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Now I am become Death, the shatterer of worlds.
Germany shakes Italy, gloves pressing against his sides harshly and digging and - filled with brewing rage.
Flushed, Italy alterned between shrieks and rambling. "C'mon, Germany, I know but you've been so busy lately let's play football, Germany—."
“I can’t enter war,” he cups Italy’s jaw, grip bruising — before sighing and letting his hand fall. “And, and not expect to be made the same by the end If there’s an end. We do not have mothers, don’t you get that? It’s not fear that we continue for,” he cards his hands through his hair. Desperate. Desperate for Italy to understand. Fuck. “Yes, we have aims, snow, leaves, songs. Really heavy wet snow boots and tar. That’s it.”
Italy’s brows furrow.
As if the answer is right there.
So big. More than oxygen.
His eyes are dipped with amber, the sunset, Rome, all his. "Amore." He rasps out. “We have amore. Fratello—”
"Italy,” Germany growls — sound sharp, low from his throat, teetering hysterical. “No. No. Duties to make right,” his brow shakes. “Inherited sin. Someone has to stand up and scrub it clean, ja?" a labor of love, if he could call it that.
Italy blinks at him. Something sparks in his face. Clenching to something more defined.
Germany flinches when Italy leans in and clasps his palm over the cross in his collar. A light smile is on his lips, like as if it’s all a game, like it’s all clear.
But Germany just encounters fog. Daze. Panic, every time he tries to solve the jigsaw puzzle. Guilt. Hot, thick, charred shame. That he doesn’t want. That he hates, loathes, he does, but he doesn’t stop it either. No. He obeys.
“Italy—!”
“Ve, Germany, but it’s here, you dummy,” sings Italy. “Forgiveness and salvation, ve? The broom. And—” he twirls the chain in his fingers, beaming up at Germany: god, so close, their noses almost touching. “I’m too cute for this, right, Germany?”
Germany stares. Words die and succumb on the tip of his tongue.
“This cross,” he taps at Germany’s chest, “is here, yes, Germany? As long as you have it I’ll be here,” his smile turns bittersweet, painful, far-away. Like Venice’s boats floating with the tide. “I know someone who’d like it.”
“Holy promises are the first to break, Italy,” Germany says.
Trepidation crawls in his skin.
Italy laughs softly. “Silly,” he steps back. Germany tenses—because no—he needs more. To hold him close, to dip his fingers down and— “I know that. But what else?”
“I’d let it burn for you.”
“What?”
“God.”
Italy laughs. That light noise cutting through air. “Not your country, though.” He winks at Germany. “You wouldn’t set it aflame first.”
Germany’s eyes widen. His heart clenches.
Fuck, he can’t breathe.
“Italy—” it’s a strangled whine. “Hold on.”
“It’s alright, Germany,” he grins. “Me too, I think. After all, I made a promise once, that I’d wait.”
Italy walks away.
Germany stares.
Something inside him—
Turns and turns violently.
And heat floods him. And he’s alone, and he’ll always be, like he has been, and will remain.
England flumps down the sofa right after he arrives.
He’s bruised. There’s soil clinging to his knees, to his elbow, to his eyebrows.
France glances at him once — gives him a cup of tea, lukewarm, that he had done hours ago. Waiting. Wordlessly, Britain takes it from his fingers.
There’s no room for gratitude. Just relief. Relief he isn’t dead, and France can sympathize.
Twin coils of steam don’t linger today, nor will they tomorrow, but England still trembles as if the drink’s scorching hot. “Fuck,” he whispers, raising his head after a sip. “This is just—bad, the fronts, the everything.”
France hums. “Yeah, well, je déteste it too,” he wipes invisible filth off his shoulders. “I mean, those Germans—”
“No.”
England is staring at nothing when France turns to look at him—almost offended before—
Fuck. England’s not crying, but it’s goddamn close.
There’s nothing human about his eyes. Puffy, tired, hollow. Skinned raw.
“Worst thing about war is seeing the kids get younger and younger,” he rasps after a few minutes. His voice breaks. “Fuck, I mean—I mean, I know—”
France coughs. “They started as children anyway,” but he can’t really shake off the strain on his shoulders, his voice, that prickling hurt in the back of his mind. No, he can’t, but it’s always there. “What’s the loss now?”
England flinches.
The cup slips from his fingers.
It’s a piercing sound, the shards leaping everywhere — sharp, so fucking sharp, but it’s like hearing water slushing. It’s suffocating. Everything.
Neither move.
“I don’t know,” England´s voice is small. “Everything and nothing, I guess? I just,” he clenches his eyes painfully. “I had to give ‘em juice. They were talking about some girls in magazines. They got one—.” His whole body shakes. “He kept calling the nurse mom. She was barely sixteen, I think. They arrive at the camp and they’re told you’re gonna kill, they know, from the very beginning, but they’re so damn young. When there’s silence and there’s only the clock ticking, I mean, you have to really look at them. They think they die for something. Kids killing kids.”
“Then you give their death a meaning,” France shrugs. “Any.”
England gives a shaky sigh.
He’s so defeated it almost hurts. He’s drowning, sinking in despair—
And what can France do? He’s drowning too.
“Fuck,” he slumps forward, running his hands through his face. “There’s no hope. There’s just no hope.”
“Tomato bastard,” Romano is seething. Cheeks red and eyes—oh, red, looking all betrayed. “Where are you running off to again? You’re bleeding!”
Spain stops in his tracks.
His chest constricts. “It’s nothing, Romano,” he smiles weakly as he cranes his head. “Go back to sleep, ¿si?”
Romano goes very, very still.
Before scowling indignantly. “Bullshit!” he snarls. “You’re holding—holding—” his cheeks are puffy, hands waving violently.
Spain blinks. Glances down to the pack he’s carrying. And laughs.
“This little thing?”
Romano’s eyes widen before he’s shaking his head, flustered. “Whatever. Go and die if you want to,” but he still peers to Spain, little, scared.
He almost feels guilty, for a small moment.
Spain just beckons him over. Breathless, but it’s just because of the fight today, surely, nothing is wrong. Nothing is ever wrong.
Despite Romano trying to draw back his shoulders, raise his head tall, look more intimidating; he caves in. He walks over to Spain, frowning, lips curved downwards. So cute, Spain thinks. Not defenseless, but still, innocent.
“You always smoke the same,” Romano huffs.
Spain laughs freely. He takes out his lighter.
He thinks that’s that, lighting a cigarette with trembling hands before—
“What’s the name?” Romano asks, and before Spain can breathe, he’s already clicking his tongue. “And stop that, your hands are all bloodied. Where the hell are the gauzes?”
Spain raises a brow. “You’re asking the name?”
The reaction is instantaneous.
Romano jerks slightly, cheeks burning up. “No—”
“Raleigh,” Spain replies quickly. It’s sobering. “It’s Raleigh.”
The wind thrashes.
Romano pauses, a small mercy.
Waits. That’s what Spain realizes. Waits for him. It’s almost heartwarming. This kid—this kid he’s raised, the one he knows inside out, like this puzzle solved, like this mantra.
“I was walking down this street, and saw this woman smoking,” he shrugs. “She said her daddy only smoked this. Raleigh.” Raleigh, Raleigh; she had chanted each word like a folded prayer, a curved raindrop, falling and tumbling and wobbling.
Edge of dawn cracks from far away.
“It’s a Mexican thing,” he explains, already feeling Romano’s curious eyes boring into him.
“I thought you were done with that.”
“Oh, fuck off, I was just checking up,” Spain rolls his eyes. “They take away so much of my energy anway—”
Romano’s almost laughing, that condescending, rich pattern Spain has learned to memorize. “So, it’s like a gift? From a chick?”
A gift is a chip of gold. To collect and mold. It scorches under the gleaming sun, a gift. It’s above magnitude, gravity, the falling of the moon. It means gratitude.
What Spain deserves is hell, not that. Maybe it is.
Spain swallows nothing. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, something like that.”
When Canada sees America again, his brother’s wasted.
He’s thin. Too thin, not exactly lanky, but it still makes him uneasy.
“Alfred?” he calls. They never use their human names, those are guises, those are useless – but his brother startles all the same.
Because he’s somebody. And none of them likes to be someone.
It’s scary. How fast he is to beam — for his features to morph into something heroic, brave, but so hurt, too. “What’s up, Canada?”
Canada smiles lightly.
The blood they share goes back to theatre. Acting.
“Have you been eating?” he asks, tilting his head gently. “Have you been checked for,” he glances at the injuries littering the body in front of him; purple, orange, falling and denting the skin. Bruises, wounds, gauzes, white, and white. “That?”
His brother shrugs. “Yesterday I went to the clinic.” His tone is monotone. “I haven’t had time, you know, with that war. Seems like I’m just holed up in the war room like a loser,” he laughs. “They asked me if I wanted vanilla, chocolate, or strawberry.”
Fledgling dread thrums in Canada’s body like a pulse. America's face is still chubby, eyes edged with light. But he looks so much older than he is. In a way. On the other hand, he looks too young.
Too bad they don’t really have hearts. But looking at his brother right now, golden-bathed—
He’s almost whole. But it hurts. It always hurts.
“And?”
“What?”
Canada clenches his fist imperceptibly. “What did you choose?”
“Vanilla,” America makes a face. Almost disgusted. “But it was like, really thick, dude. Not in the good way either. Zero out of ten.”
Canada giggles.
His limbs feel heavy, like cement, but it’s fine. He doesn’t have to be at this moment. A rare glimpse of whatever he and Alfred are — something familiar, domestic, but too far, too different to be tangible.
The sun comes up late and asks for a bite of his breakfast.
Prussia remembers his little brother.
Holy Roman Empire.
Sometimes, he takes out the little box of memory he keeps under his bed. He’s great, after all, he can handle it. It almost makes him feel weird, like the earth’s been stripped away, grieving someone alive. Just forgotten, in a way, like how coins are chipped away by time. Mourning, it lingers.
Big eyes that’d look up at him, filled with stars. Oh, Prussia remembers. He remembers well.
“Big brother,” the way he became alive, the way he had a purpose whenever the Holy Roman Empire trailed after him like a lost puppy. Called him. Gave him the title of brother, gave him something worth winning for.
The way happiness took a shape and it was the this and that — family, having a brother.
They both knew that it was a cheap deal of time; that it’d be back, and take the Empire back, and that Prussia could kick this nuisance that only stumbled out whenever he wanted.
But those eyes. The little, chubby hands grasping at him. The rough, honey voice that only knew purity. Coats. Arms.
Italia. Big brother. Italia. The Holy Roman Empire lived for two things, people, empires, and honestly, Prussia almost envied him. He wasn’t careless. But he breathed life.
Prussia would often find the Holy Roman Empire reading, working, doing anything but enjoying (the last days, dawns, sunsets, it was an unspoken agreement). Then he’d complain — “Do you live?”
Suddenly, those big eyes would become solemn, sober, filled with foreboding. Like the kid knew something Prussia didn’t, the future, its key, how waves overlap. Become one. “Sometimes,” and that, that’s the only smile Prussia can remember from him.
Bittersweet and sour, like coffee.
A coffee The Holy Roman Empire had tasted before him. Known it. In his blood.
Then came Germany.
The Holy Roman empire is left as a child erased, not reborn, not for Prussia. Both Germany and that child gone, they’re both sincere. It’s not long before the reaper comes knocking at his door—
Prussia tastes something like sulfur when he swallows.
Like tongue and taste and its relation: guilt.
He does not pray. He accuses. God, why my little brother? Why him? Why my child? Out of everyone, why did you take my baby?
It changes nothing.
The earth groans under Germany’s boots.
Crisp frost sticks to his skin. It hurts, fuck, it burns—
But he has to keep stalling, keep walking forward, keep being himself. Germany.
Ataxia cleaves under his fingertips. He itches with the urge to cup Italy’s chin, crawl his palm under his collar, to collapse against him, melt.
It's microscopic. His anger and love.
Again a wreath.
His regret. This pouch devoid of anything noble, good; gooey with misery, etched loneliness, chilly and thrashing.
It’s cold and he tastes stench and rot and death and—
He can only remember Italy. Italy’s dimples, the curve of his hair, the way he rubs his body close. The sun, Germany’s caught it once, and it’s Italy. Life, it turns around this heavenly axis, the girth of the world, the Italian breeze and sway. He hears a familiar song, in the drum of his ear, sticky and sweet. Off-key, and between the plane of snow and corpses, it’s all Germany can focus on.
Between individuals like us nations we all cherish life and we all are mortal and we all dance.
England remembers, more often than not.
The color of daisies. America in the field. True to him second, and true to nature first. True to everything, but existence, maybe.
Now, they rarely do gather outside world problems, rarely do they share food, rarely does England have to wipe scribbles off the wall. No, America has resigned; he just sends him letter, that taste like gunpowder, ash, and reek of a child's poverty. It’s frivolous and, ultimately, a useless task.
England crumples the letter in his fist today. Like he always does. Dregs of heady rage, of bitterness — overflow, all the same, gray and meaningless.
“Stop sending them, goddamnit,” he whispers to himself. He throws the paper to the hearth: the hungering flames cracking, whipping.
It all gets burnt.
He reads them before, all the same. It’s his own sanctuary, ritual, a place where absence finds something… else. The throbbing of his windpipe, his heart, the twitching of his fingers seeking something warm and solid. Something to hold and balance with his hip. Now, it’s all hollow, raw, old.
It fits him, grief and shame intertwined, like a bishop’s robes. Down the seam, smooth, pristine, like a glove.
Charred. Dust. It’s all nothing. England needs none, just the sea, just the crux of the wind rose. He doesn’t need anything else.
He drinks himself until he’s on the floor and thighs bruised and he can only drift. France is a friend of his — must be, all that time —, quick and witty, charm-filled and idiotic. It is also France that gets him on his feet. Taunts die, welled up, and another small civic war goes about all the same.
“Do you think I’ll die soon?” he murmurs, a half-joke, a half-question, muffled against France’s chest. “They all….” hiccups. “Do you think—”
“Never,” France replies. He’s breathless, as if it’s a good damned joke, but damned all the same.
Sometimes, thoughts break through barrages; ransack him; he wonders what he could’ve been, if his cards had not yet been dealt.
Germany finds Italy in a desolated battlefield — he’s bloody, and alone, and he’s so bright. With a ring of fractured light pooling in his features: not downturned, but not exactly happy either. Resigned, Germany realizes with terror. Dawn arises in her chariot, rosey-fingered, and glistens upon the same brown hue Germany always finds himself mesmerized by.
He’s everything.
When Germany comes back to, he’s already embracing Italy tightly, like he will leave, and it feels like the world is ending and crumbling and all he can do is hold on. Hold on. To Italy, to either card his fingers through his face or try to scold before his voice breaks and he’s back to the moment he first opened his eyes, lost, distraught, terrified.
Italy’s beautiful. He’s beautiful, and Germany shouldn’t tarnish him this way, but he can’t help it. Maybe it’s the booze in his blood, that rancid taste in the back of his throat, or that aching bleeding from the small of his back.
The orange dances and curves in Feliciano’s cheeks, bridge of his nose flushed; wet and half-lidded eyes looking up in surprise at Germany, as if seeing a priest. Puffy, the bow of his lips quivering so right. Delicious. Gorgeous. As if made of clouds, of the divine throne.
Almost like — an angel knelt before Ludwig’s sole.
Yes, Germany has dreamed of this once.
The little boy, girl, the frills, the brazen warmth.
Germany cups Italy’s chin — bares his throat, pressing a chaste kiss on his brow. Below his eye. On the tip of his nose, the ridge, desperate. A stinging burn flares and runs up and down his spine, skittish, but he doesn’t care. For all he knows, this is his last prayer, his last breath, and oh, it hurts, how much he loves and writhes for.
“What’s got you acting this way?” Italy giggles, slinging a lazy arm around Germany’s neck. His fingers touch like a drawn sun; sinking, rising, electrifying Germany’s skin and giving it life when they press against his nape.
A hungry dog coils in Germany’s ribs. Selfish, arrogant, pretty. “If the devil came down with those fancy shoes and cheap drink,” he peppers a kiss on Italy’s jaw, sacramental. “He’d kiss your brow, weep, and go back to God.”
Italy squirms, long line of his neck bulging. “Ve, Germany, that’s what you say to girls—”
Germany locks Italy close, as if they are both atop the edge of the earth's patched world, both hands coming to cradle his cheeks. “Italy, Italy,” he repeats, praying. “Italy.”
It bubbles, hysteria, in his chest. Up his throat. Fizzles like wine, like love, and fuck. He doesn’t care anymore.
He can’t. Blood rushing to his ears. Pouncing.
Nausea—
“Were you scared, Germany?” a hand comes to cup his cheek, wiping a tear away below his eye. He hadn’t realized he had closed his eyes.
He blinks down at Italy. Something wet trickles down. “I–” he tries to speak, he tries so hard, but—
Italy’s lips curl, so soft, hand calloused and all Germany can do is nuzzle.
Glistening in Italy’s eyes, is an unspoken devotion. Or is it Germany reflected? He can only think back, remember, see Italy surrounded by blood. Endangered. Far. So far—
No, the landfill still surrounds them both; empty, vacant, littered with blood and loss. Italy isn’t lost, but he’s rotting without a trajectory too, with a stillfall, with a forced hand and a forced boss; and still, he’s here. Nemesis and love in his eyes, narrow when they crinkle in a smile like lotus, brows light and back shafts taut as he rubs his palms on Germany’s face. And Germany lets him; would let him be a dagger, wound or not; would let him wreck anything, and he’d worship the ground he walked on, when none glanced behind.
“I didn’t know you were scared, too,” whispers Italy. It’s weird, how strangled he sounds. “It’s fine, Germany. We’ll be fine. You’ll see.”
Germany only breaks a little bit more when he’s pulled down, to a proper hug, hearts and ribcages beating and thrumming right beside each other. His hands plummet to his sides as Italy just holds him. He smells sharp, ashen, and like home.
“The jewel of my eyes,” mumbles Italy into his hair.
Maybe it’ll all be fine.
Italy’s wise, too, and Germany’s always has been stubborn; rigid; a cleaved something.
Italy has always been whole, eternal. Crooked, the hollow of his throat throbs as he tries to swallow down small sobs that threaten to tumble past him.
He’s pulled off, eventually, with a strength that surprises him.
Italy grins at him. “Better now?” it’s a lopsided smile he gives Germany, a little treasure.
Germany has the world sinking on him again. Shame, rattling his bones, the embarrassment burrowing in every nook and cranny.
He lowers his head and nods once, blushing wildly.
“You’ll call, right?” Italy asks without relenting. “When you get back to your house.”
Germany laughs weakly despite the terror, the shrinking love, the burning hole on his chest. “Damned if I don’t.”
Italy smiles, and Germany smiles with him. That way they can hope what he said is true and seal it tight. That it's true and it stays true. Remains.
Skein fly overhead; maybe robins?
Heat crawls pleasantly under the clothes, heavy, rich.
Germany is a temporal kind of person.
Italy is an eternal kind of person.
Bingo, he thinks. It bodes wrong, but still—
This joke of fate, he’s perfect with having, and yearning, and beer, and maybe he can learn to be okay with… this. Desperation. Loss.
In any way, Italy is forever on his window sill. Because every sun, zenith and down, Germany glances past the window sill to admire it; bright, vibrant, Italian. And he’ll keep looking outside, and the sun will be reflected into his life, and the seat of all life will always belong to Italy inside of him.
The only person he can be with, and maybe that’s fine, too.
Something warm and throbbing and hot buzzes relentlessly in his blood.
"Unhand me, dimwit! Bloody hell," England shoves France off of him. "What else can I do?"
They're at the conference room - alone, and neither is really sure if they're waiting for someone; or just for each other.
France shrugs, uncaring. "Pray."
"Salvation—"
"No, just some talking."
England raises a brow.
"What?"
"Talk to god," France repeats, tongue slurring. "Maybe he'll answer with a Jeanne. But we're also kind of early," he waves a hand, charismatic smile flaunting something - but not giving away something precise. "Wars will keep happening. Conflicts will keep breaking out. Why don't you go and get yourself a girl? Might be the last."
Germany comes home to Italy waiting with flowers.
"Ve, Germany," he brightens like a withered rose when he sees Germany walk in, jacket lazily strewn on his shoulders, cross dangling. "I made pasta for valentine's!"
He shifts on his spot. Germany's eye twitches. This is wrong. This is wrong, even if it has wedged into his life, lurking and wriggling - it's wrong. That he cares for Italy; it frightens him, he's scared of the lengths he'd go for the other nation. To disrupt straits, hop on trains with whistles blowing, rekindle and burn and spark himself.
The bouquet is shoved on his palms before he can jerk away: tenderly, harshly, an intersection of hope and doom.
"Stop, Italy," he groans. "I can't. You know this."
Italy grows rigid, for a second, throat bobbing. Before he's cocking his head, dimples evident. "Eh?"
"We're - Nothing but vessels of war," Germany says, turning away. From Italy's face, the sweltering sun, the cheap flowers that lap at his world. "We should be planning. Countries don't celebrate. We're just friends."
It's selfish, the way his heart leaps over a simple clog: love, bashfulness, whenever he sees Italy waiting for him in his home. Not exactly a wife, but something smaller, untamed, fierce. Free. Envy tastes much like acid and spit. It's comforting. Having someone waiting for him, past battlefields, past the crust of blood or picked skin or yellow vomit.
The Italian only frowns, the rankling of something jarring - dreadful, prickling cold - contorting his features.
"But you're something for me," he falters. "That has to mean something, doesn't it?"
Germany's forehead creases as he frowns.
"War, Italy," he repeats. "Blood soaked shoes, sieges, multi-lateral alliances. Slaves, none's, to the course of history despite any semblance of free will we might have. We can't afford -" he glances to the collar of his sleeves. The blue in his finger joints. Cranes back to look at the flowers. Almost edenic. It's tempting, to just run away with Italy.
He stares at Italy.
They're both away, atop two shores of light. For a small moment, Germany's terrified.
Love doesn't make him kind, or gentle, it makes him selfish, almost worse than war. And it's the terror that vanquishes any thread of softness.
"- This."
"Was there ever a turning point in history? Have we ever even changed?" England whines from where his face is hidden by his hands. "Has it ever changed? Has there ever been anything close to genesis? Lad, I - dunno if I'm even Catholic or protestant or -"
"Well, I remember," Spain shrugs. "The blue ocean. Blue. The smell of copper. Rust, red green filling my nose. Copper in my lungs. Ears. Leaking out, my lips stung. Burnt really bad. My eye then lifts," raised like tumbling adriatic waves, he remembers life breathing in his lungs. A citizen to the nation of expansion, of traveling, of conquest. "And there — the new world," he whispers conspiratorial, shaking his hands. "America."
"Little guy," France sighs. "Wanted him."
England's soft sobs wreck his shoulders.
Belarus watches the beaches lines overlap - dissolve - rocks leap away.
She glances at Ukraine sitting beside of her, thinks of Cain, and considers it all blameless.
The sea slushes like milk staining the mountain doors.
"America says they've become death because of big brother. Will God be missed, anyway," Ukraine sniffles beside her - rambling, rambling, always so soft like clay and yet so righteous. "It’s not like we did not kill him."
Belarus growls. "Stop talking like that about big brother. And It's not like we didn't let the old god live either," the sand is warm when her palm grazes the earth, tumbling and turning. "We treat him like our slave. Really, he kind of is. We kind of are."
"Oh, Belarus -"
"Shut it." The sun drops in the distance. "Big brother will solve it. I know he will."
Faith. Faith, it sticks.
There's always faith in something. Belarus finds it like a star, this cradle. It will remain to burn brightly, after her, it better.