Chapter Text
The blood that trickled down his arms, piling over each symmetrical cut on his skin and falling further still. It raced the other droplets, raced until it was picked up by fabric against skin. England didn’t know what he was doing. Didn’t even know why. He had a faint knowledge of one thing though, and that was : ‘it’s not deep enough. It’s fake.’ Thoughts that have made him vomit bile and dry heave into the toilets because he knows he’s not nearly as great as what he used to be. What he could have stayed as. Instead he’s looked down on. Instead he decides that the best way to deal with, anything really, is to hold a knife to his stomach and know that ‘this won’t kill me? What the fuck am I doing? Am I seriously as pathetic as this?’ And the cycle repeats until he won’t be able to take it anymore. Even then he won’t do anything.
The idea of doing anything else that day made him feel slightly nauseous. Whilst there was nothing in particular that made England cut (well, more scratch at the surface of his skin. He could be going deeper and he knows it.), he supposes its force of habit, a vicious cycle he can’t be asked to escape from. He leaves France on read. He’ll reply later, when he can form a thought thar’s not related to sex or self-harm. He’ll laugh about something and go destroy himself for even going because what is he doing? What am I doing? It doesn’t matter. Same old England!
His day had started like any other. Get up, get dressed, world conference meeting, disengage, go home again. He hasn’t eaten anything though — the thought of having anything in his system without instantly wanting to purge it from himself meant he was avoiding any type of food. There’s a throbbing pain making itself present in his head. It’s dehydration and he remembers the dull ache it’ll leave him with before he realises dying of thirst is a fucking pathetic way to go. He’ll avoid drinking anything at all. He avoids America too, and France, and all the other stupid allies on his life that he hates- he doesn’t hate them. He just can’t bring himself to look them in the eyes and say ‘by god, you wankers needs lighten up!’ When they’ll inevitably catch a glimpse of the stupid bleeding scabs that litter his body like bugs. He hates them and he needs to go deeper. Needs to feel something without inevitably zoning out and realising he’s just covered his body in cuts an again ‘oh that’ll be a wanker when I shower.’
England supposes he could talk to his brothers, maybe to Sealand or even Canada. He doesn’t. Instead he spends the rest of his day walking aimlessly around his empty house, before retreating upstairs. There’s something hollow in him and he knows it. Something vacant that he fills by watching blood pour out his skin and jacking off even though he knows he can’t cum because there’s nothing left in him at all. And so he picks up the blade he swore he wouldn’t think about, metal shine catching the artificial light in his room and pulls it against his skin, watching the faint white stem bloom into a red blossom. He repeats. Thighs. Torso. Chest. Arms. Wherever he can get the most pain from. Wherever he’ll feel most satisfied. Wherever he can hide in himself, in his hollow husk of what used to be an empire knowing he’ll fall asleep aching and wake up aching and use cutting as a way out of that pain. He’s going stagnant. And he dreams of death and maybe that’s a freedom worth putting actual effort into? But instead he’ll open a vein and maybe if he’s lucky, watch the corners of his vision fade as he falls asleep nauseated and dizzy with his metal destruction in his hands.
Fulfilment.