sortinghat_rp drabbles.
Fandom: Axis Powers Hetalia
Rating & Warnings: G
Summary: Ameribros during the Gold Rush of the late 1800s.
Canada lowered his rifle, peering at his brother from under the brim of his Mountie hat.
"Sorry, America," he apologized with an added long suffering sigh that made America want to deck him in the nose, "But can you keep your gold prospectors in control, please? I have enough trouble with mine as it is, eh?"
From his side of the border, America spun his pistol round and round his finger, expression the epitome of amiable relations. "Having trouble, are we, newbie? I'm sure England would love to help you if you went back crying to him. Don't hold back on my account."
"America, I'm serious."
Shoulders haunched forward, America sneered, "Nice uniform."
Canada glared, chin raised. "Nice pea shooter."
Fandom: Axis Powers Hetalia; sortinghat_rp
Rating & Warnings: G
Summary: Ameribros as Aurors.
Grown, established, powerful, a bonafide hero -- Alfred F. Jones still fears the dark.
So what he does is requests to partner with Matthew on missions like these, because of course Matthew knows and doesn't say a thing about it. Never has, not even as children. All those thunderstorm nights Alfred sought cover under Matthew's bedsheets, Matthew merely rolled onto one side, held him close, fit them against one another like puzzle pieces. (Together they) breathed as one, beat (together) as one (heart). Morning found them separate once more, kept at arms length, often further.
Right now, it's night, some ungodly punch-drunk AM hour. The situation certainly doesn't call for bed covers or stuffed bears or any of that sort, but it's dark, black, darker than black. Missions like these always are. Blind nothingness sneers at him kiss-close, and Alfred resists the urge to illuminate the way with a simple spell. He cannot. As an Auror, he must wait for the suspect to appear and apprehend him. Bring him in or kill him, depending.
As Alfred, all he wants is to conjure up a little goddamn light.
Instead, he asks, "Okay, Matt?"
His brother shifts, then stills, as if thinking. "Sleepy."
Back to back, the broad horizons of their shoulders converge. Warm, so Alfred relaxes. His sight adjusts to his surroundings.
Then he smirks, all bravery and confidence. "Pussy."
"Shut up, Al."
Fandom: Axis Powers Hetalia; sortinghat_rp
Rating & Warnings: G
Summary: Matthew/Yekaterina. Matthew has always loved her.
1st year.
Eleven years old, and Matthew breaks his first set of rules by sneaking into the kitchens with Yekaterina. He's small, smaller than most ( or at least he feels that way ), and slipping through the radars of his authority figures has always been a talent of his, whether it was a skill he wanted or not. ( I'm right here, I'm right here )
The kitchen lights are off. It's dark and the house elves stay dreaming. Fretfully, Matthew clutches his cookbook to his chest as if it was Kumajiro, childhood comforts and dreams stuffed into one toy bear. The palms of his hands are cold, cool, clammy. Katya seems not to mind, though, which suits him just fine, because she gets all panicky when he lets go, cries "What if we lose each other?", all tears and nervous fidget. They haven't even started to cook yet, they've just entered the kitchens, and anyway, by the way his neck flushes pink, red hot at the feel of her hand laced with his, Matthew thinks he might be a little --
3rd year.
-- amazed with her stew, how the traditional tastes of her homeland melt against his tongue. He thinks, and it's a silly thought, that her singing improves her cooking, as if her Ukrainian lullabies act as their own natural flavor. It's delicious, so he tells her so even as he adds a bit of spice of his own, smiling at the way she lights up at the compliment. ( Beautiful )
You should really eat more, she tells him, you're a growing boy, you're so skinny, you're so small. Always, she scolds him. Looks after him.
The only one who does.
And he eats what she cooks him( what they cook together, elbows touching ), his heart warm and heavy in his chest; and every day, with every moment, he --
5th year.
-- grows impossibly tall, long limbs that haven't quite waited for the rest of his body to fill. He stands over her now, even when he slouches. Katya has grown as well, into places his eyes can't help but wander, places his hands want to touch( and the thought fills him with guilt ). Like always, they create dishes together, but now, he does his best to stand apart, create some distance.
"Is there something wrong, Matthew?"
No, no of course not, and he bites his lip, focuses on caressing the dough underneath his fingertips. Flour, there's flour everywhere, on his robes and in his hair and when he sneaks a glance, on her lips.
Sorry, no, there's nothing wrong, he says finally, voice a tad higher. All that's wrong is how badly he wants to --
7th year.
-- hold her in his arms. He's done so so many times before now, but this time it's different.
T-minus three days before graduation. Matthew's no longer a boy, but a man. Yekaterina, a woman.
"There will be other kitchens," he laughs gently through her sobs, soothing, running his fingers through her hair. "This isn't goodbye. I'll always --"
After.
"-- be with you."
The war has made him tired, so tired. His hands have been saturated in blood, have done unspeakable things. Brought death, things worse than death. Now they form cookie shapes next to Katya's, and Matthew prefers things this way.
"Please," he proposes and goes still, "Please come to Canada with me. You can open your shop there, I'll work for the Ministry, I--"
( love you, I love you, I've always- )
The oven dings: ready.
She gives him her answer.
Fandom: Axis Powers Hetalia; sortinghat_rp
Rating & Warnings: PG
Summary: Peter and Matthew Kirkland through the years. Derpbear drawn by lysanderpuck.
Matthew props his chin above Kumajiro's white crown of synthetic fur and turns his sleepy head to Alfred, who holds baby Peter in his arms, eyes wide with wonder. Facial expression scrunched up with scrutiny, his twin lowers his face comically close to his(their) new adoptive brother before he finally makes his assessment:
"He doesn't have the same face."
Mirror image look of bewilderment, and Matthew leans close and questions, "As who?"
Innocently, Peter blinks up at them.
"Me."
Us.
"Oh."
With a carelessness typical of the six year old boy that he is, Alfred suddenly hands Peter to Matthew, "I'm gonna go play," and to the dismay of their nanny, runs off and away. Thrown off balance by the surprise addition of weight, Matthew drops to the floor and onto his bottom, Kumajiro and Peter safely cushioned in his lap. It startles him more than it pains him, but he cries, tears streaming down his cheeks and down to his pouting lips, softly, quietly, making a noise barely above a whimper--
but then soon Peter catches on and bawls too, so Matthew holds him closer to his chest, "I'm sorry!", and wails louder. Peter, ever the one to prove himself, ups the ante and screams with even more vigor than that.
The beginning of a wonderful relationship.
-
Later, after their nanny pulls them apart and a five hour nap, Matthew crawls over to his twin and notes, "He has Daddy's eyebrows."
Half asleep, Alfred merely shrugs.
-
For the most part, Peter tails behind Alfred, mimicking him, following his lead. A second shadow.
On occasions he plays with Matthew, Uncle Francis has to tap him on the shoulder and coo, "My dear Matthieu, your brother is not a teddy bear."
"Sorry."
Matthew just likes to hug him, though.
-
During his first night at Hogwarts, Matthew draws the curtains to his bed, curls up in a ball, and sobs into his pillow. He left Kumajiro at home. Dad said he was getting too old for stuffed animals.
His heart aches for a week, but of course he doesn't tell anyone, not a single soul. Boys don't cry, especially not Kirklands. Kirklands never cry.
When Peter sends him his first owl, Matthew ducks his head, hiding beneath a curtain of hair, and tearfully continues to devour his porridge. He sniffs, but only a little.
This is what the owl said:
-
"'s not like I want to go to your stupid Hogwarts anyway."
( I miss you. )
"Who will I share pancakes with, then?"
( I miss you too. Please don't be like this. )
"Iunno." A pause. "Food here sucks."
( I haven't seen Dad in weeks. )
"Want me to send you candy when I'm at school?"
( I'm sorry. )
"... okay."
-
In the alley behind his girlfriend's hospital, Matthew smokes for the first time. Coughs up a lung, but that's okay, because the haze dulls everything down to a dull throb, an emotion he can manage. Melts the ice that formed around his insides, if only just a little. Limp, he sinks to crouch against the wall, roach still lit live between his fingertips. By the time Peter finds him, the joint finds itself crushed beneath the sole of his shoe.
"You smell funny."
Peter regards him with a suspicious look and Matthew apologizes.
Then he buys them both lunch.
( Is she going to be okay, Matt?
Everything's going to be alright, Petey. )
-
It had been a long time since they've been together like this, all four Kirklands rounded up in the usually vacant named family den. The scene resembles the typical Christmas get together, except the tree's not up and the fire's not going and the twins are getting blood and ash all over the furniture.
"You guys are stupid," sniffs Peter. In normal circumstances, Matthew would have put his arm around his little brother in a comforting manner, but as it is, he is way too preoccupied hissing through his teeth as Skele-gro mends the break in his arm.
"Your face is stupid," chimes in Alfred past the ugly mess that is his bloody nose and singed eyebrows.
Arthur swats Alfred's head very lightly with a roll of bandages, sighing, "Honestly, boys."
Matthew almost wants to laugh.
-
The twins make a compromise.
Matthew gives Peter the talk.
And Alfred shares his porn.
Well no one ever said the compromise was 50/50.
-
When Arthur visits the twins' bachelor pad, they(they being mostly Matthew) clean up. When Peter visits, they don't.
"What the hell is that?" Peter gawks. "Some experiment from Auror training?"
"No, Al forgot to take the trash out."
-
Fun fact: Matthew Williams Kirkland has always loathed fighting. He becomes an Auror, and that's all he does. Every night of almost every day in this ridiculous war.
"I don't know if I can do this anymore," sighs Matthew, head cradled in his hands. His bottle of firewhiskey crackles and steams as it spills onto the floor, forming a puddle underneath his bare feet. "I don't know what to do."
Peter leans back against the couch, stares at the curve of his brother's spine.
A moment passes, then, "Yes you do, Matty. Don't be stupid."
-
That Christmas, Matthew is the one to announce his departure.
"Whatever," says Peter flippantly, though his gaze is at the table and not his brother, "Less competition for Minister of Magic for me."
Alfred only raises an eyebrow and asks, "What the hell is in Canada?"
-
"She doesn't have the same face," Alfred points out, holding the baby in his arms tentatively, with an uncharacteristic nervousness that doesn't quite fit his hero persona. Peter peers over his shoulder and tugs the blanket from his niece's face a bit, but then yelps in pain when Arthur slaps him on the wrist.
"Don't touch her face," he hisses, though he shies away from holding his grandchild himself.
Peter rolls his eyes and presses on, "As who?"
"Matt, duh."
Grinning, Matthew can only stand back with a happy, flustered sort of helplessness as his family crowds around his daughter, three grown men huddled around a tiny, sleeping child. His child.
"She looks like her mum, eh?"
They ignore him.
"No, look, she has his hair," says Peter, matter-of-fact.
"Yeah, I guess," concedes Alfred, shrugging a shoulder nonchalantly, "It's all girly and stuff."
Arthur agrees, and that's when Matthew promptly steals his daughter back.
-
I'm an uncle now, huh.
Yeah, you are.
Uncle Peter, the great Minister of Magic.
Whatever you say, Pete.
-
Peter gives his niece her first toy. It looks like this:
Fandom: Axis Powers Hetalia; Tekken; sortinghat_rp
Rating & Warnings: G
Summary: Matthew/Lili. Suck at communication.
Matthew is seventeen years old, and he can count the number of times he's said I love you off the top of his head (the number he's heard it said back to him span the ten digits of his hands). The phrase struggles to climb the stair ladder steps of his ribs and pass through the barrier of his lips, coming out scratched out and battered, warped and muted. French lessens the blow but not the meaning, so Matthew tells Lili he loves her in that language instead. Mouths it into the locks of her hair, ghosts it like a secret against the bruises he dislikes so much.
He wonders now, as she faces away from him, if he even understands what he means, if he even comprehends this heavy weight in his chest summed up in three words; and the thought chills him, the sensation traveling the nerves of his spine in an upward rush.
If he even knows the girl laid out beside him.
( He doesn't. )
For once, sleep evades Matthew. He traces the ceiling patterns with his eyes. In the night, he reaches out,
but she can't feel him now, not now, and so he retreats, lost in the disparity of the distance between them.
&
Matthew tries. Once, twice.
But when she turns back to him, he remembers: "he wouldn't want to hear it".
( He doesn't. )
And his voice withers somewhere around his lungs and expires in the hull of his throat.
&
When he hears of the news, like the coward(failure) he thinks he is, Matthew crumples.
He should have known.
( He doesn't. )
Fandom: Axis Powers Hetalia; sortinghat_rp
Rating & Warnings: PG
Summary: Matthew/Katya, post-tyl.
Your life flashes before your eyes, but you're not dead, not dying; you're a school boy in his dorm room bed with wide eyes and a cold sweat.
You fall in love backwards.
Marriage, your marriage takes you less than a second to recall. You remember every detail without much difficulty, the lace on her gloves against the callouses of the palms of your hands, the happy tremor in her laugh as you sweep her off her feet. You bend down to kiss her, I do, and suddenly your memory reels you backwards past your first date and straight to your bachelor days.
The flat you shared with your brother was always a jumbled mess. Your life and your brother's, intertwined together and fortified into an empty beer porn fort of an apartment. When you pull back your bed curtains, you half expect to see Alfred there, asleep on your shitty couch with his feet propped up without much grace on the coffee table. You two have always wanted to be Aurors, and now that you are, you're--
Alone. You're alone.
You miss the sound of daughter's voice. You miss her so much, it manifests in an ache in your heart so potent it threatens to break it. Shin, you can recall telling Shin you love him like a brother when he handed over her notes, little doodles and I-miss-you-daddys from your Reinetta, your baby girl. She told you of puppies and ballet and how Uncle Ivan's house was so big and so vast, and wasn't he the best?
You wish you could hate him.
2010, you have nothing against Ivan, your best friend's(wife's) younger brother, but you know that you hated him. You were jealous. He stole your wife away, your daughter away, kept them from you like a villain in a bedtime story, the bedtime stories you should tell to Reinetta as she falls to sleep in your lap - not his. Never his.
But Ivan was the one tucking Reinetta to bed at night, the one taking her to dance practice while Yekaterina tended to her shop. Ivan loves your wife and your daughter(s, there's another on the way, you haven't seen her, haven't touched the swell of Yekaterina's belly, you've been gone for so long), so you can't hate him, can't find it in you to do so. You wish you could hate him like all the times you wish you could loathe your father, your brothers, everyone around you for treating you like a ghost.
You're seventeen years old, and you just wonder if you'll spend your whole life never there.
( You stare at your reflection, at the mirror image of you sans the scars and bruises from years yet to come, and you think,
no. )
Rating & Warnings: G
Summary: Ameribros during the Gold Rush of the late 1800s.
Canada lowered his rifle, peering at his brother from under the brim of his Mountie hat.
"Sorry, America," he apologized with an added long suffering sigh that made America want to deck him in the nose, "But can you keep your gold prospectors in control, please? I have enough trouble with mine as it is, eh?"
From his side of the border, America spun his pistol round and round his finger, expression the epitome of amiable relations. "Having trouble, are we, newbie? I'm sure England would love to help you if you went back crying to him. Don't hold back on my account."
"America, I'm serious."
Shoulders haunched forward, America sneered, "Nice uniform."
Canada glared, chin raised. "Nice pea shooter."
Fandom: Axis Powers Hetalia; sortinghat_rp
Rating & Warnings: G
Summary: Ameribros as Aurors.
Grown, established, powerful, a bonafide hero -- Alfred F. Jones still fears the dark.
So what he does is requests to partner with Matthew on missions like these, because of course Matthew knows and doesn't say a thing about it. Never has, not even as children. All those thunderstorm nights Alfred sought cover under Matthew's bedsheets, Matthew merely rolled onto one side, held him close, fit them against one another like puzzle pieces. (Together they) breathed as one, beat (together) as one (heart). Morning found them separate once more, kept at arms length, often further.
Right now, it's night, some ungodly punch-drunk AM hour. The situation certainly doesn't call for bed covers or stuffed bears or any of that sort, but it's dark, black, darker than black. Missions like these always are. Blind nothingness sneers at him kiss-close, and Alfred resists the urge to illuminate the way with a simple spell. He cannot. As an Auror, he must wait for the suspect to appear and apprehend him. Bring him in or kill him, depending.
As Alfred, all he wants is to conjure up a little goddamn light.
Instead, he asks, "Okay, Matt?"
His brother shifts, then stills, as if thinking. "Sleepy."
Back to back, the broad horizons of their shoulders converge. Warm, so Alfred relaxes. His sight adjusts to his surroundings.
Then he smirks, all bravery and confidence. "Pussy."
"Shut up, Al."
Fandom: Axis Powers Hetalia; sortinghat_rp
Rating & Warnings: G
Summary: Matthew/Yekaterina. Matthew has always loved her.
1st year.
Eleven years old, and Matthew breaks his first set of rules by sneaking into the kitchens with Yekaterina. He's small, smaller than most ( or at least he feels that way ), and slipping through the radars of his authority figures has always been a talent of his, whether it was a skill he wanted or not. ( I'm right here, I'm right here )
The kitchen lights are off. It's dark and the house elves stay dreaming. Fretfully, Matthew clutches his cookbook to his chest as if it was Kumajiro, childhood comforts and dreams stuffed into one toy bear. The palms of his hands are cold, cool, clammy. Katya seems not to mind, though, which suits him just fine, because she gets all panicky when he lets go, cries "What if we lose each other?", all tears and nervous fidget. They haven't even started to cook yet, they've just entered the kitchens, and anyway, by the way his neck flushes pink, red hot at the feel of her hand laced with his, Matthew thinks he might be a little --
3rd year.
-- amazed with her stew, how the traditional tastes of her homeland melt against his tongue. He thinks, and it's a silly thought, that her singing improves her cooking, as if her Ukrainian lullabies act as their own natural flavor. It's delicious, so he tells her so even as he adds a bit of spice of his own, smiling at the way she lights up at the compliment. ( Beautiful )
You should really eat more, she tells him, you're a growing boy, you're so skinny, you're so small. Always, she scolds him. Looks after him.
The only one who does.
And he eats what she cooks him( what they cook together, elbows touching ), his heart warm and heavy in his chest; and every day, with every moment, he --
5th year.
-- grows impossibly tall, long limbs that haven't quite waited for the rest of his body to fill. He stands over her now, even when he slouches. Katya has grown as well, into places his eyes can't help but wander, places his hands want to touch( and the thought fills him with guilt ). Like always, they create dishes together, but now, he does his best to stand apart, create some distance.
"Is there something wrong, Matthew?"
No, no of course not, and he bites his lip, focuses on caressing the dough underneath his fingertips. Flour, there's flour everywhere, on his robes and in his hair and when he sneaks a glance, on her lips.
Sorry, no, there's nothing wrong, he says finally, voice a tad higher. All that's wrong is how badly he wants to --
7th year.
-- hold her in his arms. He's done so so many times before now, but this time it's different.
T-minus three days before graduation. Matthew's no longer a boy, but a man. Yekaterina, a woman.
"There will be other kitchens," he laughs gently through her sobs, soothing, running his fingers through her hair. "This isn't goodbye. I'll always --"
After.
"-- be with you."
The war has made him tired, so tired. His hands have been saturated in blood, have done unspeakable things. Brought death, things worse than death. Now they form cookie shapes next to Katya's, and Matthew prefers things this way.
"Please," he proposes and goes still, "Please come to Canada with me. You can open your shop there, I'll work for the Ministry, I--"
( love you, I love you, I've always- )
The oven dings: ready.
She gives him her answer.
Fandom: Axis Powers Hetalia; sortinghat_rp
Rating & Warnings: PG
Summary: Peter and Matthew Kirkland through the years. Derpbear drawn by lysanderpuck.
Matthew props his chin above Kumajiro's white crown of synthetic fur and turns his sleepy head to Alfred, who holds baby Peter in his arms, eyes wide with wonder. Facial expression scrunched up with scrutiny, his twin lowers his face comically close to his(their) new adoptive brother before he finally makes his assessment:
"He doesn't have the same face."
Mirror image look of bewilderment, and Matthew leans close and questions, "As who?"
Innocently, Peter blinks up at them.
"Me."
Us.
"Oh."
With a carelessness typical of the six year old boy that he is, Alfred suddenly hands Peter to Matthew, "I'm gonna go play," and to the dismay of their nanny, runs off and away. Thrown off balance by the surprise addition of weight, Matthew drops to the floor and onto his bottom, Kumajiro and Peter safely cushioned in his lap. It startles him more than it pains him, but he cries, tears streaming down his cheeks and down to his pouting lips, softly, quietly, making a noise barely above a whimper--
but then soon Peter catches on and bawls too, so Matthew holds him closer to his chest, "I'm sorry!", and wails louder. Peter, ever the one to prove himself, ups the ante and screams with even more vigor than that.
The beginning of a wonderful relationship.
-
Later, after their nanny pulls them apart and a five hour nap, Matthew crawls over to his twin and notes, "He has Daddy's eyebrows."
Half asleep, Alfred merely shrugs.
-
For the most part, Peter tails behind Alfred, mimicking him, following his lead. A second shadow.
On occasions he plays with Matthew, Uncle Francis has to tap him on the shoulder and coo, "My dear Matthieu, your brother is not a teddy bear."
"Sorry."
Matthew just likes to hug him, though.
-
During his first night at Hogwarts, Matthew draws the curtains to his bed, curls up in a ball, and sobs into his pillow. He left Kumajiro at home. Dad said he was getting too old for stuffed animals.
His heart aches for a week, but of course he doesn't tell anyone, not a single soul. Boys don't cry, especially not Kirklands. Kirklands never cry.
When Peter sends him his first owl, Matthew ducks his head, hiding beneath a curtain of hair, and tearfully continues to devour his porridge. He sniffs, but only a little.
This is what the owl said:
-
"'s not like I want to go to your stupid Hogwarts anyway."
( I miss you. )
"Who will I share pancakes with, then?"
( I miss you too. Please don't be like this. )
"Iunno." A pause. "Food here sucks."
( I haven't seen Dad in weeks. )
"Want me to send you candy when I'm at school?"
( I'm sorry. )
"... okay."
-
In the alley behind his girlfriend's hospital, Matthew smokes for the first time. Coughs up a lung, but that's okay, because the haze dulls everything down to a dull throb, an emotion he can manage. Melts the ice that formed around his insides, if only just a little. Limp, he sinks to crouch against the wall, roach still lit live between his fingertips. By the time Peter finds him, the joint finds itself crushed beneath the sole of his shoe.
"You smell funny."
Peter regards him with a suspicious look and Matthew apologizes.
Then he buys them both lunch.
( Is she going to be okay, Matt?
Everything's going to be alright, Petey. )
-
It had been a long time since they've been together like this, all four Kirklands rounded up in the usually vacant named family den. The scene resembles the typical Christmas get together, except the tree's not up and the fire's not going and the twins are getting blood and ash all over the furniture.
"You guys are stupid," sniffs Peter. In normal circumstances, Matthew would have put his arm around his little brother in a comforting manner, but as it is, he is way too preoccupied hissing through his teeth as Skele-gro mends the break in his arm.
"Your face is stupid," chimes in Alfred past the ugly mess that is his bloody nose and singed eyebrows.
Arthur swats Alfred's head very lightly with a roll of bandages, sighing, "Honestly, boys."
Matthew almost wants to laugh.
-
The twins make a compromise.
Matthew gives Peter the talk.
And Alfred shares his porn.
Well no one ever said the compromise was 50/50.
-
When Arthur visits the twins' bachelor pad, they(they being mostly Matthew) clean up. When Peter visits, they don't.
"What the hell is that?" Peter gawks. "Some experiment from Auror training?"
"No, Al forgot to take the trash out."
-
Fun fact: Matthew Williams Kirkland has always loathed fighting. He becomes an Auror, and that's all he does. Every night of almost every day in this ridiculous war.
"I don't know if I can do this anymore," sighs Matthew, head cradled in his hands. His bottle of firewhiskey crackles and steams as it spills onto the floor, forming a puddle underneath his bare feet. "I don't know what to do."
Peter leans back against the couch, stares at the curve of his brother's spine.
A moment passes, then, "Yes you do, Matty. Don't be stupid."
-
That Christmas, Matthew is the one to announce his departure.
"Whatever," says Peter flippantly, though his gaze is at the table and not his brother, "Less competition for Minister of Magic for me."
Alfred only raises an eyebrow and asks, "What the hell is in Canada?"
-
"She doesn't have the same face," Alfred points out, holding the baby in his arms tentatively, with an uncharacteristic nervousness that doesn't quite fit his hero persona. Peter peers over his shoulder and tugs the blanket from his niece's face a bit, but then yelps in pain when Arthur slaps him on the wrist.
"Don't touch her face," he hisses, though he shies away from holding his grandchild himself.
Peter rolls his eyes and presses on, "As who?"
"Matt, duh."
Grinning, Matthew can only stand back with a happy, flustered sort of helplessness as his family crowds around his daughter, three grown men huddled around a tiny, sleeping child. His child.
"She looks like her mum, eh?"
They ignore him.
"No, look, she has his hair," says Peter, matter-of-fact.
"Yeah, I guess," concedes Alfred, shrugging a shoulder nonchalantly, "It's all girly and stuff."
Arthur agrees, and that's when Matthew promptly steals his daughter back.
-
I'm an uncle now, huh.
Yeah, you are.
Uncle Peter, the great Minister of Magic.
Whatever you say, Pete.
-
Peter gives his niece her first toy. It looks like this:
Fandom: Axis Powers Hetalia; Tekken; sortinghat_rp
Rating & Warnings: G
Summary: Matthew/Lili. Suck at communication.
Matthew is seventeen years old, and he can count the number of times he's said I love you off the top of his head (the number he's heard it said back to him span the ten digits of his hands). The phrase struggles to climb the stair ladder steps of his ribs and pass through the barrier of his lips, coming out scratched out and battered, warped and muted. French lessens the blow but not the meaning, so Matthew tells Lili he loves her in that language instead. Mouths it into the locks of her hair, ghosts it like a secret against the bruises he dislikes so much.
He wonders now, as she faces away from him, if he even understands what he means, if he even comprehends this heavy weight in his chest summed up in three words; and the thought chills him, the sensation traveling the nerves of his spine in an upward rush.
If he even knows the girl laid out beside him.
( He doesn't. )
For once, sleep evades Matthew. He traces the ceiling patterns with his eyes. In the night, he reaches out,
but she can't feel him now, not now, and so he retreats, lost in the disparity of the distance between them.
&
Matthew tries. Once, twice.
But when she turns back to him, he remembers: "he wouldn't want to hear it".
( He doesn't. )
And his voice withers somewhere around his lungs and expires in the hull of his throat.
&
When he hears of the news, like the coward(failure) he thinks he is, Matthew crumples.
He should have known.
( He doesn't. )
Fandom: Axis Powers Hetalia; sortinghat_rp
Rating & Warnings: PG
Summary: Matthew/Katya, post-tyl.
Your life flashes before your eyes, but you're not dead, not dying; you're a school boy in his dorm room bed with wide eyes and a cold sweat.
You fall in love backwards.
Marriage, your marriage takes you less than a second to recall. You remember every detail without much difficulty, the lace on her gloves against the callouses of the palms of your hands, the happy tremor in her laugh as you sweep her off her feet. You bend down to kiss her, I do, and suddenly your memory reels you backwards past your first date and straight to your bachelor days.
The flat you shared with your brother was always a jumbled mess. Your life and your brother's, intertwined together and fortified into an empty beer porn fort of an apartment. When you pull back your bed curtains, you half expect to see Alfred there, asleep on your shitty couch with his feet propped up without much grace on the coffee table. You two have always wanted to be Aurors, and now that you are, you're--
Alone. You're alone.
You miss the sound of daughter's voice. You miss her so much, it manifests in an ache in your heart so potent it threatens to break it. Shin, you can recall telling Shin you love him like a brother when he handed over her notes, little doodles and I-miss-you-daddys from your Reinetta, your baby girl. She told you of puppies and ballet and how Uncle Ivan's house was so big and so vast, and wasn't he the best?
You wish you could hate him.
2010, you have nothing against Ivan, your best friend's(wife's) younger brother, but you know that you hated him. You were jealous. He stole your wife away, your daughter away, kept them from you like a villain in a bedtime story, the bedtime stories you should tell to Reinetta as she falls to sleep in your lap - not his. Never his.
But Ivan was the one tucking Reinetta to bed at night, the one taking her to dance practice while Yekaterina tended to her shop. Ivan loves your wife and your daughter(s, there's another on the way, you haven't seen her, haven't touched the swell of Yekaterina's belly, you've been gone for so long), so you can't hate him, can't find it in you to do so. You wish you could hate him like all the times you wish you could loathe your father, your brothers, everyone around you for treating you like a ghost.
You're seventeen years old, and you just wonder if you'll spend your whole life never there.
( You stare at your reflection, at the mirror image of you sans the scars and bruises from years yet to come, and you think,
no. )