Listen to the Thunder

England:

     He could tell he was tense and decided to not step any closer. His expression stiffened, keeping that hurt look from his face as his eyes fell to the ground. “A decade to share with you was the most I could manage before I had to spread out the time between. The same time was spent at home with politics nipping at my heels. If I spent extensive amount of time away from England, the entire Empire would fall at it seams.” He was self-sufficient and that was the first argument he was met with when he brought it up to his boss for another visit. There were other colonies that needed to be looked after far more. “If I had more say, if I could control the time it took to get there, I would’ve been there more often.” To think he spent those years thinking he had left him because he did something wrong, when he had only ever done right by him. 

     “Wished to treat you?” Arthur snapped his head up, a bitter laugh past his mouth before he could stop it. “You didn’t reject me. You betrayed me. Not America to England but you to me. Forgive me for being angry about that.”

    He didn’t want to hear the excuses, didn’t want to hear how Arthur had tried. All they would do is soften his thoughts about the matter, and the less he knew the easier it was to remain ignorant and angry. “That doesn’t excuse the fact that you never wrote to me either. I get that there was the war and you were busy and-” His hands balled fist, which were then quickly tucked into the pockets of his jeans. “All I needed was a letter… I could take not seeing you if you had just talked to me. I didn’t know if you were mad at me, or if you were even alive…” Alfred could feel his voice threaten to crack, all of those past emotions he’s kept buried for so long threatening to flood out. There were so many fears that he had during British rule, and all of them revolved around Arthur. However, they weren’t fears of what he’d do to him, no Alfred has never been afraid of Arthur, but instead were fears about what might happen to Arthur and their relationship.

     That laugh brought him back to his senses, though, and the anger and hurt he felt about that situation bubbled past the pity. His body relaxed, but there was still that pain in his chest. It left that feeling of being real, not being stiff like he was during the cold war even if that tone, the one that screamed don’t mess with me, was still in his words. “Don’t even start with ‘me betraying you’ bullshit, because you were just as bad. I may have started it, but you stabbed me in the back too.”