[Fanfiction] Fade
Australia’s scar is fading.
The last remnants of the burn across the bridge of his nose could be seen only if the light hit just right. Or when he spends a tad bit too long under the sun, the discoloration of the burn contrasting with his already tanned skin. The broken nose fixed itself years ago, leaving only the burn behind as evidence of the first foreign attack upon his body.
Of course that’s not quite right. The first attack wasn’t Darwin but centuries before when his insides felt as if they were trying to devour itself. But does it count as foreign if one part of him is trying to destroy the other?
At first, he wore it with pride. He had grown up hearing tales of battle past from his family. He thought the scars were signs of a nation’s resilience, of strength, badges of honor. So he took it as a rite of passage…that he was now a nation that could be seen as an adversary, worth of military attack.
Yes, he wears it with pride, bottling up any other emotion - Oh God it hurts and he’s scared. His men are a world away, too far away to protect him. That bastard. That bastard dragged him to his coldwetsofaraway island and took away his soldiers and he’s so defenseless - and soldiers on.
~~~~~
He had first seen Éire’s scar in the aftermath of his own, but barely had time to acknowledge it that frenzied night before shipping out for home. It would be decades later before he had the chance to trace his finger along the hollowed scar, pale against her freckled skin. Down from her collarbone, along the shoulder blade, curving up and under and skating alongside her breast then up, up to the beginning - encircling her left shoulder - the tactile evidence of the cleaving of her land in two. “Does it still hurt?” he whispered in her ear. Éire just smiled at him, distracting him with a kiss.
~~~~~
Years before that, it was America’s scar that had shocked him. That night after the treaty ceremony he had felt it beneath his sweat-slick fingertips, the thicken mass pulsating with every thrust. But it was in the morning light, where it was so visible against his seemingly otherwise perfect body, Australia couldn’t help but gasp at the violence of it. The jagged scar didn’t truly split America down his back. Rather, it looked as if someone had meandered down his spine with a serrated blade. With a voice still thick with sleep, all America would say was, “Whoever said the Mason-Dixon was a straight line was a dirty liar,” and give him a sleepy smile.
A decade later when the long jagged scar flared, vivid red and warm to the touch, America just grinned grimaced and kissed him distracted him. “They’ll work it out. I know they will.” And slowly, so slowly the violent reds drained from his skin, a reward for his never-ending optimism.
~~~~~
His own scar is fading with fewer and fewer left to remember its reason for being. Some days he misses it. Some days he’s glad he no longer has to hide it behind a bandage.
He never could tell which made his already awkward conversations with Japan even more so.
Soon his scar will be gone completely. But he has a feeling that in a hundred years, he’ll still feel scar tissue when he goes to cup Éire’s breast or press his lips down America’s spine. He just doesn’t know if he should feel sadness for them or not.
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*Author’s Notes*
Australia’s Scar: The bombing of Darwin http://en.wikipedia.or/wiki/Air_raids_on_Darwin,_February_19,_1942
...his insides felt..: Australian frontier wars http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_frontier_wars and Indigenous Australians http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_Australians
Éire: The Republic of Ireland has two official names, Éire (in Irish) and Ireland (in English). Those closest to her would call her Éire, the rest Ireland.
Éire scar: The Irish War of Independence http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_War_of_Independence and the Irish Civil War http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Civil_War
America’s Scar: The American Civil War http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_War_(United_States)
The jagged scar...and...the Mason-Dixon...: The issues of race and racism in America tend to be portrayed (mistakenly) as a Southern “problem” or something that only happened below the Mason-Dixon line http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mason%E2%80%93Dixon_Line
A decade later...: The Civil Rights Movement http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African-American_Civil_Rights_Movement_(1955%E2%80%931968)