Fandom: Axis Powers Hetalia
Pairing: Turkey/Greece
Theme set: beta
Title: A Sea Between
Rating: G to R
Warnings: some implied underage, mentions of violent historical events
Notes: At the bottom
#01 - Walking
While they all walk on their way to the building where the World Conference takes place, many nations place bets on how many minutes before they arrive a fight between Turkey and Greece will break out.
#02 - Waltz
It was new, bizarre feeling for them both when they found themselves dancing together in the crowded room, with the upbeat sound and the laughter surrounding them; for the dances they'd share had always been accompanied with men's battlecries as their song and the galloping of horses as their music.
#03 - Wishes
Greece always wishes that he could remember his mother, while there are a few, short times when Turkey wishes that he could forget.
#04 - Wonder
Hagia Sophia belongs to Turkey, the Parthenon to Greece, and Greece hates that he has to share even the great wonders of his mother with the one who once had taken it all away.
#05 - Worry
The Ottoman felt a tinge of concern once he noticed that the little Greek had stopped sneaking with daggers into his bedroom and that he would now come to lay with him peacefully on his own accord; hidden motives were more worrying to him than a tangible steel weapon which he could block any time.
#06 - Whimsy
The small child was not usually playful at all, but seeing his master return from a failed attack with his mask cracked and stained with his own blood for once, made him as giddy as a boy getting his favorite toy.
#07 - Waste/Wasteland
Turkey had tried to visualize what's going on inside of Greece head, and after picturing Socrates trying to survive in a wasteland of giant mussaka, he decided to never attempt so again.
#08 - Whiskey and rum
Even now that secular laws allow him to, Turkey rarely drinks, but like always he makes exceptions for holidays, celebrations and -since that year- a day in late March.
#09 - War
In bed (and floors and walls and other surfaces) they'd recreate their battles, they would release their deviances, Greece his need to prove that he is free, Turkey his need to unleash his aggression and possessiveness.
#10 - Weddings
One day England commented that the day Turkey and Greece will get along will be when the marriage of Heaven and Hell will be carried out, to which Germany replied that two Hells would be a more accurate metaphor of this pair.
#11 - Birthday
Greece despised Turkey's new "birthday" at first, for it had become the permanent reminder of his failure to reclaim and revive his mother's glory.
#12 - Blessing
The cross he's wielding was once hers, and he wishes he could remember if she one day had passed it onto him with words of love and trust, or if Turkey had simply handed it to him as just a relic that she'd left behind.
#13 - Bias
Both of them would always claim that whatever comes from their homes is better than the other's, but no amount of bias could make Greece lie about the superiority of Turkey's sweets, which were about the only thing that could make him snap out of his philosophical ramblings.
#14 - Burning
Most of the other nations would actually try to convince Turkey and Greece not to cook for the international buffet for World Conference dinners, not because they were bad cooks, but because they had the tendency to compete on which one of the two is going to make the spiciest dish.
#15 - Breathing
Turkey has this bad habit of clutching the neck during a rough fucking, Greece mused, and then wondered if Turkey does this to every partner or, as he caught himself wishing, only to him.
#16 - Breaking
Turkey knew from experience that no ropes, chains, humiliation or pain can break Greece; it was but a reason why he desired him the most.
#17 - Belief
Hagia Sophia is no longer a church or a mosque, but both of them do, once in a while, visit it's vast halls for a brief, silent prayer.
#18 - Balloon
The Greek's uprising had been getting crushed so violently that even the Great Powers had been sending horrified messages asking the Ottoman forces to be more merciful, but Turkey refused to relent, for he knew that once you loosen your grip then you lose what you have and hold, forever.
#19 - Balcony
A heavy potted plant crushed right in front of Turkey's feet, barely missing him, and Greece in his balcony calmly answered to Turkey's screams beneath that he was merely practicing for the Corfu Easter.
#20 - Bane
He had vowed on that day to himself and to the heavens above that he would become the only one, no one else, that the Ottoman Empire would hate.
#21 - Quiet
Greece had since long ago noticed that under the night sky, in the light of the moon, with nothing but distant sounds heard, those were of the few times when Turkey would stay silent and solemn, like a wolf in the dark wilderness.
#22 - Quirks
Among the bad habits that the brat had, the one the Ottoman couldn't complain much about was his tendency to try getting what he wants by using the Turk's weakness for lithe boyish bodies against him.
#23 - Question
When Turkey would jokingly ask him how it feels to be an Oedipus Complex poster child, Greece would think to himself that he is not like Oedipus: he had failed to kill his own "father".
#24 - Quarrel
Everyone has concluded by now that quarreling is the only way that these two can interact with each other whenever they meet, but they all also know that this what "getting along" is to them.
#25 - Quitting
Once he was informed about the victors of the Great War negotiating over in how many pieces they would cut him up -as if they were talking over a dead beast- and over who will take which ones, Turkey just laughed and kept on sharpening his blade.
#26 - Jump
Learning the news about the women's mass suicide, Turkey begun to fear that the Greek would, indeed, rather destroy himself than become his, ever again.
#27 - Jester
Unlike the lords of Europe, the Ottoman had no need for Fools to entertain him, he very much preferred having young, attractive subjects like his boy to dance for him.
#28 - Jousting
The TV was showing oil-wrestling men unleashing their pent-up energy and aggression, and soon they both decided to do same right there in Turkey's couch.
#29 - Jewel
Greece once admitted to Turkey that he wishes that he could have something, anything with him to remind him of his mother, which made Turkey smack him over the head and point at the Aegean sea under the shining sun, and Greece nodded and whispered him a thank you.
#30 - Just
"Do unto them what they have done to you," the Greek told himself, a parody of his faith's scriptures, and marched into the city and it's inhabitants with fire and steel in hand.
#31 - Smirk
Greece wished when Turkey would smirk like an insufferable blowhard, that he'd still be wearing the black veil of his Ottoman days to cover it up, but then he realized that he's rather suffer that grin than to have memories triggered.
#32 - Sorrow
Looking at the ruins that the earthquake left behind, they stood side by side, in one of those rare moments where there was no hate, grudge or anger; just sadness and mutual gratitude.
#33 - Stupidity
Greece always called Turkey budala, a moron, but when Turkey heard him, he asked that if he is so stupid than why is Greece the one who has Turkish words such as this filling his own vocabulary.
#34 - Serenade
"Yes, this bag of kitty litter is what's for yer birthday, what were ya expectin', flowers, chocolate and a fuckin' serenade?"
#35 - Sarcasm
Turkey is not one for sarcastic remarks, for he is too direct and most of those tend to fly way over Greece's head anyway.
#36 - Sordid
Turkey had been avoiding to look at the adolescent for longer than necessary so he wouldn't get more thoughts on how tall and toned and fucking pretty the brat had grown up to be.
#37 - Soliloquy
There were times when people would catch Greece mutter on and on to himself and believed that it must be about something deep, though Turkey knew too well that most of the time he'd be babbling about something outrageously surreal.
#38 - Sojourn
"...and next time don't forget your fuckin' underwear here, or at least notice that yer not wearing them before ya get to the damn airport," Turkey yelled before he hung up.
#39 - Share
They are unable to share childhood stories with each other, given that Turkey already knew first-hand everything about Greece's.
#40 - Solitary
Unlike Greece, Turkey is a social butterfly, but he loves to watch the full moon rising by himself, with only a cup of coffee accompanying him.
#41 - Nowhere
"How depressing is it that when one of us thinks that we have reached a dead end, the other is there to give a shove forward?"
#42 - Neutral
Greece gets annoyed with Cyprus for his insistence for compromise and peace, because he sees him as his own reflection, and watching him be less hostile and more compliant to his adversaries makes his blood boil.
#43 - Nuance
Japan had learned how to secretly amuse himself with breaking their fights over him by doing the simplest magic tricks and by playing some music; watching how identical the reactions of two otherwise dissimilar people can be fascinates him.
#44 - Near
Greece had come to the conclusion that if Fate exists she has a dark sense of humor, otherwise they wouldn't have been destined to live side by side.
#45 - Natural
Neither of them questioned -or allowed anyone to discuss- the reason behind their matching curls; the very idea of them connected also by blood being too much for both.
#46 - Horizon
Greece had never believed that there would be a time of utter despair which Turkey would come to relieve even for a little bit, but there he was, blind from weakness, staring at the horizon for SS Kurtuluş to arrive.
#47 - Valiant
"I cut down on sugar for a whole five days, six hours and twenty-three minutes, give me some credit, brat!"
#48 - Virtuous
And Turkey had to suffer through yet another night of listening to the little boy's analysis of Man's arete retained within a dystopian society without kebab.
#49 - Victory
"Captive Greece conquered her savage victor," Turkey reads, and after a brief laugh he murmurs something about mothers and sons being one and the same.
#50 - Defeat
Having Greece beneath him, held down, with bruises and dirt and sweat covering their bodies, always made Turkey lose his resolve and lean down for the other's bloodied lips.
A/N:
10. England refers to The Marriage of Heaven and Hell by William Blake
11. "Turkey's new birth-day": October 29 1923
19. Easter in Corfu is celebrated by throwing pots out of one's windows, smashing them onto the streets below.
25. The treaties on the partition of the Ottoman Empire by the WWI Allies
26. 'Dance of Zalongo', a 1803 event in Ottoman Greece involving a mass suicide of women from Souli and their children
27. Köçek, boy dancers recruited from among the ranks of the dhimmi subject nations of the Turkish empire
30. Fall of Tripolitsa, 1821
32. İzmit and Athens earthquakes, 1999
46. SS Kurtuluş: a Turkish cargo ship which carried food aid during the Great Famine of Greece
48. "Arete": virtue, reaching one's highest potential
49. Quote by the Latin poet Horace