[fanfic] You Shouldn't Have
Author: Kjersti, the one and only.
Pairing: Germany/N.Italy and maybe France/Germany, if you squint.
Characters: Germany, S. Italy, Rome, France, with mentions of N. Italy, Spain, and Prussia.
Rating: PG-13...-ish?
Warnings: AU setting, character death, angst, graphic injuries.
Summary: It wasn't the right time to tell him, I knew. It wasn't the best news to give, but somehow, through sheer presence alone, I saw in those pale eyes that he knew he was gone, and he knew I knew, and he knew that no one was going to say it out loud.
A/N: My friend's mom told me about this son of a friend she knew who had recently gotten in a horrible car accident and one of his friends died. So yeah... Inspiration. This is dedicated to those boys in the wreck, even though I don't know them, and I never knew the boy who died...
Why was it always me?
Why was I always the one they made speak?
Did I have a certain finesse when it came to being the bearer of bad news? Was I the spitting image of whatever phantom one might expect to bring grief to their doorstep? Was I born with an onyx spoon in my taut mouth, ready to be the one and only man to bring tragic happenings to one's consciousness?
I felt death all around me. I felt the chill up my back, the smell of the elderly and sickly, warm yet foreboding, twisting into my nostrils and sending squirms into my heavy heart and swaying stomach. Each step was a heavy one, a guilty one, for I was the one who was called, via the hospital, to be present at his side.
His brother had asked me to watch over him, hadn't he? Had I been so enraptured in my own misconceived life that I had failed to bid notion to his simple request?
It was suffocating. Each step made my feet feel like pure lead, and for a moment I feared my legs, feeling lighter than air, might give way to my grievous weight.
What had I to fear? It wasn't my fault this had happened. I wasn't in the car when they flipped.
I had to be strong. It was me, dammit! The glorious, wonderful, handsome, amazing me! I couldn't show such weakness to him, of all people, whom I was entrusted with only three years ago.
Why did he have to be in Germany? Why couldn't he have been the one to walk this hall of anxiety, of disease? Why must I alone carry this burdensome carcass, this guilt, this grief?
It's not my fault he's dead! It's not me who killed him! Why must I be the one to tell him?! Why me, why I, why I myself must let it be known that-...!!
"Francis..."
I'd been standing in the doorway for only a minute when his crippling voice reached my ears. My gaze flickered over to him. I felt so ashamed at my weak stomach. With a pained shuddering breath and a jerking away of my head I refused to lay eyes upon this proud man in such a horrific state...
I felt the bile arise in a minute jolt in the back of my throat. The blood was all over the floor. He was still bleeding as they'd hefted him in. His entire body was blackened and blued with innumerable bandages. I could see scarlet stains amongst various limbs and trails dried from previously gaping orifices. His face was coated in gauze, which I assume hid the fresh stitches from his pulsing wounds. I could smell the death all over him.
Those crystal blue eyes, once so filled with power and determination, were hazed, lost, as if an infant had awoke for his first sight of the world, of this world with so much horror, so much misfortune, grief...
Don't let me see you like this. Your brother would be appalled by such display of detachment, of hopelessness.
"What's..." Don't let me hear your voice like this, in such a mangled, dry sounding as such one would intermingle death with. Do not let me hear the rasp, the breaks, nor the utter weakness that manages to crawl inside of your tone and make you seem so frail.
You cannot manage a sentence. Gilbert would not stay longer than I. He could not.
"Lui..." I say gently, cracking an oh-so-forced smile to try and ease your pain. My voice is not my own.
You look at me finally, without a motion of the head but only a swivel of those misted baby blues. There is a light, but it is faint, as if you've begun to realize that yes, this is the real world.
Hello, baby. Welcome to the world. Welcome to this wonderful, wonderful world...
"Fran-... ci-!!" You break into a light coughing fit. I rush over to grasp the water at your bedside, taking utmost care to tilt it into your mouth, an orifice that will barely crack far enough wide for me to ease the dryness in your throat.
Dear God, please don't speak. Please never talk to me like that again...
You're in pain. The convulsions have taken no mercy on your sore muscles nor your throbbing wounds. I see the cracks in your abused lips give permission for new trails of red to leak and dance down your chin, ever so slowly, without grace nor elegance. I take a tissue and dab them away as much as I can.
You tell me it hurts. Oh yes, baby, it hurts. The world is relentless, unforgiving, and could care less about your ruined football career or the fact that you'll never be able to walk again, or that maybe you won't even live to see tomorrow.
All I can do is smile. I do not smile to mock your judgment, nor your actions, for I smile to let you know that I am here for you, without discrimination, and I want you to see one last loving thing lest you fall into death's clutches only moments after your encounter with me.
"You're pretty banged up," I jest, though I cannot help but feel the twang of guilt in my chest, but such a thing could never appear on my face. No, that wouldn't be of any help to you. No, not at all.
You just close your eyes and let out a breath that nearly misses my hearing range. Is this your form of a chuckle? Are you upset with my humor? Or are you simply just tired? Should I let you rest?
"What about..."
I do not skip a beat, for I was prepared for this. "The others are fine, don't worry. We just need to focus on you, right now, mon ami."
It wasn't the right time to tell him, I knew. It wasn't the best news to give, but somehow, through sheer presence alone, I saw in those pale eyes that he knew he was gone, and he knew I knew, and he knew that no one was going to say it out loud.
He knew. He knew he had killed him.
I smiled, stroked his forehead with a tender finger, and bid him farewell as I took my leave.
I kept berating myself for my timid heart, my lack of perseverance. Had i been stronger i might have told you, perhaps, but there was no need. The look in your eyes just told me, and I had no place in being there lest I burden you more.
My body trembled as I made my way to the waiting area. I was a weakling, a frail-hearted bastard who lacked the balls to actually say "your lover is gone." I was too damn pathetic to even bring myself to utter anything about Antonio's condition, and I lacked the bravery to ask anyone there.
I encountered a fist in my face, then another, and another, and the next thing I knew, I was lain flat against the morbid tile of the waiting room.
I heard swears, furious yet crumpled and mangled through sobs and throaty yells. I just laid there and took it until his father pulled him from my limp corpse, my dead, pathetic, still body.
I felt my chest rise and fall.
Damn it. I wasn't dead yet.
I craned my neck to face up a tad, just enough to lay eyes on the enraged, hysterical brother. His eyes were burning, swollen with thick tears and infused with enough anger to drive the entire country into madness. He was crazed with it, thrashing as the man behind him used all of his strength to hold him.
Perhaps it was my fault. Just maybe, maybe if I had been with them, I could have prevented all of this. Is this why he had attacked me?
I couldn't hear him any longer. He was muffled against my fogged thoughts, my pulsing ears with the blood coming down my face and swelling into each part of my aching head.
You shouldn't have said anything, you idiot. You shouldn't have blown them off. You shouldn't have gone with those women, you shouldn't have neglected your duty as guardian, as caretaker, as watchman of your best friend's younger brother.
Your other best friend is dying.
This world... is corrupted.
This world is a horrible place. And as I lay again to wait for a sign of hope, I pray to any and all Gods... Please, do not care for my sake, please just save them for all those that care for them.
As I awake, I can hear flat-lines. And I am at unrest.
Pairing: Germany/N.Italy and maybe France/Germany, if you squint.
Characters: Germany, S. Italy, Rome, France, with mentions of N. Italy, Spain, and Prussia.
Rating: PG-13...-ish?
Warnings: AU setting, character death, angst, graphic injuries.
Summary: It wasn't the right time to tell him, I knew. It wasn't the best news to give, but somehow, through sheer presence alone, I saw in those pale eyes that he knew he was gone, and he knew I knew, and he knew that no one was going to say it out loud.
A/N: My friend's mom told me about this son of a friend she knew who had recently gotten in a horrible car accident and one of his friends died. So yeah... Inspiration. This is dedicated to those boys in the wreck, even though I don't know them, and I never knew the boy who died...
Why was it always me?
Why was I always the one they made speak?
Did I have a certain finesse when it came to being the bearer of bad news? Was I the spitting image of whatever phantom one might expect to bring grief to their doorstep? Was I born with an onyx spoon in my taut mouth, ready to be the one and only man to bring tragic happenings to one's consciousness?
I felt death all around me. I felt the chill up my back, the smell of the elderly and sickly, warm yet foreboding, twisting into my nostrils and sending squirms into my heavy heart and swaying stomach. Each step was a heavy one, a guilty one, for I was the one who was called, via the hospital, to be present at his side.
His brother had asked me to watch over him, hadn't he? Had I been so enraptured in my own misconceived life that I had failed to bid notion to his simple request?
It was suffocating. Each step made my feet feel like pure lead, and for a moment I feared my legs, feeling lighter than air, might give way to my grievous weight.
What had I to fear? It wasn't my fault this had happened. I wasn't in the car when they flipped.
I had to be strong. It was me, dammit! The glorious, wonderful, handsome, amazing me! I couldn't show such weakness to him, of all people, whom I was entrusted with only three years ago.
Why did he have to be in Germany? Why couldn't he have been the one to walk this hall of anxiety, of disease? Why must I alone carry this burdensome carcass, this guilt, this grief?
It's not my fault he's dead! It's not me who killed him! Why must I be the one to tell him?! Why me, why I, why I myself must let it be known that-...!!
"Francis..."
I'd been standing in the doorway for only a minute when his crippling voice reached my ears. My gaze flickered over to him. I felt so ashamed at my weak stomach. With a pained shuddering breath and a jerking away of my head I refused to lay eyes upon this proud man in such a horrific state...
I felt the bile arise in a minute jolt in the back of my throat. The blood was all over the floor. He was still bleeding as they'd hefted him in. His entire body was blackened and blued with innumerable bandages. I could see scarlet stains amongst various limbs and trails dried from previously gaping orifices. His face was coated in gauze, which I assume hid the fresh stitches from his pulsing wounds. I could smell the death all over him.
Those crystal blue eyes, once so filled with power and determination, were hazed, lost, as if an infant had awoke for his first sight of the world, of this world with so much horror, so much misfortune, grief...
Don't let me see you like this. Your brother would be appalled by such display of detachment, of hopelessness.
"What's..." Don't let me hear your voice like this, in such a mangled, dry sounding as such one would intermingle death with. Do not let me hear the rasp, the breaks, nor the utter weakness that manages to crawl inside of your tone and make you seem so frail.
You cannot manage a sentence. Gilbert would not stay longer than I. He could not.
"Lui..." I say gently, cracking an oh-so-forced smile to try and ease your pain. My voice is not my own.
You look at me finally, without a motion of the head but only a swivel of those misted baby blues. There is a light, but it is faint, as if you've begun to realize that yes, this is the real world.
Hello, baby. Welcome to the world. Welcome to this wonderful, wonderful world...
"Fran-... ci-!!" You break into a light coughing fit. I rush over to grasp the water at your bedside, taking utmost care to tilt it into your mouth, an orifice that will barely crack far enough wide for me to ease the dryness in your throat.
Dear God, please don't speak. Please never talk to me like that again...
You're in pain. The convulsions have taken no mercy on your sore muscles nor your throbbing wounds. I see the cracks in your abused lips give permission for new trails of red to leak and dance down your chin, ever so slowly, without grace nor elegance. I take a tissue and dab them away as much as I can.
You tell me it hurts. Oh yes, baby, it hurts. The world is relentless, unforgiving, and could care less about your ruined football career or the fact that you'll never be able to walk again, or that maybe you won't even live to see tomorrow.
All I can do is smile. I do not smile to mock your judgment, nor your actions, for I smile to let you know that I am here for you, without discrimination, and I want you to see one last loving thing lest you fall into death's clutches only moments after your encounter with me.
"You're pretty banged up," I jest, though I cannot help but feel the twang of guilt in my chest, but such a thing could never appear on my face. No, that wouldn't be of any help to you. No, not at all.
You just close your eyes and let out a breath that nearly misses my hearing range. Is this your form of a chuckle? Are you upset with my humor? Or are you simply just tired? Should I let you rest?
"What about..."
I do not skip a beat, for I was prepared for this. "The others are fine, don't worry. We just need to focus on you, right now, mon ami."
It wasn't the right time to tell him, I knew. It wasn't the best news to give, but somehow, through sheer presence alone, I saw in those pale eyes that he knew he was gone, and he knew I knew, and he knew that no one was going to say it out loud.
He knew. He knew he had killed him.
I smiled, stroked his forehead with a tender finger, and bid him farewell as I took my leave.
I kept berating myself for my timid heart, my lack of perseverance. Had i been stronger i might have told you, perhaps, but there was no need. The look in your eyes just told me, and I had no place in being there lest I burden you more.
My body trembled as I made my way to the waiting area. I was a weakling, a frail-hearted bastard who lacked the balls to actually say "your lover is gone." I was too damn pathetic to even bring myself to utter anything about Antonio's condition, and I lacked the bravery to ask anyone there.
I encountered a fist in my face, then another, and another, and the next thing I knew, I was lain flat against the morbid tile of the waiting room.
I heard swears, furious yet crumpled and mangled through sobs and throaty yells. I just laid there and took it until his father pulled him from my limp corpse, my dead, pathetic, still body.
I felt my chest rise and fall.
Damn it. I wasn't dead yet.
I craned my neck to face up a tad, just enough to lay eyes on the enraged, hysterical brother. His eyes were burning, swollen with thick tears and infused with enough anger to drive the entire country into madness. He was crazed with it, thrashing as the man behind him used all of his strength to hold him.
Perhaps it was my fault. Just maybe, maybe if I had been with them, I could have prevented all of this. Is this why he had attacked me?
I couldn't hear him any longer. He was muffled against my fogged thoughts, my pulsing ears with the blood coming down my face and swelling into each part of my aching head.
You shouldn't have said anything, you idiot. You shouldn't have blown them off. You shouldn't have gone with those women, you shouldn't have neglected your duty as guardian, as caretaker, as watchman of your best friend's younger brother.
Your other best friend is dying.
This world... is corrupted.
This world is a horrible place. And as I lay again to wait for a sign of hope, I pray to any and all Gods... Please, do not care for my sake, please just save them for all those that care for them.
As I awake, I can hear flat-lines. And I am at unrest.