[Part 4] Red (1a/?) (Russia/Canada Mental Recovery + Hurt/Comfort)
anonymous
September 26 2011, 04:15:37 UTC
So, uh, this was sitting on my hard drive for 2.5 years. I am a slow writer. ^^; There will be multiple parts.
The original prompt was "Something leaves Canada completely mentally broken, and Russia decides to comfort and take care of Matthew to make him become functionally normal again. Bonus points for Russia at first having no clue how to take care of somebody so traumatized, but eventually figuring it out." and it can be found here: http://hetalia-kink.livejournal.com/6850.html?thread=10336450
Warning: This fill involves nonconsensual situations, abuse and violence. There are also several instances of profanity.
Now then:
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Title: Red
Ivan had only just finally begun to relax - a warm fire, an icy bottle of vodka, and no one around for miles to bother him, no Party members or politik or fucking Belarus - when a loud thump against the door interrupted his evening. He rose to his feet, confused. There should be no one coming to his door, no one should even know where he was. That was the whole point of spending some time out here; he wanted to be alone for a while - and he had been so careful about it, too. He scowled.
He grabbed his pipe from where it rested against the doorframe, and yanked open the door, fully prepared to give the offending visitor a knock to the head and a speech on becoming one with Russia if he wanted to see Ivan so badly. If it were one of his boss’s lackeys, come to fetch him back, so much the better, because damn it, he had been careful that no one would know he was here -
He stopped mid-swing when he realized there was no one standing there for him to bludgeon. That wasn’t right. He frowned. There were tracks in the snow leading up to his door - red tracks and - Oh. There. On the doormat.
A person. After some close staring - there was a lot of blood to look past - he saw blond hair, a brown coat, and under it the remains of familiar red shirt.
Canada.
Bleeding.
He crouched to get a closer look at the injuries. Lots of dried blood on his face, but it was probably from a head wound, and those always bled, bruises, a nasty swelling on the side of his jaw. His eyes were closed. Ivan poked him, once, experimentally. No response.
“Canada?” he called softly. Nothing. What was his name again? He hadn’t spoken to him in so long… M-something. Michael? Matvei? No. Matthew, that was it. “Matthew?” Silence.
Well.
He was still breathing. Nations were hard to kill. If he was still breathing, he’d probably live. Ivan stared at him a moment more, his eyes caught up in following the designs of blood smeared on skin, streaked through pale hair, like some kind of twisted modern art. His fingers followed, entranced, tracing them up and around and back. The unconscious man’s skin was icy cold, pale, the bloody tracks like a figure painted on porcelain. Their red contrasted starkly with the blue of his lips.
The wind whipped at Ivan, driving snow into his face and hair and down his shirt, unprotected by his coat. Right. The door.
Ivan dragged him over the threshold and into the house and shut the door soundly behind him. In the light the red stood out even more, and he looked at it closely, taking it all in. Who had done this? And why?
There was no obvious evidence here in front of him.
“Shto dyelat’?” he murmured to himself. ...i kto vinovat? He frowned at the body in front of him, puzzling over that, and his fingers were about to start tracing the bloodstains again, but the iciness of Matthew’s skin shocked him awake. So cold. He wasn’t even shaking.
He needed to warm up.
Ivan carefully picked him up - he weighed little, just chilly skin and bone, and that too wasn’t right - and carried him to the bathroom in the back of the house. He turned on the tap in the tub and watched as the water sputtered, and sputtered, and finally decided to come out and warm up. He had a brief moment of thankfulness that he’d decided to modernize this place, at least a little.
Red (1b/?)
anonymous
September 26 2011, 04:17:41 UTC
While the tub filled, he rolled up his sleeves and set to removing Matthew’s ice-crusted clothing. Carefully he got the heavy coat - made heavier by the weight of the snow - off him, and set it aside, and saw - oh. That shoulder didn’t look right. He’d have to fix it.
The red shirt under Matthew’s coat was ripped all over and pretty well destroyed. It was simple to enlarge a few of the rips and get it off of him without further jostling the dislocated shoulder. Once the shirt was off, Ivan braced him and popped the joint back into place. It made an horrible familiar sound and would hurt when he woke up, but for the moment there were more important things to see to.
His trousers were also damaged, like the shirt had been, but they weren’t quite so bad. Maybe he could mend them later. He didn’t rip them like he had the shirt, instead taking the time to undo them and slide them off over Matthew’s hips. And -
Ivan hissed. Bruises covered his hipbones, awful black-and-blue marks extending below the waistband of his shorts. The blood he found when he removed those wasn’t a surprise. He took a moment to survey the injuries - lots of bruises, cuts, so much blood, he couldn’t see it all clearly, but at least nothing else was popped out, no bones looked to be broken, no frostbite, by some unbelievable miracle of chance. All fixable, and fixable here, because Ivan wasn’t leaving the house and giving them a chance to find him.
He turned off the taps, picked Matthew up, and set him in the tub. The water almost instantly turned pink, but at least it would warm him, and warm him now while getting some of the blood off him in the process, so that Ivan could actually see what the hell he was fixing.
He sat back, chewing a thumbnail, and tasted the coppery tang of blood. Not his. He stared as the tub filled, sputteringly, and tendrils of red swirled through the steaming water, but the tub was taking a long time to fill and he didn’t like sitting and staring at that much blood.
He got slowly to his feet and stared down for a moment. He felt like a looming giant, and Matthew was so small below him. Small and red and cold. He needed to do something.
He headed to the kitchen and grabbed a mug from the kitchen counter - the samovar had hot water in it already, good - and couldn’t find the tea. Was he out of tea? The teapot was empty. He made a perfunctory check of the cabinets and decided tea could wait. Heat was more important than flavor, and the water was hot. Ivan filled the mug with that and headed back toward the bathroom, pausing on the way to grab his bottle of vodka, which he took a swig out of as he walked.
Upon returning to the bathroom he saw that Matthew had slipped downward in the tub; his nose and mouth were centimeters away from the water - too close. With a curse, Ivan set down the vodka, and the water, and rushed forward to grab Matthew under the arms and haul him up.
Matthew’s eyes opened, just a bit.
Ivan forced his face into a smile.
Matthew screamed.
He not only screamed, he thrashed, sending a torrent of bloody water over Ivan and catching him in the head with a poorly-coordinated punch. He kept on screaming, and Ivan, stunned, let go of him, and backed away from the tub.
Matthew continued thrashing for a couple moments, stopping finally when his next punch met nothing but air. He curled into a ball, bringing his knees up to his chest. His breath came in short, stuttering gasps, and he couldn’t get enough air in his lungs to keep screaming, though he tried, eventually making a keening sort of moan and going quiet.
Re: Red (1c/?)
anonymous
September 26 2011, 04:19:12 UTC
Ivan watched him all the while, trying to collect his thoughts. “Matthew,” he began slowly, “Do you know where you are?”
His eyes flicked towards Ivan, but he tensed, curling up tighter, and didn’t make a sound. Ivan supposed that meant ‘no.’ “You are in Alaska. I have a house here. I found you at the door. You are injured.” As he spoke, he moved closer to the tub. Matthew’s eyes followed him, warily. “And you are very cold. I can help you, da?”
He made no sign that he understood. Ivan wondered if he should try speaking French. He hadn’t actually spoken the language in a hundred years, but he remembered enough. “Vous êtes en Alaska. J’ai une maison ici.”
Another not-quite-scream, and then Matthew hid his face against his knees and tried to bring up his arms to cover his head. The right one wasn’t working properly. This was not the reaction Ivan had hoped for. He stared.
He went up to the edge of the tub again, slowly. “I will not hurt you.” He wanted to know who had - oh, did he want to know - but that would have to wait. “Relax, yes? Uspokoytes’.”
Even more slowly, he reached out and grabbed the mug of hot water he’d set down earlier. Still warm, at least. “You are cold,” he repeated, and it out. “This will help to warm you up.”
Matthew moved his hand away from one of his eyes, but didn’t reach out. He eyed Ivan suspiciously.
“It is only water. I promise. You are too cold.”
Finally, after several agonizing seconds, Matthew reached out one unsteady hand to take the mug.
Ivan smiled at him. “Good.”
With that matter settled he turned away from Matthew, to rummage in the cabinets. They were well-stocked with supplies; he’d had need of them often enough, even here.
By the time he had that all arranged and turned back round, Matthew had drunk his water and set the mug down at the edge of the tub. He’d curled into a ball again, hiding his head. From that angle Ivan could see that his back was a mess, and wondered if he’d have to do any stitching. Before he could get to that though, the excess blood needed to come off, and give him a better view.
He approached the tub again, and had to reach over the edge to pull the stopper - Matthew noticed this, and shrank away from him. He started to cry out but stopped when Ivan reached away to turn the tap back on, and reached over again - a flinch from Matthew this time, but no crying - to grab the showerhead, and explained, “Your wounds need to be bandaged. I cannot do that until I can clearly see them, da? You have a lot of blood on you.”
He watched Matthew intently. Finally, he nodded his head, a fraction of an inch. Ivan leaned over him - another flinch - set the showerhead to its lowest setting, and began to rinse off the blood. Matthew shook, whimpering.
“It is painful, I know,” he murmured. “But it is necessary.” Gently he used his free hand to take Matthew’s arm and hold it away from his body, so he could get it clean. He followed suit with the other arm, and Matthew didn’t protest, though he tensed up like mad and Ivan could see him biting his lower lip so hard he was sure it would break the skin, and then there would be more blood.
When Ivan asked him to unfold his legs, he refused.
“I have already seen those injuries, Matthew. I will not touch you there.”
He didn’t move. It took several minutes of cajoling him - and Ivan found himself speaking Russian at the end of it, because he was tired and he’d never been good at this sort of thing in English, anyways - but Matthew finally stretched out in the bathtub, so Ivan could get to work.
His legs weren’t as bloody as the rest of him, but his hips and thighs were mottled black-and-blue. As Ivan rinsed them off he saw a red drop land on his arm and looked up to see Matthew crying. A thin trail of blood dripped down from his lip, where he’d finally broken the skin. Ivan stared at it a moment, before tearing his eyes away and resuming his work.
“Vsyo budyet khorosho, Motka,” he murmured, “Vsyo budyet v poryadkye, da? Shh.”
Re: Red (1d/?)
anonymous
September 26 2011, 04:19:50 UTC
He finished up as quickly as he could, noting as he did that several of the wounds would probably need to be sewn shut. Whoever had done this hadn’t done so systematically; there was no pattern to his injuries...whoever had done this wasn’t experienced with torture. But who? That would have to wait. “Now we just need to bandage you,” he said softly. Matthew didn’t give any indication that he had heard.
Ivan got up and grabbed a stool from the corner of the bathroom along with several towels. Lucky they were dark-colored, he thought, blood always looked more shocking on white. He took Matthew’s hand and after a minute or so managed to get him unsteadily to his feet. He held out one of the towels and handed it to him straight away - “You can put this on,” - and Matthew started trembling again and wouldn’t look at him, but he wrapped the towel around his waist. He sat down when Ivan told him to - flinching, and Ivan didn’t want to think about that - and Ivan sat on the edge of the tub, and patted off the excess water carefully with the other towels he had.
“It is almost over,” he explained slowly, as he put his supplies in order, and uncapped the bottle of vodka. He could do with some, right now, he decided, and drank, before continuing. “What I am going to do next will hurt. Your injuries need to be disinfected and bandaged. Some of them must be stitched, da?”
Matthew blanched and Ivan wished fleetingly that he didn’t have to do this. He drank, again, and a thought occurred to him.
He held the bottle up to Matthew’s lips. “Drink,” he said. “It will help you forget.”
Matthew drank.
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Translations: Shto dyelat’ - What should I do? (lit. What is to be done?) Kto vinovat - Who is to blame? Uspokoytes’ - Relax. Vsyo budet khorosho - Everything will be fine Vsyo budet v poryadkye - Everything will be okay
Red (2a/?)
anonymous
September 28 2011, 17:39:30 UTC
Oh wow, thanks for the feedback you guys! <3 I've got most of this written but it hasn't been edited in a long time so I'm going over it. I'll try to be faster than I normally am - I don't want my capital to be Warsaw! (j/k :P ) -----
When all the bandaging was finally done, Ivan left him sitting there to find him some clothing. Everything he had was far too big, but at least it would be warm and at least it would be something. As he gathered up clothing from his chest of drawers, he realized he would need to find a place for Matthew to sleep. A bed, he needed a bed, but the bedroom was the coldest room in the house.
He returned to the bathroom, finding Matthew just as he had left him. The vodka had relaxed him a little; he was staring at the walls, looking shell-shocked. Ivan pressed the bundle of clothing into his newly-bandaged hands, and Matthew took it, stiffly. “Put this on, da? I return soon.”
He didn’t wait for a response. Instead he left, and went to the bedroom again, where he took the bedclothes off the bed and dragged the mattress out into the front room. It would be warmest there, in front of the fire, and Matthew needed a soft place to sleep. Once he had the mattress moved, he grabbed the bedclothes, all the blankets he had, and the pillow, and made the makeshift bed. He wished now that he had more pillows, but it had been a long time since he’d lived with such extravagancy.
He headed back to the bathroom to retrieve Matthew, who had managed to dress himself in the oversized clothing and was now standing in the middle of the room, unsteadily, arms wrapped around himself. He was trembling. Ivan walked up to him and carefully laid a hand on his arm, to lead him out. Inebriation delayed the inevitable flinch. “Come with me.”
He didn’t want to, at first, but Ivan kept tugging his arm - smiling all the while, because everyone trusted smiling people - and eventually Matthew followed him back into the front room, to the hearth.
“You need rest, now. The fire will keep you warm. Try to sleep, da?”
Matthew shook his head, in response to that, but he allowed Ivan to help him lie down on his side on the mattress, to cover him snugly with blankets. He didn’t close his eyes, though, just stared up at Ivan with an unreadable expression on his face.
Ivan stroked his hair once, gently. There were still spots that were stained pink, and it took a lot more willpower than it should have to keep his fingers from running themselves over those. He drew his hand back. “Sleep,” he murmured. “It is safe here.”
Matthew stared a while longer, Ivan staying with him all the while, and finally his eyelids drifted closed, and his breathing evened out, and he fell asleep. Ivan kept watch over him for some minutes after that, his eyes still tracing the injuries. He was so pale, so vulnerable-looking in sleep. There was no more blood on his face; it had been replaced with bandages, but their white made the black-and-blue bruising stand out even more.
Who would do such a thing? Ivan wondered. Why Canada? If anyone was going to go after a nation, why not his brother? Alfred had certainly antagonized far more people than Matthew ever had. Or, indeed, why not Ivan himself? He certainly deserved it, he thought, and was no stranger to such things. But Matthew? Ivan sighed, and rose to his feet. There was still work to be done.
Red (2b/?)
anonymous
September 28 2011, 17:41:12 UTC
He took hot water and a brush and set to scrubbing the blood from everything - the entryway, the hall, the bathroom. The bathroom was by far the worst, with streaks of red everywhere, and when he was done cleaning that he had to scrub the blood out from under his fingernails. He didn’t want it staying there. When that was done, he gathered up the towels, and Matthew’s clothing, and stuck them in the newly-clean bathtub which he filled with cold water. He stripped off his bloodied shirt and trousers, and put them in to soak as well. It would keep the stains from setting, overnight. He would do the laundry later; for now he needed to rest.
He picked up his bottle of vodka, downing the remnants in one swallow, and headed into the bedroom, shivering for want of clothes. He dressed himself - shirt, trousers, scarf - and grabbed his coat as he headed back to the front room. Matthew hadn’t moved.
Ivan laid down awkwardly on the sofa, knees hanging out over the side as he bent his legs to fit, pulled his coat over himself as a blanket, and went to sleep.
When he woke up the first thing he noticed was that the mattress was empty. He sat up, looking about the room, hoping to every deity he didn’t believe in that Matthew was still here somewhere - and not with them. Where -?
Finally Ivan saw him, sitting curled up on the floor in the far corner of the room - blankets gone, some bandages showing pink. He was asleep, breathing slowly but steadily. Ivan debated moving him, or waking him up, but decided against it for fear of panicking him again. Instead he grabbed the blankets, and carefully draped them around him, noticing that Matthew was thankfully a good deal warmer than he had been last night. Pale, still, but warmer.
He’d need food when he woke up. That could be difficult.
Ivan went to the kitchen, and carefully examined the cabinets and the small refrigerator. Not much there, mostly because as long as he had vodka he didn’t find it necessary to eat much, and he was running low on supplies anyway. He found a mostly-full tin of oatmeal, stashed in the back of a cupboard. Bland enough not to upset the stomach (he knew that lesson well…), easy to eat without chewing, and warm. Yes, that would work. He lit the stove and set about to boiling some up.
He managed to find the tea, too, and put that on to brew.
Re: Red (2b/?)
anonymous
September 28 2011, 17:42:46 UTC
Matthew finally woke up that afternoon, though he didn’t move from his corner. Ivan poured a mug of tea and ladled him out a bowl of oatmeal, stuck a spoon in it, and returned to the living room, holding out the bowl with a smile, feeling a little proud of himself. Now Matthew could eat. It was plain he hadn’t been getting enough food in a while.
Matthew took the mug with a shaking hand, but instead of taking the bowl as he expected, Matthew only stared at him.
“Porridge, da?” Ivan explained, though Matthew ought to be familiar with the food. He didn’t think there was anyone on Earth who wasn’t. “Is good. Eat.”
More staring. Ivan couldn’t read the expression on his face - not pain, and not pure terror like it had been last night, but he couldn’t tell just what it actually was. Finally he set the bowl down in front of him and backed away. Maybe he just needed to relax.
Ivan left the room, heading for the bathroom and the laundry he’d left there overnight. Most of the bloodstains hadn’t set, but it took a lot of scrubbing to get everything clean. When he’d hung all that up to dry and returned to the front room, he expected to see an empty bowl in front of Matthew.
It was still full. He’d drunk the tea, at least, but hadn’t eaten anything.
Ivan crouched in front of him again, though he took care to place himself more than an arm’s length away. Again he was reminded of just how big he was in comparison, and he remembered what it was like being on the opposite side of the conversation, and smiled, and tried to be gentle. “Why don’t you eat? Is it because it is cold now?”
Matthew shook his head, just barely.
“Is it because you don’t like it?”
No.
“Are you angry with me?”
A more emphatic no.
“If you don’t eat, then you’ll die.”
Matthew had no response for that.
Ivan sighed, and left it there. “You can move about the house, you know. You don’t need to remain in the corner.”
No answer.
He went to his bookshelf and pulled down a title - Erofeev, and that was another perk of being here and out from under his boss’s watchful eyes. He sat down on the sofa with it, Matthew staring as he did, and began to read. He would wait.
Re: Red (2b/?)
anonymous
October 1 2011, 05:45:13 UTC
Oh wow, I just came across this by chance, but I'm so glad I did because I really enjoyed reading what you have so far!!! Everything is so vivid (for example, Russia having to clean up Matthew's blood from all over his house), it's...unsettling, obviously, but in the most engaging way.
Much to his surprise Matthew didn’t eat that day, or the following morning, though he always drank the tea Ivan made him, and finally did move from his corner to get up and use the lavatory. He walked very slowly, and Ivan knew that the injuries and the lack of food were weakening him. He wasn’t going to let this go on.
He had to rebandage Matthew’s wounds; he’d pulled some of them open as he slept. Matthew let Ivan work without protest, though he remained silent as ever.
“How did this happen?” Ivan asked, bandaging knuckles that had been reopened in a nightmare.
He felt Matthew tense, under his hands, but no answer was forthcoming.
Ivan tried to get him to eat again, with another bowl of oatmeal. He’d found the last vestiges of a sugar package hiding behind the vodka. Maybe Matthew preferred sweets.
Maybe not.
“You need to eat this. You will die if you do not eat.” A thought occurred. “Is that what you are trying to do?”
Matthew said nothing, but turned his face away.
Blyad’. He’d never been good at talking people down. He tried anyway. “That is a bad idea, Matthew. If you die what will happen to your people, eh? Who will look after them? Your brother can’t do it. My boss won’t let him. Do you want them stuck in the middle of that?”
He let him think on that for several minutes, but there was no response.
Ivan smiled and tried to be pleasant, because it was always better to be pleasant. “Matvei, listen to me. You need to eat, da? If you do not do it of your own accord, I will have to make you.”
Matthew didn’t move, and Ivan leaned forward and grabbed his chin, ready to make his mouth open up - because it didn’t matter how frightening this was, Ivan wouldn’t let him starve himself to death - and stopped, because Matthew’s lips were moving.
Ivan let go, to let him speak - the first words since he’d found him - but for a moment Matthew only stared, terrified.
Then a faint whisper, so soft Ivan barely heard it:
“No, please.”
“What?”
Matthew brought his arms up now, shielding his face. “No, please - please, no, no….” He rocked back and forth a little, in place.
Ivan drew back, recoiled, feeling something he belatedly identified as guilt. He shouldn’t have done that. That was not how things worked here. He sighed heavily. “That was not the correct thing to do. I am sorry.”
No answer, but Matthew was looking at him.
“I will not do that again.” He didn’t like that Matthew still hadn’t eaten, but he wasn’t going to get anywhere by sitting there and looming over him, not after what he’d just done. He got up instead, and backed slowly away.
He took another book down from the shelf - Solzhenitsyn, today, because he already wasn’t feeling cheerful and it wasn’t like this could make it any worse - and headed to the bedroom. Maybe being alone would convince Matthew to eat.
When he returned that evening Matthew was toying with the spoon, though it looked like he hadn’t yet eaten anything.
Ivan sat down across from him, taking care to sit out of reach. He wasn’t giving himself a chance to do that again.
It took him a moment to gather his thoughts, and when he finally spoke he wasn’t looking at Matthew, but through him, caught in the past.
“I have been in a similar situation, Matvei.” So many times. He remembered them, remembered invading nations and rebellions and his boss, and would have shuddered except for centuries of practice at making himself forget, making himself too strong to shudder. Was this what happened when a nation got old? They all had scars, all the old ones, he and Ludwig and Yao...
“And I know… I know it hurts, and I know that it is too much to bear, but it is who we are. We are nations. We live through it and we survive and we do what we must. We look after our people.”
Matthew spoke in a faint, faltering whisper, looking down at his knees. “And if they don’t want looking after?”
“We do it anyway.” He smiled bitterly. “Someone has to save them from themselves.” Even when it does no good... He wanted to press him, to seize on that answer and find out just who had done this, but it was more important for him to eat. He held a hand out, forcing himself to appear relaxed. “That is cold now, da?”
Matthew leaned away, eyes on Ivan’s hand, and the guilt stabbed him squarely in the stomach.
He pushed it away. “Come, I will make you something new.”
Matthew slid the bowl forward, and Ivan took it into the kitchen. As a new batch of oatmeal cooked he went digging through the cabinets. Vodka, vodka, and nearly nothing else - he really needed supplies, soon. He finally dug out a small, dusty can of condensed milk, cleaned it off, popped it open, and when the oatmeal was done he poured the milk into the bowl as well.
He returned to Matthew. “Here.”
Matthew stared at him, but it was an engaged stare, not like the dead-eyed one he had last night. He was thinking about it.
“I must say, I am offended. I have seen you eat English cooking before…”
And here, a small, barely perceptible ghost of a smile flashed across his face.
He held out the bowl of oatmeal again. “This is better than that, I promise.”
Slowly, hesitantly, Matthew took the bowl and began to eat.
---- Translation: Blyad’ - literally ‘promiscuous woman’, (historically, ‘heresy’ or ‘mistake’); used as an exclamation similar to ‘shit!’ in English.
Thank you to everyone for reading and commenting! <3 I think that in the end this will be 5-7 parts; it was written as one big piece and needs to be broken up logically. ^^;
Warning: You know that thing I said earlier about ‘some instances of profanity’? Change ‘some’ to ‘numerous.’ I, uh, may be taking some liberties with the original prompt. ^^; ------
Matthew slept better that night. Ivan was able to convince him to move from the corner and actually go to sleep on the mattress. He even ate breakfast (although it was more like lunchtime by the time he woke up), though he remained mostly silent.
When that was done Ivan sat down across from him. Matthew still preferred sitting in the corner, and Ivan couldn’t fault him for that. He understood wanting to watch his back. “Matvei,” he said, “I must speak with you.”
Matthew looked unsure. He bit his lower lip, and thought, as Ivan waited. Finally he nodded.
Ivan nodded in return. “Matvei, I want to help you, but there are things I must know. Do you want to remain here, or do you want to return to Canada?”
As he spoke the last sentence Matthew’s eye grew wide with fear , and his hands gripped his blanket so tightly that the knuckles went white. Just as Ivan had been expecting.
“Ponyatno.” He kept his voice calm, hoping it would have an effect. “Matvei, am I correct to guess that it was your people that did this?”
Matthew had started to shake, and when he opened his mouth to speak his breath caught in his throat. He licked his lips and tried again. “I-It -”
A knock sounded at the door.
Ivan jumped to his feet, conversation forgotten. Not them - not here - they couldn’t have -
No. There was no time to think about that. He had to keep Matthew safe. He advanced slowly, quietly, toward the doorway, reaching for his pipe. “Matvei,” he said softly, eyes fixed on the doorknob. “Go into the bedroom. Block the door if you can. Make no noise.”
He hefted the pipe, and waited until he heard Matthew leave the room, and then reached out and opened the door.
He had just enough time to see someone standing there before he swung with all his might, catching the stranger in the head. Instead of collapsing, as he'd hoped it would, the figure struck back and punched him in the jaw.
He took one lurching step backward, seeing stars, and heard the intruder say, “What the fuck are you doing here?!”
The original prompt was "Something leaves Canada completely mentally broken, and Russia decides to comfort and take care of Matthew to make him become functionally normal again. Bonus points for Russia at first having no clue how to take care of somebody so traumatized, but eventually figuring it out." and it can be found here: http://hetalia-kink.livejournal.com/6850.html?thread=10336450
Warning: This fill involves nonconsensual situations, abuse and violence. There are also several instances of profanity.
Now then:
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Title: Red
Ivan had only just finally begun to relax - a warm fire, an icy bottle of vodka, and no one around for miles to bother him, no Party members or politik or fucking Belarus - when a loud thump against the door interrupted his evening. He rose to his feet, confused. There should be no one coming to his door, no one should even know where he was. That was the whole point of spending some time out here; he wanted to be alone for a while - and he had been so careful about it, too. He scowled.
He grabbed his pipe from where it rested against the doorframe, and yanked open the door, fully prepared to give the offending visitor a knock to the head and a speech on becoming one with Russia if he wanted to see Ivan so badly. If it were one of his boss’s lackeys, come to fetch him back, so much the better, because damn it, he had been careful that no one would know he was here -
He stopped mid-swing when he realized there was no one standing there for him to bludgeon. That wasn’t right. He frowned. There were tracks in the snow leading up to his door - red tracks and - Oh. There. On the doormat.
A person. After some close staring - there was a lot of blood to look past - he saw blond hair, a brown coat, and under it the remains of familiar red shirt.
Canada.
Bleeding.
He crouched to get a closer look at the injuries. Lots of dried blood on his face, but it was probably from a head wound, and those always bled, bruises, a nasty swelling on the side of his jaw. His eyes were closed. Ivan poked him, once, experimentally. No response.
“Canada?” he called softly. Nothing. What was his name again? He hadn’t spoken to him in so long… M-something. Michael? Matvei? No. Matthew, that was it. “Matthew?” Silence.
Well.
He was still breathing. Nations were hard to kill. If he was still breathing, he’d probably live. Ivan stared at him a moment more, his eyes caught up in following the designs of blood smeared on skin, streaked through pale hair, like some kind of twisted modern art. His fingers followed, entranced, tracing them up and around and back. The unconscious man’s skin was icy cold, pale, the bloody tracks like a figure painted on porcelain. Their red contrasted starkly with the blue of his lips.
The wind whipped at Ivan, driving snow into his face and hair and down his shirt, unprotected by his coat. Right. The door.
Ivan dragged him over the threshold and into the house and shut the door soundly behind him. In the light the red stood out even more, and he looked at it closely, taking it all in. Who had done this? And why?
There was no obvious evidence here in front of him.
“Shto dyelat’?” he murmured to himself. ...i kto vinovat? He frowned at the body in front of him, puzzling over that, and his fingers were about to start tracing the bloodstains again, but the iciness of Matthew’s skin shocked him awake. So cold. He wasn’t even shaking.
He needed to warm up.
Ivan carefully picked him up - he weighed little, just chilly skin and bone, and that too wasn’t right - and carried him to the bathroom in the back of the house. He turned on the tap in the tub and watched as the water sputtered, and sputtered, and finally decided to come out and warm up. He had a brief moment of thankfulness that he’d decided to modernize this place, at least a little.
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The red shirt under Matthew’s coat was ripped all over and pretty well destroyed. It was simple to enlarge a few of the rips and get it off of him without further jostling the dislocated shoulder. Once the shirt was off, Ivan braced him and popped the joint back into place. It made an horrible familiar sound and would hurt when he woke up, but for the moment there were more important things to see to.
His trousers were also damaged, like the shirt had been, but they weren’t quite so bad. Maybe he could mend them later. He didn’t rip them like he had the shirt, instead taking the time to undo them and slide them off over Matthew’s hips. And -
Ivan hissed. Bruises covered his hipbones, awful black-and-blue marks extending below the waistband of his shorts. The blood he found when he removed those wasn’t a surprise. He took a moment to survey the injuries - lots of bruises, cuts, so much blood, he couldn’t see it all clearly, but at least nothing else was popped out, no bones looked to be broken, no frostbite, by some unbelievable miracle of chance. All fixable, and fixable here, because Ivan wasn’t leaving the house and giving them a chance to find him.
He turned off the taps, picked Matthew up, and set him in the tub. The water almost instantly turned pink, but at least it would warm him, and warm him now while getting some of the blood off him in the process, so that Ivan could actually see what the hell he was fixing.
He sat back, chewing a thumbnail, and tasted the coppery tang of blood. Not his. He stared as the tub filled, sputteringly, and tendrils of red swirled through the steaming water, but the tub was taking a long time to fill and he didn’t like sitting and staring at that much blood.
He got slowly to his feet and stared down for a moment. He felt like a looming giant, and Matthew was so small below him. Small and red and cold. He needed to do something.
He headed to the kitchen and grabbed a mug from the kitchen counter - the samovar had hot water in it already, good - and couldn’t find the tea. Was he out of tea? The teapot was empty. He made a perfunctory check of the cabinets and decided tea could wait. Heat was more important than flavor, and the water was hot. Ivan filled the mug with that and headed back toward the bathroom, pausing on the way to grab his bottle of vodka, which he took a swig out of as he walked.
Upon returning to the bathroom he saw that Matthew had slipped downward in the tub; his nose and mouth were centimeters away from the water - too close. With a curse, Ivan set down the vodka, and the water, and rushed forward to grab Matthew under the arms and haul him up.
Matthew’s eyes opened, just a bit.
Ivan forced his face into a smile.
Matthew screamed.
He not only screamed, he thrashed, sending a torrent of bloody water over Ivan and catching him in the head with a poorly-coordinated punch. He kept on screaming, and Ivan, stunned, let go of him, and backed away from the tub.
Matthew continued thrashing for a couple moments, stopping finally when his next punch met nothing but air. He curled into a ball, bringing his knees up to his chest. His breath came in short, stuttering gasps, and he couldn’t get enough air in his lungs to keep screaming, though he tried, eventually making a keening sort of moan and going quiet.
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His eyes flicked towards Ivan, but he tensed, curling up tighter, and didn’t make a sound. Ivan supposed that meant ‘no.’ “You are in Alaska. I have a house here. I found you at the door. You are injured.” As he spoke, he moved closer to the tub. Matthew’s eyes followed him, warily. “And you are very cold. I can help you, da?”
He made no sign that he understood. Ivan wondered if he should try speaking French. He hadn’t actually spoken the language in a hundred years, but he remembered enough. “Vous êtes en Alaska. J’ai une maison ici.”
Another not-quite-scream, and then Matthew hid his face against his knees and tried to bring up his arms to cover his head. The right one wasn’t working properly. This was not the reaction Ivan had hoped for. He stared.
He went up to the edge of the tub again, slowly. “I will not hurt you.” He wanted to know who had - oh, did he want to know - but that would have to wait. “Relax, yes? Uspokoytes’.”
Even more slowly, he reached out and grabbed the mug of hot water he’d set down earlier. Still warm, at least. “You are cold,” he repeated, and it out. “This will help to warm you up.”
Matthew moved his hand away from one of his eyes, but didn’t reach out. He eyed Ivan suspiciously.
“It is only water. I promise. You are too cold.”
Finally, after several agonizing seconds, Matthew reached out one unsteady hand to take the mug.
Ivan smiled at him. “Good.”
With that matter settled he turned away from Matthew, to rummage in the cabinets. They were well-stocked with supplies; he’d had need of them often enough, even here.
By the time he had that all arranged and turned back round, Matthew had drunk his water and set the mug down at the edge of the tub. He’d curled into a ball again, hiding his head. From that angle Ivan could see that his back was a mess, and wondered if he’d have to do any stitching. Before he could get to that though, the excess blood needed to come off, and give him a better view.
He approached the tub again, and had to reach over the edge to pull the stopper - Matthew noticed this, and shrank away from him. He started to cry out but stopped when Ivan reached away to turn the tap back on, and reached over again - a flinch from Matthew this time, but no crying - to grab the showerhead, and explained, “Your wounds need to be bandaged. I cannot do that until I can clearly see them, da? You have a lot of blood on you.”
He watched Matthew intently. Finally, he nodded his head, a fraction of an inch. Ivan leaned over him - another flinch - set the showerhead to its lowest setting, and began to rinse off the blood. Matthew shook, whimpering.
“It is painful, I know,” he murmured. “But it is necessary.” Gently he used his free hand to take Matthew’s arm and hold it away from his body, so he could get it clean. He followed suit with the other arm, and Matthew didn’t protest, though he tensed up like mad and Ivan could see him biting his lower lip so hard he was sure it would break the skin, and then there would be more blood.
When Ivan asked him to unfold his legs, he refused.
“I have already seen those injuries, Matthew. I will not touch you there.”
He didn’t move. It took several minutes of cajoling him - and Ivan found himself speaking Russian at the end of it, because he was tired and he’d never been good at this sort of thing in English, anyways - but Matthew finally stretched out in the bathtub, so Ivan could get to work.
His legs weren’t as bloody as the rest of him, but his hips and thighs were mottled black-and-blue. As Ivan rinsed them off he saw a red drop land on his arm and looked up to see Matthew crying. A thin trail of blood dripped down from his lip, where he’d finally broken the skin. Ivan stared at it a moment, before tearing his eyes away and resuming his work.
“Vsyo budyet khorosho, Motka,” he murmured, “Vsyo budyet v poryadkye, da? Shh.”
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Ivan got up and grabbed a stool from the corner of the bathroom along with several towels. Lucky they were dark-colored, he thought, blood always looked more shocking on white. He took Matthew’s hand and after a minute or so managed to get him unsteadily to his feet. He held out one of the towels and handed it to him straight away - “You can put this on,” - and Matthew started trembling again and wouldn’t look at him, but he wrapped the towel around his waist. He sat down when Ivan told him to - flinching, and Ivan didn’t want to think about that - and Ivan sat on the edge of the tub, and patted off the excess water carefully with the other towels he had.
“It is almost over,” he explained slowly, as he put his supplies in order, and uncapped the bottle of vodka. He could do with some, right now, he decided, and drank, before continuing. “What I am going to do next will hurt. Your injuries need to be disinfected and bandaged. Some of them must be stitched, da?”
Matthew blanched and Ivan wished fleetingly that he didn’t have to do this. He drank, again, and a thought occurred to him.
He held the bottle up to Matthew’s lips. “Drink,” he said. “It will help you forget.”
Matthew drank.
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Translations:
Shto dyelat’ - What should I do? (lit. What is to be done?)
Kto vinovat - Who is to blame?
Uspokoytes’ - Relax.
Vsyo budet khorosho - Everything will be fine
Vsyo budet v poryadkye - Everything will be okay
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Very much looking forward to the next update!
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Or your capital will become Warsaw! XD
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When all the bandaging was finally done, Ivan left him sitting there to find him some clothing. Everything he had was far too big, but at least it would be warm and at least it would be something. As he gathered up clothing from his chest of drawers, he realized he would need to find a place for Matthew to sleep. A bed, he needed a bed, but the bedroom was the coldest room in the house.
He returned to the bathroom, finding Matthew just as he had left him. The vodka had relaxed him a little; he was staring at the walls, looking shell-shocked. Ivan pressed the bundle of clothing into his newly-bandaged hands, and Matthew took it, stiffly. “Put this on, da? I return soon.”
He didn’t wait for a response. Instead he left, and went to the bedroom again, where he took the bedclothes off the bed and dragged the mattress out into the front room. It would be warmest there, in front of the fire, and Matthew needed a soft place to sleep. Once he had the mattress moved, he grabbed the bedclothes, all the blankets he had, and the pillow, and made the makeshift bed. He wished now that he had more pillows, but it had been a long time since he’d lived with such extravagancy.
He headed back to the bathroom to retrieve Matthew, who had managed to dress himself in the oversized clothing and was now standing in the middle of the room, unsteadily, arms wrapped around himself. He was trembling. Ivan walked up to him and carefully laid a hand on his arm, to lead him out. Inebriation delayed the inevitable flinch. “Come with me.”
He didn’t want to, at first, but Ivan kept tugging his arm - smiling all the while, because everyone trusted smiling people - and eventually Matthew followed him back into the front room, to the hearth.
“You need rest, now. The fire will keep you warm. Try to sleep, da?”
Matthew shook his head, in response to that, but he allowed Ivan to help him lie down on his side on the mattress, to cover him snugly with blankets. He didn’t close his eyes, though, just stared up at Ivan with an unreadable expression on his face.
Ivan stroked his hair once, gently. There were still spots that were stained pink, and it took a lot more willpower than it should have to keep his fingers from running themselves over those. He drew his hand back. “Sleep,” he murmured. “It is safe here.”
Matthew stared a while longer, Ivan staying with him all the while, and finally his eyelids drifted closed, and his breathing evened out, and he fell asleep. Ivan kept watch over him for some minutes after that, his eyes still tracing the injuries. He was so pale, so vulnerable-looking in sleep. There was no more blood on his face; it had been replaced with bandages, but their white made the black-and-blue bruising stand out even more.
Who would do such a thing? Ivan wondered. Why Canada? If anyone was going to go after a nation, why not his brother? Alfred had certainly antagonized far more people than Matthew ever had. Or, indeed, why not Ivan himself? He certainly deserved it, he thought, and was no stranger to such things. But Matthew? Ivan sighed, and rose to his feet. There was still work to be done.
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He picked up his bottle of vodka, downing the remnants in one swallow, and headed into the bedroom, shivering for want of clothes. He dressed himself - shirt, trousers, scarf - and grabbed his coat as he headed back to the front room. Matthew hadn’t moved.
Ivan laid down awkwardly on the sofa, knees hanging out over the side as he bent his legs to fit, pulled his coat over himself as a blanket, and went to sleep.
When he woke up the first thing he noticed was that the mattress was empty. He sat up, looking about the room, hoping to every deity he didn’t believe in that Matthew was still here somewhere - and not with them. Where -?
Finally Ivan saw him, sitting curled up on the floor in the far corner of the room - blankets gone, some bandages showing pink. He was asleep, breathing slowly but steadily. Ivan debated moving him, or waking him up, but decided against it for fear of panicking him again. Instead he grabbed the blankets, and carefully draped them around him, noticing that Matthew was thankfully a good deal warmer than he had been last night. Pale, still, but warmer.
He’d need food when he woke up. That could be difficult.
Ivan went to the kitchen, and carefully examined the cabinets and the small refrigerator. Not much there, mostly because as long as he had vodka he didn’t find it necessary to eat much, and he was running low on supplies anyway. He found a mostly-full tin of oatmeal, stashed in the back of a cupboard. Bland enough not to upset the stomach (he knew that lesson well…), easy to eat without chewing, and warm. Yes, that would work. He lit the stove and set about to boiling some up.
He managed to find the tea, too, and put that on to brew.
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Matthew took the mug with a shaking hand, but instead of taking the bowl as he expected, Matthew only stared at him.
“Porridge, da?” Ivan explained, though Matthew ought to be familiar with the food. He didn’t think there was anyone on Earth who wasn’t. “Is good. Eat.”
More staring. Ivan couldn’t read the expression on his face - not pain, and not pure terror like it had been last night, but he couldn’t tell just what it actually was. Finally he set the bowl down in front of him and backed away. Maybe he just needed to relax.
Ivan left the room, heading for the bathroom and the laundry he’d left there overnight. Most of the bloodstains hadn’t set, but it took a lot of scrubbing to get everything clean. When he’d hung all that up to dry and returned to the front room, he expected to see an empty bowl in front of Matthew.
It was still full. He’d drunk the tea, at least, but hadn’t eaten anything.
Ivan crouched in front of him again, though he took care to place himself more than an arm’s length away. Again he was reminded of just how big he was in comparison, and he remembered what it was like being on the opposite side of the conversation, and smiled, and tried to be gentle. “Why don’t you eat? Is it because it is cold now?”
Matthew shook his head, just barely.
“Is it because you don’t like it?”
No.
“Are you angry with me?”
A more emphatic no.
“If you don’t eat, then you’ll die.”
Matthew had no response for that.
Ivan sighed, and left it there. “You can move about the house, you know. You don’t need to remain in the corner.”
No answer.
He went to his bookshelf and pulled down a title - Erofeev, and that was another perk of being here and out from under his boss’s watchful eyes. He sat down on the sofa with it, Matthew staring as he did, and began to read. He would wait.
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Keep up the good work! :)
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Much to his surprise Matthew didn’t eat that day, or the following morning, though he always drank the tea Ivan made him, and finally did move from his corner to get up and use the lavatory. He walked very slowly, and Ivan knew that the injuries and the lack of food were weakening him. He wasn’t going to let this go on.
He had to rebandage Matthew’s wounds; he’d pulled some of them open as he slept. Matthew let Ivan work without protest, though he remained silent as ever.
“How did this happen?” Ivan asked, bandaging knuckles that had been reopened in a nightmare.
He felt Matthew tense, under his hands, but no answer was forthcoming.
Ivan tried to get him to eat again, with another bowl of oatmeal. He’d found the last vestiges of a sugar package hiding behind the vodka. Maybe Matthew preferred sweets.
Maybe not.
“You need to eat this. You will die if you do not eat.” A thought occurred. “Is that what you are trying to do?”
Matthew said nothing, but turned his face away.
Blyad’. He’d never been good at talking people down. He tried anyway. “That is a bad idea, Matthew. If you die what will happen to your people, eh? Who will look after them? Your brother can’t do it. My boss won’t let him. Do you want them stuck in the middle of that?”
He let him think on that for several minutes, but there was no response.
Ivan smiled and tried to be pleasant, because it was always better to be pleasant. “Matvei, listen to me. You need to eat, da? If you do not do it of your own accord, I will have to make you.”
Matthew didn’t move, and Ivan leaned forward and grabbed his chin, ready to make his mouth open up - because it didn’t matter how frightening this was, Ivan wouldn’t let him starve himself to death - and stopped, because Matthew’s lips were moving.
Ivan let go, to let him speak - the first words since he’d found him - but for a moment Matthew only stared, terrified.
Then a faint whisper, so soft Ivan barely heard it:
“No, please.”
“What?”
Matthew brought his arms up now, shielding his face. “No, please - please, no, no….” He rocked back and forth a little, in place.
Ivan drew back, recoiled, feeling something he belatedly identified as guilt. He shouldn’t have done that. That was not how things worked here. He sighed heavily. “That was not the correct thing to do. I am sorry.”
No answer, but Matthew was looking at him.
“I will not do that again.” He didn’t like that Matthew still hadn’t eaten, but he wasn’t going to get anywhere by sitting there and looming over him, not after what he’d just done. He got up instead, and backed slowly away.
He took another book down from the shelf - Solzhenitsyn, today, because he already wasn’t feeling cheerful and it wasn’t like this could make it any worse - and headed to the bedroom. Maybe being alone would convince Matthew to eat.
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Ivan sat down across from him, taking care to sit out of reach. He wasn’t giving himself a chance to do that again.
It took him a moment to gather his thoughts, and when he finally spoke he wasn’t looking at Matthew, but through him, caught in the past.
“I have been in a similar situation, Matvei.” So many times. He remembered them, remembered invading nations and rebellions and his boss, and would have shuddered except for centuries of practice at making himself forget, making himself too strong to shudder. Was this what happened when a nation got old? They all had scars, all the old ones, he and Ludwig and Yao...
“And I know… I know it hurts, and I know that it is too much to bear, but it is who we are. We are nations. We live through it and we survive and we do what we must. We look after our people.”
Matthew spoke in a faint, faltering whisper, looking down at his knees. “And if they don’t want looking after?”
“We do it anyway.” He smiled bitterly. “Someone has to save them from themselves.” Even when it does no good... He wanted to press him, to seize on that answer and find out just who had done this, but it was more important for him to eat. He held a hand out, forcing himself to appear relaxed. “That is cold now, da?”
Matthew leaned away, eyes on Ivan’s hand, and the guilt stabbed him squarely in the stomach.
He pushed it away. “Come, I will make you something new.”
Matthew slid the bowl forward, and Ivan took it into the kitchen. As a new batch of oatmeal cooked he went digging through the cabinets. Vodka, vodka, and nearly nothing else - he really needed supplies, soon. He finally dug out a small, dusty can of condensed milk, cleaned it off, popped it open, and when the oatmeal was done he poured the milk into the bowl as well.
He returned to Matthew. “Here.”
Matthew stared at him, but it was an engaged stare, not like the dead-eyed one he had last night. He was thinking about it.
“I must say, I am offended. I have seen you eat English cooking before…”
And here, a small, barely perceptible ghost of a smile flashed across his face.
He held out the bowl of oatmeal again. “This is better than that, I promise.”
Slowly, hesitantly, Matthew took the bowl and began to eat.
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Translation:
Blyad’ - literally ‘promiscuous woman’, (historically, ‘heresy’ or ‘mistake’); used as an exclamation similar to ‘shit!’ in English.
Thank you to everyone for reading and commenting! <3 I think that in the end this will be 5-7 parts; it was written as one big piece and needs to be broken up logically. ^^;
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Matthew slept better that night. Ivan was able to convince him to move from the corner and actually go to sleep on the mattress. He even ate breakfast (although it was more like lunchtime by the time he woke up), though he remained mostly silent.
When that was done Ivan sat down across from him. Matthew still preferred sitting in the corner, and Ivan couldn’t fault him for that. He understood wanting to watch his back. “Matvei,” he said, “I must speak with you.”
Matthew looked unsure. He bit his lower lip, and thought, as Ivan waited. Finally he nodded.
Ivan nodded in return. “Matvei, I want to help you, but there are things I must know. Do you want to remain here, or do you want to return to Canada?”
As he spoke the last sentence Matthew’s eye grew wide with fear , and his hands gripped his blanket so tightly that the knuckles went white. Just as Ivan had been expecting.
“Ponyatno.” He kept his voice calm, hoping it would have an effect. “Matvei, am I correct to guess that it was your people that did this?”
Matthew had started to shake, and when he opened his mouth to speak his breath caught in his throat. He licked his lips and tried again. “I-It -”
A knock sounded at the door.
Ivan jumped to his feet, conversation forgotten. Not them - not here - they couldn’t have -
No. There was no time to think about that. He had to keep Matthew safe. He advanced slowly, quietly, toward the doorway, reaching for his pipe. “Matvei,” he said softly, eyes fixed on the doorknob. “Go into the bedroom. Block the door if you can. Make no noise.”
He hefted the pipe, and waited until he heard Matthew leave the room, and then reached out and opened the door.
He had just enough time to see someone standing there before he swung with all his might, catching the stranger in the head. Instead of collapsing, as he'd hoped it would, the figure struck back and punched him in the jaw.
He took one lurching step backward, seeing stars, and heard the intruder say, “What the fuck are you doing here?!”
He recognized that accent. America.
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