For Thou Art With Me [1]
For Thou Art With Me [1] - FrUK, Prussia/Hungary, and Russia/America; briefly, Germany and Poland.
The nations find themselves in Hell--or someplace like it. With no idea of how they got there or how their surreal and dangerous environment operates, they try to find a way out: for their friends, if not for themselves.
Genre: Surreal Mystery/Horror/Romance. It's a little complicated.
Modern. R for disturbing imagery.
---
Warning: Includes multiple instances of character "death." On the other hand, this is the kind of fic where the same character might die multiple times, and still walk away at the end of it.
Guys, this is a weird fucking story. This is the weirdest fucking story I have ever written for this fandom. I think it may also be the coolest story I have ever written for this fandom, but there are a lot of reasons it might not be Your Thing. It's disturbing, sometimes downright ghastly, relies intensely upon reader intuition, and it's only a Part 1. On the other hand, it's also romantic and redemptive and strange and mysterious. I'll tell you what--I loved writing it.
---
ALONE
Snow whirled up into an endless pillar: America couldn't see the sky.
"Hello!" he shouted.
The wind whipped up his voice and blunted it against the clouds. There wasn't even an echo.
"Hello! Can anyone hear me!"
The wind stung his eyes, his lips, his lungs…
He shoved his hands into his jacket pockets and trudged onwards.
---
AFRAID
Don't let them see me don't let them see me don't let them see me…
Russia tore between the trees, panting, tripping, tearing at his collar. It froze. It burned. It clawed too tight around his neck and made him bleed.
It wouldn't come off. It had to come off.
A few minutes, please, please, that was all he needed, to stop, to breathe, to think, to get this thing off--they would find him if he couldn't get it off!
But every time he slowed down, every time his lungs burned, his knees buckled, and he tore open his hands against the dirt--he could hear them, closing in!
God, they were almost here!
---
LOST
England could hear the sea. He wanted to weep.
He didn't know how far down this stonewalled maze went; only that he had been pounding down stairs, vaulting over walls, doubling back at dead end after dead end for as long as he could remember. Somewhere, somewhere beneath him, he could hear the sea sloshing against the walls. If he could find her, he would be free. Even if he could just find a wall adjoining her, he would break it down in order to be with her--
But she receded, and receded, no matter how far down he climbed, and every time he tripped on his rags it grew harder to climb to his feet again.
England had grown old in his search for her, and he had no reason to believe that he was any closer than he had ever been.
---
IMPRISONED
France could not move. He could not twitch; he could not breathe; he could not even turn his eyes. He stared into the dull woods before him. He could not even see himself, but he had concluded that by some means, some magic, he had been turned to stone.
No animals ever crossed his field of view; the sun never rose nor set. He had thought every thought he was capable of thinking a thousand times. There were no sounds, no bird calls, no cracklings amid the branches; when it rained, the only thing there ever was to see, he could not feel it on his skin. He could not taste it. The sensory deprivation ran down to his bones.
He thought frequently that he would go mad if there weren't at least a breeze to stir the distant branches, if there weren't something to interrupt the monotony--but a day passed and a day passed, and a day passed, and there was no breeze, and France did not go mad.
He wanted to be dead.
---
HOPELESS
Hungary was blind and deaf.
She sat in--in a house, she was certain, at a table, yes, made of wood, in a chair. It was a vast house. She had stumbled through it many times; she had groped every article within it over and over again. But she could not find the key.
There was a licked door: she could sometimes feel it rattle against the wind. It must lead out. But she couldn't find the key.
Worse: she knew, if she could see, she would be free in an hour. She knew the key was--was somewhere in plain sight.
Worst: she knew she was blind and deaf because she had vague memories of being some other way. There had been light--music. But when she tried to remember it, it all would drift away.
---
HELPLESS
Prussia could crawl: that was about it. His hands and feet had withered. He didn't know how--and he didn't fucking care.
He dragged himself forward through mile after mile, snarling curses at his crooked stumps. When he found thin puddles of brackish water, he had to lower himself to suck from them like a fucking dog. Somebody had done this to him: he was so sure he could spit. And Prussia kept crawling, because he would find that son of a bitch and--
And--
What a joke. What could Prussia even do to him, whoever he was? Give him a disapproving look? He couldn't even walk.
But he didn't know what else to do; he didn't know how to rest. So he kept looking.
---
What he found was Poland.
No: Prussia sagged onto his hip, wheezing and weak.
He found what was left of Poland.
Poland had been staked to the ground, spread-eagled: wrists, ankles, throat. But then he had been…sectioned. The pieces had been pulled a few inches apart, even his head--
God--
But he was still alive--
GRANT HIS WISH AND DIE.
Prussia whipped around. "Who said that?" he rasped. "Who fucking said that! Who the fuck are you!"
Poland's lips parted: a dry laugh skidded inside his throat. Prussia could see some kind of valve flutter.
GRANT HIS WISH AND DIE.
"Hhhhey…" Poland's eyebrows convulsed together; his milk-white eyes rolled off towards Prussia. "Hhyou got…y-yourself a…deal--"
Prussia gaped as all the parts of Poland vanished.
THE SUNDERED HAS BEEN TITHED. MAKE YOUR WISH.
"Who are you!" Prussia shouted. "Where the fuck did you take Poland! Who are you!"
MAKE YOUR WISH.
"How about some hands and feet and I'll tear your fucking teeth out--"
The world wrenched--Prussia fell off the ground. He hit--
--A hardwood floor--
Hungary threw back her chair as she shot to her feet. "Who's there?"
Prussia struggled to sit up. "What the fuck is going on--shit, Hungary, calm down, it's me--"
She stared into nothing and quivered like a plucked harp string, a bottle upraised in one hand. Then she shoved around the table, banged her hip, rebounded and advanced on him, and clobbered him over the shoulders.
"Shit!"
"What are you? What is this place? Where is the key? I promise I will kill you--" Hungary toppled to the floor as Prussia contorted into her knees. She flipped like a wildcat, elbowed him in the kidneys; all Prussia could do was try to shield himself from the bottle with his forearms.
"Christ! Babe! Stop it! Fuck, can't you--fuck, you can't hear me, can you--" Prussia struggled half upright, pulled back, took the bottle across the jaw with a teeth-jarring "Fuck!" and slammed his lips against hers.
Hungary froze. Then snapped back; she kept her grip on the bottle as she skittered three feet away across the floor. Five seconds, six, seven seconds of stillness, and then she whispered, "Prussia?"
He let out a shaking breath and shouldered his hair out of his face. "Yeah," he said, even though she couldn't hear him.
She held out a swerving hand. Prussia hesitated before touching the clawed remains of his fingers against hers. Sure enough; she recoiled again, until her shoulders hit the wall.
"You're not Prussia! What are you?"
Prussia set his teeth and lunged for her; he was amazed when he managed to knock her to the floor. A squirming tussle, elbows and chins slamming against the floor, and Prussia almost got his lights knocked out against the wall before he managed to pin her on her stomach beneath him, his knees clamped around her thighs.
He shoved up the back of her shirt; she writhed. He held her neck down with his forearm, "Calm down, Jesus," and wrote across her back with his stubby finger-ends:
IT'S PRUSSIA
NO HANDS
NO FEET
BUT
STILL ME
She quieted, shuddering, halfway through the first line, and let her forehead sag against her folded hands.
"Prussia," she breathed. "Oh, thank God…"
Prussia remembered Poland getting tithed, and thought: thank something.
"Can you see? Can you hear?" Hungary urged him.
YES
YOU CAN'T
AT ALL?
She shook her head short and fast. A hysterical little laugh. "I-it's been so quiet…" She sucked down a fast breath. "Listen, there's a key. There--I know that there's a key, to get out of this house. And now that you're here, we can find it."
Prussia reminded her, CAN'T WALK.
She worked herself up to her raw elbows and tipped her hips to the side; Prussia slid off of her. "Then I can carry you. You can…pull on my shoulders to tell me what way to go; a squeeze to stop, another one to start again…and you can write on me more if you need to. Do you understand?"
Prussia scribbled
SO WHAT
DOES
COPPING
A FEEL
MEAN?
Hungary grimaced. "Can you even feel anything with those…things?"
IT'S THE
THOUGHT
THAT --
"Never mind…and why did you kiss me? Of all the signals…!"
Prussia hitched on a weak laugh and shook his head.
WORKED
DIDN'T
IT?
"Well," Hungary muttered, as she felt over him, found his armpits, and hoisted him up onto her back; "Touching my breasts is how you tell me you want to get down--very fast."
---
IMPRISONED
If France could weep he would have: something had finally happened!
A small figure tore free of that crippling, unchanging treeline and slammed into France's lower half. France felt nothing; of course, but he knew the other was there. He could see a pale head, and the metal gleam of a collar.
GRANT HIS WISH AND DIE.
The little figure stumbled back, clutching at his throat; and France recognized--Russia?
"Who are you talking about?" Russia cried. "I don't have time, they're coming--!"
Why should Russia look small?
France was perplexed.
And why shouldn't Russia be able to see him? He had run into him headlong.
GRANT HIS WISH AND DIE.
"Grant whose wish? Who are you? What is--"
Oh, France thought. Of course.
He must be one of the trees.
"I have to go!" Russia screamed. His throat was banded red.
France had no better notion of what deal was being offered to them than Russia did, but the prospect of no longer thinking was so agreeable to him that he thought: Yes. Take my life for Russia's wish.
Darkness swept over his head, sudden and absolute. The last thing he heard was:
THE IMPRISONED HAS BEEN TITHED.
---
ALONE
America staggered to a halt three feet from a hunched-over form. He stared.
Russia's head snapped up. He shivered like the image of a pebble at the bottom of a running brook. His hands were wrapped around his neck.
"America," he hitched--and struggled forwards on his knees. "Get it off, please get it off, they, they, they'll find me if I can't get rid of it, please--"
"Yeah…" America's lips felt numb; he didn't know that he hadn't just made an unintelligible sound. He wanted to ask What's going on? What is this place? How did we get here? But Russia was here, his Russia, his Russia, he was here, and afraid, and that swept aside everything else--
He found a catch at the back of the collar; something Russia couldn't reach. The wrought iron thing cracked open and dropped into the snow.
They fell into each other's arms.
"Beautiful," America whispered, heart racing. His frostbitten fingers cramped in Russia's hair.
Russia shuddered wildly and buried his face in America's shoulder. He took uneven, lunging breaths, and coughed, "I wished--I heard a--"
"I've got you." America exhaled, shaking, and nuzzled into the turn of Russia's jaw. "I've got you. I promise."
It was a long time before they were willing to settle back on their heels; to loosen their grips and look around America's desolate white.
America licked his wind-chapped lips. His voice came out hushed. "Where are we?"
"Hell," Russia answered, his jaw set.
"Oh don't be stupid--"
Russia grabbed America's hand and bit down on his fingertips; he sucked America's fingers into his mouth up to the second knuckle. America went tongue-tied. "You have frostbite," Russia informed him. "The cold will not hurt me. I will keep you warm."
"Thank God for you," America muttered. His head dropped down.
Russia said nothing.
America tried again, some time later, when his fingers had started to hurt: hurting was good--hurt meant they weren't dead. "What…what's happening to us? Where are all the people?"
Russia dug in against the snowbank, made a sheltered space against the wind; he allowed America to curl in against his chest. "I met…someone, I think," he said slowly. "And there was a voice; it talked about granting wishes."
America looked around, into the endless, howling snow. "And you wished to be here?"
Russia's fingertips crept inside the cuff of America's jacket. "No," he murmured. "Only somewhere safe."
America looked up at him; Russia's hair tickled his nose. He smiled a little. "Well, maybe I don't have the first fucking clue what's going on," he chirped, "But 'safe,' you know, I think we can handle 'safe.' I mean, like. Who's gonna take the both of us?"
"I know." Russia found America's right hand; after a hesitation, he laid it upon his own throat, over the stinging, bloody marks from the new collar. "I am not afraid now."
America pressed a kiss into the hollow of Russia's jaw. They huddled together in the snow.
After perhaps half an hour: "Well…I guess…ready to go?"
Russia's eyebrows faintly rose. "Go where?"
America tucked his hands inside Russia's coat. "Well we can't just sit here. I was looking for people, I mean, before, like, then you showed up, but I still think we should look for people. Or something, anyway, like, I guess it doesn't matter if it's people."
"Bored already, America?" Russia teased. He kissed the bridge of his nose, right above the crosspiece of his glasses.
"Got any better ideas?" America countered.
Russia brushed back a few strands of America's hair. His skin was bone-white. "Than wandering without direction through a blizzard? …Almost anything."
"You're better in snow than me, though." America tucked himself in closer. "You can at least keep us walking in a straight line."
"Mm. …All right, then."
A sighing, windy silence.
"That means you need to get up, America," Russia prompted him, his hand curled gentle at the back of America's neck.
"Yeah, I know, just…five more minutes."
---
LOST
England staggered to a halt. It was another dead-end: but there stood Germany.
He stood white-faced and staring at one of the blank stone walls; his eyes found England's without a flicker.
"I killed them," he said, flat and numb.
England stared; then collected himself. "Killed who?"
GRANT HIS WISH AND DIE.
"Oh, bollocks--" England breathed. "This is--Germany--Germany, don't say a bloody thing--don't even think anything that might add up to a yes in that thing's mind--"
"All of them," Germany stated, and England realized that he and Germany were very much not seeing the same thing. "Even--Italy; I--"
GRANT HIS WISH AND DIE.
"Germany, listen to me, don't talk to it, don't--"
Germany turned away and folded his hands behind his back. "England may have his wish."
"No--" England lunged for him, too late.
THE BETRAYER HAS BEEN TITHED. MAKE YOUR WISH.
"Bastards!" England roared. "I didn't ask for a fucking wish! You thieving, treacherous--"
MAKE YOUR WISH.
"Oh, you'd like to hear me wish for the sea, I'm sure--well, you won't catch me playing silly buggers--I'm on to you, now--"
MAKE YOUR WISH.
England seethed, his hands fisted in his ragged overgarment. "Oh, very well, then, right, I'll make a fucking wish, shall I? How does this one suit your fancy: give back one of the poor bastards you've had tithed. But not just anyone; give me whichever would help the most to get to the bottom of your glamours and rot--"
He was still ranting when he evaporated into the ambient nothing, swept off to some elsewhere; and the maze which led never down into the sea hung suspected, for an instant, empty and turning, before it became like it had never been at all.
---
IMPRISONED
France remembered nothing; but he was glad, at least, not to be a tree.
England's eyes swept over him once, and he gave a weak hiss of disgust. "Sod it anyway," he muttered, and offered France his hand. France swayed as he was hauled to his feet. "Maybe I was better off on my own."
"You need a shave, Angleterre," was all France could think to say.
"And you need some sodding clothes. What the devil even happened to--no, forget I asked. I've no doubt you'll only bore me, and we need to find the others."
"Yes," France managed, hazy and uncertain; he carded his hands down his body. Real, yes; naked--oh, very much so. "It was--very, very boring."
"Well, I'm sure it gave you plenty of time to reflect." England didn't look back at him as he squinted off through the trees.
"Yes, you could say that."
"And? Anything valuable to report?"
France scratched the side of his nose and looked up, winced under the watery sunlight which sorted through the branches. "Eventually, I determined that I was a tree."
England fired him a look; he stripped off his overgarment, wadded it up, and jammed it against France's chest. "Fat lot of good you are."
---
"May I ask where we are going?" France asked after a time.
"Nowhere in particular," England replied. They walked a long a flat and hazy golden road; not misty, there was no mist or any weather that France could detect, but unfocused, unfinished, as if the road passed through a memory half-unfinished. It led out of France's forest, beginning as nothing more than a shallow separation between the trees, but as they walked it had become more and more definitely a road until the trees had fallen behind them. England had found it. France didn't know how.
That's to be expected, was all England had said.
England went on. "We will find the others; as I found Germany, and as Russia found you. It seems to be the nature of this place--or this…" he sniffed. "Game the demon is playing."
"So you do suppose we're in hell," France suggested. The thought rang a bit cold inside him. "Well, not that I should say we don't deserve it, but--I don't remember dying."
"It's a possibility," England nosed the gravel on the path ahead of him with his walking stick. "I think it's more likely that we're in one of the outer realms; not Nil, certainly, but perhaps Waver, or even Ain Soph. Still, simpler to think of that voice as a demon."
"I haven't the faintest idea what you're talking about," France felt obligated to inform him.
"That's fine. Suffice to say that this is something for which my studies have somewhat prepared me." England squinted up at the colorless, liquid sun.
"How fortunate for us both."
"Mmm."
They walked for a long time. The road forked; England took the left path. France glanced the other way.
"So what are we doing?" France picked at the hem of his long shirt--England's long shirt--and wrinkled his nose. The thing smelled like old goat. So did England.
"Waiting for the next act to unfold, unfortunately, and learning what we can along the way. It's too playful," England mused; "It can't be hell, wouldn't you say? Here we are, after all; our suffering has not been unrelenting."
"In different circumstances," France replied, picking over a pebbled patch in his bare feet, "I would suggest that being trapped eternally in your company would qualify as unrelenting suffering."
England snorted and didn't answer.
They trudged on, through the endless haze, and the golden pathway underfoot forked, and forked, and forked. England bore them ever leftwards.
---
Act 2
---
Sure enough, the trick to the key was all visual. One ceiling tile in the whole house had been painted with a red key. Hungary had hoisted Prussia up onto her shoulders, and he had pushed the tile in and caught the key as it clattered loose. Five minutes later they were out the door and navigating their way along a branching, golden path. Prussia guided them constantly to the left.
"Why always left?" Hungary asked after a while, as Prussia squeezed her shoulder again. "Do the roads look any different?"
They had graduated to a combination of Morse code and handwriting. No, Prussia tapped, and nestled his chin back down against her shoulder. She'd only had to put him down twice so far to rest. It's a rule for getting out of mazes. West told me. Always choose the same direction, eventually you get out.
"Does that really work?" She shrugged her hair into Prussia's face. He tried to blow it back out, without much success.
Tried it a few times myself, Prussia confirmed.
They walked, and the path forked, and every few hours Hungary put him down to rest for a while, and nothing changed. At one point, Prussia thought to ask,
You sleepy?
"No…"
Me neither.
They both sat on that. If Prussia squinted far into the distance, the branching paths began to flicker, waver.
"Do you think we're dead?" Hungary asked quietly.
No.
She collected a few pebbles form the ground, felt them between her fingers. "Why not?"
Prussia rolled onto his side and tapped his answer into her hip. Because fuck dying.
She huffed a smile, and nodded, and pulled him up onto her back again.
At length, they came to a pool. Prussia tapped a stop.
It was a deep, blue-black pool of water, encircled by stones. A shallow flight of white steps led down into it. Beside the stairs there stood a sign.
It read, ONE MAY BE IMMERSED AND HEALED. THE OTHER WILL BE TITHED.
Prussia swallowed thickly.
"Prussia?" Hungary prompted. "Another fork?"
No--water ahead.
"Water?" She sounded surprised. "Something's actually different?"
Put me down-- Prussia tapped out, slow at first, then quickening. You go in first.
"How much water? Is it a lake?"
Steps go down just ahead. Go all the way in.
"Why?" Hungary's voice went steady and dark. "Shouldn't I take you with me? What's wrong with the water?"
Nothing I can see, Prussia answered, even though that wasn't completely true; the water was too dark, for all this clear and diffuse golden light. He added, since he couldn't see the harm, There's a sign. Says it'll heal you.
"Oh!" She blinked and put him down. Prussia dragged himself up onto his elbows to watch her.
"Right up ahead?" she asked, even though now that they weren't touching, he couldn't answer her.
"Don't slip," Prussia answered, even though she wouldn't hear.
Hungary stepped out of her shoes, but left her dress on, and Prussia figured this wasn't a bad last look at her to have; edging down into the water, her clothes clinging all the way up her skin.
"It's cold," she started with a tiny laugh. The water closed over her hips--her ribs.
"Love you, babe," Prussia called, as her hair spread out like sea fronds. "Always have."
Hungary slipped under the water.
---
The Stagehands
Snow gave way to ice, and ice to rock. Russia closed America away from the wind. America shivered, twinged, tripped on numb feet, but always insisted he was fine, fine, fine.
At great length, a slouching shape resolved on the white horizon. They swerved towards it. As they drew close, they saw that it was a tent; a small, dilapidated circus tent, striped in red and white, its tattered streamers drooped across the basalt floor.
A small sign by the tent flap read only THE SIDESHOW.
Russia caught America's shoulder as America started forwards. "Don't go in," he warned.
"Are you kidding?" America tried to jerk loose. Even his glasses were frosted.
"The devil is toying with us," Russia insisted. "We should pass it by."
"And go where?" America shoved up his glasses with the back of his hand, glared. "It's just a billion and a half miles of nothing, and this is the only thing we've found so far. I wanna see what's inside."
Russia's fingers tightened in America's coat. "It will be nothing good, solnyshko. Out here, nothing has hurt us."
"Maybe it hasn't hurt you, but fuck, man! I'm cold!" America's voice whipped up bright and sharp into the glitter wind, and the tent streamers fluttered out towards them in sympathy.
Russia watched him for long seconds, then tucked his hands in his pockets. "Will you go even if I refuse to go with you?"
America's eyelashes flickered, but he took a deep breath and gathered himself up. "Yeah, I will. We're not gonna figure out anything by wandering around out here for the rest of our lives. We've got an opportunity, we should take it."
"You are very foolish," Russia sighed. He looked at the sign again, then took America's hand. "We will go together."
America's shoulders dropped an inch, and his expression loosened in relief.
They pulled back the tent flap, tightened their hands together, and stepped into the Sideshow.
+++
You can look at a directory of all of my Hetalia fic here!
The nations find themselves in Hell--or someplace like it. With no idea of how they got there or how their surreal and dangerous environment operates, they try to find a way out: for their friends, if not for themselves.
Genre: Surreal Mystery/Horror/Romance. It's a little complicated.
Modern. R for disturbing imagery.
---
Warning: Includes multiple instances of character "death." On the other hand, this is the kind of fic where the same character might die multiple times, and still walk away at the end of it.
Guys, this is a weird fucking story. This is the weirdest fucking story I have ever written for this fandom. I think it may also be the coolest story I have ever written for this fandom, but there are a lot of reasons it might not be Your Thing. It's disturbing, sometimes downright ghastly, relies intensely upon reader intuition, and it's only a Part 1. On the other hand, it's also romantic and redemptive and strange and mysterious. I'll tell you what--I loved writing it.
---
ALONE
Snow whirled up into an endless pillar: America couldn't see the sky.
"Hello!" he shouted.
The wind whipped up his voice and blunted it against the clouds. There wasn't even an echo.
"Hello! Can anyone hear me!"
The wind stung his eyes, his lips, his lungs…
He shoved his hands into his jacket pockets and trudged onwards.
---
AFRAID
Don't let them see me don't let them see me don't let them see me…
Russia tore between the trees, panting, tripping, tearing at his collar. It froze. It burned. It clawed too tight around his neck and made him bleed.
It wouldn't come off. It had to come off.
A few minutes, please, please, that was all he needed, to stop, to breathe, to think, to get this thing off--they would find him if he couldn't get it off!
But every time he slowed down, every time his lungs burned, his knees buckled, and he tore open his hands against the dirt--he could hear them, closing in!
God, they were almost here!
---
LOST
England could hear the sea. He wanted to weep.
He didn't know how far down this stonewalled maze went; only that he had been pounding down stairs, vaulting over walls, doubling back at dead end after dead end for as long as he could remember. Somewhere, somewhere beneath him, he could hear the sea sloshing against the walls. If he could find her, he would be free. Even if he could just find a wall adjoining her, he would break it down in order to be with her--
But she receded, and receded, no matter how far down he climbed, and every time he tripped on his rags it grew harder to climb to his feet again.
England had grown old in his search for her, and he had no reason to believe that he was any closer than he had ever been.
---
IMPRISONED
France could not move. He could not twitch; he could not breathe; he could not even turn his eyes. He stared into the dull woods before him. He could not even see himself, but he had concluded that by some means, some magic, he had been turned to stone.
No animals ever crossed his field of view; the sun never rose nor set. He had thought every thought he was capable of thinking a thousand times. There were no sounds, no bird calls, no cracklings amid the branches; when it rained, the only thing there ever was to see, he could not feel it on his skin. He could not taste it. The sensory deprivation ran down to his bones.
He thought frequently that he would go mad if there weren't at least a breeze to stir the distant branches, if there weren't something to interrupt the monotony--but a day passed and a day passed, and a day passed, and there was no breeze, and France did not go mad.
He wanted to be dead.
---
HOPELESS
Hungary was blind and deaf.
She sat in--in a house, she was certain, at a table, yes, made of wood, in a chair. It was a vast house. She had stumbled through it many times; she had groped every article within it over and over again. But she could not find the key.
There was a licked door: she could sometimes feel it rattle against the wind. It must lead out. But she couldn't find the key.
Worse: she knew, if she could see, she would be free in an hour. She knew the key was--was somewhere in plain sight.
Worst: she knew she was blind and deaf because she had vague memories of being some other way. There had been light--music. But when she tried to remember it, it all would drift away.
---
HELPLESS
Prussia could crawl: that was about it. His hands and feet had withered. He didn't know how--and he didn't fucking care.
He dragged himself forward through mile after mile, snarling curses at his crooked stumps. When he found thin puddles of brackish water, he had to lower himself to suck from them like a fucking dog. Somebody had done this to him: he was so sure he could spit. And Prussia kept crawling, because he would find that son of a bitch and--
And--
What a joke. What could Prussia even do to him, whoever he was? Give him a disapproving look? He couldn't even walk.
But he didn't know what else to do; he didn't know how to rest. So he kept looking.
---
What he found was Poland.
No: Prussia sagged onto his hip, wheezing and weak.
He found what was left of Poland.
Poland had been staked to the ground, spread-eagled: wrists, ankles, throat. But then he had been…sectioned. The pieces had been pulled a few inches apart, even his head--
God--
But he was still alive--
GRANT HIS WISH AND DIE.
Prussia whipped around. "Who said that?" he rasped. "Who fucking said that! Who the fuck are you!"
Poland's lips parted: a dry laugh skidded inside his throat. Prussia could see some kind of valve flutter.
GRANT HIS WISH AND DIE.
"Hhhhey…" Poland's eyebrows convulsed together; his milk-white eyes rolled off towards Prussia. "Hhyou got…y-yourself a…deal--"
Prussia gaped as all the parts of Poland vanished.
THE SUNDERED HAS BEEN TITHED. MAKE YOUR WISH.
"Who are you!" Prussia shouted. "Where the fuck did you take Poland! Who are you!"
MAKE YOUR WISH.
"How about some hands and feet and I'll tear your fucking teeth out--"
The world wrenched--Prussia fell off the ground. He hit--
--A hardwood floor--
Hungary threw back her chair as she shot to her feet. "Who's there?"
Prussia struggled to sit up. "What the fuck is going on--shit, Hungary, calm down, it's me--"
She stared into nothing and quivered like a plucked harp string, a bottle upraised in one hand. Then she shoved around the table, banged her hip, rebounded and advanced on him, and clobbered him over the shoulders.
"Shit!"
"What are you? What is this place? Where is the key? I promise I will kill you--" Hungary toppled to the floor as Prussia contorted into her knees. She flipped like a wildcat, elbowed him in the kidneys; all Prussia could do was try to shield himself from the bottle with his forearms.
"Christ! Babe! Stop it! Fuck, can't you--fuck, you can't hear me, can you--" Prussia struggled half upright, pulled back, took the bottle across the jaw with a teeth-jarring "Fuck!" and slammed his lips against hers.
Hungary froze. Then snapped back; she kept her grip on the bottle as she skittered three feet away across the floor. Five seconds, six, seven seconds of stillness, and then she whispered, "Prussia?"
He let out a shaking breath and shouldered his hair out of his face. "Yeah," he said, even though she couldn't hear him.
She held out a swerving hand. Prussia hesitated before touching the clawed remains of his fingers against hers. Sure enough; she recoiled again, until her shoulders hit the wall.
"You're not Prussia! What are you?"
Prussia set his teeth and lunged for her; he was amazed when he managed to knock her to the floor. A squirming tussle, elbows and chins slamming against the floor, and Prussia almost got his lights knocked out against the wall before he managed to pin her on her stomach beneath him, his knees clamped around her thighs.
He shoved up the back of her shirt; she writhed. He held her neck down with his forearm, "Calm down, Jesus," and wrote across her back with his stubby finger-ends:
IT'S PRUSSIA
NO HANDS
NO FEET
BUT
STILL ME
She quieted, shuddering, halfway through the first line, and let her forehead sag against her folded hands.
"Prussia," she breathed. "Oh, thank God…"
Prussia remembered Poland getting tithed, and thought: thank something.
"Can you see? Can you hear?" Hungary urged him.
YES
YOU CAN'T
AT ALL?
She shook her head short and fast. A hysterical little laugh. "I-it's been so quiet…" She sucked down a fast breath. "Listen, there's a key. There--I know that there's a key, to get out of this house. And now that you're here, we can find it."
Prussia reminded her, CAN'T WALK.
She worked herself up to her raw elbows and tipped her hips to the side; Prussia slid off of her. "Then I can carry you. You can…pull on my shoulders to tell me what way to go; a squeeze to stop, another one to start again…and you can write on me more if you need to. Do you understand?"
Prussia scribbled
SO WHAT
DOES
COPPING
A FEEL
MEAN?
Hungary grimaced. "Can you even feel anything with those…things?"
IT'S THE
THOUGHT
THAT --
"Never mind…and why did you kiss me? Of all the signals…!"
Prussia hitched on a weak laugh and shook his head.
WORKED
DIDN'T
IT?
"Well," Hungary muttered, as she felt over him, found his armpits, and hoisted him up onto her back; "Touching my breasts is how you tell me you want to get down--very fast."
---
IMPRISONED
If France could weep he would have: something had finally happened!
A small figure tore free of that crippling, unchanging treeline and slammed into France's lower half. France felt nothing; of course, but he knew the other was there. He could see a pale head, and the metal gleam of a collar.
GRANT HIS WISH AND DIE.
The little figure stumbled back, clutching at his throat; and France recognized--Russia?
"Who are you talking about?" Russia cried. "I don't have time, they're coming--!"
Why should Russia look small?
France was perplexed.
And why shouldn't Russia be able to see him? He had run into him headlong.
GRANT HIS WISH AND DIE.
"Grant whose wish? Who are you? What is--"
Oh, France thought. Of course.
He must be one of the trees.
"I have to go!" Russia screamed. His throat was banded red.
France had no better notion of what deal was being offered to them than Russia did, but the prospect of no longer thinking was so agreeable to him that he thought: Yes. Take my life for Russia's wish.
Darkness swept over his head, sudden and absolute. The last thing he heard was:
THE IMPRISONED HAS BEEN TITHED.
---
ALONE
America staggered to a halt three feet from a hunched-over form. He stared.
Russia's head snapped up. He shivered like the image of a pebble at the bottom of a running brook. His hands were wrapped around his neck.
"America," he hitched--and struggled forwards on his knees. "Get it off, please get it off, they, they, they'll find me if I can't get rid of it, please--"
"Yeah…" America's lips felt numb; he didn't know that he hadn't just made an unintelligible sound. He wanted to ask What's going on? What is this place? How did we get here? But Russia was here, his Russia, his Russia, he was here, and afraid, and that swept aside everything else--
He found a catch at the back of the collar; something Russia couldn't reach. The wrought iron thing cracked open and dropped into the snow.
They fell into each other's arms.
"Beautiful," America whispered, heart racing. His frostbitten fingers cramped in Russia's hair.
Russia shuddered wildly and buried his face in America's shoulder. He took uneven, lunging breaths, and coughed, "I wished--I heard a--"
"I've got you." America exhaled, shaking, and nuzzled into the turn of Russia's jaw. "I've got you. I promise."
It was a long time before they were willing to settle back on their heels; to loosen their grips and look around America's desolate white.
America licked his wind-chapped lips. His voice came out hushed. "Where are we?"
"Hell," Russia answered, his jaw set.
"Oh don't be stupid--"
Russia grabbed America's hand and bit down on his fingertips; he sucked America's fingers into his mouth up to the second knuckle. America went tongue-tied. "You have frostbite," Russia informed him. "The cold will not hurt me. I will keep you warm."
"Thank God for you," America muttered. His head dropped down.
Russia said nothing.
America tried again, some time later, when his fingers had started to hurt: hurting was good--hurt meant they weren't dead. "What…what's happening to us? Where are all the people?"
Russia dug in against the snowbank, made a sheltered space against the wind; he allowed America to curl in against his chest. "I met…someone, I think," he said slowly. "And there was a voice; it talked about granting wishes."
America looked around, into the endless, howling snow. "And you wished to be here?"
Russia's fingertips crept inside the cuff of America's jacket. "No," he murmured. "Only somewhere safe."
America looked up at him; Russia's hair tickled his nose. He smiled a little. "Well, maybe I don't have the first fucking clue what's going on," he chirped, "But 'safe,' you know, I think we can handle 'safe.' I mean, like. Who's gonna take the both of us?"
"I know." Russia found America's right hand; after a hesitation, he laid it upon his own throat, over the stinging, bloody marks from the new collar. "I am not afraid now."
America pressed a kiss into the hollow of Russia's jaw. They huddled together in the snow.
After perhaps half an hour: "Well…I guess…ready to go?"
Russia's eyebrows faintly rose. "Go where?"
America tucked his hands inside Russia's coat. "Well we can't just sit here. I was looking for people, I mean, before, like, then you showed up, but I still think we should look for people. Or something, anyway, like, I guess it doesn't matter if it's people."
"Bored already, America?" Russia teased. He kissed the bridge of his nose, right above the crosspiece of his glasses.
"Got any better ideas?" America countered.
Russia brushed back a few strands of America's hair. His skin was bone-white. "Than wandering without direction through a blizzard? …Almost anything."
"You're better in snow than me, though." America tucked himself in closer. "You can at least keep us walking in a straight line."
"Mm. …All right, then."
A sighing, windy silence.
"That means you need to get up, America," Russia prompted him, his hand curled gentle at the back of America's neck.
"Yeah, I know, just…five more minutes."
---
LOST
England staggered to a halt. It was another dead-end: but there stood Germany.
He stood white-faced and staring at one of the blank stone walls; his eyes found England's without a flicker.
"I killed them," he said, flat and numb.
England stared; then collected himself. "Killed who?"
GRANT HIS WISH AND DIE.
"Oh, bollocks--" England breathed. "This is--Germany--Germany, don't say a bloody thing--don't even think anything that might add up to a yes in that thing's mind--"
"All of them," Germany stated, and England realized that he and Germany were very much not seeing the same thing. "Even--Italy; I--"
GRANT HIS WISH AND DIE.
"Germany, listen to me, don't talk to it, don't--"
Germany turned away and folded his hands behind his back. "England may have his wish."
"No--" England lunged for him, too late.
THE BETRAYER HAS BEEN TITHED. MAKE YOUR WISH.
"Bastards!" England roared. "I didn't ask for a fucking wish! You thieving, treacherous--"
MAKE YOUR WISH.
"Oh, you'd like to hear me wish for the sea, I'm sure--well, you won't catch me playing silly buggers--I'm on to you, now--"
MAKE YOUR WISH.
England seethed, his hands fisted in his ragged overgarment. "Oh, very well, then, right, I'll make a fucking wish, shall I? How does this one suit your fancy: give back one of the poor bastards you've had tithed. But not just anyone; give me whichever would help the most to get to the bottom of your glamours and rot--"
He was still ranting when he evaporated into the ambient nothing, swept off to some elsewhere; and the maze which led never down into the sea hung suspected, for an instant, empty and turning, before it became like it had never been at all.
---
IMPRISONED
France remembered nothing; but he was glad, at least, not to be a tree.
England's eyes swept over him once, and he gave a weak hiss of disgust. "Sod it anyway," he muttered, and offered France his hand. France swayed as he was hauled to his feet. "Maybe I was better off on my own."
"You need a shave, Angleterre," was all France could think to say.
"And you need some sodding clothes. What the devil even happened to--no, forget I asked. I've no doubt you'll only bore me, and we need to find the others."
"Yes," France managed, hazy and uncertain; he carded his hands down his body. Real, yes; naked--oh, very much so. "It was--very, very boring."
"Well, I'm sure it gave you plenty of time to reflect." England didn't look back at him as he squinted off through the trees.
"Yes, you could say that."
"And? Anything valuable to report?"
France scratched the side of his nose and looked up, winced under the watery sunlight which sorted through the branches. "Eventually, I determined that I was a tree."
England fired him a look; he stripped off his overgarment, wadded it up, and jammed it against France's chest. "Fat lot of good you are."
---
"May I ask where we are going?" France asked after a time.
"Nowhere in particular," England replied. They walked a long a flat and hazy golden road; not misty, there was no mist or any weather that France could detect, but unfocused, unfinished, as if the road passed through a memory half-unfinished. It led out of France's forest, beginning as nothing more than a shallow separation between the trees, but as they walked it had become more and more definitely a road until the trees had fallen behind them. England had found it. France didn't know how.
That's to be expected, was all England had said.
England went on. "We will find the others; as I found Germany, and as Russia found you. It seems to be the nature of this place--or this…" he sniffed. "Game the demon is playing."
"So you do suppose we're in hell," France suggested. The thought rang a bit cold inside him. "Well, not that I should say we don't deserve it, but--I don't remember dying."
"It's a possibility," England nosed the gravel on the path ahead of him with his walking stick. "I think it's more likely that we're in one of the outer realms; not Nil, certainly, but perhaps Waver, or even Ain Soph. Still, simpler to think of that voice as a demon."
"I haven't the faintest idea what you're talking about," France felt obligated to inform him.
"That's fine. Suffice to say that this is something for which my studies have somewhat prepared me." England squinted up at the colorless, liquid sun.
"How fortunate for us both."
"Mmm."
They walked for a long time. The road forked; England took the left path. France glanced the other way.
"So what are we doing?" France picked at the hem of his long shirt--England's long shirt--and wrinkled his nose. The thing smelled like old goat. So did England.
"Waiting for the next act to unfold, unfortunately, and learning what we can along the way. It's too playful," England mused; "It can't be hell, wouldn't you say? Here we are, after all; our suffering has not been unrelenting."
"In different circumstances," France replied, picking over a pebbled patch in his bare feet, "I would suggest that being trapped eternally in your company would qualify as unrelenting suffering."
England snorted and didn't answer.
They trudged on, through the endless haze, and the golden pathway underfoot forked, and forked, and forked. England bore them ever leftwards.
---
Act 2
---
Sure enough, the trick to the key was all visual. One ceiling tile in the whole house had been painted with a red key. Hungary had hoisted Prussia up onto her shoulders, and he had pushed the tile in and caught the key as it clattered loose. Five minutes later they were out the door and navigating their way along a branching, golden path. Prussia guided them constantly to the left.
"Why always left?" Hungary asked after a while, as Prussia squeezed her shoulder again. "Do the roads look any different?"
They had graduated to a combination of Morse code and handwriting. No, Prussia tapped, and nestled his chin back down against her shoulder. She'd only had to put him down twice so far to rest. It's a rule for getting out of mazes. West told me. Always choose the same direction, eventually you get out.
"Does that really work?" She shrugged her hair into Prussia's face. He tried to blow it back out, without much success.
Tried it a few times myself, Prussia confirmed.
They walked, and the path forked, and every few hours Hungary put him down to rest for a while, and nothing changed. At one point, Prussia thought to ask,
You sleepy?
"No…"
Me neither.
They both sat on that. If Prussia squinted far into the distance, the branching paths began to flicker, waver.
"Do you think we're dead?" Hungary asked quietly.
No.
She collected a few pebbles form the ground, felt them between her fingers. "Why not?"
Prussia rolled onto his side and tapped his answer into her hip. Because fuck dying.
She huffed a smile, and nodded, and pulled him up onto her back again.
At length, they came to a pool. Prussia tapped a stop.
It was a deep, blue-black pool of water, encircled by stones. A shallow flight of white steps led down into it. Beside the stairs there stood a sign.
It read, ONE MAY BE IMMERSED AND HEALED. THE OTHER WILL BE TITHED.
Prussia swallowed thickly.
"Prussia?" Hungary prompted. "Another fork?"
No--water ahead.
"Water?" She sounded surprised. "Something's actually different?"
Put me down-- Prussia tapped out, slow at first, then quickening. You go in first.
"How much water? Is it a lake?"
Steps go down just ahead. Go all the way in.
"Why?" Hungary's voice went steady and dark. "Shouldn't I take you with me? What's wrong with the water?"
Nothing I can see, Prussia answered, even though that wasn't completely true; the water was too dark, for all this clear and diffuse golden light. He added, since he couldn't see the harm, There's a sign. Says it'll heal you.
"Oh!" She blinked and put him down. Prussia dragged himself up onto his elbows to watch her.
"Right up ahead?" she asked, even though now that they weren't touching, he couldn't answer her.
"Don't slip," Prussia answered, even though she wouldn't hear.
Hungary stepped out of her shoes, but left her dress on, and Prussia figured this wasn't a bad last look at her to have; edging down into the water, her clothes clinging all the way up her skin.
"It's cold," she started with a tiny laugh. The water closed over her hips--her ribs.
"Love you, babe," Prussia called, as her hair spread out like sea fronds. "Always have."
Hungary slipped under the water.
---
The Stagehands
Snow gave way to ice, and ice to rock. Russia closed America away from the wind. America shivered, twinged, tripped on numb feet, but always insisted he was fine, fine, fine.
At great length, a slouching shape resolved on the white horizon. They swerved towards it. As they drew close, they saw that it was a tent; a small, dilapidated circus tent, striped in red and white, its tattered streamers drooped across the basalt floor.
A small sign by the tent flap read only THE SIDESHOW.
Russia caught America's shoulder as America started forwards. "Don't go in," he warned.
"Are you kidding?" America tried to jerk loose. Even his glasses were frosted.
"The devil is toying with us," Russia insisted. "We should pass it by."
"And go where?" America shoved up his glasses with the back of his hand, glared. "It's just a billion and a half miles of nothing, and this is the only thing we've found so far. I wanna see what's inside."
Russia's fingers tightened in America's coat. "It will be nothing good, solnyshko. Out here, nothing has hurt us."
"Maybe it hasn't hurt you, but fuck, man! I'm cold!" America's voice whipped up bright and sharp into the glitter wind, and the tent streamers fluttered out towards them in sympathy.
Russia watched him for long seconds, then tucked his hands in his pockets. "Will you go even if I refuse to go with you?"
America's eyelashes flickered, but he took a deep breath and gathered himself up. "Yeah, I will. We're not gonna figure out anything by wandering around out here for the rest of our lives. We've got an opportunity, we should take it."
"You are very foolish," Russia sighed. He looked at the sign again, then took America's hand. "We will go together."
America's shoulders dropped an inch, and his expression loosened in relief.
They pulled back the tent flap, tightened their hands together, and stepped into the Sideshow.
+++
You can look at a directory of all of my Hetalia fic here!