Listen to the Thunder

England:

A hurt look flickered across his face before vanishing as quickly as it came. Try as he may, he could not keep aged doubts from crawling back–doubts that had now been confirmed. He took a step closer, wanting to reach out and give some form of comfort but he couldn’t–wouldn’t move further than that. “There’s so little you know about what I thought of you…but I thought I had shown you what I felt better than that. You were never my pet.”

Arthur shook his head. There were nations that he had treated as property, as animals. For Alfred to think–to believe–that was what he was to him, pained him more than he would like to admit. “At that time, you were the only honest human.”

     He heard the step before he saw it and subconsciously stiffened up. Alfred knew this wasn’t a time to be defensive, to pity himself, but he couldn’t help but feel just that. “It’s hard to see when you’d leave for years with no word… I thought you were finally sick of me, or that I screwed up so you didn’t want to see me anymore.” He knew better now, but at the time the blonde only knew that Arthur was the world and his closest friend, mentor, and brother. There was a part of him, now, that couldn’t help but to feel that the only reason Arthur didn’t treat him like the others was because of the dedication the American showed in return. He put all of the love he had towards the man he saw as his god, and for awhile he believed that Arthur did love him because he would do anything for him.

     Then the revolution hit and everything fell apart. “At that time,” Alfred repeated. His heart was racing, and with each beat he could feel another jolt of pain shoot through his chest. “You treated me well, maybe even loved me, until I rejected you and stood up for myself. Then you didn’t care anymore and treated me how you always wished to treat me: like an dog that bit his master.”