Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The full-pressed wine of life my lips
  Have never tasted, yet is known,
My heart, though held in bondage, leaps
  To claim its own.

I know my lawful heritage,
  Although I stand on alien ground;
I know what kingship is, although
  I go uncrowned.

-From Helena Coleman's "Prairie Winds"

The Ardennes

December 1944

He ran as fast as his legs would carry him, heaving fatigued gasps of air. He lunged over the obstacles in his path. Rocks, brush, fallen trees— he was blessedly tall now and his legs could propel him forward across the great expanse of forest. The Ardennes were not so thickly wooded as Quebec’s, but they spanned far enough to unsettle the bulk of the Europeans save for Margaux. Sweat coated him like a damp fourth layer of clothing under his shirt and the green greasepaint on his face ran into his eyes. He kept his gaze on the dim horizon, searching ahead, intent on blasting away anything that moved before it could fire back.

He kept his movement even and quick, crossing distance as fast as he dared. His stride increased in length as he drew further away from the line. What had he seen— even for them and their long lives? Matt refused to think about it, focusing on the rhythm of his boots on the snow. He was a soldier, a hunter— but he had not been prepared for that.

He wanted to return to his own lines, his own familiar accents and Brodie helmets. He needed to eat, rest, and decipher how the fuck to find Alfred in this mess. He ran until his legs felt rubbery and weak, his heart eventually calming until he felt safe enough to slow his stride to a rushed walk. The sun slowly faded beyond the trees and dark fell over him. Matt looked about, keeping a sharp eye on his surroundings, looking for anything that might come bearing a rifle— or teeth.

As his heart rate slowed to normal, he smelt the surrounding air, the cold, clear air dulling the scent of man and small animal life. But gunpowder and smoke filled the air. He gripped his rifle tightly and kept moving. He didn’t know Belgium, but he knew he was headed towards Bastogne and would encounter no setback on his way to camp even in the dark. That was not what bothered him.

He’d spent nearly his entire late boyhood alone. Between Francis leaving and Alfred befriending him, he’d walked the woods of an entire continent alone. He had to be one of the better hunters alive. He was every bit as tall and strong as his brother, but the sight would not let him settle. He was capable of utter silence while stalking prey and he knew he was about as predatory as a man could be and still walk on two legs, but the sight would not leave his mind's eye.

There had been stories, during the First World War. Of living shadows that dwell in the deepest shell holes of no man’s land with the rotting bodies of the dead. Soldiers whispered them around their watery rations of rum at night, voices lowered in fear of both The Thing itself and their less superstitious officers. The stories claimed there existed a wraith or monster on the battlefields that preyed upon soldiers. Matthew had told himself, before, that it was a deserter or man merely walking wounded but dazed that looked like a shadow in the light of the flares but that foxhole— he shivered.

It was not a deserter that had haunted Flanders. It was something fouler. Men did not do such things. He reached the forest line, his camp, and set his fire ring alight again. Dry wood and kindling were in short supply, but what wasn’t in the cold reaches of where he’d come of age. He heated snowmelt for coffee and warmed biscuits and gnawed on jerky as he took a moment to think of what he had seen.

Fourteen Americans dead and beheaded. Slashed to ribbons perhaps shrapnel? But they had been lined up in a perfect row, seven men, boots and coats still intact, eyes closed, heads placed neatly on their chests. Even the Americans took the boots and extra from the dead. He swallowed. They had been arranged so carefully. Whatever it was, it was a warning, telling intruders to be mindful of what haunted these woods. Well, that’s what Matthew thought.

He’d seen enough death himself. Men, women, children, wild game. But never in his life had he seen it put on such display. He ate the game he hunted, used all the parts of the bodies for purpose after purpose but never for vanity and always with a moment of silent respect for the creature. He did not use the bones of the dead for their own vainglory. Black powder had tamed most anything that could hurt him. Matt scratched at his week-old beard and took as a swig of coffee.

What the fuck was it? How could such a thing exist in a piece of Europe so densely populated? How did it have the power to kill like that? He thought of Alfred and his Foo Fighters, dismissed it. This walked the land. No burn marks from Alfred’s rockets or strange lights. Was it as advanced as a man? It could be, arranging those men the way it had. It could reason.  That wasn’t instinct. Were there other species in the world that could use logic? He was one of two. The nation-folk and their humans. Was this— something like him?

No.

They had accounted for all their kind back after the fall of France. It was not one of them. Matthew shoved the thought from his mind. He leaned back and ate another biscuit. It soothed his roiling stomach, bubbling with fear and bile.

He leaned back and thought of what to do. He didn't know where it slept— if it slept. Had no idea where he could pounce The Thing as it slumbered. But then again, perhaps it was nocturnal. The blood had been fresh as Matt had discovered the bodies that morning. If it were nocturnal, Matt didn’t stand a chance. His night vision was still shot from Ypres in 1915. He would not be able to see in the dark and had no desire to take on a wraith that might be a nighttime hunter. He consoled himself with a single fact; if it could claw a man— it could be clawed right back. The thought consoled him— but as quickly as it came, he realized he’d been a fool.

The fire.

It’d be a target on his back. And if The Thing were on the prowl, it’d be the end of him. He killed the fire quickly with snow and watched as steam simmered into the air. The little camp was frozen again nearly immediately and darkness engulfed him.

All was silent, but Matthew knew the life of a lone hunter all too well. God he missed Alfred. Even Dad. Anyone to watch his back. But no one ever had and no one was about to start now. He settled against a tree, drawing a blanket over his shoulders. The Thing might be watching him even now. There would be no rest for him tonight. He needed to remain awake and alert. He poured more coffee into his mug. Clutched his rifle. At the first sign of light, he would set out to that lone listening post again.

But this time, he would be prepared.

Thin streams of light broke through the treeline as the weak, watery sun finally took hold on a new day. Matt rubbed his eyes. His head ached a little. He had stayed up all through the night and its long hours of dread. Too cautious to let his guard down while alone. To hunt alone— it was all disadvantages.

He heaved himself to his feet. The morning was eerie quiet again. There were no insects in the dead of winter, but something should have been around. Birds, deer, grouse— something. He listened, the thinner branches of the trees swayed, their leaves rustling in the quiet breeze. Matthew took a breath. There was… something out there. But he hadn’t spent the night gathering his wits for nothing. He was ready. He had waited patiently all night, calming and readying himself.

His composure had recoiled at those 14 bodies, but now it was back. He gnawed on the last of his biscuits as he began walking. He’d left his own men far behind, seeking out his brother. The communique from Margauxhad been brief but disturbing.

AMERICAN LINES STRETCHED. STOP. SEND HELP. STOP. U.S. CRACKED. STOP.

It was the last sentence that grabbed him by the throat. U.S. cracked. _Alfred_ cracked. He swallowed, thumbed the telegram in his pocket. He continued on, not feeling the exhaustion. Alfred was somewhere in these woods, probably beyond with his men, but Matthew would find him and dump enough hot coffee and chocolate down his throat until he was fine. He nodded to himself, smiling. Alfred wasn’t built for the cold the way he was. He swept across the snow, graceful and quiet in a way his height and shoulders shouldn’t have allowed for. But towards that lone listening post, he went.

When he was nearly to the treeline where he’d found the bodies he stopped and readied himself. He un-shouldered his rifle, made sure his pistol was loaded at his hip and that the bayonet strapped around his thigh was easily unsheathed.

He continued on until he reached it, carefully surveying the frozen forest around him. Every step he took, he quieted. Slowed his breathing, watched his steps but even he couldn't be totally silent. The hard soled combat boots on his feet were not flexible enough to allow him to ghost along. He did his best and compensated by listening hard.

The clearing around the listening post was deserted. Matthew wasn’t exactly sure how many soldiers the Americans used to fully man an outpost like this, 14 was too many. The Canadians might use a single squad, but either way, there should have been a line of footprints leading to and away. The men themselves taking turns to use the latrine, the sergeant checking in, a medic’s lonely footsteps as he wove in and out through the lines making sure everyone was accounted for. Those footprints should have lead to the rest of the foxholes and firing posts and slit trenches. Lead to more men and sound, signs of life. But there were no such footprints, no such infrastructure, no such sounds or lights. Only Matt’s own size nine boots from where he’d circled the line up of corpses the night before. It hadn’t snowed and the air was too still for wind to have smoothed away any prints.

He stopped just short of the dugout and swallowed, bracing himself for the sight of blue-grey corpses in their green coats and the bloodied snow beneath them. He raised his rifle, just in case whatever the fuck it was had come back to feed and peered over the edge and into the foxhole.

He saw only dirty snow. Blood stains, but no bodies. He swallowed. His pulse racing away, he felt it in his fingertips. There’d been fourteen bodies. There’d been fourteen dead Americans right fucking  there, in that hole. The blood was still there, he wasn’t mad but what could have moved them without leaving so much as a footprint? Even Alfred’s new helicopters left the world beneath them windswept and flattened as they lowered themselves. Matt held his rifle tight and backed himself against a tree. He peeled off his gloves and dug around under his layers of coat, sweater, shirt for his dog tags. He still had his two aluminum dog tags from the beginning of the first world war, the set he’d been issued before they’d been replaced with the more fragile red and green ID disks of the Imperial armies. The ball chain he had was American, a replacement for the leather bootlace that had worn away and snapped months ago. But the balls under the ridge of his fingernails almost felt like his ancient rosary, left in his footlocker in England where Father had slurred what a shame it was Mattie was a papist. He’d left it behind after whole rants about how if Mattie wasn’t a papist, he’d almost make up for Alfred’s absence. Whole rants about how Matthew, who now stood head and shoulders above Arthur and grew twice the beard in a week than his father did in a month was a good boy. Rants about how Matthew, when clean shaven, looked enough like Alfred that Arthur could sometimes forget he’d once had two sons. Matthew never left, was always there to be called upon and utilized for the good of the Empire, and Alfred was always gone. Matthew was the good son, but Alfred? Alfred was the wanted one. Matthew didn’t hold it against Arthur. The loss of a child for a human man was devastating, Matthew knew that. He’s attended many a funeral where father’s held weeping mothers as the little coffin of their child was lowered into the thin permafrost by their grieving parents. And their surviving ones might not be abandoned after the death of their sibling but there was always something colder about parents who had lost children. They turned their faces closer to God. And for Arthur, the bottom of a barrel was as close to god as he got.  

So Matthew was a Papist and the Quebec Act of 1774 was still law so Mattie still prayed on his knees, stinking up the house with his Latin. As if the rum from Arthur’s pores and breath didn’t leave the whole house reeking.

He staggered away until his back hit a tree and he slid down the trunk into the snow, his frantically fingering the beads of his dog tags, muttering, wishing to God it was his rosary.

When he’d been a boy, the Priests had taught him his prayers in Latin and then Greek. Then Arthur had replaced Francis and Father had replaced Papa in his government but never in his heart. The culture had changed. French Catholics were gradually outnumbered by Protestants from the British Isle and Quebec became the exception rather than the rule, and Latin’s comfort left him, replaced by stubborn French. Even now, frightened out of his mind and panicking, he reached for his French. He’d muttered “Notre Père” three before he realized the words were pouring out of him, nine before his heart has slowed.

Notre Père, qui es aux cieux,

Que ton nom soit sanctifié,

Que ton règne vienne,

Que ta volonté soit faite sur la terre comme au ciel.

Donne-nous aujourd'hui notre pain de ce jour.

Pardonne-nous nos offences

Comme nous pardonnons aussi à ceux qui nous ont offensés.

Et ne nous soumets pas à la tentation,

mais délivre-nous du mal,

car c'est à toi qu'appartiennent le règne,

la puissance et la gloire, aux siècles des siècles.

Amen.

Amen, Amen, Amen. The same in either language. Comforting for some bizarre reason even now with his faith in God melted away like snow in the south. He gripped his head in his hands, the not-rosary falling to his chest, and wished he wasn’t out here alone in the snow. He wished it with everything he had, face screwing up in frustration. He wished it like he had daily for since he had words with which to wish. He stood, shook himself free of the snow and gathered himself, a stormy look settling over his face. Daily, he’s wished. And daily the powers that be decided for him. Long ago he’d decided. Daily since he’s had words with which to whisper, he uttered the same words, low and harsh.

“Not today. Not today. Not today.”

He got up and in long, silent strides, paced around the dugout. There had  to be some sort of physical sign of how all fourteen corpses could have been removed. There are no drag marks, no footprints but his own. But there _ had_ to be something— anything. Fourteen Yanks didn’t just disappear. They were mostly tall, heavy men as bulky and cornfed as Alfred himself. Weight like that didn’t just float away.

Oh.

Grinning and shaking his head against his own foolishness he looked up and scanned the tree line. Of the never ending trees, most of them were evergreens, their snowy points like viridescent spearheads against the grey sky. He turned, following the round of the clearing until he found what he was looking for. One branch, broken and hanging by a strip of bark, 10 meters above his head.

Whatever the fuck it was— it had carried away the bodies through the trees.

He popped the collar of his coat against the cold and tilted his helmet back to get a better look as he approached where the trees began.

The trail of broken branches headed due north. Right between the German and American lines. He swallowed, checked his rifle, and followed it. The Germans would immediately know him by his helmet and coat. The Americans might not. He’d been shot at countless times in Operation Cottage. The Americans hadn’t bothered teaching their men the difference between a Japanese pith helmet and the flat Brodie. He considered removing it completely and trusting no one would lay artillery on him— and decided against it. They’d be firing at anything that moved.

He tilted it back so it cut into his line of vision as little as possible, fastened the strap and readied himself to move just faster than the men who aimed rifles at him would track. Shouldering his rifle, he shook himself loose, tightened his belt and took off at a run.

Clambering full through the snow was no easy thing. It was mostly shallow, easy to ghost across on quick foot steps but combat boots weren’t anything like snowshoes and old shell holes filled with all the snow that had fallen so far that year sent him sprawling twice. Each time, he didn't stop moving, pushing forward even as he was still only standing, waiting for shots, waiting for pain and blood to bloom from somewhere under his brown uniform.

It never came.

He sprinted as fast as his long legs would carry him, not caring about silence anymore, just barely following the line of broken tree branches. Two whole miles later, he found himself in denser forest, a craggy valley of mixed trees and sudden, steep gullies. He’d fought here at the end of the last world war as well, and the gullies had been carved by his own hands. Lines of sandbag lined trenches grown over and smoothed by the decades on the Entente side and mile long lengths of bunkers, murder holes, slit trenches and fortresses in the much more comfortable German lines. He climbed over three trench lines of a system he almost half recognized from 1917 and came back up into young trees that had once been a lunar landscape of shell holes, rat-gnawed bloated corpses and desolation. The sky was as grey as it had been then and just looking at it made him want one of the cigarettes from the tin in his pack, but they were Lucky Strikes and once he finished here and found his brother, they’d be key to suturing his brother’s cracked psyche back together. They always were.

He stared up. There was one last broken tree branch high above his head and the trail ended. Just ahead of him in what had once been a German trench system, there was a gaping black hole in the snowy parados of the trench, the back wall giving way to shallow scraping marks that revealed black soil and frosted leaf litter.

It was a den.

Sweet Christ he didn’t know what kind, but it was a shelter of some sort, built into a side of a trench he might have once tried to take. He swallowed and scanned the landscape for some sort of shelter. He wasn’t squared off enough to not fit into the mouth of The Thing, but he didn’t fancy sticking his helmeted head and rifle in somewhere where only the rest of his body might come out. 10 meters to the left, there was a sunken ring of a listening post that extended 30 meters at an awkward angle into no man’s land and a narrow trench connecting it to the main German line.

That would do. He crawled on his belly as he had so, so many times during that last war, this time avoiding the scraggly young trees instead of hacking away at barbed wire. The snow made the going easier than it would have otherwise been in dirt or mud. He was grateful to his overcoat for keeping the wet away from his body.

When he’d rolled into the connecting trench and gotten to his feet, he slid along the line of the trench until he was at the joining corner. He lowered his rifle to his shoulder and looked down the barrel. He had a wide firing radius, not too severe. The entry hole of the den was a little further right than he would have preferred, but it would do. The grey sky, grey snow and fog rolling in made the viewing a little unclear, but it would do fine. He’d done this a thousand times before. Deer, elk, moose and bear at home, officers and nearly anyone but the stretcher bearers and medics over here.

The grey sky seemed to lower on him and Matt thumbed at a curl that had escaped the knit cap he wore under his helmet, tucking it behind his ear. He watched his breath and decided enough waiting and watching. He’d lure this fucking thing out and shoot it dead. It was time. He had a decent position, he had plenty of ammunition and The Thing would not see him or have time to react. He’d bowl it over flat with a shot right between the eyes, if The Thing had eyes.

He was ready.

He folded his lips around his thumb and forefinger and whistled, sharp and clear. He waited.

Nothing.

Perhaps The Thing was still asleep, nearly comatose after glutting itself on Government Issue flesh. He stayed still, patient. Another whistle, this time louder, sharper, clearer.

More silence.

He frowned, but held himself still and patient. He’d been always patient. With his Brother, with his Papa, with his Father, with his people, with himself, with war, with money with peace and war and love, he’d been always patient. He was always patient.

He’d been patient with his first great Canadian love affair in, and with, Quebec. He’d been near 300 years old but still hardly a man. It was 1922, her name was Louise and she was lovely. Never wore makeup, never wore a bra and never bothered to scrape her hair from her legs, blonde and soft as it was. She knew how to make love, she understood jazz, she knew all the best cafés and she hated heavy handed gestures and romantic pretensions. Quebec was charged with a nocturnal, subterranean quality. In the rain, it was better than Paris. His own Quebec City was more like anyone’s images of Paris than Papa’s Paris itself had been during the war. The outdoor coffee shops, the narrow streets as small and secret as illicit love affairs themselves. It was a city of sidewalk painters and music and midnight rambling monologues of just how much they loved each other. It was like nothing he’d ever felt before.

There’d been women before her. Pretty, well heeled and well paid, the way Papa preferred. There’d been men. Sailors, trappers and fishermen mostly, quick rutting affairs in the spring when the canoes and schooners flooded the ports. There’d been the odd village hunter, fucked quick and hard against a tree, buckskins moved just enough for the occasion because the cold hardly relented. There’d been glimpses of Johan, Margaux's brother, when he could get leave— but by and large, Louise was the first woman to settle the lonely ache in him.

She lived just across the sea way in Lévis atop a cliff-side flight of stairs that seemed to grow long and steeper with every climb. From her boarding house window, they could see the Chateau Frontenac lit up like one of Papa’s castle keeps, the Old City shimmering in a grand wet reflection on the smooth waters of the St. Laurence.

They caught the last ferry home nightly, running hand in hand to make it and arriving in ever decreasing increments until they only made it by heartbeat and then a flickery of eyelashes and then not at all. One night they missed it and Matt tossed his cap to the ground in a moment of impotent frustration. But Louise had kissed him “c’est la vie” she said without judgement or sentiment and they laughed and had spent the night wandering the city.

But all good things came to an end. And when that summer came to an end, when she found he wouldn’t marry her, couldn’t marry her, they fought. When he couldn’t lie and promise her a future when he was better settled or richer or something, anything to keep her by his side for a moment longer—  she broke it off.

And he was patient, and he was kind and he was whole and still now, he patiently waited for another to come along. So many came along to kill, but no one seemed to come along to comfort. So he comforted others were he could, lessened pain where he could.

He imaged Johan’s spikes of ash blond hair and pretty sea-glass eyes. Then there was finally an oddly bear-like snuffle and the crunching of something heavy on snow. His heart skipped a beat and before he had even refocused, he was covered in sweat. There was rustling and he readied himself.

The crunch-rustle-crack of snow layered over leaf litter came at last, a slow sluggish pace. From the entrance came The Thing.  It had a form like an animal, long and narrow with rangy black shag like endless horse mane and a short, blunted head like the French noble women’s dogs he had considered a boy. Wrinkled black skin over teeth like boars tusks but smaller. It snuffled the ground and it walked on four legs that extended to the ground in jagged angles like a hound's. Even on all fours, it was nearly as tall as Matthew himself. It was large, it had mass but only just opaque, like black glass fogged over. As the sunlight hit it, it seemed to be absorbed somehow, like it couldn’t pass through the creature. But when Matt squinted, he could see the parados wall of the trench clearly through The Thing.

The Thing grunted and frothed, scenting Matthew through its slitted nostrils that flared into bowls as it made its way around. As soon as The Thing brought its head up, it would rear for Matthew, facing the direction of the powerful rifle in his hands. He thanked his lucky stars he’d chosen the bolt action this time instead of one of the automatic from the arms' depot.

He’d drop it, bayonet it just to be sure, and then… well then he’d have to at least collect those dog tags from the bunker-turned-den. The thought curdled his stomach, but there was a certain type of cruelty to a son or father or brother being listed as missing rather than dead. He’d drop it and do his duty by his brother’s men.

The Thing made its mistake then. Confused to the sound it had heard, it lifted its head, looked straight at Matthew and though it could not see him, just rounded around the wall as he was, the angle was perfect.

He took his shot.

The bullet plunged right between its eyes. Transparent or not, it fell to the ground, as dead as it got. Mattie let out a breath, sat back on his heels. That hadn’t been so bad. He frowned then. How could one bullet have taken it down? Brain shot, sure but why didn’t it take light? Why couldn’t it—

Matthew approached The Thing, rifle still at the ready. He was weary. That was too easy. The Thing had transversed the battlefields of Flanders for years with all the hell, wrath, artillery and machinegun fire of _both_ armies. His quick smile faded. There had to be something else. He got up, approached the dead Thing, its immense body fully collapsed into the snow, bleeding a strange, watery blood. Instead of rich and thick the way most blood looked in the snow, it looked more like poorly mixed dye suspended in water sans the yellow that appeared as the red blood cells parted from the plasma.

He nudged its paw. Its PAW. He thought back to the 14 bodies, stacked and beheaded and arranged just so. How could this thing have beheaded a man so cleanly? It couldn’t. How could it have rearranged it— it couldn't’t. It physically couldn't have.  That was the fact as it stood. It certainly had the claws for it, he saw as he pressed down and three inch claws, retracted in death, passed through the skin. It couldn’t have— But the claws were still bloody. Confusion passed through him like bile.

There was another growl from the cave. He raised his rifle. This one seemed larger, more alert and after a short look upon its fallen mate, much, more aggressive. It has a mournful almost weeping howl and then its head swivelled even as its body stayed perfectly still. 180 degrees around, the head turned until its snout was flush against its spine and its pure black eyes stared at Matthew, piercing and malevolent. The sobbing howl sounded too human, but it turned into something of the wilderness as the sound lengthened and deepened into a murderous snarl. And now the beast’s eyes followed him.

Matthew squinted, aimed, and pulled the trigger. His aim was true and the bullet sank into The Thing. But The Thing seemed to fade for a moment, the snow and the parados and its dead mate showing clearly through the black-glassy outline of its form.

Matthew’s bullet passed harmlessly through The Thing and exploded in a tree just above the parados. If he’d eaten anything besides biscuits and jerky in the last few days, he might have shit himself right there. The Thing’s black eyes flashed and it reared forward, head still cranked into the wrong position. Matthew watched, horrified. Its feet had somehow turned as well, turning its flank into its front, twisted and unnatural, it lunged for him. It’s jaw was large enough to swallow his head whole. Matthew let off another shot, and again, it passed uselessly through The Thing.

He lowered the rifle, pulled up his bayonet and attached the long blade. He raised it, and The Thing walked closer, its head the wrong way, its feet the wrong way, and its eyes no longer black pools but Delphiniums-blue irises ringed around black pupils set into ivory balls veined faintly with pink. Those were human eyes in an inhuman head and Matthew shook. The Thing came closer.

Matt thrust his bayonet out and up, caught The Thing in the belly. His ears were ringing with the blast of the two shots he had just fired, he could hear nothing but the pulse of his own heart echoing in his steel helmet like the ringer in a bell. The Thing screamed and it was human, but Matthew could barely tell.

The Thing huffed massive breaths of air, a black tongue lolling on its back as the unnatural angle of the head did not change. Matthew pulled his bayonet away, and blood followed fast, pouring out of the wound in that same strange watery red. Matthew raised his bayonet in again, and this time aimed down, aiming for the spine for a quick, crippling kill. It had always been in his nature to be as humane as he could. Arthur had decried it, Alfred too. He muttered a black prayer to St. Michael for swift and bloody help and lowered the bayoneted rifle with all the strength he could muster. It came down, steel flashed, he screamed.

And then he was on his back and The Thing was reared up in front of him, its human eyes staring at him with human horror and rage. The Thing swiped his rifle away, sending it out of sight. Matt rolled to his feet, took his pistol from his thigh holster and raised it. Matt grit his teeth, and The Thing lunged, its claws out. They were longer than the first. 5-6 inches compared to its mate’s three. He got out of the way just in time. His coat sleeve severed completely but his limb unharmed. He was on his feet and behind it before he could think. He put a shot into The Things chest, its head still facing its hindquarters, and The Thing screamed in technicolour agony but Matt didn't stop firing until the hammer of his pistol came down and there was a shallow, impotent click.

He was out of bullets and The Thing was not dead.

Its head swivelled again. Its paws twisted around with sick, wet crunches, like it was harder to adjust now. But one came up and slashed him across the chest anyway. Matt fell back, blood pouring down his front, his head cracking painfully against his helmet. Shallow, he knew, because his layers of clothing had absorbed most of the dagger-claws but bleeding heavily.  His head rang and his mouth tasted of copper. He spat blood and opened his eyes to find The Thing staring down at him, its breath foul with rotten meat. Human flesh. The Things eyes were his brother's. Blue and clear, but their usual cocky nature twisted into something dark.  Matthew screamed, remembering himself, and brought his legs up. He planted his feet on its underside, and with another cry as the mustering of strength sent his torn torso shrieking with pain, threw The Thing up and away.

He was not some poor soldier with one life flowing through his veins.  Matthew Williams was made of flesh and blood like any other man, sure, but he was Canada. He was the true north, strong and free and loyal and true. He was millions of miles of snow, forest and prairie and he was as every bit as wild as any of it. He was land and law and loyal souls. Eleven million hearts beat with his, the strength of each of them flexing and heaving with him.  He was not Alfred, he was not Arthur. He had less than either of them, true, but he was more than they’d ever be. Push him and he’d bring the glacier down, an avalanche of calculated rage.

He got up, breath coming in ragged heaves and found his rifle. The Thing was on its feet by the time Matthew had the rifle up and had landed another shot between his brother’s eyes. It dropped to all fours, but then collapsed completely into the muddied snow, breathing it's last. He’d done it. He’d killed The Thing.

He collapsed himself then, his chest and belly raging with pain now. He twisted, vomited his coffee and biscuits to his side.  The Thing had his brother's eyes. His Brother’s eyes. Matthew took in deep breaths, swiped at the blood and bile on his face. He gingerly unbuttoned his coat and lifted the remnants of his shredded shirt and cursed. Shallow, but long. The bleeding was already slowing but Tabarnak! It did hurt. He arranged the rags of his clothing as best he could, tugged his sleeve back up as much as it would give and closed his coat again. He had a job to finish.

All was quiet as he stumbled to his feet. He looked at the two dead things on the trench floor and almost felt sorry for them. They were huge and graceful, for all their terrible eyes. He muttered to Mary again for mercy and protection and sheathed his blade and reloaded his guns. When he was finished and there was no sign of a third Thing, perhaps their yearling offspring, he swept aside snow and 20 years of foliage, looking for the proper door to the bunker. The Things had dug through the wood for their hole, but Matthew had no desire to drag himself on his tattered belly through the mud again. Finally, he found the wheel and after 20 minutes of cursing, grunting and heaving, got the fucking thing open.

It gave and he was suddenly grateful he’d already emptied his stomach. The smell of wet rot, even in the cold, nearly knocked him off his feet. It was a chamber of some expanse, the light from the weak winter sun only barely lit the first half. Inside, darkness covered most of it. He couldn’t handle the stink. As soon as he peered inside he was backing out, coughing and eyes full of tears.

Cursing, he unstrapped his helmet and cap, tied his hair back and put on his gas mask, replacing his helmet when he was finished. There was something about viewing the world through the glass eyepiece that made it seem less real, pulled his vision into a part of his head where it wouldn’t be less likely to appear when he dreamt. And besides, the gas mask’s canvas carrying case would be good for taking any dog tags he could find and delivering them to some headquarters somewhere or otherwise the Red Cross. He tested it, stale air rushing in, found it functioning and so tucked the red filter box under his shoulder strap and walked inside, lighting a flare as he went.

The air was damp, and warmer than it was outside and thick with rot even through the mask. He lifted the flare high and tossed it across the expanse. When it burned to its full green capacity, he we left gagging anew.  

The sight was somehow worse than the 14 bodies had been. Not in its organization. He’d braced himself expecting something of that, but in its countless horrors. Against the walls, in neat rows with squared off aisles were stacks of bones. Whole skeletons still in wool uniforms; feet still in half rotted boots; rusted helmets still strapped to skulls; all stacked in piles. Germans in the flat angled Stahlhelms in one pile farthest from him; Prussians opposite them in their rotting leather and brass spiked pickelhaubes in another; Papa’s round, horizon blue helmeted men in yet another heap after that; Arthur’s in their Brodie helmets just across from them, Belgians in yet another pile beyond even them across from them, what he thought were Austro-Hungarians, though he’d never met either of them in battle, across from the Belgians. Dozens in each pile. More Belgians and Brits and Germans than Frenchmen, but that made sense. The British Empire had manned Flanders and the Ardennes. Francis had clawed desperately at his own lands then. So many dead, so many skulls dancing in the wavering light. Matthew wondered what in God’s name those things had been, how they had done this with blunted paws. How they had stacked them so, so fucking well.

Matt stopped, lit another flare he had hanging from his belt and began collecting all the tags he could find. He was careful to leave one with the body if there was one to spare. Someone would have to do the burying when this fucking war was over.  Many of them had apparently died with their tags in their mouths, clamped between their teeth. He collected those too, along with the ones resting on sternums and hanging from vertebrae. When both his hands were full, he hung the gas mask’s canvas bag from his shoulder and filled it.

Dark thoughts crept in him as he grimly moved from one layer of bodies to another. They were stacked in rough pyramids, keeping them neat and balanced. More than once he knocked a skull from the pile and it fell to the earthen floor with a nasty dry crunch. He moved from layer to layer, pile to pile. The action was sickeningly near to gathering wild berries at the tail end of summer, tugging blueberries and the little wild strawberries from their brush branches was near the same as tugging and separating tags from their cords and skeletons. A bag under his arm, hands filling it with his crop. Reaping. Funny, how Ceres and Hades might both have had such a similar job in the world. When he’d reached the last of the Austro-Hungarians, he stopped and journeyed back further than the piles.

In the shadowy reaches of the green flare, there were the 14 American heads, only half thawed. They had not been stripped of flesh but instead were impaled on bone spikes that protruded from the wall. Matt closed his eyes, swallowed against the nausea. His bag of tags clanked as he stepped forward and lit a flare from his back pocket and bathed the rest of the bunker in sickly green as the copper filling of the flare burned.

There in a line beyond were more in various stages of decomposition hanging from the wall by rotting ropes. His gaze swept the back wall from left to right and followed the line. Skeleton in rags, to grey flesh hanging from blackened bones, to putrid fat and foul stink, to men with distended limbs and torn chests. From the left, there were mostly a mix of Entente and Central powers from the last war. Belgians and Germans, the odd Brit. But as he went right and the bodies got newer, they were all Germans in grey. Grey faces, grey helmets, grey uniforms and coats until the flare’s light faded at the far wall.

He heard something then, a whisper in the dark. He turned.

“Make yourself known,” He said and then remembering he was in a French speaking country, he repeated himself once more in French. No one appeared. He pulled the butt of his rifle to his shoulder and stepped to turn and watch for movement. In the circle of his flare, there was nothing. He swore again and yelled out the same in German, adding a warning to the end of that.  

“Please—” Came a faint grown. Matthew’s hackles rose. He knew that voice. He crossed the distance between himself and the far wall in two strides, the weakening flare revealing one last body strung from rope in the corner. A tall, broad man in green rather than grey. Grey skin but a chest moving under his layers.

“Alfred?”

His eyes were missing his glasses and ringed in purple and he’d looked like he’d lost twenty pounds, grey, sallow skin nearly punctured by his cheekbones, but there was no mistaking him. He was hung by his wrists, bound up in rope, but they were nearly face to face, Matt’s usual three inches on his brother rendered null and void by his brothers feet hanging uselessly just above the dirt. Alfred flinched from the light, groaning horribly. Matthew removed his gas mask, lowering it until he could see his brother clearly. The foul air nearly choked him, but he breathed through it.

“Please,” He muttered again. “Please,”

“Alfred, its me! Its Matt. I’m going to get you out of here, I promise. Just— okay I almost said hang tight I’m sorry but just stay still, I'm going to cut you down.” He swooped over, yanked his folding knife from his left boot and slid it open, standing on the balls of his feet with his hands extended over his head to saw at what held his brother up. It didn't come free, untwisting strand by strand the way rope would though. It stretched a bit and when he ran his fingers across it, it was smooth. Some sort of tanned leather. Alfred’s eyes hadn’t opened and part of Matthew didn't want them too, considering they’d just been in the head of a creature he’d just slaughtered. His chest was on fire, the strain of holding himself so tall tugging at his cuts but he just sawed faster until he was damp with sweat.

When at last the hard leather broke free, Alfred collapsed and Matthew caught him, but it was still more of an awkward lowering to the ground than a true balanced catch.

“You’re alright,” Matt said and smoothed his brother’s hair back. He’d landed half draped across Matt’s lap. “You’re alright. We’re gonna get out of here.” He pulled the rest of the binding from his brother’s wrists and he’d been right, it was leather. But as he unravelled it, he found it too thin and brittle to be any sort of deer skin. There were blue markings there, inked—

He hurled it away from them as hard as he could and gagged. Human. Human skin. He shook his brother and Alfred came alive this time. His eyes opened and Matthew almost vomited in relief when they were his own, and not black, evil pools like The Thing’s had been before they changed to his own.

“Mattie?” He rasped. He sounded wrecked, he looked wrecked. Matt didn’t know what was wrong with him, but he had to get them up and get them out.

“Yup, its me. Get up if you wanna live you big fucker. We’ve gotta go.” He said and yanking his brother up to his knees. “Come on.”

“Mattie, I’m tired.” Alfred almost whimpered, his eyes fluttering.

“I bet you are, but I can’t carry you. You gotta get up,”

“Okay,” His brother muttered and obediently gave a heave upward. Matt lifted him the rest of the way and they were headed towards the door when something bit viciously into Matt’s back and sent them careening to the floor.

I didn’t say you could go. A voice said. It was French but it wasn’t a human voice out loud. It rang in Matt’s head and his back screamed. There was wet blood pouring from his lower back and when he reached back and retrieved what had hit and slashed him, it was a bone-blade of a crude hatchet lodged into his muscle. It oozed and squished as he did and he dragged himself and Alfred to his feet once more, but slower this time, pain fogging the movements. What type of animal could make such a thing?

He had his brother leaning heavily against his rifle shoulder, and one-handed, he couldn't fire. He holstered his pistol and aimed it at where he thought the axe had come from.

“Who’s there?”

What are you? The Thing said. And Matthew could still not see it.

“What am I? What the fuck are you?” Matt’s hand shook, but his voice was firm. He felt himself weakening, blood dumping down his back.

I am old. The Thing said. It's voice like hundreds of thousands. It was in his head but it sounded like men, women, children; different accents, different timbres, different mouths. Like a choir saying the words together, but impossibly more precise. What are you?

It appeared now, close enough for Matthew to see. It stood head and shoulders above him now, on two legs rather than four. Its limbs were twisted and its flattened face was eyeless and mouthless now, the folded black skin without openings completely. It had black human hands for feet, facing the wrong way.

Food dies when we feed. The Thing sniffed him. You are food but you do not die. Why?

Matthew shuddered. “I am not food.” He said and bared his teeth, drew himself up. “I am not a man like they were,”

No. The Thing said. And it almost sounded… happy. You are like me. Something else.

Matthew nearly dropped the gun. He was not like that thing. “If I’m like you, why do you have my brother?"

Brother?  The Thing’s head tilted, almost dog-like and it took everything Matthew took not to fire. It said the word again, drawing out the syllables and then pain exploded in the back of Matthew’s head. Against his will, he thought of the twin fire pits he and Alfred had turned their capitols to during the War of 1812, and the matching scars on their chests. He thought of pulling his brother’s corpse from a pile of Union blue clad bodies after Antietam. He thought of them laughing over beers at some joke Alfred had made about Dad. He thought of sitting together, miserable in the muddy trench after Alfred had finally joined the last war, of being hopelessly drenched from the rain and delusional with fever from the Spanish Flu as they went over the top, but comforted by the simple fact he wasn’t alone. The pain mounted with each memory, a physical biting pain drilling in the back of his skull. But then The Thing nodded, a faceless, emotionless nod and the pain ended.

Littermates? The Thing asked.

Matthew nodded. He felt faint. Blood and pain and fear mixing and his strength oozing away.

You feed together then?

Matthew thought of the chocolate and cigarettes in his pack, of sitting around a warm fire with his brother and of sleeping in a bunk next to him for about 3 weeks after this was over.

“Yes,” He said. “Yes we feed together.”

The Thing emanated warmth after that. You are food. But you are food like us.

“Yes,” Matthew said. Because he didn’t know what the fuck else to say.

Are there more like you?

“Yes,” Matthew said.

Good. The Thing said and it sounded like a smile. More food.

“I’m like you,” Matthew said and the words sickened him to say, but any shot of walking out of her alive was worth it. “If I’m like you, let me and my brother go.”

One food came in. The Thing said and something vibrated in Matthew’s head almost like laughter. Cruel, mocking laughter. One food leaves.

“Alright.” Matthew said, swallowed. Alfred and half a chance was better than both of them dead.  “Alright.”

You may choose . The Thing said. Alfred was mute and limp against his shoulder but somehow still standing.  

“Hey, hey you gotta go.” Matthew shook him.

He roused a little. “Mattie?”

“Yeah, its me. You gotta go, brother. You gotta walk out of here.”

“Can’t,” Alfred said. “Too tired.”

“We have to. You gotta go and you have to tell them I’m dead, alright? You have to tell them I’m dead and not to look for me. You— Jesus Christ. Y—You tell Ottawa that I’m dead— that Canada is dead. Take my people as… as yours and Alfred— Alfred make it right. You can’t look for me. You’ve got to go.”

“What?” Alfred was dazed, but alert enough to be alarmed. “Matt—”

“Get up. Get up and go find Dad. You’ve got to go.”

Alfred’s eyes fluttered. Matt raised his voice then, clutching his brother by the lapels. “Get up! Get up and walk! You’ve got to go!”

“Alright,” Alfred said and lifted his eyes to Matt’s and then with great effort, rocked himself away until he was balanced. The going was slow, but The Thing waited until Alfred was near the entrance before he gathered Matthew in a horrible embrace. And then, somehow, Matthew was… less of himself. Like his mind was dialled low and somehow separate from his body.

“Mattie?” He said when he was near the entrance.

“Yeah?” Matt rasped. Because he wasn’t Matt anymore. He was… less.

“Je me souviens.”

And with that, his brother walked away, leaving him in darkness.

Matthew slumped to the ground. That was too easy. His brother had left him too easily. Matthew would have fought it, but Alfred just slid away to freedom, the way he always did. It left Matthew cold, but unsurprised.

You will stay. The Thing said happily. And it wasn't so bad. Its touch on the back of his head was cool and gentle as what made him Matt flowed from his body and into another. The presence was alien, but sad. Awful but only in the way Arthur was when Matthew thought about his worst days. Everything that made Matthew himself flowed out of him like syrup flowed from the tapped maple in early spring. He felt thirsty, and cold and his back ached horribly, but he no longer cared. Nothing mattered. Not brother, not father, not the bones under his throbbing, bleeding back. Fire burns, but the wood that feeds it doesn’t mind, so why should Matt.

He dreamt, or at least he thought he did. The split between light and dark, day and night and wakefulness and dreams was so narrow now. But he dreamed of Alfred and him as boys. Back when Francis had called him his son and Matt hadn’t spoken English then and Alfred had no French, but they still remembered bits of Mohawk.

Kanien'kehá:ka was still familiar between them. That was enough. Boys that age didn’t need much more than a few words in common. They’d shed their buckskin shirts and flown through the woods together, howling their laughter as they splashed each other in the river and let Matthew’s canoe carry them down the current. Matthew was smaller back then. Alfred had more people and more cities, but damn if Matthew didn’t know more about these woods. Summer had come and they ate their way down the river for three days. Matthew could fish and knew what seemed to be every edible substance between Maine and Florida. They set traps, plucked the endless salmon from the river, shook berries from the bushes, and scrapped the tender bark from under the greener trees. They ate like kings. There was nothing that didn’t taste like manna when Matthew poured the golden contents of his hip flask across the cooking rock.

They met as strangers, but over their last meal of blue and black berries, rock fried salmon, and the last of the bannocks Matthew carried in his pack, they were something else. The shadow of the fort loomed over the bay ahead, flying Father’s flag. Matthew had a blue banner painted on the sail cloth he slept on at night. They weren’t supposed to be brothers but Alfred had never listened and wasn’t about to start now. He had taken his knife and split their palms open. Matthew had sworn, batted at him, sounded like he was demanding to know what the fuck he was doing. But Alfred held him firm, pressed their bleeding palms together and sheathed his knife.  

“Brothers.”

“Quoi?” Matthew had said. He should have been frightened. A stranger held him down and bled on him. But he didn’t. He was only curious and trusting.

Alfred huffed but stumbled around the half forgotten word. “Iatate'kén'a.” He said. “Brothers.”

“Frères?” Matthew said, standing and tightening his grip on Alfred’s hand.  

“Frères.” Alfred nodded.

And from then on, they were just that. Brothers. But brothers didn’t leave each other in the dark. They didn’t leave each other to rot. And Alfred had left him in the dark.

He didn't know how much time had passed. He could only count the time by the blood dripping from his back to the floor. The thing has set him on the pile of British soldiers. He wants to scream; "Not British! Canadian, Canadian! Canadian!" But it didn't matter anymore. He closed his eyes and released something more of himself.  

Then Alfred was hovering above him. He still looked mostly dead, and fucked up all hunchbacked and bulky. Matt groaned, turned away.

“On your feet brother, we gotta go.” And then Mattie somehow was on his feet. Alfred shoved a pistol in his hand. Alfred’s favourite pearl handled Colt 1911. “You’ve got seven rounds in the magazine and one in the chamber. Make’em count.” he said. In the darkness, the mother of pearl handled pistol gleamed.

“You left me,” Matt muttered.

“Yeah, well, couldn’t save our asses with you out of ammo,” he laughed nervously. “And right now I have no idea where in the name of Thomas Jefferson that thing is so how about you and I get the fuck out of dodge before we catch unshirted hell huh?”

Matt shook himself. “Yeah, yeah let’s go.”

“Stay behind me. You do not want to get in the way of this thing.” He gestured to the tank of petrol on his back and the hosed wand in his hands.

“Is that a—”

“70 pounds of demon killing fire, yup.”

“You brought a fucking flamethrower in here?”

“Well, you’ve got my only other gun!” Alfred said, his hands in the air defensively. There was movement at his shoulder.  

The Thing appeared and swiped at him then. Matt fell away just in time and aimed his pistol up. There was a flash and a bang, but he’d missed. The Thing leapt on him, coming down hard and dragging Matthew and Alfred to the floor. Matthew’s face head tore against something and blood began to spill freely from his scalp without his helmet.

“ALFRED!” he screamed.

“ON IT!”

Fire exploded out of his brother’s hands, so hot the blood on Matt’s forehead bubbled on his skin, simmering and evaporating in an instant. Matthew rolled away and utterly dazed, watched as the flame passed right through the beast. It was unharmed.

“What the fuck—”  Alfred said. And the thing was on his chest, abandoning Matt all together. He pushed himself up. He was weak, and he shook but the thing had its fangs bared and Alfred barely blocked the thing with the wand of the flame thrower. He stumbled to his feet and lunged. He could still get out of here. He’d get them out of here. Shoulder first, he slammed into The Thing’s side. They went sprawling. Matthew reached out his pistol hand, blind for the red dripping on his face. Something wet and hot enveloped him and there were teeth puncturing down around his elbow, into his skin. The Thing hadn't had a mouth, but here he was, being bitten. Matthew fired.

The Thing screamed and Matthew’s head exploded. He fired the remaining shots in the pistol and The Thing dropped. Matt wrenched his arm away from his elbow. He was slick with blood and shaking.

The next thing he knew he was on his back, blinking against a spectacularly bright grey sky. He rolled onto his good hand and was met with the sight of his brother standing in the doorway, his flamethrower firing in full seven second intervals lighting the darkness in oily, merciless flame. Beyond the roar of the flame he heard shrieking. Unholy, unmuffled, unrelenting shrieks like the hosts of Hell themselves were being put to the torch. Seven seconds of shrieking, a moment of silence as the flame thrower rested, seven more seconds of unholy shrieking until Alfred had to stop. Again and again and again until the screaming finally, finally came to an end. Alfred stepped away and Matt was on his feet again, wrenching the door up with his whole left hand and slamming it shut.

“I already—” Alfred panted, sweat rolling down his face. “I already blocked the other entrance,”

Matt nodded. He hadn’t gotten that far yet, but good. He turned around to the other beast Matt had killed and set fire to that too, pouring a fountain of flame down on the carcass until there was only ash. Matthew stared around him as his first kill burned. He looked up, looked around. He was so tired, but it was late afternoon at least. Time was wrong in his head, everything was foggy. He wanted peace, somehow, and the world seemed peaceful. “Is the war over?”

“What?” Alfred asked, faintly. “I don't even know what day it is,” He looked as close to dropping as Matt felt. He crossed the distance between them, staggering like a drunk and before Matt could breathe or take stock of the pain roaring through his arm and chest and belly and oh god his back — Alfred had just turned away from the first Things carcass.

Matt fell against him. He hooked his chin over his brother's shoulder and Alfred grabbed him by belt. They collapsed to the floor—only half believing it was over—ended draped against the trench wall, huddling together, shivering and clutching at one other, adrenaline giving away to pain and cold and relief dumping over them. Like they'd done whenever they’d been out of eyeshot of father during the First World War, clinging to the one familiar thing they had in the broken, burnt ruins of France and Flanders.

Friends, comrades, brothers. Brothers who fought, brothers who had been split half their lives down lines their Father had created, but always brothers when it came down to it.

"You came back." Matt rasped into his collar. "You came back for me." He said it like he still couldn't believe it.

Alfred squeezed him shakily. “Course I did, couldn’t just leave ya there,”

“How long—”

“Only a few hours. I had to find my jeep and eat and get Maud here fired up,” He tapped the tank on his shoulder.  

“You named your flamethrower?” Matt asked incredulously.

Alfred grinned. “You know it. Speaking of, can I have Rita back?”

“What the fuck’s a Rita?”

“My gun?” Alfred said, brow raised.

“Oh,” Matt dug it out from where he’d stuck it in his waistband and handed it to his brother.

“Good ol’ Rita,” Alfred said fondly. He began rubbing at the bloody thumbprints. Matt watched, listless and feeling faint. He curled into the sandbags and something split, the half-closed gash in his back bleeding freely again. He reached around and cursed when his good hand came back bloody.

“Uh?” he managed, staring down at his sticky red hands. His back was bad, his arm torn apart, his chest he’d nearly forgotten about.

Alfred looked up, took in the sight. “Oh… shit,”  

“Yeah,” Matt managed before he collapsed awkwardly on his side. Alfred gingerly pushed him back upright and unhooked Maud’s waist straps to look for things in his various pockets, swearing all the while.

“Shit, shit— hang on,” Alfred dug in his thigh pocket and shook out two pills from a glass bottle and shoved them into his Matt’s shaking, bloodied hand.  “Here, they'll get you to the Jeep.”

“Wha—”

“Don’t ask, they’ll get you to the jeep,”

He pressed his bloody palm to his mouth and dry swallowed them both. God, what he would have given to stick his head into a barrel of ice wine and never come out.

“God I want a drink,” he said and is surprised to hear himself so faint and so wrecked. “You should leave me here and go get us a drink,”

“Not leaving you anywhere, brother,” Alfred pat him on the shoulder. “As for a drink, I left my canteen in the jeep, but I’ve got two of these babies left,” He flashed one of the little foil syrettes of morphine front of Matt. “Want one?”

Before he could say “Fuck yes,” Alfred had stabbed him in the arm.

“What was—”

“It’ll get you to the jeep,” Alfred said, unbuttoning his Matt’s coat. “You still wearing suspenders?”

“Y-yeah?” Matt shivered as warmth bloomed from his arm through his body. Made him all the colder as he stared at Alfred. “W-why?”  

“Good, your pants won't fall down,”

Matt stared, blinking. He felt extremely light, like his brother’s hand was the only thing keeping him from just floating away into the treetops, into the sky. He’d like to see a dogfight from that— “What?” he asked. "What?"

“Your arm,”

And before he could register the answer to ask another question, Alfred unbuckled the belt that held the remnants of Matt’s tunic closed and clamped it tight just above Matt’s elbow. In a moment, his hand was numb and he was floating and Alfred was pulling him to his feet with his better hand.

“C’mon we’ve got about 4 hours before my pills wear off,”

“Okay,” Matt said.

He did not remember most of the walk to the jeep. Just a faint memory of Alfred pulling him along when he slows down or stares too long at a tree. He remembered rambling in French, his Quebecois accent hopefully to thick for his brother to understand. Alfred’s French had always been better than he let on, and he muttered to Matt with his awful French accent. The way through the trenches was hard, but Alfred lifted them both out, pushing a groaning Matt over the top. He remembered tossing himself on Alfred, dirt flying everywhere. An explosion. Alfred carrying him.

Alfred tossed him in the backseat of something and floored it. The jeep flew down the road. Matthew watched the trees behind them shatter in the concussive blasts of artillery raining down. He watched it the way he watched the fireworks on New Years. It felt dim, far away, even when a bomb nearly exploded right beneath the chassis of the Jeep. He heard Alfred scream, but Matthew only floated along in his morphine high. All he could think of was New Year's, the children in the narrow cobblestone streets in Montreal, their little explosions under the shadow and light of the bigger ones. The booming lights, blowing soda bottles and dirt clods to hell with their bottle rockets, ladyfingers and cherry bombs, leaving scorch marks all across the streets.

And these, they left scorch marks on him and Alfred. Alfred’s sunken cheeks were peppered with shrapnel as he heaved Matthew out of the backseat and draped him over a shoulder to a line of foxholes. He could barely stay on his feet, and Alfred was hardly better, staggering like Dad on the Fourth of July.

“Take cover! Take cover!” An officer screamed at them, running down the line in an olive coat and peaked cap. He sounded furious. He sounded afraid. “Find some fucking cover you fools!”  

“What the fuck is that jeep doing up h— Boys?”

It was Dad. And he said, Boys. Two of them. Not just Alfred. That, more than anything, told Matt that he must be in awful shape. Dad might not see him, but he could see the blood.

“What the bloody hell have you two been?”

“Uh—” Before Alfred could finish, Dad was yelling at them too.

“Burger night at the bordello again? God’s blood you two, I swear! You do know there’s a war on, don't you!?”

Alfred opened up his mouth to argue but Dad was already pushing them, bodily, towards a foxhole. “Chivvy along! I’ll deal with you later,”

Alfred tossed him down first and wrapped himself around Matt. Returning the favour. He saw his father’s worried face staring down at him, dropping down his coat and blankets, screaming profanity in his old Empire voice, calling for blankets and coats because for the love of God’s own arse shagged bowler, they’ve got wounded down there. Matt smiled and twisted into his brother’s warmth and floated away.  

He woke up in a green, mud-splattered tent. His panicked for a split second before he managed to flex all his limbs. He was whole. Two legs, two arms, two feet, two hands, ten fingers, ten toes. His right hand had new white scars in savagely deep furrows around his elbow and knuckles, but he was blessed, mercifully whole. He doesn’t have it in him to sit up yet, and the hard cot and pile of blankets were as comfortable as he’d been since they stormed Normandy six months ago. There was even a stack of folded blankets under his head.

“Hey! Fuck! You’re awake!” Alfred slid in through the tent flap careful to let a little cold in as possible. He had an ammo box and a thermos in hand. “How’re ya’ feeling?”

“Better—” Matt took stock. His back ached, but in an itchy way, a healing wound did. “Sober. Did you give me cockpit capsules and morphine together?”

“Yeah, sorry about that, had to get us out,” Alfred smiled at him. He looked better.  

“You got us out. Both of us out. You came back?”

Alfred looked stricken at that. “You offered yourself up to a fucking demon for me, of course, I came back! God, Matt, am I such a shit brother you thought I wouldn’t come back?”

“No!” Matt scrambled up, pushing himself forward on his elbows to sit, he must have been on his back for a long time, because the motion left the room spinning. His brother looked up at him, utterly despondent. “No— I didn’t, well I don't know— not for long though!”

“Just— hang on. Here, you need to drink something. I don’t think you’ve had more than water in days.” He poured the contents of the thermos out into two green tin mugs. His glasses steamed up above the cup and as he leaned over and folded Matt’s hands around the container. Matthew clutched it tight, absorbing the warmth. He took a sip after a moment. Sweetened coffee poured down his throat and he nearly cried out at the type of sweet. Buttery warmth, like hazelnuts, mild vanilla and earth washed over him. He was struck with a homesickness so strong it sent his nationhood spinning and he felt all eleven million of his people weathering the storm together. He cursed and looked up at his brother with watery eyes.

“Maple?”

“Yup. Don’t ask me where I got it though,” Alfred gave him a wan smile and a pathetic wink. He looked better, colour in his cheeks at least and in a fresh uniform and proper coat, his hair a few shades lighter and cleaner than it’d been when Matt had last seen him, but his eyes were still shadowed and haunted.

“Alfred—” Matthew stared at him, the maple suddenly seemed like some sort of bad thing. Too good to exist without moral implications in a war zone like this.

Alfred saw the look and rolled his eyes. “Oh relax, I only traded two packs of your Lucky Strikes for the flask, Christ,”

Matt burst out laughing. He kept laughing. He laughed until he was crying and Alfred was staring at him like he’d just had a mental break. “What type of Gift of the Magi fuckery—” he chortled, full and hearty around the mug.

“What the hell kind of fuckery—?” Alfred blurted, face stretched in confusion.

“Oh for the love of the Virgin herself— have you ever cracked a book in your damn life?” Matt laughed and Alfred gave him a sharp look before he couldn’t help it and gave a snort.

“Well you know what they say, doesn’t do you any good to read our manuals, because fuck knows we haven’t!” Alfred grinned sipping his own hot drink. It seemed to do him some good.

“Those cigarettes were for you! Jesus fuck!”  Matt finally burst. “Margaux sent off a telegram telling me you’d lost your fucking marbles all over the Ardennes and I trade a cask of maple for chocolate and cigarettes to knock your brain back into your skull and your dumb-ass goes and trades the cigarettes back for maple? Jesus Christ, I love you, Alfred. I do,”

“I know you do,” Alfred whispered. He looked like he’d been slapped across the face. Not the reaction Matthew had expected. “That Thing— I think it makes you ponder the darkest things in your head. Fuck, Matt, I’d never—”

“Yes, you would,” Matthew said, and it sounded brutal, much crueller than he’d meant it. Alfred recoiled and his face looked broken for a minute before he was shrugging weakly. “We’re not men, we can’t look out for each other the way brothers should sometimes. So, of course, you’re capable of leaving me behind. Everyone is— but you don’t do it on purpose,” Matt said and it sounded reasonable in his own ears.

“I—” Alfred looked shamefaced. “But you didn’t— You told me to tell Ottawa you were dead. ”

“Yeah,” Matt said and scrubbed a hand through his lank hair. “Yeah, I did. You’re my brother,”

“And you’re mine! And if you think your life isn’t worth every ounce that mine is then your fucking— well you're fucking wrong! Do you hear me? You’re wrong !”

“I’m eleven million people to your one-hundred-and-thirty-five million. I’m less, Alfred. It’s just math.” Alfred was the crown prince of their father’s breaking empire. An heir and a spare. Matthew may have been every bit as strong and every bit as tall, but he was the spare. He always had been. He didn't hold it against his brother; it was just logic.

“ Fuck you !” Alfred blurted. “Fuck you and fuck and fuck every other thought you’ve ever had like it! We’re brothers and every fucking life is worth the same now!”

“No it isn’t,” Matt shook his head, took another drink. “I’m sorry, but that’s just not true,”

“Yes, it is,” Alfred hissed, quiet and fierce. “And even if it isn’t— when this war is done, I’m gonna make fucking true,”  

Matt shrugged. “If you say so,”

“I’m gonna,” Alfred said like a benediction. “But I can’t do it by myself. You can’t— you can’t go and sacrifice yourself like that—”

“Alfred…” Matthew trailed off, unsure what to say. A fire was bright in his brother’s eyes.

“I can’t do it by myself,” Alfred said and suddenly he’s crying. “I’m not you. I’m not the good son, I’m not loyal, I’m not brave by myself, I can’t do it without you, ”

“Well you’re in luck then,” Matt bumped his brother’s shoulders with his spare elbow. “The world doesn’t need a good son right now. It needs a good man. And for everything else you are, you’re still that.”

“I’m not— I always do the wrong thing, make the wrong choice. Everyone’s watching me, Matt. Waiting for me to fuck up—” Alfred twisted violently, pale as ash and twice as burnt out. Matthew put down the mug and reached for him. Grabbed him bodily.

“So don’t fuck up,” Matt said. “Your instincts are always good, brother. Listen to them.”

“I can’t do it by myself— I can’t— Matt I just can’t, ”

“I’ll never leave you alone— I came back for you and then you came back for me. We’re in this together. Whatever comes, it's you and me. I’m not leaving you alone, brother, I promise. They’re going to be watching you and you’re going to be the one to remake the world, but I promise you don’t have to do it alone,”

“You— you too. I won't leave you again. Not like that. Never again.”

Matt, the land of millions of hectares of permafrost and cold, knew it was a lie. He was born alone, he would die alone. But he was not alone in that moment. He was not alone now and he couldn't wait to meet his brother’s new world. Their New World. 

Chapter Text

“The Ardennes were not so thickly wooded as Quebec’s”: The woods of the ardennes are old, but are not the thousand year forests that still dominate much of northern Canada.

“and Brodie helmets.”: The flat “salad bowl” helmets the british and the commonwealth used during the world wars

“towards Bastogne and would encounter”: The center of what would be known to history as the battle of the bulge and is the general backdrop of this piece.

“There had been stories, during the First World War.”: Since the war had settled into a stalemate, stories of ghouls and deserters were RAMPANT. Officers tried to keep the lid on them, but men reported all kinds of demons, shadows and wraiths between the front lines. There is some truth to them, as roving bands of deserters were known to live in the tunnels and survive by frisking the dead of their food and supplies. You can read more: Here if your interested.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/legends-what-actually-lived-no-mans-land-between-world-war-i-trenches-180952513/

“Alfred and his Foo Fighters”: Americans have been obsessed with aliens for decades. Foo fighters were the World War Two name of what would later be called a UFO.

“His night vision was still shot from Ypres in 1915.”: personal headcanon of Matt only wearing glasses after April 1915 when the germans launch the first effective gas attack of the war at French forces in Ypres. As the French fled, the Canadians were ordered to spread out and hold the line through the gas, without masks, which they did until relieved days later, taking heavy casualties along the way.

“So Matthew was a Papist and the Quebec Act of 1774”: The Quebec act of 1774 allowed French Canadians to keep their language, religion and common law, adapting into the British system. At the outbreak of the Second World War, Canadians made up most of, if not all the catholics of the commonwealth forces due to Ireland being mostly neutral.

“Operation Cottage”: A grade-a lot of fuckery. Or: that time in World War Two both Canadian and American forces invaded the same pacific island to liberate it from the Japanese and while the Japanese forces slunk away, they each thought the other was the enemy. The violence only stopped when someone finally realised they were aiming at men in the wrong helmets.

“He climbed over three trench lines of a system he almost half recognised from 1917”: The Battle of the Ardennes was mostly fought in 1914 during the battles of the frontiers, but the Canadian Third Army saw significant action there in 1917 and 1918 as the Allies finally began to break and push through the German defenses.

“Lucky Strikes”: The most popular cigarette of the Second World War, a few packs could buy you almost anything anywhere in Europe from June 1944 to roughly 1948.

“He frowned, but held himself still and patient.”: Hunters keep their cool until they don’t.

“There’d been glimpses of Johann”: I like Nedcan okay?

“Ceres and Hades”: The goddess of the harvest and the god of the underworld and death, respectively. Both reaping their harvests of seed and soul.

“twin firepits he and Alfred had turned their capitals to during the War of 1812”: During the War of 1812, British-Canadian and Americans burnt the shit out of each other's Capitals of York and then D.C. Headcanon for me states they still have the identical scars.

“pulling his brother’s corpse from a pile of Union blue clad bodies” 50,000 Canadians fought in the U.S. Civil War on the side of the Union. If anyone would use that as an excuse to go find their dumbass brother and make sure they’re alive, it’s Matt.

“delusional with fever from the Spanish Flu” American and Canadian forces of the First World War were typically the best fed and strongest of the Entente forces. Spanish Influenza was a strain of flu that unleashed a cytokine storm in the body, bringing the strongest in a group to their knees. As such, the generally healthier N. American troops fared far worse than the poorer, less well nourished continentals.

“Je me souviens.”: I remember. This is the provincial motto of Quebec. Used here by Alfred as a sign he’s coming back for his brother.

Alfred’s favourite pearl handled Colt 1911: the pistol of the world wars and still a highly collectable piece.

“4 hours before my pills wear off”: Alfred basically popped him and Matt full of meth and caffeine, widely used in various combinations to keep pilots and soldiers awake for long periods.

“his Quebecois accent”: Even native French speakers have a hard time figuring out just what the fuck us Canadians are saying. Where the continental french is flat and sometimes monotone, Quebecois French is often much more expressive and seemingly rural and rugged.

“Gift of the Magi fuckery” the book where the husband and wife sell their dearest belonging and use the money to buy the other an accessory for the beloved object they sold to buy the other one the thing. Yeah, its fuckery.

Their New World: After this fic, in 1945, what would be known as Pax Americana, or the American Peace, would soon stabilise Europe and much of the world. While the peace bit is a particular thorn in the side of the era, America would and still does maintain more global influence than any other nation. America and Canada share the longest un-militarised border in the world. We are brothers, two nations, one family.