Archive of Our Own ^beta

Alfred is ten years old when he first dreams of them.

Of two people. More teenagers than men, at least at the moment. A tall, pale teenager with snow white hair and blood red eyes. Eyes that remind Alfred of the time he accidentally cut himself and couldn’t stop bleeding. A shock of crimson that leaves him cringing and fascinated at the same time.

The other one looks a bit more like Alfred. With light blonde hair and even lighter blue eyes. He’s just as tall as the snow haired teenager. In his dream, Alfred has to look up just to make eye contact with them. They both speak languages that he doesn’t know. The strangers try to talk to him but Alfred can never tell what they’re saying.

Just as they start to make sense, he wakes up.

The blonde colony tries to tell Arthur about it, when the Brit is around. Alfred tries to get him to understand about the strangers that plague his sleep. Who follows him into real life, sometimes. He describes them over and over again but Arthur couldn't appear less interested if he tried.

“Yes, yes America. Whatever you want. Now go off and play with your toys.” The empire waves his hand dismissively. He continues to sip his tea as a maid leads a protesting Alfred out of the room. They walk far from Arthur’s office before stopping.

The American clenches his fist. “I told him to call me Alfred.” He mutters dejectedly. It feels like Arthur never listens to what he says. The maid, Martha, looks at him sympathetically. She stops, kneels down and hugs him. It’s a warm and tight thing that makes Alfred cry.

Arthur never hugs him.

Martha pulls back, smiling. “I know, dearie.” She whispers, voice soft. “But I think I can answer your question, about who those boys are.”

Alfred looks up, still sniffling. He tries to rub his tears in an effort to see her better.

“Y-You can?” He sniffles. The blonde had just assumed that it was a nation thing. Something that only another nation (i.e Arthur) could answer.

Martha hums. “Mmhm. You see, dear, those boys are your soulmates.” She says. Her hand comes up to stroke Alfred’s dirty blonde hair. In an attempt to calm him, Alfred realzies. Arthur hates when he cries.

The American pauses. “My what?” He says, confused. He’s never heard of such a word before.

“Those boys are meant to be your life partners. People who will stick with you no matter what. Souls bound by fate for eternity.” Martha explains. Alfred’s eyes widened. Life partners? For eternity?

“Why do I see them in my dreams?”

Martha laughs, not unkindly. “That’s a gift. A way of seeing your soulmates when you’re far apart. They must be somewhere far off. Like Europe.”

Europe. Of all the things in the world, it was what made Alfred the most curious. Arthur wanted him educated but only in British history and politics. As a British colony, he had no use for knowing anything other than that. Though while the Brit was gone, Alfred would sneak into his study and read all the maps and books he had on Europe.

Often ignoring the rather colorful nicknames Arthur would scribble onto the maps.

He’s very interested to know who ‘That Spanish Bastard’ is. Among others. Maybe he’ll get to meet them all one day. Even his soulmates.

Martha smiles brightly again, making Alfred smile despite his tears.

“Come on, dearie. Let’s get you some warm chocolate.” She ushers him into the kitchen, leaving Arthur and his sad thoughts behind.

It isn’t until Alfred leaves Arthur and Martha is dead and buried that he actually meets his soulmates. Or at least one of them.

The tall, pale young man strides through the encampment like he owns the place. Alfred hears garbled shouting from outside his tent, a language he can now identify as German. After years of studying.

“Wo ist deine Personifizierung!” A voice demands. It sounds familiar but Alfred knows he’s never heard it before. At least not awake. The blonde hears the sound of rushing feet before his tent flap is pulled open. A young man, no older than Alfred looks, pants. He grips the tent flap nervously.

“Sir,” He says. “You’re needed out front.”

Alfred smiles and nods. “Thank you, Franklin.”

The young man disappears just as quickly as he appeared. Though Washington disapproved of it, Alfred is glad he told everyone in the camp who he is. And what he represents. Who he represents.

Alfred gets up from his desk and straightens himself up. His clothes are slightly wrinkled from leaning over his desk for the last four hours. If Arthur were here, he’d most likely scold him for being unkempt.

‘But’ Alfred thinks with a smirk as he exits his tent. ‘Arthur’s not here’

It takes him a couple minutes to reach the front of the camp. Hamilton and Lafayette had insisted that his tent be in the most secure place in said camp. He knows they want to keep him safe, but personally he thinks they’re both paranoid.

The closer Alfred gets, the louder the voice becomes.

“Bist du weich im Kopf?” It sneers, irritated.

The American resists the urge to scoff. Why are they so mad? It’s Alfred’s camp they have the nerve to just barge into. The audacity!

When the blonde finally gets to the source of the voice, he freezes. It’s one of them. One of the two boys from his dreams. His uniform is regal and shiny, standing against the poor and dirty continental army. The air feels the same around the albino that it does around Arthur. Thick and heavy in a way that Alfred has never felt comfortable with.

“He’s right there!” Someone points at Alfred. “Stop yelling at us!”

The tall man sighs. “Finally!”

He turns away from the poor people he’d been harassing to look over at him. The uniformed man opens his mouth to speak but stops short once he sees Alfred. The American wonders if he’s feeling the same thing he feels. Frozen and not really sure what to do with himself. Alfred’s palms feel sweaty as the man keeps approaching him.

His blood red eyes never leave Alfred’s own baby blues. And the blonde isn’t sure he wants them to. Those irises are just as striking in real life as they were in his dreams. At this moment, Alfred knows that he could stare into them for hours and never get bored.

When they’re finally face to face, their height difference is pretty noticeable. Alfred knows that he’s still growing, both as a country and a person. But it still irks when the albino towers over him.

“Prussia.”

Alfred blinks, drawing out of his own thoughts. “What?”

“My name is Prussia. But you can call me Gilbert.” A gloved hand extends out to the blonde, most likely for a shake. Alfred takes the hand unthinkingly. The leather feels warm against his bare palm. It most likely costs more than they have for food rations right now.

They stand there for a minute, awkward. Then Alfred realizes that the man is waiting for his (italics) name.

“Oh! I’m America, but you can call me Alfred. I guess.” He mutters low. Not only is he meeting one of his soulmates for the first time, but this is the first personification besides Arthur that he’s met. At least not for a good couple centuries.

Gilbert hums. “Alfred.” His name sounds weird coming from him, but also right at the same time.

The American is startled when another hand, also gloved, comes up to stroke his left cheek. He feels his face warm at the touch. It feels too intimate to be happening in the middle of camp. And with another man. Alfred can already feel the disapproving stares from some of his countrymen.

“We’ve been looking for you.” Gilbert tells him. His hand never leaves Alfred’s face. Nor does he let go of his hand. His thumb comes up to trace under Alfred’s left eye. For a weird second, he thinks he’s gonna shove it into his eye.

Alfred doesn’t say anything. For once, he’s been rendered speechless.

Arthur could probably be happy for once if he heard about that.

—

They spend the next couple of months together. Training and talking about everything.

Gilbert wants to know everything about him. What he likes. What he dislikes. What he’ll do once he’s a free country. During the day, Gilbert has him train so hard that Alfred can barely get out of his cot the next morning. Still, he gets up.

At night, however, is a different story.

Most nights, Gilbert sneaks into his tent. They don’t do anything. Just sit there and talk. Mostly though, they talk about their other soulmate. Gilbert tells him that their other soulmate's country is Denmark. And that he and Prussia have known each other for a really long time. About a thousand years or so.

It makes Alfred shift uneasily. Insecurity has never really been a thing for him. At least not until now. It feels wrong to be butting into this relationship that Denmark and Prussia seemed to have formed over a long time. In his defense, he wasn’t even born yet.

“So what’s he like? Denmark.” Alfred asks one night. He sits criss cross on his cot while Gilbert has taken his desk chair.

The Prussian smirks at him. “Oh he’s awesome. Just as handsome as you.”

Alfred blushes against his better judgement. He swears he never blushed this much before meeting Gilbert.

“Shut up.” He murmurs.

“You know you like it.”

Alfred doesn’t deny it.

The American wants this to last forever. With Gilbert within arms reach instead of just in his dreams. But all good things must come to an end, as they say. Gilbert isn’t there when Alfred finally wins. When he’s finally able to leave Arthur in the dust for good.

The Prussian had left a couple weeks earlier, handing him an envelope before he departed. It was an invitation to a meeting, a world meeting to be more specific. Alfred wasn’t even a real country at that point. But Gilbert seemed to have enough confidence in him that he would win.

“Come to this meeting.” He winks. “I’ll make sure Denmark is there.”

That’s all he says before docking onto his ship. It feels like he went just as quickly as he arrived. Alfred tries not to cry as he watches the ship sail off into the sunset. Instead, he looks down at the envelope.

It’s stamped with a wax seal of red and white strips. Some kind of flag. Alfred breaks the seal, pulling the paper out gently. Thankfully, it’s in English.

‘To whom it may concern,

You are hereby invited to the World Meeting. To be held on September 1st, 1800. Please plan your travels accordingly. See you there.

Signed,

The Kingdom of Denmark’

It’s so far away. Both in time and distance. Alfred doesn’t want to wait another twenty years to see his soulmates. He knows that they’ll be in his dreams regardless but after having the real thing, it doesn’t feel the same.

So Alfred does what he can to distract himself.

He wins his independence, by the skin of his teeth. Francis comes along with troops. Though Alfred knows it’s mostly just to piss off Arthur. A reason that he decides he’s okay with at the moment.

It’s tempting to tell Francis about Gilbert and Denmark. About the fact that he has soulmates. He isn’t sure what stops him. France is definitely not going to judge him for having male soulmates. But Alfred feels like he’ll use it against him in the future.

They may be allies now but Alfred isn’t going to bank on that lasting.

They all leave, eventually.
—

When Alfred finally sets sail for Copenhagen in the winter of 1799, nervousness is an understatement.

A lot of things are riding on this meeting. Getting to know the other nations. Seeing Gilbert and meeting Denmark for the first time. Jefferson had insisted on coming with him, no matter how much Alfred protested. The blonde is older than all of his founding fathers put together, yet they still insist on treating him like a child.

It irritates him greatly.

Also the idea of Arthur being there doesn’t help his mood either.

Ah well, he has a whole year to reflect on it.

When he sleeps, he dreams of them. They don’t talk much. Just sit there in a comfortable silence that Alfred really likes. And he’s never liked silence before that. It reminded him too much of how the house felt when Arthur would leave. Cold, quiet and alone. Things Alfred never wants to be again.

When Alfred’s ship finally approaches the coasts of Denmark, he still isn’t sure what to feel. Excitement? Nervousness? Both?

He finally docks and is surprised by the sight that greets him.

Standing there are his soulmates, both of them. They stand on the dock, watching him and his ship be guided into the harbor. The pair stands arm in arm, uncaring of the stares the action brings.

As the plank is lowered onto the dock and they rush to greet him, Alfred smiles. He runs down the plank and into their arms.

Their arms wrapped around him, so comforting and familiar and Alfred decides right then that this is definitely better than dreaming.