced just turned into more coughing. Alfred stood there, lantern in hand. The soldiers around Matt looked protective, staring at him like he was an enemy they needed to hide their vulnerable commander from. Then, one sidled up to him. A boy from Wisconsin with a crop of ruddy curls. He pat Alfred on the arm and knew instantly he was a mechanic’s son from Green Bay, nestled right against Canada’s belly on the Great Lakes.
“We took the edge of a gas shell last week, and he’s been coughing like that since. Won’t listen to anyone and get a rest because there’s a shortage of officers.”
“Christ’s sake,” Alfred muttered. He sidled between bodies and inserted himself between his brother and one sergeant. He popped Matt’s helmet on and got close. The professional kind of close, resisting the urge to cradle Matt like he had their entire lives.
“There’s a casualty clearing half a mile up the road. Get fed, get dry, get some sober sack time, and I’ll make sure I get you in a goddamn staff car and back up the line before they’re assaulting anything, all right? Hand to God, I will get you back up here if you get some fucking rest.”
Matt was still, sweating now and fading to pale. He was shaking. And then he nodded.
“Hallelujah, you stupid bastard.” Alfred muttered.
He got Matt down the end of the truck as it jolted along, hands under his brother’s arms. His coat flapped open, and Alfred batted it away from him, annoyed.
“Button your fucking coat before you get pneumonia.”
A deep, curdled-chest cough was his response.
“Can’t.” Matt gasped. “Got caught on a bit of wire while we were digging funk holes, tugged right off.”
Alfred sighed.
“Okay, you poor dumb fuck. Give it here.”
Matt looked confused, and Alfred resisted the urge to feel his forehead. Instead, he shrugged his great coat off.
“Swap me.” He said. Matt just stared. Alfred huffed.
“You’re freezing.”
“I’m used to it.” He said and crossed his arms over his unfastened coat. “I was fucking born cold, I’ll die cold, and there’s not fuck all anyone can do about it in between.”
“Except give you a decent fucking coat you melodramatic shit.” Alfred was this close to smacking upside the head. He felt guilty for even having the thought as Matt exploded into coughing again. He dipped forward, collapsing into the bench at the far end of the truck bed, and Alfred gripped him by the waist, suddenly frightened he’d vomit or tumble over the tailgate and into the mud-churned roads. He pulled him back and took the opportunity to pull his coat off and wrap him in the better American one. Matt glared the entire time, but words were constricted by the endless wheezing when he went to speak. Alfred shoved his arms into the coat sleeves and buttoned it up, the American eagles shining in the lantern light. Matt glared daggers for a split second before he dragged in an inhale so violent he gagged. Every other soldier in the truck looked away. Alfred's chest hurt just listening.
At the next crossroads, American Red Cross nurses half-staffed the Casualty Clearing Station, and Alfred gave their commander his best, crooked, beaming smile and a wink. They gave him one of the visitor’s huts with a stove, a corrugated roof and two cots with clean sheets. Matt could barely stay on his feet. The mud sucked at his boots, and Alfred hauled him along. He considered picking Matt up entirely but wasn’t fully convinced the brass knuckles he’d mailed Matt years back had been lost somewhere along the way and wouldn’t end up embedded in his kidneys. At least not the way Matt was glaring.
He deposited Matt on a bed, dumped water from the pitcher and wash basin into a tin pot resting on the stove and cranked the stove as high as he could. It’d been almost 200 years since he’d needed someone to boil water and strange herbal plants and shove him and all the steam it could produce under a blanket.
Matt immediately listed to the side like a poorly loaded plane.
“Oh for fuck’s sake.” Alfred hadn’t even sat down yet. “Don’t be stubborn. Just breathe some fucking steam until you don’t sound like you’re about to die.”
“Sorry,” Came a very faint croak.
He frowned and peeked under the wool blanket. Matt had collapsed onto his side, and his eyes were squeezed shut, breathing too shallow to make him cough, but it still didn’t sound like he was getting enough of it.
“Hey.” Alfred pushed what was left of Matt’s damp curls off his forehead. He looked so strange with hair this short. It’d been shorn when Francis gave him up, and the look on him still made him look just as abandoned, even fully grown and in British green. The thought was as gone as quickly as it came.
“You are burning.” Alfred pressed a hand to his forehead. Matt’s eyes hadn’t opened. He made a gentle sound of acknowledgment but didn’t speak, like it didn’t surprise him.
“Have you had the flu yet?”
“No.”
“Is this—?”
“No.” He said. “This just… happens sometimes. I didn’t take the pills because I just— wanted some sleep.”
Still wearing Matt’s coat, Alfred stuck his hand in the pocket. Unmarked bottles of pills. He only recognized the contents of one of the bottles as aspirin.
“Do I want to know what’s in these?”
“No.”
“Can I ask where you got them?”
“Zee, Uncle Alasdair, Dad.”
“Let me guess, none of them knew who else was giving you what. God I am going to ban everything when we get home. Temperance is just the begin—”
Alfred was feeling uncharacteristically like a responsible older brother, ready to give Matt a whole hellfire and brimstone Baptist lecture for a moment before Matt spoke.
“I’m just glad you’re here.” He found his brother looking up at him, gratitude as evident on his face as misery.
The heavy eyes and distinctly sick flush belied an expression Alfred didn't see often. It came fast on the heels of father's anger or Matt's fear dissolving. Grateful, instantly secure and safe usually snuggled up in Alfred's side, burrowed there against his own madness or the household's hostility. He blinked and Alfred felt horrible as he teared up and then exhaled, pushing away the emotion.
But there was still something small to him. “I miss you more when I’m this pathetic. I feel better.”
"I know." Alfred pushed sweaty hair off his feverish face and gave him a tap on the chin. "Get some sleep kiddo, you know I'll keep you safe."
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Also 61 if you like 🥺🥰
Why do you continue writing fics?
Oh, I like this question! Thank you for asking it. I take "continue" to mean why do I continue writing fics even when all of the usual reasons I write aren't there or simply aren't having their desired impact.
I don't know if this will sound as comforting or as motivating to other people as it does to me, but the thing I always come back to--the ultimate reason to continue writing--is that the alternative is not writing, which sucks. My favorite passage about it is from the Roman satirist Juvenal, who has some really beautiful things to say about why you have to keep writing (7.48-51):
nos tamen hoc agimus tenuique in puluere sulcos
ducimus et litus sterili uersamus aratro.
nam si discedas, laqueo tenet ambitioso 50
scribendi cacoethes et aegro in corde senescit.
But we do this [writing] and we make our furrows in the measly dust
and we till the shore with our barren plow.
Because if you stop, the writing disease
holds you in its circling noose, and lingers in your sick heart.
I love it both for the sentiment, and for the fact that my problems aren't new! People have been wrestling with why they continue to write for thousands of years.
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“If all the trees in all the woods were men;
And each and every blade of grass a pen;
If every leaf on every shrub and tree
Turned to a sheet of foolscap; every sea
Were changed to ink, and all earth's living tribes
Had nothing else to do but act as scribes,
And for ten thousand ages, day and night,
The human race should write, and write, and write,
Till all the pens and paper were used up,
And the huge inkstand was an empty cup,
Still would the scribblers clustered round its brink
Call for more pens, more paper, and more ink.”
—‘Cacoethes Scribendi’ by Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.
My sister and I got tattoos together this weekend: we both got ‘more ink’ on the wrist of our writing hands, inspired by this poem, in slightly different styles to reflect our own personalities. While I am always pushing, going, creating, riding on a wave of productivity and writing and seeing words unspool, the lavender is a reminder, right on that same wrist, to relax, to take a breath, to take care.
#cacoethes scribendi#oliver wendell holmes sr.#poetry#literary tattoos#bookish tattoos#bookworm#bibliophile
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5,900 followers!
So! I’ve been on tumblr since about August 2013 now. I had been away from fandom in general for a solid 3-4 years by that point, having left the Harry Potter fandom after a good deal of waning interest, which was definitely accelerated by basically everything about JKR (and this was before she outed herself as a major TERF) - adding to the canon with random shit she would say in interviews, etc, the whole “Dumbledore is gay” - but not in actual canon, including not making it canon in the movies that came after, etc. When I left the HP fandom, fandom in general was still very much on livejournal, though due to endless issues with LJ, people had already started drifting off to other platforms, which led to a widespread sensation of the fandom breaking up. My offline life got busy, I started my masters, and just didn’t have either the time or the interest in writing HP fanfic anymore. I had written 1.5 million words of fic and figured I was about out of words, anyway. My longtime friend, @moonflower-rose, had designed me an icon with the Latin phrase cacoethes scribendi, which basically means an endless mania for writing. I had started to feel that I wasn’t living up to that anymore, too, so I just quietly disappeared.
Fast forward to 2013 and my encountering the ridiculous talents of Benedict Cumberbatch via Star Trek Into Darkness (still think that title needs a colon, but what can you do) and immediately needing to see everything else he’d ever done. I’d heard of Sherlock in my last, lingering days on LJ, but hadn’t decided to delve into it at all. At this point, only series 1 and 2 were out, though setlock photos for series 3 started emerging just after I plunged wholeheartedly into the Sherlock fandom. I was hooked immediately by Ben and Martin’s acting, by the interesting stories (though I was irked from the beginning of the treatment of Irene Adler and the imposition of a hetero-ized romance of two obviously (one canonically!) gay characters). I was irked by the lazy writing and easy outs that Moffat and Gatiss always seem to prefer. Nevertheless, I was only about halfway through The Reichenbach Fall when I was seized with a feeling that was half sinking and half elated: that I needed to write about these two people. The old urge had come back, and it came back hard.
Now, a little over six years later, I’m over 2.3 million words deep into this fandom, with 88 posted stories and another that’s over 16,000 words in at this point. And the place where I re-found fandom and all of the community that comes with it, was here. It’s still astounding to me that anyone reads my stories. It’s astounding to me that 5,900 of you follow me. It’s really, really cool. :)
I used to make a post like this about every 100 new followers, but I’ve sort of slacked off it lately. If you’ve been following me for a long time, this will be repetitive and I’m sorry! But here goes:
-I generally follow everyone back, with the rider that, if the blog posts too much untagged content that I’m not interested in and can’t filter out because of the lack of tags, I’ll unfollow, just because that’s a lot of blogs. Sometimes tumblr doesn’t show me who followed me. If you’re following me and I’m not following you back and you wish I were, please, please, please just drop me a line and say so and I’ll fix it!
-I post my stories at ao3. I have not imported my HP stuff and have no desire to do so. You can still find it at skyehawke.com. As long as skyehawke is still up and running, I will leave my HP stories there. Meanwhile, my Sherlock stuff is all posted here at ao3.
-if you’re someone who has the means to support writers and artists in the fandom and that’s something you’re interested in doing, I do have a Patreon account. It’s over here. I always feel intensely squirmy about promoting this and only have it because @ravenmorganleigh made me get it (bless, lol). As a person who is perpetually struggling to make ends meet, I feel badly because I can never afford to support anyone else financially (every month that I make the rent is a win, basically). The donations people make through my Patreon have often meant the difference between being able to buy groceries or not. I don’t mean to be dramatic about this, but that’s literally the case, and I’m endlessly, endlessly grateful to every single dollar anyone has ever donated. But please don’t ever feel that you need to do this and please don’t if it isn’t something you can afford! I mean that. Also, my Patreon is set up for monthly contributions, and if you’re just dying to make a donation but want it to be a one-time thing, I also use PayPal, via my fandom email account, which is [email protected].
I’ve met some of the most amazing people here in this place and I’m very glad that I chose to come back to fandom, to find my own creative voice again, to have this chance to discuss and share excitement or rage or humour, and to be a part of so many of your lives, in whatever small way. I always get introspective at this time of the year, since it’s not only about to be a new year, but my birthday is also right at the end of the year (it’s December 30th), so I always end up having Big Thoughts About Life in this window between Christmas at the end of the year. Today, this is my Big Thought: how grateful I am to have all of you, in whatever large or small way, in my life. <3333333333333333333333
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Request Rules
❝cacoethes scribendi. ❞
Characters I write for❁ཻུ۪۪
⣿ More to be added in the future.
Mondstadt❁ཻུ۪۪
✧Albedo
✧Amber
✧Diluc
✧Jean
✧Kaeya
✧Lisa
✧Venti
Liyue❁ཻུ۪۪
✧Beidou
✧Xiao
✧Zhongli
✧Ninnguang
✧Ganyu
✧Keqing
Snezhnaya❁ཻུ۪۪
✧Tartaglia
Inazuma❁ཻུ۪۪
✧Kazuha
✧Thoma
✧Ei
✧Ayato
✧Yoimiya
✧Yae miko
Topics I am not comfortable writing❁ཻུ۪۪
Ⅰ. Explicit NSFW.
Ⅱ. Incest.
Ⅲ. Adult/Minor.
Ⅳ. Polyamory.
Ⅴ. Yandere.
Ⅵ. Pregnancy
Ⅶ. Abuse.
Ⅷ. Crossovers.
Ⅸ. R*pe/ sexual assault
Ⅹ. Non-con.
Ⅺ. Omegaverse.
Keep in mind❁ཻུ۪۪
✣Unfortunately, due to the lack of free time, I won't be able to answer all asks.
✣ I have the full right to ignore a request if it makes me uncomfortable.
✣ I am a minor, therefore refrain from sending NSFW explicit content or speaking in an explicit manner.
✣ I write for all genders, except male reader. If a request hasn't specified a gender, my go-to is gender-neutral.
✣ Only a character x reader blog.
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cacoethes scribendi
cacoēthes - "bad habit", or medically, "malignant disease" is a borrowing of the Greek kakóēthes.
scribendi - derives from the Latin verb scribere, which means “to write”.
The phrase is derived from a line in the Satires of Juvenal: Tenet insanabile multos scribendi cacoethes, or "the incurable desire (or itch) for writing affects many".
I have always been frustrated with the inability English has in describing some incredibly specific human emotions. In fact, the English language has adopted many foreign phrases simply because we lack terms of our own. This includes the common use of the French word déjà vu to describe the feeling that one has lived through the present situation before. We also use other terms such as faux pas, pro bono, status quo, among others.
One saying that I wish we incorporated more into the English language is the term cacoethes scribendi. As an avid bookworm and aspiring writer, I spent most of my childhood with a pen in one hand and a notebook in the other. I was constantly writing songs, poems, short stories, and even half of a novel at one point.
Perhaps it was the way I coped with growing up essentially an only child to a family with complicated dynamics. Books and writing were my escape. As I grew older, this desire to write became stronger and stronger, it was my number one passion in life. Whenever anyone would ask what I loved to do most, my answer was always:
Writing.
Yet “love” did not exactly convey how I felt about the hobby. I did not simply enjoy the act of writing, but rather it was this urge, this inherent need to write.
Unfortunately, over the years, I became weighed down by school, mental illness, work, and other responsibilities. I did the one thing I vowed never to do: I stopped writing.
But that insatiable urge to write never went away. And thus, this whole blog is just a way for me to keep on dedicating myself to my passion. A way to stay sane in this unpredictable world.
Cacoethes Scribendi
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A log of my favourite Latin phrases
general
audentas fortuna iuvat - fortune favours the bold
barba non facit philosophum - a beard does not make one a philosopher
dulce est desipere in loco - it is sweet on occasion to play the fool
alenda lux ubi orta libertas - let light be nourished where liberty has arisen
in theatro ludus - like a scene in a play
mactate virtute sic itar ad astra - those who excel, thus reach the stars
aurora musis amica - dawn is a friend to the muses
non facias malum ut inde fiat bonum - you should not make evil in order that good may be made from it
concordia parvae res crescunt - small things grow in harmony
adaequatio rei et intellectus - correspondence of mind and reality
fere libenter homines id quod volunt credunt - men generally believe what they want to
manibus date lilia plenis - give lilies with full hands
iucunda memoria est praeteritorum malorum - pleasant is the memory of past troubles
acta non verba - actions not words
lorem ipsum - pain for its own sake
non progredi est regredi - to not go forward is to go backward
mos maiorum - the custom of our ancestors
faber est suae quisque fortunae - every man is the artisan of his own fortune
auctoritas non veritas facit legem - authority, not truth, makes law
dies tenebrosa sicut nox - a day as dark as night
mundus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur - the world wants to be deceived, so let it be deceived
actiones secundum fidei - action follows belief
collige virgo rosas - pick, girl, the roses
inveniet quod quisque velit - each shall find what he desires
ab imo pectore - from the deepest chest
haud ignota loquor - I speak not of unknown things
condemnant quod non intellegunt - they condemn what they do not understand
acta deos numquam mortalia fallunt - mortal actions never deceive the gods
qui totum vult totum perdit - he who wants everything, loses everything
cacoethes scribendi - the insatiable desire to write
death & war
media vita in morte sumus - in the midst of our lives we die
obit anus, abit onus - the old woman dies, the burden is lifted
aut vincere aut mori - either to conquer or to die
memento mori - remember [that you] die/remember your mortality
bellum se ipsum alet - war feeds itself
mors vincit omnia - death conquers all
eheu fugaces labuntur anni - alas, the fleeting years slip by
canis canem edit - dog eats dog
mortui vivos docent - the dead teach the living
nascentes morimur finisque ab origine pendet - when we are born to die, our end is but the pendant of our beginning
love
meminerunt omnia amantes - love remembers all
finis vitae sed non amoris - the end of life, but not of love
fons vitae caritas - love is the fountain of life
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Update: The Human AU I Write Because I Feel Bad About What I Do to Them in Nationverse
Chapter 1: Shit Tea and a Lovely Sandwich
Arthur meets the rest of his life on a rainy day in an unfamiliar city.
Chapter 2: Hard Day and a Difficult Discussion
Seven years later, from Chapter 1. Matt has a migraine, and Arthur and Francis are at odds about how to handle it.
Chapter 3: Baby Boy and Blueberry Blood Orange Marmalade
The next day, the same migraine, the same issues. Shamelessly fluffy h/c.
Chapter 4: Intelligence Sharing and Shift Change
It's not easy trying to raise two boys, but at least Arthur and Francis do it together.
New! Chapter 5: For I have become death, destroyer of nostrils
Out of the frying pan and into football practice. Er, soccer practice, that is.
#my writing || cacoethes scribendi#The Softest AU || because I've gotta bend time space to be nice to anyone#fruk#hws canada#hws england#hws france#hws america
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How about dreary?
Nedcan break up fighttttt lmao. This one is also complete.
Amsterdam, 1990.
Jan opened the front door to the dreary day and the nation of Canada standing on his stoop with a shy, hopeful smile.
"I wasn't expecting you!" Jan blurted, taken on the back foot. "You're a surprise!"
"A good one, I hope," Matt smiled. He was dressed warmer than required for the weather, wrapped in his good winter coat, gloves and hat and standing in the drizzle, one hand above his face to keep it dry. Jan stood there, gawking. "Can't I come in?"
"Of course!" Jan said, shaking himself loose of his thoughts and flinging the door open.
Matt stepped inside, peeling off his hat and gloves and moving to give Jan a kiss once inside the privacy of the house.
"What are you doing here?" Jan asked. Matt's lips were fish-cold, and Jan shivered a little before he took his coat.
"I was in Kyiv," Matt said. "And I was feeling a bit more myself, so I called your office, and they said you didn't have anything booked, so I got my connecting flight to Rotterdam."
"Oh," Jan said.
"Is it a bad time?" Matt asked.
"No, no. Just… I've got a flight in a few hours."
"Where too?"
"First leg is DC,"
"Oh?" Matt asked, and they moved toward the living room, Matt's suitcase in the foyer and coat hanging on the rack like a guest. "What's in DC?"
"A layover and a few hours at the Dutch Embassy. They're giving a dinner for the Queen."
"Ah, very official. And then?"
"Another flight."
"Where too?" Matt asked, putting his arms around Jan and smiling. "Where have they sent you off to now?"
"Nowhere," Jan said, kissing his hair. Matt dropped his head on Jan's shoulder. "I took vacation time."
"Did I pre-empt a surprise visit? Matt smiled, kissing him, full of promise. He was still cold, and Jan could only let it happen, full of sadness.
Jan was silent for a moment. "Tokyo, actually."
"Oh," Matt dropped his arms. "Well, that's not great timing on my part; I'm sorry. I must have called before you put it on your schedule."
"It's not scheduled," Jan said. "Personal."
Matthew disengaged. "Again?"
"I haven't been there in months."
"A month," Matt said. "You were there in December, and it's not even February."
"I have something I want to be there for."
"Something?" Matt said.
"A gift. A windmill is going up in Sakura."
"A windmill. Goodness." Matt said. "Does that require you?"
"It's my design, so yes, I supposed it does. I based it on one I had in the 18th century. It's quite a fine design.
Matt huffed. "Lucky Sakura."
"Kiku has been looking forward to it.
"You have to, by the sounds of it."
"I have."
Matt nodded, collapsing onto the sofa. He looked off somehow, something more shadowed about his eyes than usual, his face thinner—probably jet lag.
"Do you want to get some lunch?" Jan asked. "Before I go?"
Matt looked at his hands and swallowed. "Jan, If I asked you to stay, would you?"
"Is there a reason I should?" Jan raised a brow.
"I miss you, love you, and want to spend time with you."
"My flights booked, Matt."
"Right." Matt shut his eyes and exhaled. "Okay. That was bad timing on my part. I'm sorry I dropped in unannounced. I really thought you were free."
"Why don't we get lunch and figure out another time."
"I'm not hungry," Matt said. His jaw tensed, and he looked up at Jan. "When can I expect a visit from you?"
"I'll be over with the tulips, like usual."
"Could you take some time before then? Or could I pop over?"
"Can't it wait until May?"
Matt flexed his hands in his lap. "Does it have to? I miss you."
"I don't think I can take any more time for a few months, but I'll call when I get back."
"Do you miss me when I'm not here?"
"I'm always happy to see you."
"That's not what I asked." Matt returned. "Do you miss me? Because it feels like I haven't seen much of you in a long time."
"I'll be there in May. A whole week."
"How long in Japan?"
'Fourteen days."
"Fourteen days," Matt repeated. "Another fourteen days?"
"December was only 10."
"Only?" Matt spat back and then shut his eyes, exhaling. "Sorry."
"That was for a whole different thing. This is official."
"You just said it was personal!"
"It is! But it's for an event!" Jan said, running his hand over Matt's arm to take his hand. "Come on, let's get some food before I have to go. I'll call you when I get back and I'll see you in May."
"Do you even want to see me in May?"
"I always come in May."
"Do you want to though? You're not beholden to me." Matt stared at his hand, supporting him against the wall rather than at Jan. "We're not married; we're not human. You can do whatever you like."
Jan frowned. "Matt— you didn't even mention you wanted company before dumping yourself on my doorstep. I'm not a mind reader."
Matt squeezed his eyes shut against some sort of pain.
"Matthew, be reasonable. I can't do anything if you don't talk to me."
"You aren't listening anymore when I try. Even when I'm here, you're elsewhere. You had a life before me. You still have a life without me. It's fine. Do whatever or whomever you want."
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"It means there were no honorifics when he talked to you. And you still use the formal case when talking to me in public. Because I'm not imp— it's fine. You should go. I'll talk to you when I'm in a fit state."
"You could just talk to me now!" Jan said. "I'm listening now."
"You're already packed," Matt said. "It's fine. I'll go to my Dad's."
"I'm sorry this time didn't work out," Jan said, scrubbing his face. "But you didn't tell me you wanted to see me until 10 minutes ago."
"I tried in December. You were in Japan." Matt smiled wanly, and Jan wasn't sure he'd ever seen him look so hollow. "I tried. I tried talking to you. But you don't return my calls, and that time you were unreachable and in Japan, and now you're on your way there again."
"Matt. There's only a competition where you go and make one. The world's changed, and times change. You have your place with me sometimes, and I have mine with him sometimes. It's not a competition. Just compartments."
"So you can put me in a little box and take me out when you're bored?" Matt sighed through his nose and rubbed his temples. "Just like that?"
"That's not what I said."
"Isn't it?" Matt shot back. "Isn't that what you're doing exactly? I was place holder while you waited for something better! Fifty years ago, you kissed me on VJ day with almost as much relief as VE Day. You kissed me both times. I didn't expect anything from you. But you made me love you. And now you throw that in my face by telling me nothing changed?"
"It hasn't!" Jan shouted. "I love you!"
"Then why aren't you actually here when you lay next to me?" Matt shouted. "Where the fuck are you when I try to talk to you and get only grunts? Why are we always playing phone tag? When I'm trying to make love, and you're closing your eyes? Where the fuck are you, and who are you thinking about? Because in fifty years, we haven't been monogamous, but you never used to close your eyes!
"I buy you flowers every year. I pay attention to you when we're together. But it's not as if we live together. Our lives are long. And complicated. I have feelings for you, for him, for a lot of people. Same as you. Don't begrudge me my life, Matt, Fuck! Its not my fault you're such a fucking child you can't understand this!"
"Oh, I'm a child now?" Matt stood. "It makes me a child that I don't understand how you can do this with him? Of all people?"
"It does! You are a fucking child if you can't understand that. And a hypocrite. Your parents have done far more to each other than Kiku and I ever did."
"How the fuck does that make this okay?"
"Because there was a single war between Kiku and me. One! A single war in 400 years."
"It was the largest conflict the world's ever seen! Ludwig nearly killed you, and Kiku allied with him and they both tried to bring the world to heel. Tell me, should I fuck Ludwig? No!"
"You can if you want! Go, fuck him, love him, let him love you, change! Maybe you'd understand some fucking sense."
Matthew's eyes widened. Jan exhaled and saw his breath. The room had dropped twenty degrees around the personification of Canada.
"Do… do you love him?"
"I did."
"Thats not what I'm asking. Do you love him now? At this moment."
"Yes."
"Fine." Matt exhaled, and the room's temperature rose again. "Fine. Go."
"Matt, don't play the jealous wife. It's beneath you."
"Who the fuck said I was? I just said you were free to do as you liked, didn't I?" Matt smiled again, bitter and fragile like shards of porcelain. "Enjoy your time, Jan."
"…. Will I see you in May?"
"I don't think so."
Send me a word, if it’s in one of my wip documents I’ll answer your ask with the sentence that it appears in
#the ask box || probis pateo#my writing || cacoethes scribendi#Jan and Matt || the bells of liberation echo into eternity#hws netherlands#hws canada
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Christmas fic please?
☺️
The Blue Hour
This is somewhat of a sequel to my other 18th-century fics 'When the Heart is Full the Tongue Will Speak" and "The Prison Ship," but it also stands alone. Valley Forge was arguably the worst winter of the war. Alfred's having a bad time. Matt tries to help. He has something for Alfred. This was supposed to be longer, but I had to say fuck it and put it in the queue, or it wasn't happening, so I'm so sorry for inflicting it on you. Apple pie reference is from the HC that Alfred's pie recipe comes from a nice Pennsylvania Quaker lady who took him in in the late 17th century when he was little after the Massachusetts witch crazes. This isn't a happy fic, but it is deeply loving. Also on ao3
Valley Forge, Christmas 1777
Alfred’s legs didn’t feel quite real as he approached the clearing. It was silent here. No animals. No people, either. Even the last chickadees, so faithful through the winter, had disappeared behind him as the previous winter sun faded from a depressing grey to pitch dark. He was a bit numb and more paranoid as he rounded a copse of trees and found himself staring at a pristine clearing. He recognized this house, grey stone with a heavy slate roof. There was no glass in the windows, but cheery, flickering firelight escaped through whatever slight cracks there were in the shutters. He hefted his rifle, bayonet attached, closer and approached, wary. The forest held its breath, and the fire crackling became louder as he approached. There was smoke from the chimney but no shadows of movement inside. He gripped his rifle. He should go home to his haphazard tar paper and log shack, but it was dark now, and Valley Forge was 30 miles behind.
He pushed open the door with a bang, rifle to his shoulder, and heard a surprised shout. A figure twisted, axe in hand, poised to hook it into Alfred’s neck and remove an arm at the shoulder like a branch from a trunk. Then, a note of laughter, and he was embraced.
Warmth hit him. First, Matt’s entire body was warm, and his clothes were fire-toasty. Then the smell of roasting meat floated, so solid it was almost visible, into his senses. Then, dizziness. Dizziness struck like a blow to the head. Alfred might have passed out on the floor if Matt hadn’t already had his arms around him.
Matt squeezed with more strength than Alfred had ever known his baby brother to have. The rifle was tugged from his hands, and he was suddenly sitting, sodden clothes and boots pulled off, feet stretched towards the fire. He might have vomited if he wasn’t so hallowed out. Matt was gone for only a moment, but Alfred grabbed a hold of him as soon as he was back.
“Have you changed your mind?” He grasped Matt’s sleeve with a shaking hand. “Did you come to your senses?”
“Have you?” Matt said, derisive even as he pressed a mug into Alfred’s hands. “Drink that, and the world will stop spinning.”
“Matthew---” He didn’t let go of Matt’s sleeve. “You haven’t come to—.”
“Bend the knee?” Matthew’s eyes flashed, and Alfred was all too aware of the axe on his belt and the rifle against the wall. “No. I’m not.”
“What are you doing here then?” He let Matt go and sipped on the contents of the mug—broth, salty and rich beyond belief. Matt was right. The world did stop spinning.
“It’s Christmas.”
“Is it?”
“It is,” Matt said with a watery smile. “I take it you got my note.”
“Pie at sundown,” Alfred recalled. “I got it. I could hardly believed you remembered that.”
“First apple pie you ever made me. I’ll remember it til the sun goes dark.” Matt was before him with a blanket and a stack of clothes. “Finish drinking that, put these on and then we’ll talk.”
They were his own clothes, what he’d left in the chest of drawers in Boston after he’d slipped his guards and disappeared across the border and into Quebec. He wanted to toss them back. They were the clothes of a crown subject, a boy with a British boot on his neck. Not the free man he wanted to be. That he was, but he hadn’t had a fresh shirt since his baby brother had dragged his corpse out of his shallow grave on the Hudson. He could wash it as often as he liked, but the linen was still wearing thin. His former things were practically new, the linen fresh and clean, the wool still warm. Alfred ran a hand over the fabric, still so chilled he hardly considered his pride as Matt turned away to tend to the bird slowly roasting over the fire and dressed. He glanced over his shoulder when Alfred slipped the shirt over his head. There hadn’t been a mirror to look at himself in months, and he didn’t want to. He knew his ribs were stark; he could feel them. Matt looked that kind of devastated that, if he hadn’t turned away, might have made Alfred cry.
“Have you had a decent meal since I saw you?” He didn’t look over his shoulder again until the shirt was over his head, and he’d buttoned the blue waistcoat over his chest. Everything was so ill-fitting now.
Alfred ignored him. “Does Father know you’re here?”
Matthew snorted. “It’s Christmas; he’s so deep into the officer’s nog when I left he won’t realize I’ve gone unless I’m not there for epiphany morning with tea going. So I shot a turkey and pissed off south to find you. Looks like its a good thing I did too.”
“I’m fine.” Alfred scowled. “There’s a camp of thousands of men 2 miles from here with nothing but rice and vinegar for Christmas dinner. Next to them, I’m all right.”
“I’m sorry,” Matt said, and it damn well looked like he meant it, narrow shoulders bowed as he sat heavily onto one of the overturned logs he obviously meant to use as a kitchen chair for the occasion.
“You could feed a lot of people if you stayed. You’re a good hunter.”
“Don’t,” Matt said. “We’ve had this conversation. Look at you. You know I wouldn’t survive another war like this. You’re kissed by God himself and you look like death.”
“It’s not so bad.”
“Rice and vinegar, eh? Yeah well. Try some turkey and see if it compares.”
“Why do you keep coming to see me if you won’t pick a side, Matt? You’re committing treason and you know it.”
“You’re my brother.”
His shrug was simple, unemotional. The sky was up, the Earth was down, the snow was cold, and Matt would haul and shoot a turkey and walk four days just to sneak him a decent meal. He teared up. Maybe it was the cold, the deprivation or just how much he missed home and heart and heart. Throat working, shoulders shaking even if he wasn’t crying, he grabbed Matt by the shoulders and squeezed for a third time, kissing him on the forehead about a dozen times and just feeling something so desperately affectionate he had to ride it out like dizziness.
“I missed you.” He said.
“You too.” Matt had clamped himself around Alfred, playing as if he just held on; he wouldn’t feel how much weight he’d dropped since summer. After a long moment, he made Alfred sit on one of the logs and tossed the rucksack while he struck flint and steel and put tinder to kindling. “Have you been sick? You look terrible,”
“Everyone is.” He said. There was no point in hiding it. “You know what it’s like. A moving army is a healthy army. A camped army is a sick army.”
“Why do you think I like the woods so much? I could run from the British as easily as from the typhus.”
“Yeah, well, they’re my people. I can’t leave them.”
“Do you have scurvy yet?”
“Gettering there.” He poked his tongue at his teeth. He had all of them, but he was always so tired. It couldn’t be far away.
Matt pivoted and took an orange in each hand, shoving them at Alfred. “Father... he’s in the habit of buying two.”
“I can’t take these!”
“Think of them as reparations.”
“Won’t you get scurvy?’
“I get lime juice twice a day. Just take anything you want out of my pack and eat it. Take the rest tomorrow. I’ll get a rabbit on my way back if I get hungry.”
“Why do you have to go back?”
“Stop asking me that. Pick something for me to make out of what’s in there, all right? Anything you want tonight, and you can take the rest tomorrow.”
“I want you to stay.”
Matt leaned against the wall by the hearth, arms crossed. “And I don’t want to die. So stop asking. That’s the agreement. Stay alive. Not stay with you.”
“You should be my right hand. It should be me and you against the world.”
“You’re the one fighting with the world, Alfred. I already have. I lost. Pick a vegetable, eat an orange, have some wine and stop trying to sentence me to death because you’re lonely again.”
He was tearing up, and so was Alfred. They looked away from each other, and Alfred went to the pack.
He opened food like he had once opened pewter inkwells at the apothecaries, looking for the blue ink he liked better than the quickly fading walnut; there were cranberries, potatoes, apples, stalks of celery, onions, cabbage, carrots, mushrooms, honey cakes, tea, coffee, a jug of wassail and a smaller bottle of Madeira. Smaller quantities of sugar, flour, oats, rice, raisins and rye. There were more of his clothes that he hadn’t taken when he’d fled Boston nearly two years prior. And under all that, a length of blue cloth with shining brass buttons.
“Mattie.... What is that coat?”
His brother froze. He’d been dragging his knife down the side of the roasted bird and onto a rough-hewn platter. For one long moment, Alfred thought he might burst into tears.
“It’s for you.” He said.
“Whe did you get it?”
“General Montcalm.” He said. “It was too big so I hid it under the floorboards. Thought I’d wear it too the victory parade someday. It’s... it’s your colour now, isn’t it?”
“It— Yeah it is.”
“I hope its luckier for you than it was for me.” He said quietly. “I hope Lord Bonnefoy is better to you too.”
“Mattie.” Alfred said quietly.
Matt was standing there, eyes shut against tears, until he looked up at Alfred with those same big, hopeful eyes he’d always had before all this. Full of all the softness and warmth of Canada that may not have existed elsewhere that winter. Words stuck in his throat, and suddenly, so homesick he wanted to burst, Alfred opened his arms. Matt gave up on carving the bird, put down the plate, and allowed Alfred to pull him in again. If Matt had grown, it was only a little, and Alfred could still easily rest his cheek on Matt’s crown, which he did for a long moment.
“Thank you.” He said.
“It was meant for you,” Matt replied. “You’re... tall and capable like that. It will fit you, even when you fill it out again.”
“You’ll grow.” Alfred said. “Someday. And then we'll be fine."
Someday.
#hws america#hws canada#na bros#my writing || cacoethes scribendi#the ask box || probis pateo#alfred and matt || lonely boys with the longest borders#matthew || my country is winter#alfred || o beautiful for spacious skies
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Is it too much to ask Matt has a good time of it for once 😭
It might! The cringe below might finally manage to kill me but I had a rum so enjoy if at all humanly possible I fucking guess lmao. No trigger warnings in this!
Liverpool, 1780s.
Alasdair didn't like Liverpool. Alasdair didn't enjoy anywhere below the borderlands if he was honest. The further south he went, the more English the accents and attitudes got. But his personal accounts and the Scottish economy were all bound up in Arthur's and England's. The city was an important center of commerce and shipping, but Christ was a hellscape to navigate. A massive barrel of what God only knew nearly flattened him as he ducked between burly stevedores carrying rolls of hammered copper and herring casks. Not ten paces later, he was doubling over to avoid decapitation and not by the preferred broad sword, but bolts of silk heaped over someone's shoulder that swung out like a branch a rider wouldn't see in the dark.
Eventually, the long solid jetty ran nearly half a mile with smaller wharves and docks jutting from it like teeth set in the skull of England. Barges, barques and brigantines floated both at their berths and sailed up the mouth of the harbour and down the throat of the River Mersey. The whole bloody circus acting as if it were the opening of Arthur's mouth, goods being swallowed into the belly of Britain.
He steered himself through the mob of elbows and shoulders, shading his eyes with a hand now and then to read the raised, painted letters on various sterns and bows until he found the ship he was looking for. HMS Triton was emblazoned in yellow. Loaded with cod and wheat for the warehouses, Arthur would be making land at any time and would want to know the state of their finances immediately. He would want to be bent over the tables, figures, and ship manifests and reports. He was always in a foul mood when he had to get off the ship and the profitable year would set his ire to rest before it came to blows at least. He found a post jutting up from the water hung with lanterns unused in the daylight and leaned against it, waiting for his ill-tempered brother to make his appearance.
A quarter of an hour later, they were finally lowering the gangplank. It scraped to a halt as two heaving sailors maneuvered into place. The planks were still skittering on the dock as he was assaulted by the smell of unwashed sailor, tar, fish and a knot of sharp elbows and joints that suddenly hung around his neck. Curses rose into his mouth, and then he was aware of the distinctly sweet smell of polar wind and pine wood. The rush of fondness that came was unconscious, automatic and as human as they ever felt.
"Holy Christ," He pinched limbs snaking around his neck and flung them off, gripping the slender creature giving him the world's most gentle, affectionate mauling and holding him at arm's length.
"Matthew?"
"Hello, Uncle Alasdair!" Matthew wriggled and looked overjoyed, stuck in an awkward shrug with all his weight hanging from Alasdair's hands under his armpits. Alasdair stared. Getting taller but still small for his age, he dangled there for a long moment as Alasdair stared. He was lighter than Alasdair could remember. Then, all at once, his brain started up again.
"What in hell d'ye think you're doing here?"
"Father's arranged it!" He said, chipper but increasingly nervous. He twitched in the awkward hold. "Did... Did Father not write and tell you?"
"He didn't!" Alasdair exclaimed, annoyed at his brother. He'd have words when the boy was in bed. Really, could Arthur not inform him of the basics? "Christ, Matthew, but you're a surprise!"
"An unwelcome one?" Matthew said a little sadly, and Alasdair recognized all at once that his hold must have been painful; Matthew had interpreted from Alasdair's tone that his presence was an annoyance as it was so often with Arthur.
Alasdair hugged him drawing his nephew and godson to his chest and shifting his insubstantial weight, so he sat on one arm, all affection for him overriding any annoyance for Arthur. "Not at all, wee one,"
He lost track of time momentarily, the curly-haired sprite hugging his neck taking up all the world. The boy's clothes were stiff with salt, but he was so sweet a sight for sore eyes; Alasdair didn't mind if any of the white chalky residues got on his second-best coat.
"How was your voyage? Your ships three weeks late, I half thought the Nuckelavee had gotten themselves a particularly poor meal of bony Englishmen and snapped a wee tender Canadian up for desert,"
"Oh no, just rough seas," Matthew said, looking back at Alasdair. He was smiling but a stone thinner than Alasdair remembered. "We spent a week off the coast of Ireland to let it pass. And made several stops since we weren't transporting anything important,"
Alasdair snorted. "Except your father I suppose,"
"Oh, did father arrive already?"
"I'm sure he'll be along in a moment," Alasdair said, more focused on shifting the weight to one arm and getting out of the way as cargo was unloaded. Activity was up, sailors busier now that the bottle neck of the gangplanks we're down. Alasdair sighed. Arthur could take a year and a bloody day to disembarque he so preferred being at sea sometimes.
Matthew's head popped up, wide-eyed and overjoyed and Alasdair lifted a hand to the head of salt-stiff hair and nudge him out of the way. But the question still came, vibrating with excitement. "Father came with you? To fetch me? Really?"
Alasdair frowned. "With me? Nay. Isn't he with ya, lad?"
The boy's enthusiasm sagged from him and he buried his face into Alasdair's shoulder. "No, sir,"
Alasdair sighed. Of course, he wouldn't spend that much time in close quarters. Sassenach bampot always preferred his own cabin, if not his own ship. He lifted Matthew's weight to his hands so he could be safely deposited onto his own two feet; he asked, "Where's your governess then?"
"Governess?" Matthew asked as Alasdair set him down.
"Aye,"
"Why would I have a governess?" He asked. His big blue eyes proved Alasdair's point. He was likely young enough in human terms to still have one.
"A tutor then?" The wind was picking up now.
Matthew looked at his feet. Alasdair sighed.
"Well, who minded you on the way over?"
"I suppose that'd be the captain. He never spoke to me but no one said ill of him." Matthew said. "I think Lord Kirkland said I should start learning the ropes without being coddled,"
Alasdair snorted. As if Arthur had ever coddled Matthew. Matthew shrank, narrow shoulders inching around his ears as he interpreted Alasdair's incredulity as criticism.
"I tried to do what I told," Matthew said quietly.
"I’m sure you did." Alasdair replied gently. "It's all right. Do you need to fetch anything?"
"No sir." Matthew responded, but he hesitated.
"What is it?"
"The bosun said he would tell father I've done well. Would you speak to him? And tell father? Please? If it's not a bother."
"Aye, of course," Alasdair said. "I don't think you could do anything less even if you’d tried. Let's get you out of the weather before it turns foul,"
"Shouldn't I help unload?" Matthew glanced back nervously
"No, I think you've done enough work," Alasdair bounced Matthew up so his weight sat comfortably on the flat of his forearm.
After a talk with the first mate and bosun, who reported Matthew's work on glowing terms, they returned to the house. Relatively new, it shared its northern wall with the warehouses but had its own water pump and a big copper tub he set the maids to fill with hot water. Peeling Matthew out of his salt-crusted clothes was an ordeal. The boy seemed to be covered in a salt rash from his narrow shoulders down, and his hands were practically in shreds, rope burns and salt welts everywhere on both sides. His ribs showed under his skin.
"Christ almighty, I'm going to clap your father into a stockade," Alasdair muttered as he gently tried to sponge the raw skin clean of salt. "What was he thinking?"
Matthew shrugged, stifling another wince as the sponge touched was looked like a particularly painful place of angry irritation.
"Sorry," Alasdair said. "We'll get something on these, but the salt—"
"I'm like salt-packed green beans."
Alasdair snorted. "And the beanpole. Honestly, did they forget to feed you?"
"Only sometimes!" Matt said chipperly, blowing at the suds and shaping peaks like merengue out of the bubbles. It was strange, sometimes, that even after a century and a half, children remained like their physical age. "I didn't have a friend to bring me anything when it was my turn on watch duty like the other lads, so I had to wait for breakfast a lot."
Alasdair sighed, filling the pitcher and telling Matthew to close his eyes as he dumped more water over his soapy hair and shoulders.
"What do you want for your first decent meal on land?"
Matthew looked up, a little uncertain. He hated requesting things, even when he was asked. Alasdair combed his fingers through the curls and despaired to find them still salt stiff.
"We can have whatever you like," Alasdair said, trying to reassure.
"I don't mind whatever you were going to have." He said quietly, patting absently at a particularly angry-looking patch of skin on the back of his hand. He looked like he wanted to say more, the slightly sad face that consistently predicted being told no even when he built up the courage for something.
"I'm asking what would you like?"
"Is there any fruit?" He asked, all in a rush, looking a little terrified. "Is that all right? Actually no, sorry. Whatever's being cooked is fantastic, I'm sorry."
"Matthew." Alasdair repositioned himself to the side of the tub instead of the back. The lad was still slight for his age and dwarfed by all the suds in the tub long enough for Alasdair to stretch out. For a bizarre moment, he recalled Arthur, even younger, even smaller, with terrified eyes in the waters at Aqua Sulis when he'd been playing and lost track of their mother. "Grapes or apples? Or there are some plums if you'd like those. Won't do to have you keeling over of scurvy on land."
That got him a surprised look.
"Both?" Alasdair asked.
A shy smile appeared, flickering like a candle before the flame found it's footing on the wick. "Thank you,"
"You're welcome. Now eyes shut, need to give you another rinse."
It took four water changes before he was rinsed as thoroughly as Alasdair wanted, and his short cropped curls were soft again. He ate exactly what Alasdair put in front of him, only took the plums Alasdair put on his plate and didn't ask for more but took them, slice by slice. He was a sweet boy. Alasdair put another sliced apple in front of him until it was plain the lad could barely keep his eyes open, properly fed and clothed.
Matthew, fed and sluggish, hung on for a long moment when given what Alasdair meant as a hug good night before he sent him to bed. Alasdair glanced down.
"Sorry." Matthew dropped his gaze to the floor. "Thank you."
Alasdair scooped him up. It's after sundown; the fire burned low when Matthew rolled over in the trundle they'd pulled out from under the primary bed. He was buried in blankets and three household eiderdowns, bundled snug against the night but not yet asleep. There was something stiff in the way he held himself, Alasdair decided as he rolled onto his back and sighed.
"What's on your mind?"
A long, inefficient pause. Not inefficient, Alasdair thought, but nervous.
"Whatever it is I won't be angry."
"Can I ask something of you?"
"You know you can, a bhobain."
"Would you please warn me if Lord Kirkland wanted to... exchange me?"
Alasdair went cold just thinking about it. Without thinking, he'd leaned towards the trundle and scooped the boy, blankets and all, to cuddle him close. In the light of the mostly banked fire, he was shocked to see Matthew wasn't upset.
"Your father wants you,"
Matthew snuggled in his blankets, wriggling until he was perfectly tight between Alasdair's arms.
"He doesn't mind me now so much. But... you'd warn me, right? Please?"
He thumbed Francis' curls off a sharp face that was too like Arthur's as a boy, with eyes as large as they were clever. It was strange how a child made of so much of the two great sources of disquiet in Alasdair's life could be so endearing.
"Listen to me. You belong to the British Empire. That means I get just as much a say as your sassenach bastard of a father, should he change his mind." He didn't want to test that particular statement anytime soon but it felt true enough, saying it. "And I'll never give you up, do you understand me? It's my name you bear and my name you'll keep, understand?"
He got a very fervent nod against his chest.
"No one will ever give you up if I have a say in it," Alasdair said, closing his eyes against the dampness suddenly there. History had taken his mother and all the sweetness Arthur ever had. He kissed Matthew’s forehead. "I can promise you that. You have my name."
"It's just... I had Lord Bonnefoy's too." Matthew said very quietly. "I was part of New France. Now I'm... Not."
Alasdair exhaled the urge to smash Francis' face into one of mother's standing stones and thumbed Matthew's face.
"I stood as your godfather when you were born. Did you know that?"
Matthew shook his head.
"You were too little to remember." Alasdair held him tighter. "But I am. And François... He's always had the gentler climate. Fair weather. Do you understand what I mean?"
"That I'm too cold." Matthew shivered, and Alasdair rubbed a circle in his back like he had when the lad was tiny, not that he was much larger now.
"No. That he can be a fair weather friend. We Scots are made of sterner stuff. You and I." He thumbed an idle curl, pondering the boy. Matthew glanced up, eyes wide and watery. Alasdair looked him in the eye, in what little light was left and repeated himself for emphasis. "You and I, both."
#the ask box || probis pateo#my writing || cacoethes scribendi#matthew || my country is winter#alasdair || my heart's in the highlands#Alasdair and Matt || is mig amharc le dicheall
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New England Alfred always pulls at my heartstrings, but consider Detroit-flavoured Alfred. A city born in his brother's foreign tongue, its archives are as full of the 18th century as anything on the Atlantic, but never in English. He looks upon Frank Lloyd Write and Monet and doesn't flinch at the odd gunshot in the background. The American dream turns towards the all-American waking nightmare with the soundtrack of Delta Blues, Detroit Rock City, and the Real Slim Shady. He's dislocated a shoulder smashing on the riot shields, refusing to give another inch to the ruling class. He walks down a street that was once considered the crown jewel in America's Paris and later used to train teenage soldiers how to hunt in urban combat and shivers. He never does get as much credit for the winters here as Matt does for his.
The summer a grenade rolled under his cot in Vietnam, the rest of the country and much of the world swooned with the summer of love. That summer, San Francisco laid languorous with lust, but he went home to Detroit. Because Detroit burned. It's always burning. The Black Day In July never ended. They don't bother putting out the fires anymore. Urban sprawl drains the city like open veins, blue and red lights flashing, and that eternal American question: Who are you? It can't be answered the way it used to. "An optimist." He'd say, scoured clean by fire hoses set on strikers. But now it's harder to answer. Now, democracy's arsenal lay open on the morgue table. And a city, a country and he are vivisected by one scalpel stroke, and one bone saw blade cracks open one chest to answer. What went wrong in Detroit? What's happening to American democracy? Who are you, Alfred? Who are you?
Detroit's only real Van Gogh stares at him from under a sun hat as intently as the locals do that Bruins jersey he forgot to take off in the airport bathroom. The river that parts him from his brother whispers under the silence of the city desolate and depopulated: O, American Atlas, are your shoulders still as broad as the Spirit of the Detroit?
#the ask box || probis pateo#alfred || o beautiful for spacious skies#my writing || cacoethes scribendi#what the fuck is this? idk
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Part Nine: Drownings
Chapter Directory: Here
Current Installment: You are here!
Author's note: Inspired by the 1950s short story "The Man Who Came Early" by Poul Anderson. I rewrote this seven times and had an unrelated mental breakdown. I'm still not happy with it but at least everything that was in the outline is in this version. No major trigger warnings for this chapter. Also on ao3 here.
Burial Mound, Cumbria
Matthew slid beneath the water, practically consumed by the dark concentric circles flowing out and lapping gently at the stone. They had built the spring like an inverted broch, no mortar, all perfectly fitted stone.
“No!” Arthur was whipping off his coat. The wool would only become waterlogged and drown him. His body was a spring, energy coiling from shin to shoulder, arms thrown up over his head to break the surface tension, anything to give him an extra boost to get and clasp his son to him. Toes off the ground, arms snatched him back.
“No!” Rhys was slamming him to the ground like he was a boy, and Mother was a corpse upon a driftwood throne. There’s scuffling. He flipped himself over, white-hot rage replacing whatever desperation was before.
“Let me go!” It was always English when they argued, a force of speech as effective as a spear point since the Angles.
Rhys drove down, rolled him over, face in the moss and clover of the Cumbrian soil beneath his face, the heart of him a thousand years ago and forbid him in a dead language. More loss. He wouldn’t take more loss. But his arm would snap if he struggled anymore.
“Rhys.” Brighid was pulling him off. “Rhys, let him go.”
“No!” He shot back at her. “Absolutely not—”
“You have too.” She looked gentle now, not fearsome. Herself, St. Brighid, not the warrior goddess mother left her to inherit. Soft clover, her prized cattle roamed rather than the wine-dark seas that thrashed her shores. Her hand released him.
Rhys was protesting, but he wasn’t fighting or wrestling. Arthur couldn’t hear him or Brighid now. Their voices were silent; Alasdair was on the ground, shed of his clothes, bleeding from a cut on his hairline. He almost snorted. Brighid would have had to strike him as hard as she could to stop him. Alasdair was saying something, mouth open to the French that was so familiar, calling after his favourite nephew. But his attention was gone now. The water spoke to him with Alfred’s laugh.
He dove.
—
Sometimes, when Matthew hasn’t slept, the ice starts whispering at home. Singing or whispering, luring him with cracks in the seracs as serpentine as a woman’s hips. It whispers about how much of him is already frozen. He can rest as much as he wants if he lays down and slips into blue-black waters. It sighs and tells him he can close his eyes, and everything will be all right. Tempts him. He’ll be so numb, but for a good reason. Everything would slide away, and he would be as empty as he felt. Sometimes, the ice sings.
And sometimes, he answers. He’s laid himself down into a gap in the pack ice for a nap so casually that the frigid water rushing over him feels gentle, not cold and cutting. Matthew has closed his eyes and let himself float away. He could emerge in a few months with the spring melt, float up, and return refreshed and rebuilt. Any absence unconsidered, and anyone who might have eventually noticed usually yet unbothered.
The spring sings like that, in a gentle burble instead of staccato groans but promising nonetheless. His brother’s laugh has gone quieter, disappearing under the water. The dry stone edge of the spring is cold under his hands, but the lure is louder, and the water is not so cold. Words his aunt sang drop from sounds flesh might make to the deep metallic of something like bronze clacking on stone. Like wind forced through chimes or a horn. The water sings like that, a hymn for the missing or maybe the mad, urging him on as he let himself sink and then swam down, searching for a bottom as he kept one hand on the round stone wall.
Then, the world was rotating. The light had gone so bright. Turning, he slammed against the stone, what air he had left bubbling out of his mouth and gurgling away. Fuck. He tried to twist and paddle up; he could swim like a fish, but something had snagged—no! Something had grabbed and hauled him up from behind. He must have been running out of air. His vision flashed red, even against his shut eyelids, and he broke the surface. Heaving, he groped for stone but found green and freshly cut wood boards. A woman looked down at him, a bucket fitted together of wood in her hand. Her hair was pulled out of her face in a crown of braids. The linen shift she wore draped off her shoulders and dipped below the neckline of her bodice, a style that had been popular when he was a child, but it was her eyes he’d locked on.
“Katya?” She looked a bit healthier than he’d ever known her to be, but her eyes were the same sky blue. Hope and harvest blue. He would have recognized her if he didn’t have eyes, though, because that part of him that was hers sang louder than the water or the shout coming from behind him. Something was pulling at his shoulder. He didn’t care. Matt pulled himself closer. He could smell summer wafting off her.
Her surprise turned to something tender, and her hand lifted to his face and beckoned behind him. Someone else was saying his name from his shoulder. He didn’t care.
“I’m not what you’re looking for yet.”
“Yes, you are.” He said. “I’ll always look for you.”
“But not yet.” She insisted. Pushing his soaking wet hair off his face. “Return to my dreams, wraith.”
“Katy—” He was being dragged away then. She didn’t look sad but hopeful.
“Swim.”
“What the fuck— DAD?”
“My sons and their cocks, I swear to God.” Arthur was griping, and Matt was spinning, looking for a handhold to climb the wall of the… was it a well he was inside of? It was not a spring; the water was too cold and too dark. He was shivering. Katya was there, happier than he’d ever seen her, and he was stuck here, pushed away, banished.
“Matthew!” Two hands on his face, making him look. His father was soaked but deathly serious. “Focus.”
“What?”
“Focus on your brother and swim.”
His father’s voice cut the panicked babble of thoughts, and he heard the laugh again. He sucked in the air and dove. If it was one thing he was, it was a good swimmer, reaching out and down, striving forward. He has never seen such darkness. Only the odd, purposeful tap on his calf keeps him in contact with his father. They don’t have much time before Arthur begins to freeze, or they burst for air. His lungs are straining, individual bronchioles tracing branches of pain through his chest when light shines. Harvest gathering greens, mostly, then woad blues and sparks of red like fruit. If only stained glass could flow and distort light like tide pools, it would look like this. He can’t tell which way is up then. He can’t breathe. He’s blacking out, hand reaching for his father’s tumbling form next to him as they fell rather than swam. The colours drained from the world, and rushing water froze, black and fractal.
Then he’s on his back, and his father is slapping him across the face. He jackknifes into consciousness. Dad’s there, dripping like a drowned rat. But his body is normal. No blood showed, no bones were broken, and strength flooded back into his extremities as his body staved off hypothermia in the much warmer air.
“What the fuck was that?” He gasped.
“Breathe.” Arthur is a bit frantic. They’re both shivering. “Focus.”
“Where are we?” Matt was so confused. He recognized stones, the well. But there were so many trees. The trunks were as tall as any he had at home, taller than anything that had been replanted after they’d been hacked from him to build the empire. The rainbow of smeared colour still danced in his eyes and his vision smeared.
“Not where.” Arthur was pale. “When. I haven’t had this many oak trees since before your brother was born.”
“When?” Matt practically gagged on a shiver and laid back down. “Was that—Was that the rainbow bridge? Like the sagas?”
“The— Rainbow bridge? Really, lad? You gawking at Kateryna was the single most heterosexual thing I’ve ever seen you do.”
The less relevant his sense of humour, the more fucked they were. But the blood rushing back into his fingers and toes hurt ungodly amounts. He lost focus again, the trees blurring into the low clouds like brushes into well-used rinse water, only revealing the buttresses of his grandmother’s pre-Christian cathedral in the foliage. Better than stained glass.
He’s lying there, aware of Arthur having gotten to his feet, but not other people, until there are voices. He sits again. A small caravan of wagons heaped with goods stands at the edge of the clearing, and his father is speaking with them. He can only make out so many words. He almost thinks they’re speaking Dutch for a moment, those fluid, almost gurgly sounds Jan makes when he’s happy and well fucked. His body feels so normal now, warm and boneless, like he’s eaten and slept so much he needs to sleep more. He’s supposed to be alert but can’t understand what’s being said. He tried to learn Beowulf by heart once when he was a boy. Before Jack was born and no one cared enough to call a strange creature at the end of the frozen world kin, he’d poured over the pages of an ancient cracked book bound in even older leather. His father has no such issues, understanding or being understood.
“Hƿelċ tīd is hit nū?” He recognized the word for time, but the man laughed and replied in a way that took Matt the logic of forming half-forgotten grammar into a sentence that might not even be the same. That is something for the priests.
More words. He only caught the last two. Ælfrēd Cyninġ.
He sat straight, lightning running down his back. Alfred. Ælfrēd. The pressure of normalcy pushed his consciousness from all sides, embracing that empty, silent despair of days and days. It filled him back with life, like warm water over the cold. Not so near, not so strong, but there. Alive. His brother was in existence.
#hws england#hws canada#the dangeld axe to grind: the viking age time travel au#my writing || cacoethes scribendi
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Do you have any fic about the difference between how Matt is to Alfred vs Jack/Zee? That feels untapped.
Four cunts and a Kiwi walk into a trench.... Please note this is a work of historical fiction based roughly on the Kaiserschlacht of 1918, Germany's last offensive. It is not a textbook. The interactions here cannot possibly begin to represent the real motions of history. The depictions of war and empire are fictional. Everyone's a piece of shit in this, but they are fictional pieces of shit. The existing author's views do not align with that of the fictional characters or any other message you think you're gleaning from this. Everyone in the following piece is fictional and over the age of 18. Do not get your morality from fanfic. No one is happy, no one is having a good time. They are individual, fictional characters and they are miserable. If I haven't made them miserable enough its because my wrist is busted in two places and I'm not in the fucking mood.
Flanders
March 1918
Matt’s slicker is draped over the tent pegs, a crude shelter against the elements beating down on them. Between Matt shoved in tightly to his left and Zee wedged into his right, and the blankets still tucked in tight all around them, Jack is as warm as he’s been since he stepped foot on this bloody continent. He shifts, something uncomfortable against his back.
He mumbles something and tells Matt to roll over, but Zee says something about Matt fucking off if he was going to be an insomniac. But Zee is to his right, and Jack is on his back. She can’t possibly feel anything. He disregards it, rolls back asleep, and snuggles in tighter against her back.
There’s a rush of cold air, Matt yelling at him to get up! To get the fuck up! There’s the crack of steel on a skull. He knows the sound has driven his own shovel into enough Turkish and German heads by now to know it, as well as he knows the sound of his own voice. Matt’s grunting gets louder. Jack is on his feet, pulling Zee up with him. He may as well have not opened his eyes. It’s so fucking dark.
He snatches Zee close, and she screams at him, working something over in her hands.
“Get down,” He hisses at her.
He’s too late. She’s lit the flare. In the dark, formless under the clothes and blankets, she might have not been noticed, but in the sick light of the flare, green as gas, there’s no mistaking her form, a girl’s form even in the trousers of the men’s field uniform, permitted this near the front with the medical officers. They were supposed to be safe here, three trenches back. There’s a joyful German noise and then the swell of bodies. Not a trench raid, not a squad. This is a counter-offensive. Matt throws one into another’s bayonet, and Jack breaks another German’s neck without thinking. The world is lit in green light reflecting from the gore.
He kills three men in seconds, Matt even more. But they’re replaced. This is no trench raid. It is a punch right through the line, a blow puncturing right through the armour of the front line. Jack takes up one of the rifles, but it won’t fire. He swings it into another man’s face. Where the fuck is his gun? Where the fuck is Matt’s?
“Zee! Go!” Matt bellows. Jack spun and watched his sister’s face. There’s German blood there, splattered across her jaw and cheeks, her hand red, a knife that is not hers dripping.
“Go!” Jack says and bodily shoves her back at the ladder. “Find Dad!”
Her eyes flash with the knowledge that this is the only way to avoid the worst, but also full of loathing. She hates him, and maybe Matt, for making her go.
“Go with her,” Matt tells him. Gripping him by the sleeve and shoving him as hard as he can. “Go!”
“Matt!”
“Go!”
He’s got a German rifle to his shoulder and is already flipping back the lever and aiming. He looked up, and he was horrific in this light, face sharp, eyes narrow, lip curled back. But a flash of Matt, of peacetime. “I can slip away if they capture me. You can’t! Go!”
“He’s right!” Zee whispered. “Come on!”
“No!” Jack wrenched his arm free of Matt. They’re surrounded by his soldiers. Australians are to their left and their right flanks, awake now and fighting. Their souls come to his awareness like stars as the sun sets. Pinpricks of light he can’t leave. Too much is happening. “No! Stop!”
“Jack, Go!” Matt’s firing, and something is screaming in the distance. Five bullets, then four. “I’m right behind you.” Four bullets left, more screaming. The trenches around them are coming alive. He won’t leave them. He can’t.
But Zee’s got him by the arm and is dragging him with her.
“You know what happens if we stay!” Zee whispered. Three bullets become two. Hoarse shouts. She gripped him by the face, her own grey with terror, but her brown eyes set with certainty. She has all of Dad’s decisiveness. “What happens if I stay,”
And just like that, she’s straightened his thoughts. He won’t let Germans have her, and she won’t leave him here. So they go. They have to go.
“Okay,” He exhales his panic and shakes his entire body. “Okay.”
Matt has fired twice more. He’s out of bullets, and more are coming, more are coming now. His sister tugged him back. He snatched up his sidearm, forgotten on the floor in the mêlée.
“Be quick and be safe!” Matt tells them. It’s a benediction as hoarse as his prayers are when he thinks there is no one around to hear him. They’re just as futile, too. The time their slaughter brought them is at a standstill, and Matthew’s bullets are gone.
“Find Alfred!” Matt screams over his shoulder as if he’s on another German. The last thing Jack sees of him is the full horrific brutality of his Matt in hand to hand. The filth of his fight. Matt was a brutal bastard. He thrust his fingers into an enemy’s face, finding eyeballs for leverage and twisting heads, viscous as a wolf just before spring. Matthew gives Germans a fight the way he gave their father before Jack was born, and that’s before his fingers close around the pine of his favourite axe. Jack turns, hearing Zee say his name. Their artillery is waking now. He can hear the guns open up. They have to go.
Zee was just ahead of him, running headlong into the dark. It’s wrong. Leaving his men. But she’s ahead of him. It’s the way the world works. Zee sailed into a new day ahead of him on their spinning planet. He follows. A German must have crawled past Matt. Jack shoots.
Zee jumped, startled, and for a fucking moment, he thought his wee Kiwi-bird of a sister, flightless and round, was going to sprout wings and fly straight home to New Zealand. But she’s repeating his name, and he’s staring into the dark, eyes swimming with the gun flash, wondering if hell is a different sort of red from home, with all its bright baked clay. Zee took his hand, her bloodied fingers around his, and looked at him. He grabbed her and hauled her along, forcing her to keep up with him despite their height, as he has their entire lives, from the moment she toddled into existence and he was taller.
He can trace her in the dark as she zigzags through the bullets and is lit by the odd shell in the sky as they escape into the night. He never lets go of her, making her steps longer when her weight hasn’t completely shifted. She is not alone. He is not alone.
They slip into the night, into chaos, into darkness, and further back into the line. Jack trips when a floodlight opens on them, temporarily blind as Zee hauls him to his feet. Everywhere, everything is chaos. Horns honking on trucks they only see when their lanterns appear from nowhere upon soldiers firing up the ignitions, officers and enlisted men shouting. American rifles being broken out from their boxes, sleeping soldiers on rest, still dreaming as they take distributed weapons. The trenches give way to tents, and tents give way to the depots. Still, Zee pulls him along.
“Where—” Jack asked, panting. “Where the fuck are we going, Zee?”
“Alfred!” She huffed, breathless, like that was obvious. But he had wanted father first and figured she would, too.
“Why?”
“Father will prioritize defending the front line.”
“So?”
“So— Alfred understands defense in depth. Give up the first line easily, then they pay for driving in deep, using the salients for killing zones. The more warning he has, the more of his and ours that man those salients, the more of theirs will die.”
He swallowed. He hated it when she sounded like Dad.
“Like Ypres before Matt took the high ground. Guns on three sides,”
“Exactly,” Zee replied. She had picked up a lantern at some point, and as she raised it, her eyes, always more brown than green, glinted for a moment with father’s thrilled, satisfied cunning. “We make them pay.”
They stumble through the night, guided by the sensations of a nation so like and unlike them. They are flavours of the night jars that encircle the Pacific. They fly; they’re so much larger than their father. Matt, cold and clinging to the top of the world, his back against Alfred, with even more people. Then, Jack was warm and all alone in the Pacific in his early years. But the Tasman Sea is Zee’s hand on his elbow. He loves her so much, and he hates his father, and he hates Matt for making them go and both of them for being right and for being practical. He collapsed into the early morning grass off the road, nearly taking Zee down with him. Soldiers yelled, and more traffic roared in his ears.
“Jack?” Zee tugged him to a stop. “Jack, mate. Hey.”
He couldn’t quite seem to get his breath, and he barely avoided puking all over her as he sprawled to the side and vomited what felt like everything he’d ever eaten since stepping foot in France.
Zee made a sympathetic sort of sound, and he felt her arms around her. It’s his soldiers behind them now. He can feel hers a little, too, on the flanks and Father’s, but his own are fighting, and he is running, and he has killed again. Again. And not for the last time. What’s his count? Can he add those to his count? Matt does. Zee counts hers against the lives she saved, and now she cradles his head, gently taking him by the jaw to make him look at her. Her eyes are hers now, and it’s not her father’s words in her mouth, not his will or his brutal practicality.
“Jack,” she said, and he squeezed her, clamping his arms around her smaller body like he had when he was little, and she was all he had of home in frigid England. “Jack, Christ.”
“I’m sorry,” He said but didn’t let go. She squirmed, not escaping but looking up at him. “I’m sorry,”
“Look at me,” she said, and he finally lifted his eyes to her. “Thirty-six thousand.”
“What?”
“That’s how many you evacuated from ANZAC cove. You. Not father, not me. You and your generals planned and executed that. Your balance is still positive, do you understand me?”
“Kiwi-bird,” He said because he was trying to argue, because she could read his mind sometimes, and he didn’t want her to, not now. He wanted to get up and move again and pretend he’d thrown up his sins with his stomach’s contents. “Don’t.”
“Thirty-six thousand.” She said again.
“Those weren’t directly... that kind of number is different from the ones you put back together on the table, Zee. It’s not the same. It’s not the same and it’s blood and it’s so much blood.”
“Look at me!” She said, this time harsh and sharp. “We do these things together, right? That’s what we said. My balance is your balance. You watch my back, I cover your arse.”
“Where the fuck was that cover when I got shot in the bum at Lone Pine, eh?” Jack shot back out of spite. But then she snorted so hard he thought she might puke, too.
“It’s not my fault it’s so bloody big!” She said. “You got the birthing hips, mate.”
“You are such an arsehole.” He countered, giving his side a rub where it most certainly did not round out into berthing hips. Then he was serious. “You mean it?”
“Heart and soul, dick.” She offered him a hand up, and he let her swing him to his feet. “Your balance is my balance.”
“Except at the commissary.” Jack huffed, unsure why that was the thought that popped into his head. “They won’t let me buy oranges anymore.”
“Correct. I trust you with my life and my immortal soul, but not the money.”
They push through the busy roads of new refugees and even more soldiers towards the pull of their father and the pull of whatever Alfred is, still half a stranger. It takes Zee pulling a “Do you know who my father is?” to some Oxbridge-educated fuck she might have rubbed elbows with in her school years to get them through the guard and into the command tent, and a damn good thing she did or Jack was ready to take out British soldiers like he had German. Arthur and Alfred are together, already half aware, and Father looks relieved, openly so. Not a good sign. Alfred looks bewildered. Less empire than boy startled out of bed. Because he still tends to sleep in one of those, even now. Because he is precious and held in reserve. Zee explains what happened and what needs to happen next. Jack fills in details as they go. His soldiers are the brunt just at that moment, and his heart is banging away in his chest when Alfred rolls around on him, full of piss. Looming because he does have two inches and an empire on Jack.
“You LEFT him?” He demanded, one fist gripping Jack’s collar. “You left Matt? What the fuck is wrong with you!”
“He can get away!” Zee said, trying to wedge herself in between, struggling as much with their father’s grasp as Jack was with Alfred’s. “Matt’s been doing this for years. He’ll be fine! We had bigger things to worry about!”
“Get the fuck off me!” Jack could do nothing about Alfred’s hold. His struggle was useless.
“Like what!” Alfred practically shouted. “What’s more important than making sure Matt gets home in one piece?”
“Like the entire western front, you dumb cunt!” Zee shoves her face up at Alfred’s, willing to argue even if she is a foot shorter.
“Enough!” Arthur slammed his hands down on the map-laden table and tugged Zee away, shoving one arm between Alfred’s chest and Jack’s, curling so he was in front of her. But he couldn’t break the grip Alfred had on Jack’s collar. “Get your hands off your brother, boy!”
“Fuck you!” That was all Alfred had to say to Arthur. Zee was tugging her arm back from their father and freeing herself.
“You left him there!” Alfred rounded on Jack again, closing the distance he already commanded with the grip on his collar.
“You always do this!” Alfred tossed back at Arthur. “You always leave him to do your dirty work. No one watching Matt’s back because why would anyone watch his back! Why would anyone give a shit except about how much killing you need done! Why should anyone watch his back?”
“I was!” Jack was on his toes, the angle of Alfred’s fist the only thing keeping him from using his jacket as a hangman’s rope. He didn’t care. “I was here, watching his back while you were home turning a fucking profit! We were here when it was all for nothing! You only showed up for what? For what? To take credit? Aunt Bridgie always said you were brave, that you were brilliant. She forgot to mention what a bastard you are!
“You shut your mouth. I’m not the one who just abandonded Mattie.”
“Ah, my dear boy, but you did that first.”
One sentence. One sentence, and that’s all it took. Father looked unbothered. Alfred’s hand dropped like he’d been slapped. Jack fell back, and Zee was there, throwing off Dad’s grip and under his arm in a moment. The room was silent. Jack breathed hard. He would have probably swayed if Zee wasn’t so close, half shielding her body from Alfred, half shielding his sanity from the shouting.
“Want another first?” Alfred wasn’t facing them now. This was an argument older than both of them, conducted in shouts muffled from the other end of the house. “I took his head off his shoulders at Yorktown. I shot our dear lord father’s jaw from his fucking skull and his skull from his shoulders and the lobsterbacks surrendered. And then they left. And when the gutters overflowed, you were born.”
Zee’s hand tightened on his, squeezing, squeezing like when the hospital ship she’d been on went down, torpedoed by that kraut bastard, and he’d dragged her corpse off a beach, and the only sign of life she could give him was the vice of her hand on his. I love you. It’s not true. I love you. It’s not true. I love you. It’s not true.
Arthur exhaled a laugh. “Goodness, I read you lot too much Shakespeare. Such a flare for drama, children.”
Alfred’s face twisted. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
“Who’s us?” Zee countered. Jack wanted to throw up again. “What’s wrong with you? You two are the kraut fuckers, not us!” Father looked almost as shocked as Alfred. “Matt wouldn’t even be out there if someone hadn’t made mess! And it wasn’t us!”
The conversation had meandered, shot right from under them, from under Matt. Fuck.
“All right!” Dad intervened like he’d had the same thought. Hard and sharp like the furious fifties that marked the sea voyage home when Jack was small, he cut through the tension. “As flattered as your brother would be to see you defending what little of his honour he hasn’t left in a brothel, I rather think we should get to the task of finding him first, no? And perhaps, if you lot can manage more than one task at a time with the single wit I seem to have left you to inherit, we could perhaps even turn back what looks to be an entire German offensive that’s just caught us with our cocks out.” He paused and glanced at Zee. “Barring you, dear girl.”
Jack snorted so hard they almost toppled over. Alfred sighed like a martyr. A sigh to make him sound like Matt, if there ever was one, and leaned over the table. “Where’d you put your favourite knife this time, you old bastard?”
“Excuse you,” A note of laughter in a gravelly voice, still half-ruined by gas. “I am Father’s best knife. Only the finest for when the Krauts come for dinner, eh Dad?”
It was a pile-on, everyone rushing to get an arm around him. If Zee was his rock, the rest of them needed fucking mortar to stick together. Jack nearly elbowed Dad in the face as Arthur tried to look at a particularly large blood stain oozing from Matt’s shoulder but had to settle for turning his cheek and looking him in the eye a moment before he and Zee nearly got bowled over entirely by Alfred rocketing through. He practically picked Matt up.
“Let me down, for Christ’s sake.” Matt laughed. “I’ve got Gilbert brains on my shirt, bud, fuck.” But Alfred would do nothing but grip him and shake his head. He might have muttered idiot. Jack didn’t hear. Matt was looking over the Yank’s overly broad shoulders, nodding at them both with a wan sort of smile that said as much of pride as it did blood loss. Zee’s hand was on his shoulder, and he glanced at her.
“You want me to slip some arsenic his coffee?” Zee whispered, not doing half as good a job suppressing her grin as she thought she was. “They burn it so bad. It could be proper strong. Nice and quick like the cholera.” Her sense of humour was morbid like that, even if he wasn’t entirely sure it was humour.
“Naw,” Jack drawled. “Reckon I’d’ve taken it some kind of personal too if someone had left you out for the Krauts.”
He got an affectionate punch in the kidneys and a squeeze for his trouble.
“There’s nothing about you that came from a gutter.” She said, drawn tight to his shoulder. “Not a bloody thing.”
#the ask box || probis pateo#my writing || cacoethes scribendi#jack || a land of summer skies#zee || ahakoa he iti he pounamu#alfred || o beautiful for spacious skies#arthur || stone set in the silver sea
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butt?
I had to substitute it for arse, sorry. Exploratory fic I began to explore some character dynamics and what the lifestyle of 4 growing nations and their mother in their last real time together would be like in a slightly Post-Roman Iron Age estate as the Migration period picks up and Germanic peoples cross the North Sea to make a home. I believe of these earlier themes have their origin with @balladofthewhitehorse.
5th Century AD, Cumbria
"Rhys," Alasdair appeared at the fence line, his face gloomy. Rhys had stopped here for his mid-day meal halfway between where the shepherds had herded the sheep in the northernmost glen and their home behind on the hill. It'd been a long two days in the hills. He offered the cider flask to his brother as Alasdair approached, his frown deepening. It wasn't raining, and the day's work wouldn't have been hard. Bad news, then. It was always bad news.
"What is it this time?"
"Rot in the south store."
"Oats, rye or wheat?" Rhys asked. The rye they might go without, but the rain hadn't come so early that anything else should rot.
"Oats,"
"Fuck." Rhys sat on the low wall of flagstones and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Fuck,"
He glanced up. His brother looked even more dour. "Gods, what else?"
"Seven horses," Alasdair said, sitting beside Rhys, boneless and upset.
Rhys gaped at him. "Seven? That's three more than were sick yesterday!"
"It's spreading." Alasdair shrugged helplessly. "I took the healthy ones into the third stables, and it didn't help."
"Is it distemper?"
"I didn't think so," Alasdair said. "They weren't so feverish, and there wasn't pus, but now I don't know.
"So, no horses to sell this year. At least half the oats are gone."
"Rhys." Alasdair's ingot grey gaze fell heavily, and Rhys glanced at his brother.
"I know," He said, and Alasdair didn't look convinced. He looked at his elder brother with a firm look. "I know."
"If we can't pay the tributes…"
He thought of the mustached helmets of the German kings and exhaled. "We don't know that we can't pay. There's plenty to sell."
"It's not just a lack of goods I'm worried about. It's been a bad year for everyone. There might not be anyone to sell to."
"There must be," Rhys said, pulling his cloak tighter over his shoulders. "There will be. We'll figure it out."
"I suppose all we can do is pray," Alasdair said.
Rhys frowned. Alasdair was the one with a mind for numbers, but he always worried, and they always managed before. So what if the horses would not fetch the total price if they were ill come market day? There was still the wool, the fine worked saddles he and Alasdair had made the year before, and plenty of cattle, sheep, honey and mead to sell. There were options. They had options.
"I'll see to the horses; if none of them die, we'll be fine," Alasdair said. "We have ore too. I might get a good price for my boar spears."
"Maybe," Rhys said. His hope was teetering precariously on the assumption that his brother was overly worried.
There was an unspoken sense of doom between them, both praying their worries were unfounded. Rhys grimaced after they parted ways at the outer gate, Alasdair marching off to the stables and Rhys to the poultry yard and the hives. One of the women in his mother's service alerted him to the fact that another of the hives had gone dark with rot. Honey was expensive, and now there wouldn't be enough to sell and use themselves over the long winter. Rhys waved her off with a pinched-off smile.
He stood in the poultry yard for a long moment, leaning against the half gate that kept the hens, quail, and ducks safe in their enclosure and away from the hounds. He watched Arthur tumble after a goose, laughing as it squawked and ducked him. Their dinner pail of scraps and grain was sitting neglected as he played, but Rhys looked on, letting him play. They'd have to keep more honey than what he'd wanted to sell, if only for Arthur's sake. Honey cakes with stored apples and cheese or on bread were one of those precious things that would cheer him when the worst of the winter gloom gripped him worse than any of them. Arthur rolled to a halt, cackling as the goose bobbed angrily and finally noticed him.
"Rhys!" He grinned, leaping to his feet and making a beeline for him. He exhaled a loud "oomph" as Arthur knocked into him, throwing his arms around him. "You're back!"
"I was only gone a night," He laughed. "How is Mother? And where is your cloak? Have you lost it again?"
"The same," Arthur said. "Maybe a little better. She laughed this morning when I fell right on my arse out of bed. Bridgie pushed me."
"Good! And you probably deserved it. You kick in your sleep." He replied, and his smile was genuine. Mother had at least made an effort to shake her recent gloom then. She'd been thinner, paler, and sadder than he'd ever seen her in the last few years, and it hadn't gotten any better as the days became shorter. "And your cloak?"
"I forgot it!"
"You'll catch your death." Rhys ruffled his hair. "Hurry and feed the birds and come in for dinner."
#the ask box || probis pateo#my writing || cacoethes scribendi#Britannia and her children || they made a desert and called it peace#hws scotland#hws wales#hws england
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Part Eight: Summons
First Installment: Here.
Last Installment: Here.
Current Installment: You are here!
Author's note: Inspired by the 1950s short story "The Man Who Came Early" by Poul Anderson.
Red Sail Hall
Present Day
“Don’t you dare,”
Arthur’s hand froze over Cromwell’s skull as Rhys slapped his fingers away and down and snatched up bone, gripping the jawless head by the temples and pulling it from reach. Arthur went to take it from him, but they froze as Matthew rolled over from his place and bundled into a quilt. When he didn’t wake, Rhys snapped his gaze back to Arthur, and he found himself being dragged from the study with its electric faux fire and his son draped over the sofa, sleeping like the dead. They were suddenly in the hall, and he found himself pinned against the wall by his brother’s forearm. “You are not waking mother again.”
Arthur thrust the arm away but found he couldn’t move Rhys. He’d always been denser, compact and heavy like a lead ingot. “I don’t need to. I only need the skull and the spring.”
“For what? You delusional bastard. Do you fancy you can open a portal? You can barely make a curse box without me, much less this deep in your cups. And you are not sullying her grave with that man’s bones.”
“I have Alfred to consider. Don’t pretend you have the—”
“It’s my name he bears, you bloody bastard. How Saxon do you think Jones is? Hm? All of your children are as much us as they are you. Including Alfred.”
“Would you be reasonable?”
“No.” Rhys was very close, a spring force as he stood straight.
“Since when do you—”
“Since you rolled out of a bloody fairy ring and into my lap.” He prodded Arthur towards the stairs. “I am not letting you run off half-cocked because it’s easier to hurl yourself into a void than feel a fucking emotion. This isn’t you tossing yourself into a ship and running; this is a paradigm shift in the universe, you daft cunt.”
“Rhys—”
“May Mother strike me dead before I lose two nephews and a brother at once,” He was very close now, and sometimes Arthur remembered why there was a dragon on every flag his brother used. “You are a grown fucking man with four grown children. Take a fucking avomine, sleep more than thirty seconds, and we’ll make a move in the fucking morning. Go.”
Burial Mound, Cumbria
The Next Morning
Matthew knows he is dying when his uncle’s arms catch and hold him and he doesn't care. He has bled to death more than once. His shoulder had nearly been torn from his body once; a lobsterback cavalryman had broken an infantry formation he’d been caught in trying to run from the cannon fire. The bare faces of his arm bones saw the sky that day. He never ran away from a fight again. He was a century older when a gaping cavern of flesh appeared where his belly once was. A piece of shrapnel severed his spine and his jugular. And blasted a hole through his front. This is worse. This is much worse, but Alasdair kisses his head, and Matthew stands, blank and unmoving.
He has said goodbye to the two who were once his siblings, and he hopes the squeeze they gave him isn't the last good thing he ever feels. Now he is without them, standing before the ruins of a chapel. Trees soar to the sky, older than most in England, but spaced like the posts of a palisade. He can hear running water and whispers. Aunt Brighid is there. Father asks her something. Softer than he ever does, and she stands tall.
“I wove the spells into his cradle, I will not damn him to a grave so far from home. And the past is another country.”
His father is not often speechless, but the novelty is not enough to stop the bleeding. There is no trace of red, but he wishes it would be over, that it could all seep into the earth and let him go—anything to make the silence end. Even a scream will not pierce it now; it lays so thick over his thoughts. He is dying. Uncle Rhys lights a torch, then two more. Even here, lifting light, Matthew is redundant. He can only follow as his father and uncles follow their sister, lingering behind as she walks ahead. Alasdair, Rhys, and last, Arthur. Perhaps the first time in a thousand years his father has not led. His uncles carve sharp shapes into old indentations softened by exposure. His father cuts his hand and presses blood into the runes until it drips into the furrows and inks their carvings into contrast with the darkness. Matthew cannot read the shapes. His aunt sings, and he does not understand the words. As he always has, he clings to the tree line and watches others do their work. Something in him wants to die. Something in him knows his will, drowning in silence that will not let him hear his own voice anymore.
A woman’s figure appears. His father’s mother, but not his grandmother. Her time is too far gone for him to know her now if he ever did. Matthew’s hands are shaking now. They speak more words he does not understand. The Welsh vowels and little pieces of Scots Gaelic he can hear refuse to make any sense. He knows Gaelic the way he does his French, as natural as breathing, but he cannot put meaning to sound, and nothing makes sense. He wishes he would bleed to death already.
Then, Life.
His world broke open with a song. He doesn’t know which one. Something about a republic and grapes of wrath: the chorus is the laugh of North America, showing teeth and soaring like the sky. Alfred. A branch nearly takes his head off as he smashes through the trees towards the sound. More laughter. His world was born from a bolt of it centuries before. The pool of a spring lap at the stones of the edge, and the water sings in his brother’s voice for a moment before Matthew realizes the sound is below the water. There is no bottom of the pool; the stone edges descend into a black abyss. He would not have understood the depth of it even a moment before Alfred cut himself free from their reality. Kneeling, he touched the edges of the stone and knew the rounded channels locking into place were his uncles doing, the same dry stone construction of a broch.
“Mattie,” Alfred spoke, only barely damped by the water. A week without Alfred and he'd lost more love than Francois had given him in 150 years. Just a thread of it wound around his heart, hearing his name on the piano notes of his brother's laugh and pulled him forward.
He dove.
#hws england#hws canada#my writing || cacoethes scribendi#the dangeld axe to grind: the viking age time travel au
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