[APH] What Are Little Boys Made Of?
Title: What Are Little Boys Made Of?
Fandom: Axis Powers Hetalia
Warnings: Gender Identity Disorder (GID), self-loathing, human names used
Characters/Parings: Hungary, Austria, Prussia and mentions of Germany | Slight Austria/Hungary and Prussia/Hungary
Summary: Her body is a mistake.
What Are Little Boys Made Of?
slugs and snails and puppy-dogs' tails
She is a boy.
She is a boy.
Her body is a terrible mistake. The breasts that protrude from her body are a mistake. The emptiness between her thighs is a mistake. The soft complexion of her face. Her small hands. Her full lips. They are all mistakes. If there really is a God, then He must be mocking her. Or playing a joke on her. That's right - a joke.
A really bad joke.
He knows that she was meant to be a boy, but for some reason or another, He made her a girl instead. Maybe it's not a joke after all; maybe it's a punishment of some sort. But that just begs the question of what did she do to deserve this? What exactly did she do wrong?
What?
What?
What are little boys made of?
She finds herself staring into the mirror often. Staring at all of her flaws. Staring at all of the things that don't belong. Her body is a lot like a game when she really thinks about it. What does not belong in this picture? a distant voice in her head asks. It might be her voice, it might not. She has no way of knowing for sure. But she does know what does not belong in this image standing before her. Her hands move to her breasts in a steady, fluid motion. She just stares at her hands, as they cup the blobs of flesh that she does not deserve. She gives her breasts a hard squeeze and there is an instant pain that floods them. She squeezes again and again and again and again until they are throbbing with pain. Her face flushes as tears threaten to leave her eyes.
She continues to inflict this pathetic torture upon herself until the round things hanging off her chest are numb. So numb that they feel like they do not exist anymore. She almost feels relieved. But then, she looks back into the mirror. They are still there. She tries to close her eyes and forget, but by then she can feel them again, throbbing with life. She feels like crying.
And she does.
Her marriage to Roderich is painful. He makes her happy, sure. But in her attempt to make him happy, she ends up making herself miserable. His love for her is great, but not great enough for him to except what she really is. She forces herself to wear dresses, decorate her hair in flowers, and act as polite and feminine as possible. Slowly but surely, she feels herself dying inside. She wants to tell Roderich, wants so desperately to tell him how she really feels, but she can't. She just can't.
For fifty-one years, she suffers in silence.
When their marriage finally reaches an end, a flood of relief swells inside of her. Despite all of the corsets she had stuffed herself into and all of the excess hair she had stripped from her body countless times, she is still her old self. Scratch that, she is still his own self.
No, wait, he is still his old self?
There is no way of knowing anymore.
Her/His life during the war is unpleasant, to say the very least. With war, inevitably comes death. She/He watches many of her/his people die and there is nothing she/he can do about it. The only thing she/he can manage to do is wait, and that, for her/him, is an extremely difficult task. She/He finds there is nothing to do while waiting the war out. Going outside is too frightening; German troops inhabit every square inch of the country. Staying inside is not that pleasant either. She/He tries to keep the television off. The only things that are on it anymore is propaganda and more propaganda. This is the world she/he lives in now and until the war is over.
While forcing herself/himself to leave the house in order to get what little food she/he can afford, she/he encounters the arrogant boy from her/his childhood. He is standing alone, looking at the air ahead of him as if something is actually there. He looks so strong, but underneath she/he sees a slight dreariness marking his features.
This is the stupid little boy who always shoved her/him into the dirt back when she/he thought she/he was a boy. This is the boy with the annoying laugh that made her/him want to shoot him dead with an arrow. This is the boy that realized she/he was a girl before she/he realized it herself/himself. This is the boy that beat her/his husband to a bloody pulp and laughed in his face afterwards, telling Roderich how weak he was since a girl had to step in and protect him. She/He was that girl. Girl. She/He hates that word.
She/He realizes the boy from her/his childhood has been staring at her/him while she/he has been lost in thought. He is now standing right in front of her/him.
"Elizabeta," he breathes. He is looking down at her/him, with an all-knowing smirk.
"Gilbert," she/he replies smartly. And then, refusing to look at him any longer, walks past him. She/He feels her/his arm being grabbed abruptly. His grip on her/him is not restricting, but it is strong enough to get the point across that he still wants to talk to her/him. She/He looks at the boy from her/his childhood. He was stupid then and he is still stupid now. However, not in the same way. Then, he was stupid in a way that was almost harmless. Now he is stupid like a beast who is thirsty for blood. He is stupid and he is scared.
"Elizabeta." He is not smirking anymore. "I just-"
"Get these men out of my country."
And she/he is gone.
She/He is standing in front of the mirror again, just staring. She/He wants to die and be reborn as a man. She/He cannot take this torture of living anymore. Instead of murdering herself/himself, she/he decides to take a bath. Soaking in the hot water, she/he forces herself/himself not to think. At all. Thinking is not allowed. So she/he just feels the water around her/his body, the steam drifting upwards, the silence of the room. And it feels so good.
But she/he knows good feelings are only temporary.
She/He finds herself/himself waking up in cold bath water. She/He must have fell asleep. She/He does not remember dreaming at all. Maybe that's a good thing. Maybe not thinking really helps after all. But by the time she/he is stepping out of the tub and draining the water, it seems like the drain is also taking away the serenity of the atmosphere. Maybe she/he needs to just get over her/his gender identity crisis.
But she/he can't and she/he probably never will.
She/He dries her/his long, brown hair and begins to brush it out. She/He just keeps looking into the mirror. She/He sees both a woman and man trapped within the glass. She/He stops brushing her/his hair and averts her/his attention from the mirror, trying to breathe. Stupidly, she/he looks up again and she/he swears she/he can see her/his whole life flash by. And then there's just the reflection of a woman and a man again. This woman - she/he hates her so much.
Her/His hands find scissors in the bathroom closet and proceed to cut away the pretty long locks of hair. She/He stares at her/his reflection until most of the hair has been cut away and is on the floor, forgotten. The scissors fall out of a hand and onto the floor, accompanying the hair.
Now when he/she looks into the mirror, there is only a man.
"What happened to your hair?"
He/She barely notices Roderich is asking him/her a question until he has to repeat it for a third time.
"Oh," he/she says, "I just thought a change would be nice." But Roderich does not look convinced. He is smarter than that and he/she knows it. He/She could insist that this is the case, that he/she really did want a change - because really, it is not a total lie - but that would be suspicious. He/She must not let Roderich know. He is not allowed to ever find out. Ever.
"You probably think I look horrid, don't you?" he/she says innocently, hoping he will take the bait and put this matter behind him.
And he does.
However, before he/she leaves Roderich's home to return to his/her country, he gives him/her a hug. A display of affection that he had never shown him/her before, even when they were married. He/She manages to hug him back but a sense of dread creeps up his/her spine. I only cut my hair, so why is he so worried?
On the way back home, a voice in his/her head chants:
he knows he knows he knows he knows.
Gilbert is pressing him/her against the mattress. It creaks every time he/she tries to resist and creaks even louder when Gilbert violently presses him/her into the springs. He/She is pretty sure there are screams and shouts of reluctance escaping his/her lips. However, they are lost when his/her face is pushed into the mattress or into a pillow. He/She tries to kick his/her legs, but Gilbert pins them down, along with the rest of his/her body. His/Her heart is beating so fast. He/She tries to scream again but the sound is interrupted when Gilbert slaps him/her across the face.
"Stop it," he practically yells, irritated. "Just stop it."
"And let you do what? Rape me?" He/She spits in his face. "You can't have me, Gilbert. You have to swallow that fact and move on. Now let me go."
But he doesn't. In fact, he puts more pressure on his/her body, causing him/her to let out a small sound of pain. When he/she looks up at him all he/she sees is the blood in his eyes, the anger on his lips, the heaving of his chest. This is not the boy from his/her childhood. The war is coming to a conclusion and it is turning him into something else. And he is absolutely terrified.
The two of them stay still and just keep breathing. As minutes fly by, he/she realizes that his body is becoming less tense and his expression less intimidating. With his monstrous strength fading, he/she is able to free his/her hand and pet Gilbert's face. He/She realizes that his skin is softer than it looks. His/Her hand moves to his hair and soothes it down. He is distant the entire time, staring at a wall ahead of him.
"Tell me what's wrong."
And he tells him/her. He tells him/her everything. How the war has wrecked his brother's country and how his brother's country had wrecked every other country in Europe before that. How he is going to be abolished, he's sure of it. His country. His people. Everything he ever worked for - gone. How he does not know what will happen to him as a side-effect. How he is so afraid of dying. How he does not want to leave his dear brother behind. And how everyone will forget about him, including Elizabeta, who he guesses probably hates him by now. (He/She assures him that he/she doesn't.) When he is finished, he is a sobbing mess. There are not enough comforting words in the entire world that will get him to pull himself together. So he/she waits, rubbing his back and occasionally giving him small kisses on his temple.
When he is drained of tears and emotions, he asks, "What's been going on with you?"
And it is Elizabeta's turn to start crying. Regrettably at first, Elizabeta tells Gilbert everything. About their time as children and her thinking she was really a boy. About her realization that she actually wasn't and all of the hardships the discovery brought her. About her marriage to Roderich and how she had to hide every aspect of the real her, which made her feel so miserable inside. She tells him about how she loathes her body and how all she wants is to be something she most certainly isn't. And every word that comes out of her mouth hurts. Every word hurts coming out that she almost wants to take them and jam them back into her mouth. Back inside of her where they can stay hidden. But it is already too late for that.
By the time she is finished talking, she feels like herself more than she ever has. She doesn't know what to make of this feeling. She almost forgets Gilbert is sitting in front of her, possibly waiting for her to talk more. But she is finished. And when he realizes, she prays to the God that might not exist that he will not laugh at her. He opens his mouth, but it is not laughter that comes out, it is words, and they are:
"Somehow, I always knew."
Her heart stops.
"I knew that you hated your body. Every time I look at you, I see that part of you trying to break free, but...it never does," he says, quietly and sincerely, two things Elizabeta thought he could never be. A sad smile appears on his face. "I feel selfish now. I brought most of my troubles upon myself, but you - you have to deal with something that was forced upon you. You're blameless."
"I don't want your sympathy," she says softly, out of both anger and appreciation.
"I'm not giving you any sympathy. I just want to let you know that I understand," he says, looking her straight in the eyes. "I understand you."
"You don't understand anything," she has to stop herself from screaming. "How could you possibly understand me? I want to be a man. What's there to get about that? It's pathetic and laughable - that's all it is. I hate my body and I will never get a new one, and I'm just going to have to live with it, won't I? I have been living with it. And I hate it. Every single moment of it. I am so stupid to think I could become something I'm not. I am so stupid and pathetic and wrong and-"
She stops when she feels his arms around her, holding her tightly. She doesn't realize she is crying until he is wiping her tears away. This makes her cry even more. He puts her in his lap where she sits as he rocks her back and forth gently. It takes what feels like an hour for her heart to slow down and her tears to stop flowing. She feels him kiss her forehead.
"There is nothing wrong with you."
It takes several years for her to believe the words that Gilbert said to her. By then, like he had predicted, he is dead and buried and his brother is left alone to fend for himself. But his brother hasn't forgotten him. She hasn't either. She visits him every week, making sure to leave flowers by his grave. She talks to him a lot about things that probably don't matter, but it keeps the silence from seeping in and making her feel alone. Gilbert was the only person who knew. The only person who really understood her. And now he is gone. The thought depresses her. She asks Gilbert what she should do but only the wind answers, and she cannot decipher what it is trying to tell her.
She does not know what to do. She feels as lost as she did long ago. There is no one else she can open up to. No one who cares about her enough to even care about how she feels. Suddenly, she is afraid she will go back to the days of when she stared in the mirror for long hours. Of cutting her hair and wanting to die. Voices chant inside of her head.
You are a boy.
You are a boy.
Yes, she is a boy. She is a boy trapped inside of a woman's body and no amount of cutting her hair or hating her body will change that. She is forever trapped inside of a body that she does not want. She is afraid and trembling and pretending all at the same time. She tells Gilbert this and suddenly the wind-talk makes sense to her.
You are a boy. You just have been trying to express it in all of the wrong ways, she tells herself.
She is a boy. And it is not because this so-called God made her this way. It is not just some bad joke or punishment that has been inflicted upon her. She has done absolutely nothing wrong. Gilbert was right - she is blameless. And, for once, it feels so good to be her. It feels so good not to be a he or a she but to be Elizabeta, because that is who she is.
She finds herself running to Roderich's house because, in what has been such a long time, she knows she will be so glad to talk to him.
To tell him who she really is.
What?
What?
What are little girls made of?
Sugar and spice and everything nice?
Is that what little girls are made of?
Yes, but you certainly are not made out of any of those things.
You can find this story on FF.net, as well. Just throwing that out there. ANYWAY, that's that. I hope I didn't kill you over the whole she/he and he/she thing. It was annoying to write, but it had its purpose. I wanted the reader to feel annoyed having to label Elizabeta as either a man or woman as much as she did. Hopefully I succeeded, but not to the point where anyone was shaking their computer and flipping tables and yeah. You know. I really hope that you enjoyed. Please, tell me what you thought of it. I would really appreciate it.