[APH] sidestory to 'fresh start'
Side story to ‘fresh start’ hetalia kinkmeme: http://hetalia-kink.livejournal.com/16221.html?thread=46699869#t46699869
Slight one-sided USxUK…if you squint
1. His Life Never Flashes Behind the Back of His Eyelids
He is bleeding to the soil again.
He has lost count of the number of times he comes close to dying. Every time the nation he embodies suffers casualties from natural disasters and the wars he wages against others - the Battle of Hastings, the Crusades, the Revolutionary War, constant bickering against the frog - Arthur is wounded. A wide gash across his back. Angry red blisters on his fingers. A broken rib tearing through his chest. A punctured lung. Buboes, puss and blood covering almost every inch of his skin.
Every time, he thinks, this is the time.
Every time, he opens his eyes to the white of his hospital’s ceiling and walls, and is disappointed.
-------------------------
Elizabeth had told Churchill to order his men to sift through the profiles in the Ministry of Statistics to look for Arthur’s replacement.
She is worried that this time, the green-eyed blonde man with bushy eyebrows who has stayed by her parents’ side ever since she could remember, the embodiment of her nation, will not be able to make it through World War II alive. It must be too much for him, she thinks, since his already heavily scarred body had been bleeding through the war before this one as well.
She wants Arthur’s substitute to be an adult, someone who is at least old enough to not be crushed by the burden of his or her new responsibilities. Churchill, however, wants that person to be as young as possible. “An infant would be ideal,” he says. She protests that it will be too cruel for that poor baby, but Churchill barks that it’s more effective that way, letting out the secret that Arthur himself had been chosen before he could process how it felt to live as a human. “That’s how he’s survived so long,” he says, a hint of pride filling his voice, “while others like Afonso De Silva* died a ‘mysterious death’ in 1910s - suicide, I bet - our Arthur has ploughed on since at least the Hundred Years War.”
Elizabeth is shocked. When asked how he knew about this, Churchill merely snorts and tells her to study the paintings depicting her nation’s history more closely before he leaves the teenage princess to her own devices.
-------------------------
This time, his pain is too intense for him to formulate any thoughts.
His heart is on fire. He sobs and gasps for breath but a blinding ache pierces through his frail body. He opens his mouth to let out a scream but that hurts more. Darkness creeps to the edges of his blurry vision before strangely coloured dreams take over, abhorrence gleaming in wide eyes behind accusatory fingers, a gaping sense of loss that never seems to be filled, and he can no longer tell whether he is awake or out cold. His limbs are freezing, heavy and numb, while monsters are eating his organs from the inside out and tearing his bones apart.
Arthur is stubborn. There is a limit to human determination. Humans are mortal. Humans are used to death. He knows it is England who has to live forever, not Arthur Kirkland, but Arthur has forgotten how to be anyone else other than England.
A nation would never desire self-destruction. Suicide is unthinkable. His only way out is to wait till his body breaks beyond repair.
He wants to give up, but every time he can so much as wonder, ‘What’ll be there, waiting on the other end for me?’ fear seizes him up and forces him to fight. Only humans go to heaven (or hell). His years spent as a mortal is tiny in comparison to his near nine hundred years of nationhood. Neither God nor Lucifer will receive him, and he’s frightened of disappearing in the blink of an eye. Just like that, he wonders, and all the tears and gritted teeth it takes to get here are futile. I don’t want that.
A ray of clarity filters through the feverish heat with a cool hand on his head. It takes him minutes to decipher the voice that comes with it. “…Iggy? Iggy, can you hear me?”
Arthur squints at the twin pools of blue above his head. “…America?”
“Hey!” blotches of colours sharpen slightly to show him a bespectacled young man with his arm on a sling. There is subtly obscured affection in America’s eyes, but Arthur throws his gaze away. The baby he loved, the baby he had adored and raised had died during the Civil War, driven to insanity and suicide from conflicting personalities. Arthur can tell that Alfred Sr.’s substitute holds immense love for him (Alfred Jr. is always making some sort of efforts for reconciliation), but he holds none for that boy. “Iggy, I’ve come to rescue you.”
“…Thank you,” Arthur rasps, and he squashes the guilt out of his literally horribly wounded heart when a smile splits America’s face to two, bright and spun of gold and full of hope.
-------------------------
In the end, Elizabeth’s and Churchill’s argument is for naught. Their Arthur survives yet another round of war through countless surgeries. The paramedics work ceaselessly on patching every cut and burst vessel every time a bomb is dropped on London.
During V-E Day, when others celebrate the victory with dancing, confetti and a liberal amount of alcohol, while America, who has his hand tightly clasped around her nation’s and a million-watt smile on his face, drags him through the crowd, Elizabeth only sees the poorly veiled tiredness in her nation’s eyes, and pities him.
TBC to 2. Say Hello, Say Goodbye
Note:
Afonso is Portugal’s substitute (Gabriel died in Napoleonic Wars. Arthur took revenge by kicking Francis’ arse so hard in the Battle of Waterloo). That’s why Arthur didn’t feel guilty about issuing the pink ultimatum. He feels no love for him. Why did Afonso commit suicide? Frustration & shame that his Empire’s crumbling, and the revolution that ended his monarchy and changed it to dictatorship.
Slight one-sided USxUK…if you squint
1. His Life Never Flashes Behind the Back of His Eyelids
He is bleeding to the soil again.
He has lost count of the number of times he comes close to dying. Every time the nation he embodies suffers casualties from natural disasters and the wars he wages against others - the Battle of Hastings, the Crusades, the Revolutionary War, constant bickering against the frog - Arthur is wounded. A wide gash across his back. Angry red blisters on his fingers. A broken rib tearing through his chest. A punctured lung. Buboes, puss and blood covering almost every inch of his skin.
Every time, he thinks, this is the time.
Every time, he opens his eyes to the white of his hospital’s ceiling and walls, and is disappointed.
-------------------------
Elizabeth had told Churchill to order his men to sift through the profiles in the Ministry of Statistics to look for Arthur’s replacement.
She is worried that this time, the green-eyed blonde man with bushy eyebrows who has stayed by her parents’ side ever since she could remember, the embodiment of her nation, will not be able to make it through World War II alive. It must be too much for him, she thinks, since his already heavily scarred body had been bleeding through the war before this one as well.
She wants Arthur’s substitute to be an adult, someone who is at least old enough to not be crushed by the burden of his or her new responsibilities. Churchill, however, wants that person to be as young as possible. “An infant would be ideal,” he says. She protests that it will be too cruel for that poor baby, but Churchill barks that it’s more effective that way, letting out the secret that Arthur himself had been chosen before he could process how it felt to live as a human. “That’s how he’s survived so long,” he says, a hint of pride filling his voice, “while others like Afonso De Silva* died a ‘mysterious death’ in 1910s - suicide, I bet - our Arthur has ploughed on since at least the Hundred Years War.”
Elizabeth is shocked. When asked how he knew about this, Churchill merely snorts and tells her to study the paintings depicting her nation’s history more closely before he leaves the teenage princess to her own devices.
-------------------------
This time, his pain is too intense for him to formulate any thoughts.
His heart is on fire. He sobs and gasps for breath but a blinding ache pierces through his frail body. He opens his mouth to let out a scream but that hurts more. Darkness creeps to the edges of his blurry vision before strangely coloured dreams take over, abhorrence gleaming in wide eyes behind accusatory fingers, a gaping sense of loss that never seems to be filled, and he can no longer tell whether he is awake or out cold. His limbs are freezing, heavy and numb, while monsters are eating his organs from the inside out and tearing his bones apart.
Arthur is stubborn. There is a limit to human determination. Humans are mortal. Humans are used to death. He knows it is England who has to live forever, not Arthur Kirkland, but Arthur has forgotten how to be anyone else other than England.
A nation would never desire self-destruction. Suicide is unthinkable. His only way out is to wait till his body breaks beyond repair.
He wants to give up, but every time he can so much as wonder, ‘What’ll be there, waiting on the other end for me?’ fear seizes him up and forces him to fight. Only humans go to heaven (or hell). His years spent as a mortal is tiny in comparison to his near nine hundred years of nationhood. Neither God nor Lucifer will receive him, and he’s frightened of disappearing in the blink of an eye. Just like that, he wonders, and all the tears and gritted teeth it takes to get here are futile. I don’t want that.
A ray of clarity filters through the feverish heat with a cool hand on his head. It takes him minutes to decipher the voice that comes with it. “…Iggy? Iggy, can you hear me?”
Arthur squints at the twin pools of blue above his head. “…America?”
“Hey!” blotches of colours sharpen slightly to show him a bespectacled young man with his arm on a sling. There is subtly obscured affection in America’s eyes, but Arthur throws his gaze away. The baby he loved, the baby he had adored and raised had died during the Civil War, driven to insanity and suicide from conflicting personalities. Arthur can tell that Alfred Sr.’s substitute holds immense love for him (Alfred Jr. is always making some sort of efforts for reconciliation), but he holds none for that boy. “Iggy, I’ve come to rescue you.”
“…Thank you,” Arthur rasps, and he squashes the guilt out of his literally horribly wounded heart when a smile splits America’s face to two, bright and spun of gold and full of hope.
-------------------------
In the end, Elizabeth’s and Churchill’s argument is for naught. Their Arthur survives yet another round of war through countless surgeries. The paramedics work ceaselessly on patching every cut and burst vessel every time a bomb is dropped on London.
During V-E Day, when others celebrate the victory with dancing, confetti and a liberal amount of alcohol, while America, who has his hand tightly clasped around her nation’s and a million-watt smile on his face, drags him through the crowd, Elizabeth only sees the poorly veiled tiredness in her nation’s eyes, and pities him.
TBC to 2. Say Hello, Say Goodbye
Note:
Afonso is Portugal’s substitute (Gabriel died in Napoleonic Wars. Arthur took revenge by kicking Francis’ arse so hard in the Battle of Waterloo). That’s why Arthur didn’t feel guilty about issuing the pink ultimatum. He feels no love for him. Why did Afonso commit suicide? Frustration & shame that his Empire’s crumbling, and the revolution that ended his monarchy and changed it to dictatorship.