The difference here is that England is the one yelling dO I LOOK LIKE- while France says it calmly. Sasuke says it calmly while Naruto is the one yelling YOU’RE HOLDING MY-
(A snapshot, amidst the Battle of Britain. Arthur and Matthew-centric. Notes: Content warning-wise—injury mention. No explicit violence. “Jack” is AUS, and “Zee” is NZ. 800 words).
London, 1940
“Well then, what does it say, Matthew?”
Arthur’s right arm is ensconced in a sling—but as always, his father is no less imposing, in the sharp and neat lines of his olive-coloured dress uniform, the gold of his buttons gleaming and polished. Even wounded, he exudes power effortlessly.
“It’s postmarked from New York.” Matthew slices open the envelope.
“Go on. Read it out.” Behind Arthur, the morning sun streams in, through the large, expansive windows of his office, scattering diamond-shaped patches of light onto the antique carpet and the hardwood floor. On the glass itself—tape, placed in a methodical, diagonal crisscrossing pattern, accompanied by dark curtains. The standard precautions for nightfall nowadays.
Thus far, the air raid sirens had mercifully been silent today.
Matthew unfolds the letter. Alfred’s handwriting is bold and hurried, his tone casual and light-hearted. Yo old fart—A whole colourful paragraph on how Billie Holiday and Gregory Peck— a new but apparently promising actor—had been in town. The latest jazz concerts he’d attended. The nice cut of sirloin he’d had last night, at the Waldorf-Astoria.
“He says…” Matthew skims his brother’s letter. He jumps to the second last paragraph, “…that he’ll be in San Francisco. At the naval facility and shipyard there. Keeping an eye on the Pacific. And that Congress will probably widen the cash-and-carry scheme to include war materiel. He wishes you good luck, and says that there’s a box of genuine Cuban cigars for you in the mail.”
“Well, I certainly never would turn down a good cigar but—Good luck? Cash and carry?” Father snorts, his tone derisive. “Does that wretched lad think my gold reserves are unlimited, to pay him for all that?” He turns away from Matthew, the slope of his shoulders tense. “So, he’s not coming, is he?”
He’s angry now, Matthew knows. Not the sort of turbulent rage that was a prelude to the sorts of shouting matches Father had with Alfred, but something simmering, like a kettle slowly boiling over on a stove. Anger was what Father preferred to show, over disappointment—whenever it came to Alfred.
Matthew resented them both for it, at times. How often had he been the bedraggled mediator and go-between for Father and Alfred? For his brother, the ocean that lay between them and Father was actually a barrier the way it wasn’t for Matthew. His brother had always done whatever the hell he wanted, his will as forceful and indomitable as trying to bottle a hurricane.
Father had fumed for three decades after he’d burned Alfred’s name off the family tree. But then, as the years went by—he’d mellowed on his brother. Turned back to regarding his eldest son with the sort of grudging respect and recognition he bestowed on an equal—and no one else. Not Matthew, nor Jack and Zee, not even Father’s own siblings, let alone anyone else across the rest of his vast empire, no matter how much they’d bled for King and Country.
But Matthew squashes those feelings down for now. It wasn’t the time.
“No. He isn’t.” Matthew replies carefully. “He says his hands are tied by the Neutrality Acts.”
“Is that what he said?” Father laughs, sharp and loud. His green eyes glint as he turns to face Matthew. “Steel bars and the Almighty himself couldn’t tie that wretch’s hands, not unless he allowed them to.”
The New World, with all its power and might, Churchill had anointed, waxing lyrical and dramatic. Alfred, Matthew knew, would squeeze something more through the legal loopholes, sooner or later. It wouldn’t be nothing, it would help—but it would be far short of what Father really wanted. His brother was that way. All those tangled up threads about family that Alfred preferred to avoid upfront, to bury under cheerful irreverence or, on other occasions, spiteful snippiness towards their father.
You have me, Dad, is what he wants to say. But he doesn’t. “I’ll write back to him.”
“You do that. Maybe he’ll listen, if it’s coming from you.” Arthur’s nod is curt. The line of his mouth is thin. His nostrils flare. “Goodness. When I said ‘in God’s good time’, I meant hurry the bloody hell up, notsit there twiddling your thumbs.”
This, Father says with casual, dismissive annoyance. As though he’s dealing with something no more inconvenient than a tailcoat not being mended on time or being short on his favourite Earl Grey. As though it were something displeasing but ultimately of little import to him and his plans, old and confident as he was in his power—but it’s obvious.
How much Arthur really looked— in the face of the unfolding disaster before them, with bated breath and carefully-concealed hope—to his estranged son and Matthew’s older brother. How much he longed to have Alfred by his side.
“Father had an empire, Stretched down from the heavens To the depths of hell… Now those days are gone, Now you have the heavens, All that lies beyond, And all the hope I claim Since leaving me undone. You have my hands — forgive me. You are your father’s son.”
1945; i’m always here for an old king / crown prince dynamic between arthur and alfred.
