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My very late follow-up to Payback moredamnlies.livejournal.com/41314.html#cutid1
This one's shorter and it doesn't have an absolute ending in the same way that Payback had, but this is because I feel that recovery is more of a process than an absolute case of one day doing something and deciding that makes you 'better'. Ending with a character performing a symbolic act to show they're now 'back to normal' just didn't seem right for this narrative for me.
Title: Putting back the pieces.
Fandom: Hetalia.
Genre: Drama.
Pairing(s): nil.
Characters: Alfred,Arthur, Gilbert, Francis, Ludwig, Ivan.
Rating/Warnings: Adult for references to rape, violence, squick and MPREG.
Wordcount: 1628.
Summary: Alrthur and Alfred try and cope with the aftermath of Payback.
Alfred sat in the cold, white room waiting. Wounds were sure to start worming their way across his body now his England had managed to escape. He was numb, sitting and staring into the distance as he waited, but nothing happened until eventually the computer spoke up. 'Information. A news announcement states that England has been granted two colonies on Mars.'
Gilbert knocked on Arthur's door, uncharacteristically sombre and dressed in a dark suit. Fashions had once again swung towards trousers, much to Francis' disappointment. They made access so much harder. The door opened, revealing a thin, paper-pale shadow of the England Gilbert had always had fun drinking with and annoying. He placed a finger on his lips and led the way through to the kitchen which smelt strongly of smoky Earl Grey tea. Arthur had been making up for lost time since the birth of the twins only the previous day.
'They're asleep now, so don't wake them up.'
Gilbert's eyes widened in hope and gladness. 'You really have twin colonies? Fuckin' awesome!'
Arthur smiled slyly at that, the expression a lot more subdued than the smug smirk Gilbert was used to. 'I really have twin colonies, all thanks to Alfred.' Abruptly his expression flickered, before settling into something terrifyingly blank. 'Anyway, I'll introduce you to them when they wake up. You were going to tell me about what has been going on in England since my... disappearance.'
'Shit your brothers are mental, Arthur! Wales came at me with a shovel!' Prussia managed to keep his voice down, but it was an effort as he tried to convey the sheer scope of Scotland, Ireland and Wales' insanity.
'Ah, Florence, he must have been fairly drunk to dig her out.' Arthur remarked nostalgically. 'I've still got the scars from the one time he managed to connect with that thing.'
Gilbert finished telling Arthur about the past two years, it amounted to 'Read the news and your brothers are all scary and mental.' and he sighed in relief as Arthur took up the mantle of his country again, it had been nice having a proper country of his own (sort of) again, but it had only reminded him of how hard and tiring it was in the long run.
Alfred still wasn't hurting. He paced the tiny length of the bare white room like a caged tiger, unable to bear it any longer. Whirling around on one foot he made a break for it, sprinting from the room and downstairs, down to the kitchen. He couldn't stand waiting for the pain of England's revenge any longer. The drawers rattled as he rummaged frantically, then metal gleamed in the bright daylight before being dulled with blood. Relief coursed through Alfred as the blood left his body and the feared pain finally came. He deserved this, he realised. A sob wrenched itself from his throat before he could suppress it and he ended up kneeling on the tiled kitchen floor in a pool of his own blood, crying for
Arthur, for himself and what they could have had if he hadn't screwed it all up.
Arthur punched the button to end the call. It had been a deeply awkward one and he almost wished he'd asked Gilbert to stay while he made it. He took a deep breath and tried to let go of the horrible feeling of utter shame and humiliation that had welled up as he'd had to explain that yes, he was the embodiment of their proud nation and that he'd been missing, attacked and raped for two years, held prisoner by another nation and he hadn't been able to fight back at all. Then he'd had to use all of his rather rusty eloquence skills to persuade the rather fighty new boss not to go to war on the Superstates of America. 'No Sir, I'd rather handle this my way.' he'd said with a rather grim shadow of a smile. 'This is personal, not political.'
He checked the girls, explaining them to his boss at least had been comparatively easy now that implantation of a synthesised uterus and genetic manipulation had gotten to the point where males (a very few admittedly, due to the insanely high risk factors associated) could bear children together. His boss had even agreed to source trusted protection and a nanny for them. Looking at their innocent faces as they slept drew feelings of protectiveness, fear and revulsion in him as usual. They were innocents, the only innocents in this whole debacle and Arthur was still enough of a gentleman to honour that, even if just the sight of them also put him back in that tiny, cold room with Alfred pinning him down and pounding into his broken body over and over again. He spun on his heel, dashing for the bathroom to vomit and scrub himself clean again, redressing in thick clothes that protected his body from neck to toes, leaving only his hands and face bare.
Instead of thinking too hard about things Arthur sought normality, reacquainting himself with his beloved nation and its affairs, throwing himself into work and looking after the twins - North and South as he called them, instinctively knowing which represented the colony on the Northern Hemisphere and which was the Southern. He couldn't bring himself to give them human names, even though he was determined they be Kirklands. The nanny had arrived and freed him up during the day to work and nap. She seemed fond of the twins, as did the bodyguard pair the PM had assigned to them. Both were female, a fact for which Arthur was deeply grateful.
'What happened?' Arthur's personal bodyguard asked casually, perching on the edge of the kitchen table as her charge moved around the room making tea with an unnecessary amount of bustling. The brunette looked as physically frail as Arthur and was the same height too, but kept her hair cropped unlike Arthur who couldn't seem to get the courage to chop off his own waist-length plait.
'Hmm?' Arthur momentarily hummed in absentminded confusion at the woman's out-of-the-blue question before he realised what she was clearly asking and paled.
The bodyguard tilted her head, examining him with narrowed eyes. 'It is that sort of story, then? Is he or she likely to attack again?'
Arthur blinked and smiled. 'I have no idea. But he's expecting me to extract vengeance.' A truly vicious grin was the only reply he received and he could almost smell salt air and taste the tang of rum in his mouth. The answering grin he felt break his mouth was every inch as feral, reminding him of Hungary with the scent of blood in her nostrils.
Ludwig met them at the airport, tactfully ignoring many things and instead shaking Arthur's hand and commenting on the weather. The sheer mundanity and mock-Britishness of it nearly made Arthur giggle, but the slight change in Ludwig's face drove away the hysterical amusement as he realised the German had noticed. Instead they were serious and headed to the venue where Frances and Ivan were already waiting. Ludwig casually restrained the perverted Frenchman from wrapping himself around Arthur in an enthusiastic greeting and plonked him back into his seat.
Ivan tilted his head to one side, dreamy purple eyes focusing on England and wheels evidently turning in his mind. While he'd settled down and seemed less insane these days, he was never going to be the most with-it country in the world, not with the injuries he'd sustained over and over in his people's bloody and convoluted history. At length he sat on Arthur's other side, the Englishman ending up between Ludwig and Ivan. Ivan kept looking at him, but the whole Liet debacle had apparently taught him something and he merely smiled one of his blank smiles at Arthur and stood to give them the profiles of the latest team of Cosmonauts.
'Ah, mah cherie, it is good to see you again and looking so well after the birth of your petite colonies, hien?' He leaned against the edge of the table close to Arthur, smiling his charming smile and for once not making any innuendoes, even if his body-language was flirtatious.
Arthur tilted his jaw, angling it to expose his throat as he let his hands flop into his lap and subtly shifted so his knees parted. 'Yes Sir.'
France didn't notice initially and casually stroked along Arthur's cheek with one fingernail. 'We 'ave so many exciting sings to show you.' He was shocked when Arthur moved his head to rest his cheek in Francis' palm and his stance sat perched on the edge of the table subtly changed. He looked into empty emerald green eyes and felt sick as the shift from damaged but still Angleterre into a mechanical sex puppet that seemed to be waiting for France to take what he would from Arthur's flesh.
'Non!' The master of l'amour physically recoiled, then steadied. 'Non, ma cherie. I will not take you by force.' His voice was oddly gentle before a sad, reflective grin flickered across his face. 'Never in our 'istory 'ave you relented to me. It does not suit you.'
Francis perched on the edge of the table to treat his... old acquaintance to a charming grin. Arthur snorted, ignoring the twisting of his hands in his lap. 'It's been a while since I bloodied your damn' froggy nose.'
'You'll 'ave to catch me first, mon p'tit lapin!' With that he took off, grinning and laughing like a mad hatter, Arthur giving chase. England felt like he was floating on a cloud of unreality and nostalgic laughter.
'I told you France would be a good playmate for England, da?' Russia gloated dreamily to Germany, proffering his bottle of vodka.
'Ja, ja. You were right, Ivan.' Ludwig sighed and accepted a swig of his ally's drink. 'Prost!'
This one's shorter and it doesn't have an absolute ending in the same way that Payback had, but this is because I feel that recovery is more of a process than an absolute case of one day doing something and deciding that makes you 'better'. Ending with a character performing a symbolic act to show they're now 'back to normal' just didn't seem right for this narrative for me.
Title: Putting back the pieces.
Fandom: Hetalia.
Genre: Drama.
Pairing(s): nil.
Characters: Alfred,Arthur, Gilbert, Francis, Ludwig, Ivan.
Rating/Warnings: Adult for references to rape, violence, squick and MPREG.
Wordcount: 1628.
Summary: Alrthur and Alfred try and cope with the aftermath of Payback.
Alfred sat in the cold, white room waiting. Wounds were sure to start worming their way across his body now his England had managed to escape. He was numb, sitting and staring into the distance as he waited, but nothing happened until eventually the computer spoke up. 'Information. A news announcement states that England has been granted two colonies on Mars.'
Gilbert knocked on Arthur's door, uncharacteristically sombre and dressed in a dark suit. Fashions had once again swung towards trousers, much to Francis' disappointment. They made access so much harder. The door opened, revealing a thin, paper-pale shadow of the England Gilbert had always had fun drinking with and annoying. He placed a finger on his lips and led the way through to the kitchen which smelt strongly of smoky Earl Grey tea. Arthur had been making up for lost time since the birth of the twins only the previous day.
'They're asleep now, so don't wake them up.'
Gilbert's eyes widened in hope and gladness. 'You really have twin colonies? Fuckin' awesome!'
Arthur smiled slyly at that, the expression a lot more subdued than the smug smirk Gilbert was used to. 'I really have twin colonies, all thanks to Alfred.' Abruptly his expression flickered, before settling into something terrifyingly blank. 'Anyway, I'll introduce you to them when they wake up. You were going to tell me about what has been going on in England since my... disappearance.'
'Shit your brothers are mental, Arthur! Wales came at me with a shovel!' Prussia managed to keep his voice down, but it was an effort as he tried to convey the sheer scope of Scotland, Ireland and Wales' insanity.
'Ah, Florence, he must have been fairly drunk to dig her out.' Arthur remarked nostalgically. 'I've still got the scars from the one time he managed to connect with that thing.'
Gilbert finished telling Arthur about the past two years, it amounted to 'Read the news and your brothers are all scary and mental.' and he sighed in relief as Arthur took up the mantle of his country again, it had been nice having a proper country of his own (sort of) again, but it had only reminded him of how hard and tiring it was in the long run.
Alfred still wasn't hurting. He paced the tiny length of the bare white room like a caged tiger, unable to bear it any longer. Whirling around on one foot he made a break for it, sprinting from the room and downstairs, down to the kitchen. He couldn't stand waiting for the pain of England's revenge any longer. The drawers rattled as he rummaged frantically, then metal gleamed in the bright daylight before being dulled with blood. Relief coursed through Alfred as the blood left his body and the feared pain finally came. He deserved this, he realised. A sob wrenched itself from his throat before he could suppress it and he ended up kneeling on the tiled kitchen floor in a pool of his own blood, crying for
Arthur, for himself and what they could have had if he hadn't screwed it all up.
Arthur punched the button to end the call. It had been a deeply awkward one and he almost wished he'd asked Gilbert to stay while he made it. He took a deep breath and tried to let go of the horrible feeling of utter shame and humiliation that had welled up as he'd had to explain that yes, he was the embodiment of their proud nation and that he'd been missing, attacked and raped for two years, held prisoner by another nation and he hadn't been able to fight back at all. Then he'd had to use all of his rather rusty eloquence skills to persuade the rather fighty new boss not to go to war on the Superstates of America. 'No Sir, I'd rather handle this my way.' he'd said with a rather grim shadow of a smile. 'This is personal, not political.'
He checked the girls, explaining them to his boss at least had been comparatively easy now that implantation of a synthesised uterus and genetic manipulation had gotten to the point where males (a very few admittedly, due to the insanely high risk factors associated) could bear children together. His boss had even agreed to source trusted protection and a nanny for them. Looking at their innocent faces as they slept drew feelings of protectiveness, fear and revulsion in him as usual. They were innocents, the only innocents in this whole debacle and Arthur was still enough of a gentleman to honour that, even if just the sight of them also put him back in that tiny, cold room with Alfred pinning him down and pounding into his broken body over and over again. He spun on his heel, dashing for the bathroom to vomit and scrub himself clean again, redressing in thick clothes that protected his body from neck to toes, leaving only his hands and face bare.
Instead of thinking too hard about things Arthur sought normality, reacquainting himself with his beloved nation and its affairs, throwing himself into work and looking after the twins - North and South as he called them, instinctively knowing which represented the colony on the Northern Hemisphere and which was the Southern. He couldn't bring himself to give them human names, even though he was determined they be Kirklands. The nanny had arrived and freed him up during the day to work and nap. She seemed fond of the twins, as did the bodyguard pair the PM had assigned to them. Both were female, a fact for which Arthur was deeply grateful.
'What happened?' Arthur's personal bodyguard asked casually, perching on the edge of the kitchen table as her charge moved around the room making tea with an unnecessary amount of bustling. The brunette looked as physically frail as Arthur and was the same height too, but kept her hair cropped unlike Arthur who couldn't seem to get the courage to chop off his own waist-length plait.
'Hmm?' Arthur momentarily hummed in absentminded confusion at the woman's out-of-the-blue question before he realised what she was clearly asking and paled.
The bodyguard tilted her head, examining him with narrowed eyes. 'It is that sort of story, then? Is he or she likely to attack again?'
Arthur blinked and smiled. 'I have no idea. But he's expecting me to extract vengeance.' A truly vicious grin was the only reply he received and he could almost smell salt air and taste the tang of rum in his mouth. The answering grin he felt break his mouth was every inch as feral, reminding him of Hungary with the scent of blood in her nostrils.
Ludwig met them at the airport, tactfully ignoring many things and instead shaking Arthur's hand and commenting on the weather. The sheer mundanity and mock-Britishness of it nearly made Arthur giggle, but the slight change in Ludwig's face drove away the hysterical amusement as he realised the German had noticed. Instead they were serious and headed to the venue where Frances and Ivan were already waiting. Ludwig casually restrained the perverted Frenchman from wrapping himself around Arthur in an enthusiastic greeting and plonked him back into his seat.
Ivan tilted his head to one side, dreamy purple eyes focusing on England and wheels evidently turning in his mind. While he'd settled down and seemed less insane these days, he was never going to be the most with-it country in the world, not with the injuries he'd sustained over and over in his people's bloody and convoluted history. At length he sat on Arthur's other side, the Englishman ending up between Ludwig and Ivan. Ivan kept looking at him, but the whole Liet debacle had apparently taught him something and he merely smiled one of his blank smiles at Arthur and stood to give them the profiles of the latest team of Cosmonauts.
'Ah, mah cherie, it is good to see you again and looking so well after the birth of your petite colonies, hien?' He leaned against the edge of the table close to Arthur, smiling his charming smile and for once not making any innuendoes, even if his body-language was flirtatious.
Arthur tilted his jaw, angling it to expose his throat as he let his hands flop into his lap and subtly shifted so his knees parted. 'Yes Sir.'
France didn't notice initially and casually stroked along Arthur's cheek with one fingernail. 'We 'ave so many exciting sings to show you.' He was shocked when Arthur moved his head to rest his cheek in Francis' palm and his stance sat perched on the edge of the table subtly changed. He looked into empty emerald green eyes and felt sick as the shift from damaged but still Angleterre into a mechanical sex puppet that seemed to be waiting for France to take what he would from Arthur's flesh.
'Non!' The master of l'amour physically recoiled, then steadied. 'Non, ma cherie. I will not take you by force.' His voice was oddly gentle before a sad, reflective grin flickered across his face. 'Never in our 'istory 'ave you relented to me. It does not suit you.'
Francis perched on the edge of the table to treat his... old acquaintance to a charming grin. Arthur snorted, ignoring the twisting of his hands in his lap. 'It's been a while since I bloodied your damn' froggy nose.'
'You'll 'ave to catch me first, mon p'tit lapin!' With that he took off, grinning and laughing like a mad hatter, Arthur giving chase. England felt like he was floating on a cloud of unreality and nostalgic laughter.
'I told you France would be a good playmate for England, da?' Russia gloated dreamily to Germany, proffering his bottle of vodka.
'Ja, ja. You were right, Ivan.' Ludwig sighed and accepted a swig of his ally's drink. 'Prost!'