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“What the hell is wrong with you?!”
Matthew, sitting on the other side of Alfred’s dining room table, glared back at Alfred defiantly.
“Why do you care so much about my life choices now?” Matthew demanded.
“Because you were sleeping with that dirty commie-”
“Ivan’s not a commie. Ivan’s government are commies. There’s a difference, in case you haven’t figured it out yet.”
Alfred scowled. “That’s not the point! For all you know, he could be manipulating you! He’s not to be trusted!”
“And you are?”
Rage boiled in Alfred’s chest. Matthew’s face went pale; his defiance melted away as the weight of those words finally sank in for him, too.
“I’m sorry,” he gasped, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, that was too far-”
Alfred slammed his fists down on the table. Matthew flinched and drew his arms up to his chest, wrapping them around himself nervously.
“I am trying to protect us! ” Alfred shouted. “If that means I have to lie and hide things, then so be it!”
Matthew mumbled under his breath and turned his gaze to the rim of the table.
“What was that? I didn’t hear you.”
Matthew was quiet for a moment. He drew a rattling breath and looked up, meeting Alfred’s eyes. Alfred’s blood turned cold at the sight of fear in Matthew’s eyes.
“You sound like Arthur,” he said. “Look at what he did in the name of protection ,” Matthew spat the word like bile.
“I’m not Arthur.”
“Are you really? Or are you just telling yourself that? He raised you; you were always his favorite, and the rest of us were just…”
Matthew trailed off. The cold feeling grew stronger.
“What did he do?” Alfred asked.
Matthew didn’t say a word in response.
“ Mattie. What. Did. He. Do? ”
“Why do you care?” Matthew asked. His eyes were damp, although he didn’t seem to care. “It’s not like you don’t do the same thing to your own states.”
“Answer the damn question, Mattie.”
“ Nothing! That’s what he did to us! He didn’t care about us; he just left us in the cold to figure things out on our own.” Matthew shook his head. “I tried so fucking hard for so many years to get him to love me, or even just to acknowledge my existence, and I never figured out the truth. He didn’t give a shit about me, or Jet, or Leon, or any of his other colonies. He only gave a shit about you .”
“I-”
“He didn’t protect us. He just used that as a justification for power and control.”
Matthew stood and planted his hands on the table. His eyes bored straight into Alfred’s skull.
“If you actually cared - if you actually wanted to protect us - then you’d stop with this stupid posturing and stop acting like you’re any less of a tyrant than the USSR. You imprison and torture innocent people because you think they might be spies, you ruin the lives and careers of everyone who disagrees with you and claim it’s because they’re commies. You want to know why I never told you about Ivan or the others? Because I know you , Alfred, and I know that for you, it’s never about freedom or justice or the goodness of your own heart. It’s about control . You’d have used that against me like you always do, even if you don’t know it!”
Matthew drew in a shaking breath. There was no remorse or guilt on his face, and the cold in Alfred’s veins hardened to ice as it slowly sank in for him that Matthew meant it .
Matthew’s expression slowly melted into shame - shame that he’d spilled his guts out in front of someone he’d resented for years, shame that he didn’t hide it like he’d done for so long - and then into fear.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I-I-I-”
He straightened abruptly and darted towards the door.
“Mattie!” Alfred shouted, running after him.
Matthew was halfway out the door by the time Alfred caught up to him. Alfred caught him by the arm, and Matthew whirled around, startled. His fist slammed into Alfred’s nose, and Alfred recoiled from the pain and the blow. He almost choked at the feeling of blood running down his throat.
He threw himself at Matthew without thinking, pinning him to the ground. Alfred straddled him and started punching right back, adrenaline roaring through him like a wildfire. The skin over his knuckles healed with every blow, faster than Matthew could recover. By the time he finally regained awareness of what he was doing, his hands were bloody and Matthew had gone still, reduced to a bloody pulp.
Alfred gagged on the acid taste that coated his tongue. He stood and looked down at his hands. They were shaking.
Matthew was still breathing, albeit shallowly. Alfred’s eyes burned.
“I’m sorry,” he mumbled. Then, louder, “Oh, God. Oh, God, I’m so sorry, Mattie.”
He crouched next to his brother’s body and gently lifted him off the ground. Matthew’s breaths clattered in his chest. Alfred doubted there was enough of Matthew that was still aware of his surroundings to even hear him, let alone process what he’d just said.
He carried Matthew inside and laid his body out on Alfred’s bed. Alfred sat down next to him. A bone-deep guilt Alfred hadn’t felt in over a century boiled inside him.
Matthew was right. Alfred was a tyrant, wasn’t he?