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“He’s not right.”
Arthur hadn’t needed Francis to tell him, even if it had been said in that overly processed way that exposed his anxiety for what it was. Centuries of history built instinct well, and though he was long past an alarm going off in his head every time something seemed a little off with one of his neighbours, he could still feel the gentle tug of it on his body, reacting to unseen forces.
Across the table from him, Antonio sat; lounged in his chair, he was the picture of effortless grace. His arms crossed over his chest and his head thrown back to expose the column of his throat. Occasionally he reached for his coffee, strong, elegant fingers danced along porcelain.
But that was just it: every action looked intentional, thought through and deliberate. His laughs, given just as freely as usual, were not meeting his eyes and his conversation, though jovial, sounded stunted and hollow. His muscles were tensed beneath his uniform, ready to strike.
For all it took to keep himself presenting as unaffected, Arthur’s voice came out flippant, dismissive. “He’s Fernandez. I’d be more surprised if something was right with him.”
“I’m being serious, Arthur,” Francis responded from under his breath. “Look at the date.”
“I don’t need you to remind me of my own history,” he bit back, voice barely covered by the ambient chatter around them. “I was there. You, on the other hand, were not.”
Realistically, there wasn’t a day of the year that didn’t hold significance. That wasn’t the problem–
"You should leave before this gets messy; don’t fool yourself into thinking it won’t get messy if you stay.”
–the problem came when they coincided with relapses. And relapses happened, now and again; they might not be mortal but things didn’t happen to them without consequence. Sometimes wires got crossed, and sometimes the electrical surge rippled out. Brief and explosive were easy to manage; maybe it would take one or two of them to pin someone down, remove any particularly offending nations from the room (usually Arthur, sometimes another former empire who deserved the beating just as much as he did), allow them to ride out the waves of rage and bloodthirst.
The problem remained that Antonio, silently clever and vicious, was neither explosive nor impulsive. No matter what his bubbly persona showed, he never had been. He was calm and calculated, methodical in ways that should have scared Arthur and Francis both back in the days they’d seen his destructive power firsthand. It should have scared him then; at least Francis had learnt to swallow his pride and pay attention to warning signs.
Antonio wasn’t like the rest of them, bursting out of themselves with old grudges and centuries of unspent rage to make up for. He adopted modern diplomacy and performed as social custom expected him to. He struck when he was sure he could win. Imperio Español enjoyed the anger, hurt and horror that came with reminding people he was the empire upon which the sun never set; a mark on the globe that could never be covered over.
Arthur understood, acutely. Seeing Antonio playacting across the table reminded him of how intoxicating the feeling of fire and war bubbling away under one’s skin was. He could feel himself getting drawn into it. The air smelt different than it had moments before; it swirled on his tongue, tasting vaguely of salt. Francis flapping around beside him wasn’t helping to soothe it.
Arthur’s body was keyed up, hyper-aware of his proximity to the others and his own reactions to the small distance. His uniform rubbed against him in all the wrong ways and he was starting to yearn for the weighty press of his old uniform on his shoulders. If not, he likely would have told the other to shut the fuck up, maybe rag him around by the collar a little for good measure. Instead, he said, “you overestimate how much I care," under his breath, putting no effort into pretending he meant it.
“You underestimate him. You’re not as strong as you once were.”
“I fail to see why you give a shit. You never miss an opportunity to throw me to the wolves.”
Francis let out an exclamation of unwarranted offence. “Is it outside the realm of possibility that I wouldn’t want to see your pretty little face maimed again?”
“Yes.”
“By all means, take your post-Brexit, cost-of-living-crisis self and go up against the full, concentrated force of the Spanish Empire alone, I’m sure that will go wonderfully for you.” For good measure, Francis batted over his empty paper cup. The few undrunk drops of tea crawled along the waxy surface before coming to a stop at the lip. Arthur made no move to pick it up, nor give Francis the reproachful look he usually would.
His gaze was drawn back across the table, and their eyes snapped onto one another. Had he not known on instinct alone that Antonio wasn’t right he would have then. The emerald eyes he’d once known intimately stared back, so similar and yet so different to those he’d looked into during casual conversation earlier in the week; intense and magnetic, and so very angry.
Looking at him hurt but that didn’t stop him. His eyes were drawn back again and again and again. Something in him stirred, a feeling he didn’t want to acknowledge: something about being remembered in ways that weren’t simply voyeuristic, about knowing that someone out there understood when he didn’t want to remember himself… the reminder that someone he could run to without thinking if shame and pride both abandoned him when he needed them most… existed.
It had happened before. Several times. Even then he couldn’t envision what that looked like. Falling into Antonio’s arms was always such a disorientating blur; he could barely recall more than warm hands and the smell of smoke, the bite of teeth on tender flesh. He doubted Antonio would be in a position to fill in the blanks, and doubted more that he would do so honestly. The other couldn't resist Arthur's vulnerability any more than Arthur could resist his pain; the modern age had changed a lot, but not that. Instinct, however archaic, remained.
Any other time, the idea of keeping eye contact with one of his neighbours across the room being considered a deliberate attempt at antagonism would be old-fashioned, practically laughable. But Antonio wasn’t existing within the fragile balance of paper treaties and false niceties as the rest were, and neither was Arthur. The gentle twist of his lips and flare of his nose as he took in a deep, assuring breath, exposed it: he was out for blood.
Francis was acutely aware of his own messed-up version of that with both men and many others. A prayer was laced into his words as he hissed “stop provoking him.” As futile as it was, hoping perhaps that he could speak into existence a version of Antonio that would overlook his offences against him in favour of pursuing those from Arthur, the date seemingly forgotten with the stress. It was Arthur’s anniversary with him, true, but what were a few days between someone who had danced the line between enemy and lover with him for so many centuries?
The air filled with the ear-piercing squeal of metal on wood as Antonio pushed his chair back, slowly and smoothly pushing himself up with all the grace of a dancer and the strength of his former empire. Gone was the pretence, the extra effort put into appearing normal. The change was so sudden it sucked the air from the room, along with the warmth. And maybe the smell of fire and copper in Arthur’s nose was just a memory, but it choked him regardless.
And nobody else noticed. Nobody else looked up at the disruption nor watched close enough to see anything but Antonio choosing to move closer to his neighbours. They didn’t notice how his fingers danced along the back of Francis’ chair as he said “a courtesy, Bonnefoy. Just this once. I suggest you use it,” in a voice heavy with an accent lost to time.
He hardly expected Francis to linger but the speed at which he left was almost enough to make him reconsider the warning. For all the shit he gave him to his face, Francis wasn’t stupid; he was just as tactical and not nearly as self-destructive. It shouldn’t have surprised him that he left in a flurry, not even conceiving to utter his apologies on the way out, leaving his seat free for Antonio to slip into.
Slip… it might just have described the grace with which the other sat down were it not overshadowed by the bite of a blade against his stomach in the same moment. Arthur realised in the same short seconds that he hadn’t seen him draw it nor the outline of it in his clothing. The modern age, as previously reflected, had made him slow and lazy. If that was all that came from their gradual separation from politics, he didn’t stand a chance.
“Straight to the point, I see,” he said, expression blank with the effort to keep the excitement off as much as the fear. “And in public too. My, you’ve gotten bold.”
“Your pitiful attempt at disapproval wounds me, Kirkland. You’d think I would have earned better by now.”
“I could say a lot about what you’ve ea–” it was cut off with a hiss as the edge bit deeper, trapping skin against his bottom rib. A warning. “Happy Anniversary, Spain.”
“And here I thought I would have to remind you.”
“The poetry of it all remains when the centuries blur,” Arthur smirked back. “That’s all we are now, Fernandez. Poetry. All memories and longing trapped behind distant smiles and dead eyes. That is to say,” his eyes flicked down to the knife and back up to find the other’s gaze had not followed his own, “we don’t go around running each other through with blades anymore.”
“Catch me up,” he neither appealed nor demanded. He remained poised, barely blinking as his unnaturally handsome face melted into a cruel smile.
He could get up and leave. Antonio wasn’t nearly desperate and self-destructive enough to attack him while other nations milled around them, collecting their paperwork and emptying the dregs of cold coffee down their throats.
But that was the problem, the same one that had found him seeking out his eyes across the table over and over again: he wanted to cling to the moment like it was the first and last time he’d ever get the opportunity. He wanted to shout at the others to grab their shit and get out quicker. Returning Antonio’s intense stare made his body scream out for the long-absent promise of pain.
“You make me cups of coffee during break sometimes, act like you don’t want to smash the china into my face as you hand it to me. And I’ll accept it while I fight back the waves of desire to kick your knees out from under you and bare down on your throat. Then we’ll take our seats a respectable distance from each other and pretend that nearly 500 years ago we weren’t so tangled in each other’s lives nothing else mattered.”
Antonio didn’t seem surprised by that. Not in the way Arthur expected him to be, anyway. The hand on the knife remained steady and his stare remained intense.
“Move the knife.”
“Make me," he challenged, sincerely.
“I can’t. I’m weak. You know that,” Arthur responded plainly, digging down deep and drawing up as much grace as he could muster. Sparks of raw memory were dancing under his skin, looking to ignite.
"I see you flittering between eras. Do your pupils bloom as beautifully for who I become as they do for me?”
“We both learnt restraint; the value in it.”
“Liar,” Antonio huffed under his breath, and maybe if he wasn’t focused so intently on seeking out evidence of that on Arthur’s face, he might have seen the last stragglers of the world meeting leave with bleary eyes and bone-crunching stretches, but that wasn’t the case. The door appeared as if it would slam before catching a soft close. The click was subtle, their sudden isolation so understated Arthur could have fooled himself into thinking the other might have missed it.
Arthur felt his body both relax into the seat and tense in readiness, only just managing to hide it behind rolling laughter. He shifted in his seat, angling his body towards the other in a way that made the blade sink in superficially. It stung, sweet, sensitive and satisfying. He felt the sticky dampness of blood soaking into his shirt. The metallic tang of it mingled with the air.
A taste of an old rivalry, the consuming, prickly heat of tension threatening to erupt into war. He hadn’t felt it in so long it surged out over his skin in a single, blissful wave. His voice, which he’d neglected in the effort to stop himself lunging at the other with teeth and nails, came out tense and trembling. “You always thought you knew me. I can’t say I’ve missed all that cocky arrogance.”
“I’m only trying to understand the world in which you would try to pass off such a blatant, unhiding lie as truth. It’s sloppy, even for you.”
“You spend all your time farming now, talking about your precious fruits and wines,” resentment seeped through, more painful and more exposing than if the knife had pressed deep and torn him open. “I nod along. We pretend.” Arthur shifted again, allowing the blade to agitate the wound as it had been on the cusp of clotting completely; deeper this time, not enough to produce more than a sharp sting and a lingering dull ache, but enough to send another oozing wave of blood through the sodden fabric. Red touched silver, and Antonio, unable to resist, broke his gaze with Arthur for the first time to see.
That’s all it took. Arthur might not be as strong nor quick as he once had been, but he remembered how to fight. The knife clattered to the ground as he twisted Antonio’s arm behind his back. Throwing himself from the chair he leveraged his weight to force the other forward and bore down with a knee on the back of his neck. Antonio went easy but Arthur was too busy marvelling at his sudden burst of strength to consider that.
“Flittering between eras…” he hissed, increasing the pressure on his arm, pushing it up in increments until he was sure only a twitch would have it popping from the socket. “You get too caught up in the particulars without listening to what’s being said. I never said it had gone, I said we were good at pretending. I don’t need to lose myself to a nostalgic burst to rival you.”
Antonio trembled underneath him as he laughed. “I feared you might have grown indifferent to me. Maybe even began to like me again.”
“Like you…” he contemplated, and then he felt his face twist. Half humour, half disgust. Arthur remained that way for a moment, resisting the temptation to pop the other’s shoulder through sheer power of will. The moment stretched out, and then he said “Wolvesey Castle.”
He felt Antonio’s body tense underneath him, though he imagined in anticipation more than apprehension.
“I lay on the floor bleeding out as our monarchs took a walk in the water meadows by the River Itchen. The wound throbbed under my shirt as I stood at Winchester Cathedral two days later, trying not to re-tear it by moving too fast.” Arthur traced his hand up his side, up under his arm. He pressed down, chasing the phantom ache of skin tight with deep scar tissue. It had been centuries before he’d allowed it to fade, telling himself it was a reminder to keep his guard up and nothing else.
Too much time had passed since then to feed into the lie that things hadn’t changed, that he was still plagued by it… but not for Antonio, and it was much easier to reopen old wounds than venture to explain how new ones had been formed, their significance or lack of… the times they had pressed their lips to them in apology.
“I stood there and thought of nothing but the absence of my fondness for you. I waited for it to force itself on me, night after night, with resentment strong enough to drive it away should it dare try.”
“Really? Because I laid in bed that night thinking about how pretty you looked, face all twisted up in impotent anger and pain. I still remember the acidic taste of your tongue as you cursed me.”
“That’s what you remember?” Arthur hissed. "I remember the sweaty taste of your palm as you covered my mouth and the sting of your teeth as you bit into the back of my neck. I remember the burn in my lower back lasting from Reading to Windsor to Surrey–"
“To Westminster,” Antonio completed for him. “Your place names are ugly, Kirkland. No finesse.” Fingers darted out with an abrupt twist of his body, jabbing out blindly and finding, with force, the wound his knife had made earlier.
It was enough; enough for the pain to distract him, enough for his grip to loosen, enough for Antonio to pull out of his lax hold and gain purchase. He turned to face him, one leg coming around to keep Arthur flush against him, the proximity stopping any attempts to retaliate with his fists. Fingers tangled into his already messy locks and heaved him sideways.
His back hit the table, the skin of his stomach contorted and tugged at pulsing, raw flesh. His thighs parted under a forceful shove of Antonio’s own as the other took the space between them, using his vantage point to smack down in a single strong blow.
Blood erupted from his nose in a sickening wave. The flowering pain did much the same, then seeped out over his skin. His chest swelled with equal parts hatred and adoration, but only one he allowed to play out on his face.
“You always did enjoy reimagining your moments of weakness. Anything but admit you enjoyed giving yourself to me.”
“As though you could get it up at all if they weren’t begging you to stop,” Arthur bit back, lashing out futilely as the hand in his hair twisted in.
“You said no between moans,” he taunted. His low, melodic laugh wove with the words. “You screamed at me to get off you while holding onto me tight enough to prevent me from trying. For all you had to say about the love never coming, you did a poor job of pretending you didn’t love every minute of my attention.”
“Fuck you!”
Antonio’s other hand trailed down his chest, feather-light. His fingers found the blood-logged fabric along his bottom ribs. His already swelling knuckles lingered there a moment as he contemplated. His eyes glistened as he took it in, and then he pressed down. Hard.
It wasn’t painful enough to justify the scream that came out of his mouth, it barely hurt at all; screaming was just more dignified than the alternative building in his throat. He couldn’t whimper for Antonio as he had in the early years, when they’d thought their marriages had been real and the war hadn’t yet been bubbling under their skin. His pride couldn’t handle it.
Above him Antonio tutted in disapproval, his omnipresent smile morphing into something mocking as his knuckles twisted left and then right as they bore down harder. The hand in his hair tightened until Arthur had no choice but to arch his neck to relieve the pinching pain of it. He spluttered as all that blood was redirected down the back of his throat instead, choking on it. Spots danced in his vision.
“People see what they want to see. It clouds judgement. Maybe it would be beneficial for you to know me longer than I’d known you, if I had lost myself entirely like you seem to think I did. Did it ever occur to you that maybe I simply got sick and tired of giving you coffee during breaks and resisting the urge to smash the cup into your face? Of pretending?”
Clever, he thought, secure in the knowledge he would never say it out loud. He’d reflect on that later, the ease at which Antonio had managed to convince him he was another version of himself, and just how quickly he’d been willing to fall for it… his lack of willingness to look beyond his own twisted want.
When he wasn’t choking on his blood. When he didn’t have Antonio pressing him into flimsy, Swedish furniture. When he could properly think about anything except the horrifying thrill of knowing the other had wanted it just as much as him.
Antonio had always been handsome, but rage-filled and blood-touched he was both luminous and terrifying. He loomed over him with all the power of a former self he was supposed to have lost to time, the gleam of violence and intent to inflict it. He smacked him so hard and fast that his vision dimmed and swirled. His nose throbbed sharp and sickly. So did his temples. For a moment, he thought he might lose consciousness.
“I want to see you broken again,” the other said, voice muffled around the edges. “I want to hear you beg.”
~.#.~
“Don’t say it,” Arthur grit out, pointing a finger at him.
“I told you so,” Francis responded petulantly and took his seat next to him.
“Bastard! It’s none of your fucking business!”
He knew he looked a mess. His body strained and ached as he moved; the swelling in his nose made his breathing whistle, and the bruises bloomed violently across his face and neck. The headache, having subsided over breakfast in his hotel room thanks in part to Antonio’s quiet and reflective company, returned the moment the Frenchman entered the room.
If ever a world existed where Arthur would confide in Francis to begin with, it was chased away by that self-assured grin that told him, in no uncertain terms, the other was going to spend the rest of the conference gloating as though the win was his own.
“Well, Antonio is looking well put together so I can only assume you bit off more than you can chew. Oh, look at that, you can’t sit down properly.”
“I said it is none of your fucking business!”