Sick of the responsibilities that come with being the United States fo America, Alfred makes a deal with Lucifer to live the life of a mortal 19-year-old in exchange for his eternal soul. As a result, Matthew (who is the only one who knows about the deal), grudgingly has to take on being America as well as Canada.
Alfred is very much enjoying his mortal life, until he finds out that he has a terminal disease of some sort and has five years to live. He starts to run away from his fate, and what happens next is up to anon.
bonus: the deal Alfred makes with the Devil is sealed by sex. :D
Nothing but one problem after another. It was really enough to drive a guy mad, whatever his status in life. As he tried on the one hand to appease one branch, the other would whine and throw such a fit that he would turn his attentions and another would rear its head. It was like trying to fight down Hydra and mostly it went on in his head. Non-stop. All the time. ALL THE TIME.
Alfred lurched foreward, forehead making a horrible cracking noise against the wood as he whimpered. Matthew watched him do so, mostly with impassive irritation. His brother was well known for his dramatic displays of exaggerated agony and he wasn't about to give in to spoiling him as so much of the world tended to.
"I'm at my wit's end, Mattie!" He cried, voice muffled by the wood and torn with a wretched sob that came deep from the heart of his soul.
"Nonsense." Canada sat back in his chair, tugging now thoroughly damp maps and paperwork from beneath his brother's weight. "Now go home before they miss you. Did you even tell anyone you were coming here?" He felt disgust at the inconsideration of the southern country. Everything fell on their shoulders; why should he have particular cause to whine? He often found himself barely breaking the surface of his own troubles; many caused by the only and only American who lay face-down before him, but did he make such displays?
"I don't want it anymore." America grumbled, and Canada could hear the simpering plea in his statement. Please, make it go away. This couldn't possibly be how his own citizens thought. Make the problem belong to someone else, and leave me to do as I please. Alfred was just going to have to suck it up and...
Alfred sat back up with as much energy as that with which he had thrown himself to his brother's mercy, anger and outrage filling his eyes as Matthew began to voice his opinions.
"The Devil take it! You know what, why don't YOU try it out, Canada? Huh? Why don't you try filling MY shoes for a while?" He demanded. If only Matthew had a few kind words, the future might not have ended up as it did, but he responded with a clear, stern confidence.
"Fine. I will, America. But you're not going to be in control of a damned thing, you hear me? And don't come whining to me again." He hissed
Freedom. Alfred grinned as people pounding the pavement passed him by, without a single voice whispering through his mind. No responsibilities. Not a damned one and he was enjoying it thoroughly as he finished off an ice cream cone with a crunch. He had left the deal several weeks ago, his signature wide and sprawling next to those of his brother and of course the Lawyer. Matthew had wrangled the man out of whatever dark corner from which he had come and he had done such things as needed doing. Alfred could only vaguely remember the conclusion of the deal. It had contained quite a bit of hocus-pocus as he recalled and a generous amount of naked skin. It had not, however, included his infuriating sibling and was so easily shrugged off.
He had spoken often and passionately of freedom, but it had been at the influence of his people, who at present understood so little of the real thing. They liked to whine about trivial matters, and how he, America... No, Alfred... Should solve them, or not solve them. They couldn't seem to decide whether he should keep his hands to himself or not. But he was free of that bullshit now. His head was clear and he was soaking in the sunlight's warmth when the police car whined up to him. He didn't pay it notice at first. He was of course never in the wrong, and anything that required his immediate attention was brough to it by the arrival of men in dark suits and even darker vehicles. Countries were not restricted by such things as local law-enforcement.
This was why he was tackled to the pavement, face-first and his arm was wrenched behind him by a force stronger for once in his existence than his own. Blood rolled from one nostril as he cried out incoherantly, blustering demands as to what the Hell they were doing. He had only the briefest of answers as he was barrelled into the back of the car and he had the pleasure of a non-stop trip into Bumfuck Nowhere's legal system.
"The Devil... Right." Alfred looked the man over, unease spreading through him even as he denied belief in it. He was in return watched with eyes that were far too dark. They looked deep enough to swallow all of him and his surroundings, and indeed anything not subject to protection by the very highest of authorities; God himself. Or herself. Alfred scowled at the intrusion of the thought. Or itself. Or something. The overriding consensus was that God would be male and protect sacred thigns from such a being as stood before him. When had he become so crazy, he wondered. And didn't the thoughts ever need sleep. He seemed to recall a time when he at least had the occasional relief. But his people were no longer afraid of the night, and welcomed it into their busy schedules. By token, they were no longer afraid of, once again, the being before him.
To leave Alfred's busy thoughts, the man-shaped entity before him watched him with a passiveness which in fact surpassed the third occupant of the room; Matthew who, having arranged this meeting through a strategically drunken England, was now regretting his brash action. It wasn't that he completely lacked concern for his brother. Quite the opposite. He cared not only because the things that America did affected himself, but because they were two parts of the whole and he loved his brother. He had thought, perhaps, upon seeing the Devil himself, something of which America often spoke, wrote and sang, the man would perhaps apologize and be scared straight for a time.
But America, not to be shown down, yanked the proferred pen from the hand of the Morningstar and sealed his fate. With a deep dread, Canada did the same with a tight flourish and the man requested that Matthew leave them as they completed the transaction. As a normal court would have called for sensible and unbiased witness to this, he could not retain surprise at the complete absense of such in this situation and he withdrew.
The following was still, even in Alfred's feverish dreams, muddled. He recalled being requested to strip and doing so with a snarl at the patient man as he suggested that perhaps America didn't want this after all and wished to go back upon his word. He was on the floor in an instant, mounted and gasping in pain as he was entered. He was virginal in such matters and the sensation was strange and horrifying to him. It wasn't a simple matter of something going in the wrong way, as he had expected, but painful and panic-inducing. He looked to the man above him for any sort of comfort or relief and was disappointed as his attempts to grasp or kiss were rejected harshly. It burned when the man came inside of him, filling him with claiming seed.
"You are your own now." Was hissed into his ear. "And in being so are mine."
Alfred bolted upright with a start, everything burning again as it had in that claustrophobic study. He had pushed the matter from his mind, but his dreaming subconscious had stirred it up again and brought it to the forefront of his attention. Tears of helplessness burned his eyes as emotions that had been shoved away tore into him.
There was a noise across the room. Missing his glasses, America was unable to quite make out what was going on as his attention was pulled away from his own troubles but heard the distinct clank of a heavy lock being turned.
"You're free to go." A deputy had been sent, perhaps because the arresting sherriff had no interest in showing his idiocy to his abused captive.
He had been mistaken for another youth who had fled from a crime scene a couple of streets over. As the victim was even now struggling for breath in the ICU of the local hospital, the matter of his immediate capture had over-ridden any sort of protocol which should have been observed. Alfred scowled at the shrugging jailer as he passed.
Upon receiving his personal affects, Alfred demanded the repair of his glasses, the lenses of which were scratched along the side. This was a useless display of bravado, however, as he was told that this was his own fault upon resisting arrest. The man would not be budged and Alfred grabbed up his pack and shoved the damaged spectacles onto his nose before charging down the hallway toward the exit. It wasn't until he was outside that he even spared a glance at the paperwork which had been shoved into his unresisting hand with the others as he had argued.
They weren't entirely, as he had assumed, copies of release forms. Among them was a doctor's note and a strange graph showing blood results. Upon finding that the youth in their custody was not the man they were after, the police had searched for another reason to justify their capture, siting suspected drug activity among the charges. Alfred reread the chart several times before collapsing onto his ass on the marble steps. This couldn't be right. This couldn't be.
Oh my God. I didn't think this would ever get filled. Thank you so much for the consideration! The interaction between Canada and America is exactly how I wanted it, and... -flails about looking for words- THANK YOU!
Matthew groaned, hands clamped tightly to either side of his head as his eyes rapidly scanned sheets of paper, the content of which he entirely failed to comprehend. Migranes had assailed him from the moment Alfred had cleared his doorstep, with steadily increasing intensity.
At first, he had attempted to treat his newly acquired land as he did his own, with a soft hand and the highest of expectations as far as the behavior of its citizens. As this proved inaffective, even to its newly elected president who entirely failed to show him respect of any sort, he had leaned more heavily upon them, imposing stricter laws into their system before finding that nothing resulted from this new tact save increased misery on his part. The people rebelled and fought back, like children throwing a fit under the despotic rule of their elders. Exactly like that, as a matter of fact, considering how much older Matthew was than they could imagine.
Did America have to deal with this all the time? Perhaps he had been too harsh on his brother. While the one half of his attention was on his own people, who were beginning to upset at the forced closeness with their erratic southern neighbors, the other was a mishmash of contradictions and was quickly driving him to insanity. Razing the entire land to the ground had more than once appealed to him, though he knew that the remaining people would just complain all the louder about the loss of jobs and demand to know what was going to be done about it.
So great was the throbbing inside his skull that he hurled his chair away and pounded to the heavy oak door as someone dared timidly to knock for entry.
"What the bloody hell do..." He gulped air and forced the rest of his intended rant back down as he saw the look of confused fright on the face of one of his most loyal housemen. It was all Alfred's fault. He had dumped this mess on him and he would be damned if he would let it drive him to the same depths as his brother had been driven.
"There's a boy out here, wishing to speak to..."
Matthew cut him off. "Tell him to schedule an appointment like everyone else." Everyone else in the whole bloody world, he added to himself.
"He says he's..."
"I don't care if he's the damned Queen of England, God save her." With this odd combination of sentiments, the houseman found himself talking to a slammed door and turned to rejoin the others in ejecting the rather rabid American from their doorstep where he had very firmly planted himself with the insistance that he be allowed to speak with North America.
"The fucking hell he won't talk to me! Damnit, Mattie!" Alfred managed to smash his fist against the front doors a couple more times before being forcibly thrust from the yard. The heavy gates, though ill-accustomed to being closed, swung shut behind him and locked with a reverberating clash. He shouted himself hoarse, bashed his knuckles bloody against the iron, and even cut his palms trying to scale the damned rails before he gave up and collapsed into a little huddle of misery. Tears stung his eyes again and he wrapped his arms around his knees to form a place in which to bury his face.
It had taken several weeks of hitch-hiking to find the place. He was so used to their own private means of transportation that he had found difficulty in locating even the most usual of his haunts from a more public point of view. Increased security hadn't helped things at all.
It was pure, livid anger at the sneaky twist into which he had been coaxed which drove him for the next couple of months, and nothing else shown in his eyes for a long time but the outrage at being so betrayed. A mortal body he had, along with all the freedom which entailed from being relieved of his position as a country, but at what price? In his eagerness, he hadn't bothered to read the documents thoroughly before signing, but he would be damned if a simple trick of wording was going to trap him in a body doomed to self-destruct any time.
He had been approximately halfway to his destination when he had heard the news and watched in horror as the Towers, HIS towers, were smashed. Again and again and again. The blinding shock wouldn't leave his mind, and replayed itself every chance he had to sleep, mingled with the sealing of the Deal (It had come to justify a capital letter in his mind) and Canada's clearly erroneous assumption that he could do a better job with his country. For the first time in clear memory, it came to him just how far he had fallen into himself and how long it had been since he had thought of his duties with anything more than irritation and frustration.
The thing was, Matthew was unwilling to understand the mindset of a people not his own. And they called HIM, Alfred, arrogant. But... And the thought came to him that night as he camped unseen in the wooded area near the house into which he intended to find entry, he would change that. The perception of himself, that was. Mattie would do as he would, but he was going to take it back, all of it. Every horrible thing he had said, thought and done.
There was an empty hole in his soul and it drained the energy from him. His people were suffering, and it was his fault. Of course, he was their sum, but he hadn't been able rally and pull himself together, and so his people hadn't. Did that make sense? He wasn't sure, but it was something to think about as he shut his eyes to the stars and curled into a ball against the Canadian cold.
I love how both are beginning to regret their part of the Deal. And the trickiness of the Deal is just so that nobody comes out of it happy. The Devil's one tricky dick, isn't he?
I'm sorry I can't give you more constructive comments. This is just so very good. T.T I'm crying anon.
It was another week of camping out in the bushes, probing security, before Alfred found a way into the now heavily shuttered and armed house. Apparently he wasn't the only one frightened by current events. He had heard, through the hobo grapevine (Which usually tended to be far more reliable than any other news source) of the proposed Patriot Act and all that it entailed.
A racking coughing fit hit him as he lurked, waiting for a pair of security guards, lax with the knowledge that they were Canadian and so in no real danger, to pass by and their talk to fade into the distance. Blood spattered across his sleeve and he stared at it a moment. Exactly how weak was his immune system now? He hadn't found the time to research such matters, what with one thing and another, and his medcical knowledge stopped approximately at how to properly amputate for grangrene. How many of his people had died just this way, everything slowly breaking down around them until they could give up the ghost? He could even remember a part of his mind crowing in victory at their deaths. As he himself panicked occasionally, even with the knowledge that he would soon be regaining his immortality and the suffocating fear of an unknown future would be put to quits, how must his people have felt, never knowing if they would see the end of the year? Or month. Or week. While there were people they didn't even know cheering on their slow collapse. Another thing to put on his mental checklist. Start looking for a fucking cure for AIDs.
Matthew wasn't in his bedroom, as Alfred had predicted, and so wasn't startled awake by his brother hoisting himself to the window ledge and forcing the window up with such mustered strength that he snapped the small wedge that had been placed there with the intention of preventing such an entry. Alfred jumped down from his crouching position and upon finding the surprisingly well-lit room empty, went in search of his brother.
North America, as he had let it be known that he was now to be called, was awake at this late hour, and Alfred found himself faced with a wild-eyed madman pointing a pistol at him with only the slightest of shivers diverting it from its intended target.
"I know why you're here, and you're not going to touch me." Matthew said in a voic entirely unlike his own. Alfred marveled at the change. He hadn't seen Canada in such a state since he had, in a fiery temper, snuck over the border and burned his capital. His eyes both took in everything and missed reality entirely.
"Mattie." Alfred said, raising his hands. "Put that down. What are you trying to do, kill me?"
Instead of recognizing his brother and lowering the weapon, this information seemed to infuriate Matthew still further. He snarled.
"Fils de salope! What did you do to me, Alfred?"
This seemed unfair. What had HE done? The whole thing had been done at his brother's taunting acceptance, and after all, whose ass had hurt for two days afterward? Just because he had found that he wasn't any better than his brother, and couldn't cope as he had so arrogantly claimed, he was supposed to take the blame for this mess?
"As a matter of fact, I came to..."
"Ta Gueule! I know why you came back. You think that I do not know what goes on?"
"Give me back my people, Mattie." America said in a low, stern voice which was the very echoe of the England under whom they had been raised. It caught Matthew's subconscious and he lowered the gun for a brief moment.
"I do not want them. Les faire disparaître..." The fact that Matthew had reverted to proper French and English didn't escape Alfred's attention. He was desperate now, searching for someone, anyone, to whom he could hand the reins.
"It isn't so much fun, is it." Alfred asked in a confiding tone. Matthew had lain the pistol on the blotter and shook his head most emphatically.
"Why can they not agree? Alfred, why do they fight?"
Alfred shrugged. Did Matthew really think that he could explain such a thing? It was giving him far too much credit, thinking that he could actually understand himself.
"You want them back? Vous ne savez pas, yet you want them?"
Again Alfred shrugged. "Why don't you look at yourself for a while, Matthew? Stop looking at how messed up I am and see a little of your own mess, hey? Now how do we reverse this stupid shit?"
"Done." Came a scathing voice from behind them. Alfred turned and saw the Devil himself standing casually in the shadows.
What the hell? They both gaped at the figure. At the very least, they had expected some resistence, and had crushed the fear that nothing could be done so that it never dared even come to mind. To voluntarily repair the damage was unexpected to say the least.
The dark man shrugged as easily as Alfred had, indicating that he had no intention of revealing his motives. "It just happens to fit into my schedule. Now if you will sign here... And here... and here..."
The Devil smiled as an America of renewed strength and vigor took over the reigns of the proposed War on Terror that his idiot boss had dreamed up in his absence.
Asmusing as it was, he couldn't help but wonder how the two countries had failed to notice that America had never truly been free of himself. The lapse in caution, the decline in his health, the nightmares and at last his renewed spirit and sense of patriotism. Canada on his part having no true control, despite repeated attempts to help... All he had done was fix a few details.
I'm ashamed to say that after reading Underneath yesterday, the faith I had in my own writing abilities has been shaken to its core. I tried to finish this as I planned, but I think some of the timeline was off. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed, and as a present, here's a link to an old America-sex-with-the-devil fill I wrote.
But your writing is sooo good! :D Seriously, I'm just happy someone filled this, and with such speed. And I'm glad that you had the decency to finish the damn thing, too, because there are people who lose their faith in their writing skills and just stop cold.
This story was truly great. I loved America and his interactions with his brother and the Devil, and I really liked that you thought to put the story in the early 2000's rather than present day.
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America and Canada: Deal With The Devil
(Anonymous) 2010-09-18 12:04 pm (UTC)(link)Sick of the responsibilities that come with being the United States fo America, Alfred makes a deal with Lucifer to live the life of a mortal 19-year-old in exchange for his eternal soul. As a result, Matthew (who is the only one who knows about the deal), grudgingly has to take on being America as well as Canada.
Alfred is very much enjoying his mortal life, until he finds out that he has a terminal disease of some sort and has five years to live. He starts to run away from his fate, and what happens next is up to anon.
bonus: the deal Alfred makes with the Devil is sealed by sex. :D
America and Canada: Deal With The Devil Intro
(Anonymous) 2010-10-09 04:30 pm (UTC)(link)Alfred lurched foreward, forehead making a horrible cracking noise against the wood as he whimpered. Matthew watched him do so, mostly with impassive irritation. His brother was well known for his dramatic displays of exaggerated agony and he wasn't about to give in to spoiling him as so much of the world tended to.
"I'm at my wit's end, Mattie!" He cried, voice muffled by the wood and torn with a wretched sob that came deep from the heart of his soul.
"Nonsense." Canada sat back in his chair, tugging now thoroughly damp maps and paperwork from beneath his brother's weight. "Now go home before they miss you. Did you even tell anyone you were coming here?" He felt disgust at the inconsideration of the southern country. Everything fell on their shoulders; why should he have particular cause to whine? He often found himself barely breaking the surface of his own troubles; many caused by the only and only American who lay face-down before him, but did he make such displays?
"I don't want it anymore." America grumbled, and Canada could hear the simpering plea in his statement. Please, make it go away. This couldn't possibly be how his own citizens thought. Make the problem belong to someone else, and leave me to do as I please. Alfred was just going to have to suck it up and...
Alfred sat back up with as much energy as that with which he had thrown himself to his brother's mercy, anger and outrage filling his eyes as Matthew began to voice his opinions.
"The Devil take it! You know what, why don't YOU try it out, Canada? Huh? Why don't you try filling MY shoes for a while?" He demanded. If only Matthew had a few kind words, the future might not have ended up as it did, but he responded with a clear, stern confidence.
"Fine. I will, America. But you're not going to be in control of a damned thing, you hear me? And don't come whining to me again." He hissed
America and Canada: Deal With The Devil Pt 1
(Anonymous) 2010-10-09 04:42 pm (UTC)(link)He had spoken often and passionately of freedom, but it had been at the influence of his people, who at present understood so little of the real thing. They liked to whine about trivial matters, and how he, America... No, Alfred... Should solve them, or not solve them. They couldn't seem to decide whether he should keep his hands to himself or not. But he was free of that bullshit now. His head was clear and he was soaking in the sunlight's warmth when the police car whined up to him. He didn't pay it notice at first. He was of course never in the wrong, and anything that required his immediate attention was brough to it by the arrival of men in dark suits and even darker vehicles. Countries were not restricted by such things as local law-enforcement.
This was why he was tackled to the pavement, face-first and his arm was wrenched behind him by a force stronger for once in his existence than his own. Blood rolled from one nostril as he cried out incoherantly, blustering demands as to what the Hell they were doing. He had only the briefest of answers as he was barrelled into the back of the car and he had the pleasure of a non-stop trip into Bumfuck Nowhere's legal system.
America and Canada: Deal With The Devil Pt 2
(Anonymous) 2010-10-09 05:28 pm (UTC)(link)To leave Alfred's busy thoughts, the man-shaped entity before him watched him with a passiveness which in fact surpassed the third occupant of the room; Matthew who, having arranged this meeting through a strategically drunken England, was now regretting his brash action. It wasn't that he completely lacked concern for his brother. Quite the opposite. He cared not only because the things that America did affected himself, but because they were two parts of the whole and he loved his brother. He had thought, perhaps, upon seeing the Devil himself, something of which America often spoke, wrote and sang, the man would perhaps apologize and be scared straight for a time.
But America, not to be shown down, yanked the proferred pen from the hand of the Morningstar and sealed his fate. With a deep dread, Canada did the same with a tight flourish and the man requested that Matthew leave them as they completed the transaction. As a normal court would have called for sensible and unbiased witness to this, he could not retain surprise at the complete absense of such in this situation and he withdrew.
The following was still, even in Alfred's feverish dreams, muddled. He recalled being requested to strip and doing so with a snarl at the patient man as he suggested that perhaps America didn't want this after all and wished to go back upon his word. He was on the floor in an instant, mounted and gasping in pain as he was entered. He was virginal in such matters and the sensation was strange and horrifying to him. It wasn't a simple matter of something going in the wrong way, as he had expected, but painful and panic-inducing. He looked to the man above him for any sort of comfort or relief and was disappointed as his attempts to grasp or kiss were rejected harshly. It burned when the man came inside of him, filling him with claiming seed.
"You are your own now." Was hissed into his ear. "And in being so are mine."
Alfred bolted upright with a start, everything burning again as it had in that claustrophobic study. He had pushed the matter from his mind, but his dreaming subconscious had stirred it up again and brought it to the forefront of his attention. Tears of helplessness burned his eyes as emotions that had been shoved away tore into him.
There was a noise across the room. Missing his glasses, America was unable to quite make out what was going on as his attention was pulled away from his own troubles but heard the distinct clank of a heavy lock being turned.
"You're free to go." A deputy had been sent, perhaps because the arresting sherriff had no interest in showing his idiocy to his abused captive.
He had been mistaken for another youth who had fled from a crime scene a couple of streets over. As the victim was even now struggling for breath in the ICU of the local hospital, the matter of his immediate capture had over-ridden any sort of protocol which should have been observed. Alfred scowled at the shrugging jailer as he passed.
America and Canada: Deal With The Devil Pt 2
(Anonymous) 2010-10-09 05:29 pm (UTC)(link)They weren't entirely, as he had assumed, copies of release forms. Among them was a doctor's note and a strange graph showing blood results. Upon finding that the youth in their custody was not the man they were after, the police had searched for another reason to justify their capture, siting suspected drug activity among the charges. Alfred reread the chart several times before collapsing onto his ass on the marble steps. This couldn't be right. This couldn't be.
OP
(Anonymous) 2010-10-09 05:35 pm (UTC)(link)WriterAnon
(Anonymous) 2010-10-10 06:24 pm (UTC)(link)America and Canada: Deal With The Devil Pt3
(Anonymous) 2010-10-10 06:44 pm (UTC)(link)At first, he had attempted to treat his newly acquired land as he did his own, with a soft hand and the highest of expectations as far as the behavior of its citizens. As this proved inaffective, even to its newly elected president who entirely failed to show him respect of any sort, he had leaned more heavily upon them, imposing stricter laws into their system before finding that nothing resulted from this new tact save increased misery on his part. The people rebelled and fought back, like children throwing a fit under the despotic rule of their elders. Exactly like that, as a matter of fact, considering how much older Matthew was than they could imagine.
Did America have to deal with this all the time? Perhaps he had been too harsh on his brother. While the one half of his attention was on his own people, who were beginning to upset at the forced closeness with their erratic southern neighbors, the other was a mishmash of contradictions and was quickly driving him to insanity. Razing the entire land to the ground had more than once appealed to him, though he knew that the remaining people would just complain all the louder about the loss of jobs and demand to know what was going to be done about it.
So great was the throbbing inside his skull that he hurled his chair away and pounded to the heavy oak door as someone dared timidly to knock for entry.
"What the bloody hell do..." He gulped air and forced the rest of his intended rant back down as he saw the look of confused fright on the face of one of his most loyal housemen. It was all Alfred's fault. He had dumped this mess on him and he would be damned if he would let it drive him to the same depths as his brother had been driven.
"There's a boy out here, wishing to speak to..."
Matthew cut him off. "Tell him to schedule an appointment like everyone else." Everyone else in the whole bloody world, he added to himself.
"He says he's..."
"I don't care if he's the damned Queen of England, God save her." With this odd combination of sentiments, the houseman found himself talking to a slammed door and turned to rejoin the others in ejecting the rather rabid American from their doorstep where he had very firmly planted himself with the insistance that he be allowed to speak with North America.
America and Canada: Deal With The Devil Pt3
(Anonymous) 2010-10-10 07:24 pm (UTC)(link)It had taken several weeks of hitch-hiking to find the place. He was so used to their own private means of transportation that he had found difficulty in locating even the most usual of his haunts from a more public point of view. Increased security hadn't helped things at all.
It was pure, livid anger at the sneaky twist into which he had been coaxed which drove him for the next couple of months, and nothing else shown in his eyes for a long time but the outrage at being so betrayed. A mortal body he had, along with all the freedom which entailed from being relieved of his position as a country, but at what price? In his eagerness, he hadn't bothered to read the documents thoroughly before signing, but he would be damned if a simple trick of wording was going to trap him in a body doomed to self-destruct any time.
He had been approximately halfway to his destination when he had heard the news and watched in horror as the Towers, HIS towers, were smashed. Again and again and again. The blinding shock wouldn't leave his mind, and replayed itself every chance he had to sleep, mingled with the sealing of the Deal (It had come to justify a capital letter in his mind) and Canada's clearly erroneous assumption that he could do a better job with his country. For the first time in clear memory, it came to him just how far he had fallen into himself and how long it had been since he had thought of his duties with anything more than irritation and frustration.
The thing was, Matthew was unwilling to understand the mindset of a people not his own. And they called HIM, Alfred, arrogant. But... And the thought came to him that night as he camped unseen in the wooded area near the house into which he intended to find entry, he would change that. The perception of himself, that was. Mattie would do as he would, but he was going to take it back, all of it. Every horrible thing he had said, thought and done.
There was an empty hole in his soul and it drained the energy from him. His people were suffering, and it was his fault. Of course, he was their sum, but he hadn't been able rally and pull himself together, and so his people hadn't. Did that make sense? He wasn't sure, but it was something to think about as he shut his eyes to the stars and curled into a ball against the Canadian cold.
OP
(Anonymous) 2010-10-10 09:14 pm (UTC)(link)I'm sorry I can't give you more constructive comments. This is just so very good. T.T I'm crying anon.
WriterAnon
(Anonymous) 2010-10-11 02:24 pm (UTC)(link)America and Canada: Deal With The Devil Pt 4
(Anonymous) 2010-10-11 03:28 pm (UTC)(link)A racking coughing fit hit him as he lurked, waiting for a pair of security guards, lax with the knowledge that they were Canadian and so in no real danger, to pass by and their talk to fade into the distance. Blood spattered across his sleeve and he stared at it a moment. Exactly how weak was his immune system now? He hadn't found the time to research such matters, what with one thing and another, and his medcical knowledge stopped approximately at how to properly amputate for grangrene. How many of his people had died just this way, everything slowly breaking down around them until they could give up the ghost? He could even remember a part of his mind crowing in victory at their deaths. As he himself panicked occasionally, even with the knowledge that he would soon be regaining his immortality and the suffocating fear of an unknown future would be put to quits, how must his people have felt, never knowing if they would see the end of the year? Or month. Or week. While there were people they didn't even know cheering on their slow collapse. Another thing to put on his mental checklist. Start looking for a fucking cure for AIDs.
Matthew wasn't in his bedroom, as Alfred had predicted, and so wasn't startled awake by his brother hoisting himself to the window ledge and forcing the window up with such mustered strength that he snapped the small wedge that had been placed there with the intention of preventing such an entry. Alfred jumped down from his crouching position and upon finding the surprisingly well-lit room empty, went in search of his brother.
North America, as he had let it be known that he was now to be called, was awake at this late hour, and Alfred found himself faced with a wild-eyed madman pointing a pistol at him with only the slightest of shivers diverting it from its intended target.
"I know why you're here, and you're not going to touch me." Matthew said in a voic entirely unlike his own. Alfred marveled at the change. He hadn't seen Canada in such a state since he had, in a fiery temper, snuck over the border and burned his capital. His eyes both took in everything and missed reality entirely.
"Mattie." Alfred said, raising his hands. "Put that down. What are you trying to do, kill me?"
Instead of recognizing his brother and lowering the weapon, this information seemed to infuriate Matthew still further. He snarled.
"Fils de salope! What did you do to me, Alfred?"
This seemed unfair. What had HE done? The whole thing had been done at his brother's taunting acceptance, and after all, whose ass had hurt for two days afterward? Just because he had found that he wasn't any better than his brother, and couldn't cope as he had so arrogantly claimed, he was supposed to take the blame for this mess?
"As a matter of fact, I came to..."
"Ta Gueule! I know why you came back. You think that I do not know what goes on?"
"Give me back my people, Mattie." America said in a low, stern voice which was the very echoe of the England under whom they had been raised. It caught Matthew's subconscious and he lowered the gun for a brief moment.
"I do not want them. Les faire disparaître..." The fact that Matthew had reverted to proper French and English didn't escape Alfred's attention. He was desperate now, searching for someone, anyone, to whom he could hand the reins.
"It isn't so much fun, is it." Alfred asked in a confiding tone. Matthew had lain the pistol on the blotter and shook his head most emphatically.
America and Canada: Deal With The Devil Pt 4
(Anonymous) 2010-10-11 03:35 pm (UTC)(link)Alfred shrugged. Did Matthew really think that he could explain such a thing? It was giving him far too much credit, thinking that he could actually understand himself.
"You want them back? Vous ne savez pas, yet you want them?"
Again Alfred shrugged. "Why don't you look at yourself for a while, Matthew? Stop looking at how messed up I am and see a little of your own mess, hey? Now how do we reverse this stupid shit?"
"Done." Came a scathing voice from behind them. Alfred turned and saw the Devil himself standing casually in the shadows.
What the hell? They both gaped at the figure. At the very least, they had expected some resistence, and had crushed the fear that nothing could be done so that it never dared even come to mind. To voluntarily repair the damage was unexpected to say the least.
The dark man shrugged as easily as Alfred had, indicating that he had no intention of revealing his motives. "It just happens to fit into my schedule. Now if you will sign here... And here... and here..."
America and Canada: Deal With The Devil Pt 4
(Anonymous) 2010-10-11 03:39 pm (UTC)(link)Asmusing as it was, he couldn't help but wonder how the two countries had failed to notice that America had never truly been free of himself. The lapse in caution, the decline in his health, the nightmares and at last his renewed spirit and sense of patriotism. Canada on his part having no true control, despite repeated attempts to help... All he had done was fix a few details.
WriterNote
(Anonymous) 2010-10-11 03:56 pm (UTC)(link)http://hetalia-kink.livejournal.com/632.html?thread=31585400#t31585400
OP
(Anonymous) 2010-10-11 04:48 pm (UTC)(link)This story was truly great. I loved America and his interactions with his brother and the Devil, and I really liked that you thought to put the story in the early 2000's rather than present day.
what is this Underneath? Could I have a link?
Goes off to read other fill now. :)
Re: OP
(Anonymous) 2010-10-11 04:54 pm (UTC)(link)Oh, and Underneath... http://hetalia-kink.livejournal.com/11813.html?thread=37886501#t37886501
Re: America and Canada: Deal With The Devil Pt 4
(Anonymous) 2010-10-13 08:33 pm (UTC)(link)