Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

He mulled over the speech done by his executive, his hands crossed behind his back as he murmured some vague noises of approval. He meant none of those words — it was some attempt to cathect his own sentiments in an endododecahedron of sorts, volatile and jagged at contact. The sort of irregular shape he recollected only due to it being the innards of a regular dodecahedron — the air turned into something solid. 

It was a star in his hands, shaking and undergoing nuclear fusion, he held it held close, the cusp of dropping it numerous times as the unsteady form tumbled on the ground and turned the sad of the ground into glass, before then that would be too hot to form anything. It would eradicate everything in its path, so he held it close, a broach that he flaunted, akin to something delicate and docile, a pitiful thing really. To hold his minuscule feelings in one small ball, that he could easily drop — but his foible traits had always been pathetic, and he’d been far to prone to letting greenhouse gases have their fun with him. This sun he held within his hands left him reeling as each word he mulled over kept him on the edge.

This was nuclear fusion. It was the culmination of consuming at yourself in small doses like a drug — and ignoring the high and ecstasy it produced, meaning that the high you’d receive from it would be expedient to what was anticipated. The small could produce potent effects. It wasn’t the amount he needed, it was the output. It was desperation to be as human as possible when he felt anything but that, holding celestial ideals in his hands while juggling his competency.

His cohorts would’ve been proud of his performance in the game — they were all playing it — while he had so much on his mind and nothing to release. The steam and pressure pushed against him.

He kept his arms behind his back as the sun beat at him, its beams were the sins of judgment and he could do nothing but decry and plead naivety.

Pretend clemency would be offered for his actions. The sun wasn’t kind to him however, leaving him to sigh as he felt perspiration clinging to his form. He could handle this. His demeanor was resolute.

He wouldn’t let it falter, he would be better, and he would be mindful.

Chapter Text

He rested silently on the wooden pier. His hands flat on the rotting wood, his form leaning forward as his view of the darkened environment was even more ensconced from the outside world, a world of his own. Where the fireflies twinkled, providing some space for him to touch the stars he so desperately dreamed of. He desired innateness; he wanted to touch one, to be one with a star. He needed it, or else he was nothing on the ground. 

His sunglasses rested on his face, a secondary barrier to his own existence, a shield of makeshift sand and fire darkened to resist the rays of radiation from the bright star in the sky. 

Her eyes were kind, but she was blinding. She was too much for others. Her hands were scorching — they were the fury of puritanical power, without the passion or ability to buckle it back. She couldn’t break the horse that was her strength. 

He sniffled as he looked at the dark skies. His head pointed up to the moon, beyond the Spanish Moss keeping him trapped to mortality, and her kindred children. The other stars in the vast expanse, the blanketed duvet colors of the late hours… just… everything , it was the sort of tranquility he wished he held in his soul. The sort of thing that let him take deep breaths as he listened to the ripples of the murky waters.

The air was thick, odoriferous , with the scent of obsurfication. The thickness that the Spanish Moss had while holding him close, trapping his airflow, while his gaze slid back down to his hands on the wooden pier, the wood rotting and warping itself while algae and protozoan entities grew within it, crawling up the wood, hoping for a chance at a new host. The wood had given him plenty of splinters at this point — the dark oak bridge was uneasy on its own path. It would creak with the small jerks of the living in the lake. 

It was quiet, mostly, without the sun. There were exceptions, but nothing was her. She was gone. There was no bright light to keep him docked, to make the night worthwhile. Nothing but the moon, which shone with her somber smiles and wishes to be more. Wishes to be seen as she is, and not merely some counterfeit playing the role of light when she couldn’t even create her own. Her actions were all done in the shadow or relied on the sun. 

His eyes shone as he stopped messing with the wood and slid away from the hold of the Spanish Moss. The chirps of insects and other fauna kept him awake, kept him from total darkness. Even without the trickle of the silver moss that bloomed by him. 

He pushed himself up like Atlas , his Achilles heel was there for anyone to target, as he set his hand out, reaching for the stars as the luminary entities flew away from him, and for that brief moment, he was liberosis to all that was real. His eyes had tears gushing out, flowing down his skin as he made a caterwaul. 

The smell of the swamp and the thick atmosphere made him feel heavy, a deadweight to the ground, as his chest felt heavy, and for a fleeting moment, he was weightless. His form was within the air and floating among the cosmos before he had his great fall. He was holding onto that stone and that split moment where gravity couldn't pull him back down.

He was one with the stars in that swamp.

Chapter Text

United States' eyes observed the environment. The milieu was familiar, it was the sort of environment that would always imprint itself onto you. His hands were at his sides, laying limply, his gaze pierced the quagmire down below the plateau him and his group were hiking on. A small path while he bore witness to the wonders of nature. His stomach jumped and felt dizzy at the heights — but it was sort of exhilaration that came with it. His eyes softened as he adjusted his backpack with his supplies and held his bag with his left arm.

His right arm reached out to the environment, where he could call out to home and have a response, where the fauna would chirp back at him, or the flora would look at him and his comportment, wondering what he wished for. He slowly set his arm down, his face beamed with innocuousness at the environment.

He took a deep breath — his eyes shut and ensnared themselves to be free from the environment — as he felt himself relax. It was in his very nature to feel at home there. He loved his own home back in the city — don't get him wrong — but his eyes and somata was eased at the chirping of insects and birds, where the leaves of the Spanish moss would sway and shift from the winds. She could howl in his ears, but he could never hate her. She was a voice that could never incite violence. He was vehemently in tune with her whistles and chants as her cold voice pushed him back while he cracked a smile on his face. He snickered softly as he opened his eyes to look at the swamp blocked by the treeline. His joy was unparalleled, nothing could match the excitement that festered in his form.

Perhaps he never truly grew out of his romanticist nature. It wouldn't surprise him; he doesn't remember if any countries had childhoods, they were merely political tools, and those were the rules. He enjoyed breaking the rules anyway, he could get away with it, considering his status. Why does it matter what others care about anyway?

His racing heart and grins while he bears witness to the winds whistle her favorite folktales… that couldn't ever be beat. Space, nature, and the innocence of it all was… it was home before home lost its meaning.

It was picayune of him, but he couldn't dampen the jubilation he felt when it came to the environment. The air was thinner where they were, but it was freeing — the virginity of it all was enough to nestle deep into him.

So he carefully took another step closer toward the plateau's edge, witnessing the still muddied landscape squelch and warp from his slow and methodical steps, clashes against the ground while he peered, to look more at the open alcove of the quagmire. He smiled as he turned to look back at the others on the excursion with him. He spoke full of mirth, his eyes beamed with the same twinkle as the lake did, with the sun's reflection and rays. "Guys, you need to look at this swamp, it's amazing!" His grin grew as he turned back and had his hands clasped around his backpack straps.

He smiled as he saw his hiking fellows approach — Canada and Mexico — they both looked exhausted at his joy and stars in his eyes for such a simple means of enjoyment, but Canada spoke first. "I see it United, but you need to be careful, you're closer to the edge then recommended."

He waved the other off as he snickered and spoke. "I'll be perfectly fine, you know this, I'm not just going to fall or anything."

Mexico shook his head and sighed, tired of his shenanigans. "Canada, I'm starting to think his ego needs to be removed."

He rolled his eyes as Canada nodded and seemed to agree. "You're right Mexi."

His tone was wry while he crossed his arms over his chest and looked at the two of them displeased. "I don't have an ego."

Mexico seemed to roll his eyes at his obvious lie and inability to acknowledge his flaws, which he'd argue isn't a flaw; he's quite self-assured in his skills and he was completely welcome to it. "Oh, and I don't speak Spanish."

Chapter Text

The lyrics:

“Wound up tight

I'll spend the night

I never wanna think again

I never wanna see it when

The kids on the carpet have to go their separate ways

The heartache that they're feelin' has been filling up the place

If you never drink the poison, then you're never gonna cry If you don't believe in magic, then you shouldn't even try.”

———

USA SONG ANALYSIS IS SO BAD BUT SO REAL HERE WE GOOOOO WAILS WAILS WAILSS

—

The first few lines “wound up tight,” and “spend the night” imply someone is like incredibly emotionally unstable. They’re anxious and unable to be alone. To cope with what is plaguing them. The problems they’re experiencing.

This is USA. He’s at this moment where he feels as if he is nothing or experiencing the lows. Especially the line “I never want to think again,” he is emotionally drained and frustrated. Where he is stuck in a point in his life where he cannot escape and he feels his years catching up to him. Where he wants to be ignorant to all that is happening to him because if he’s ignorant, at least he’s suffering on a guiltless and free conscious. He wants to delude himself into believing what others view of his own perception.

The line about going their separate ways could be about California and other states that have wished to be on their own with the direction his nation is currently going and how he feels as if he’s powerless to stop that. The carpet being like the “red carpet” where they are rewarded for this desire to slip out of his fingers. He’s nothing without others. Losing these pieces — his kids — is devastating to him.

Followed by the lines about poison and magic. These in tandem are USA in the sense that USA is feeling human, he’s vulnerable. The vices like poison, synonymous with alcohol and other forms of cheap & temporary ecstasy are the only ways to “feel” and that means cry. Plus, he is a sad drunk and I think the feeling / capacity to cry would be therapeutic for him. So he’s wedging himself into a horrid situation to then get cheap catharsis to cover for that. Along with the adrenaline he’d feel. 

He’s a mixed bag looking for something to fill the silence. He’s unhealthy, but at least he’s holding some power over himself. Some autonomy.

The line about magic is all about his own self esteem issues. Where the magic is his capacity to work. To be the best. Atlas, to be capable of doing it what is required of him. What he thinks others view him as. Normalcy. A man. A guy. So he doesn’t wish to try. He’s got nothing and feels useless.

———

“The world is a really scary place

But I know from the look that's on your face

Your life has been over way before it all began.

But girl, it's all a fuckin' joke, so just live it while you can.”

The world is a scary place, shows he feels threatened constantly. That shows his desire to fix it and other things before biting off more than he can chew and being overwhelmed with what he views as redundancy. 

What he views as cruel or injustice. 

He’s headstrong to fix other people’s problems so he can neglect his own or appear much better than he actually is doing. But it would be childish to acknowledge that the world is scary. So he doesn’t. 

This is further exacerbated with how the next lines talk about his life being over before it began. A paradox. A critique of his exhaustion and mere existence. He’s nothing if not a pathetic man. He’s tired; and he’s reaching his limit. 

He’s incapable of living up to what he wished. What is necessary. He’s always been a tool before he’s been a man. He’s nothing but a commodity for others. 

This last line is to show how he feels like he can only live life like some hedonist to survive, like the last line “if you never drink the poison… never [going] to cry” he’s stuck in this point, where the best thing for him is to just live life as he wants to, in the moment and engage in fugacious pursuits of pleasure. Instant gratification which quickly loses meaning after the second or third hit.

He’s a messed up man.

Chapter Text

When the heavenly body tumbles and its incandescence hurls through the skies, beginning to subside, seldom do mortals yearn to witness it.

This blinkered — and ill-natured — dependence on comfort, wherein there is no desire to look beyond the puny and cramped sphere these men have built for themselves. They suffice for bastions of security, yet they've formed into a hutch of humanity’s desire for welfare.

These spheres are invisible but tangible; they are of osmium¹, which they are of the highest sin: inhibition — yes, there is irony, to say prevention is a sin, absolution and repression are the maidens of such concepts; nevertheless, one musn’t neglect that the Heavenly Father — and his Son — had done something that was a journey. A route of exploration and the vastness of something that was, for all intents and purposes, novel.

United States was not someone unwonted to this fervent devotion to creation and the anatomy for which the soma roves. The existence of one is constant, opine as it was, and hopefully for him, tremendously never abates in human tenacity².

This, he recalls through consecaration — salient to him at that — is the adversary of his virtuous impetus: Gravity³. Obstinately, he knows such a discourse is naive. Stars shan’t be toys of optimism or prizes. Yet, the caliginosity of the tenantless ocean above had skerries; these skerries were of hydrogen and helium. They arouse the peregrination that he’d long since forgotten, enlivening his polyphagia.

A covetousness for the unknown, where these atolls were of hydrogen and helium — though a plethora of gases are present in the holms above, where they lay inverted⁴ to his protoplasm — primarily nursies that stung of boiling brine pools, fostering new esse. It was redolent of his incipience, brimming with mordancy, something scalding and particularly virulent; while a scion of such turbulent times, he now thrives. Nay, he is a spark that shan’t fizzle out.

Footnotes:

¹ — Atomic no. 76; it was by the other transition metals. He liked them, for they were finicky and unpredictable.

² — He is the manifestation of human pursuits toward the unknown and the genesis of which glory is begetted. A crop from capitalism and innovation’s intransigent progeny.

³ — She is his mistress and beloved; she keeps him tethered and human, but her schema and tightly knit grasp on him is enough to irk him. But yet, he loves her, a paradoxical malediction.

⁴ – Carbon, Oxygen, and Iron reside in the abyss maximum.

Chapter Text

The gleam of Helios upon his vitreous velarium never ceased in spontaneity akin to a venture, vigorish by nature. Yet, the gyrations he’d experienced and anticipated made each wrench of the yoke evoke ardor. Helios was fastidious; his luminescence was blinding if you so dared to charge upon him and Apollo, no doubt scorching thy oculi! Sending Steel Aves spiraling beyond their limitations, where phoenixes rise, those piloting the metal fauna whorl in the air, a surcease of the dainty dances once done in tandem with the skies, clobbering to the ground in a heap of scrap.

Such a perilous surrender towards the gargantuan beast of man’s next journey into the Unknown: Gravity!

Plunging downward with earth’s wanton embrace in such a perfervid display of meteorological processes replicated vicariously through man’s creations. It was a volute he didn’t wish to follow through with; nevertheless, the dangers that plagued aeronautics couldn’t wane over the fears of ‘what ifs/’ for such a field was requisite upon those with sitzfleisch. Therefore, nothing could circumvent the amelioration that came from such a valuable field.

Something so prized and edifying was the source of his affections; it was the light when Erebus had overtaken his vision, and he couldn’t trust his oculi, nay, such a fool’s dream to be so amenable towards them, and he’d be no imbecile to do so. No, he knows his weakness and when to yield in the face of greater men. This is one trait that has made his contemned existence bearable.

Such an incandescent display! Lo’ O’ Icarus, thy sufferance shan’t be in vain! His existence as a progeny of the rapacious and venal nature of men denotes his unremitting desire for skurries and places beyond his reach to one day satisfice that edacious portion of his form.

That entity which swayed with him, that same being that osculated him, the very one that laid its umbrageous hand on his back, entreating him to extirpate the fear from the innominated world. What a cruel existence.