They Don't Scream

Hetalia

They don't scream.

I should know –I've been watching them. I guess it's a bit weird, or even a little bit creepy for a government official who's meant to be looking out for them, but still, it's hard not to. I've seen America frustrated enough to growl, low, throbbing at the back of the throat, but it never rises above barely audible. He walks along hallways, along the corridors of the White House, but his footsteps make more noise than he does. Even when he gets run through by a goddamned bayonet, all he does is blink and breathe. When protests and drama and politics reach a breaking point, all he does is sit there and ask for a glass of water.

I think water's his… I guess it's like a distraction, kind of. Like, whenever things get too hard, he's instantly asking for a glass. He needs it, you see – it's like a drug, like, ecstasy, or whatever. Not that water's a drug, of course, but I think he treats it as one. Like somehow that coldness (he always wants it ice-cold, with five ice-cubes if possible) can sink down his throat and grapple with his insides, and soothe his bleeding heart (do nations even have hearts?). He doesn't show it in his face, or his voice – his expression stays as emotionless as ever – but I've seen his fingers shaking as they curl around the cup, nails tapping the glass like Morse code.

S.O.S. Help me, save me, hear me.

Makes me wonder what all the meditating is for. Staring – I just call it meditation, 'cause that's what it looks like – in the darkness, sitting in front of the fireplace, sometimes whole rows of candles in a blackout. Flickering in the dark, those candles, and making shadows writhe and shudder over his face, his arms, his neck, his muscular body. He sits there without moving, blue eyes wide, just staring. Staring at nothingness.

I wonder what he's seeing.

I've also seen England – dear God, I've seen England. He's the most emotionless of the lot. Hours in front of computer screens, in meetings, in charity dinners, in events that would wear an ordinary human down to a shrieking fit of frustration, but he doesn't react to it.

He doesn't get angry. I saw Wales screaming at him once, words flying across the room like knives, splintering and cracking and shrieking himself hoarse– all England did was stare into the middle-distance, far above his brother's head, eyes so cold and remote it didn't seem like he was there at all.

When he speaks, dear God, it's like listening to a dead thing. All deathly calm and dark and clipped and cold! So cold. Cold like winter, cold like the bracing rain of the British Isles in the autumn, eyes dark and diseased and reeking of rot and poisonous darkness and former empires. When he sees a map of the British Empire, his shoulders go all stiff. When the map disappears, his eyes follow its path out of the room. He seems…

…. wistful, maybe?

He doesn't smile. He smiles sometimes, but it's fleeting, distant, like it's somehow escaped and he has to gulp it back down before anybody sees. When it does appear – when it escapes – it's not even a full smile, just a tiny twitch of the lips, reluctant, inwardly unmoved, outwardly forcing a façade. But there are also times when his eyes narrow and a spark sidles into the iris – mad and dangerous and deranged looking. That unseen smirk – when somebody is protesting learning English, when he and Ireland are arguing – is downright eerie.

Germany laughs, sometimes, but most often it is bitter, harsh, hacking into the room like some sort of machete, acid-blue eyes swooping around the room, bright as any pigment from a bottle. He hates his eyes. He hates his hair too, gold and as radiant as the rays of the sun – he sees it as a remnant of Hitler's deranged views of racial purity, and he wants it gone.

I walked in on him trying to dye his hair once. It was a charity dinner – I'd wandered into the bathroom at around about eight to find him standing by the sink, glaring into the mirror with eyes like the sky, the bathroom caustic with its never-ending stretches of white enamel and accusing glass. His fingers were stained with dye, brown strands of hair dripping into his eyes and shadowing his face, turning his eyes monochrome.

He'd turned, seen me, and his face had seemed to… freeze. It wasn't really noticeable, you know – all nations have to keep their faces perpetually blank, in case a single expression at the wrong time gives away a political secret. He had straightened, back like a ruler, military-stiff, capped the bottle of hair dye, slipped it into his pocket and left with a quiet, polite murmur of apology.

When I'd seen him next, it had been at world meeting, his face composed, his hair blonde, his eyes blue. Staring straight ahead without the slightest hint of an expression at the screen blinking on the wall, showing the financial outcomes of the War – but when he thought I wasn't looking, I could see his hands shaking. Guilt.

They all feel in guilt in some way, I think.

Russia… Russia scares me, sometimes. It's the way he sits, tall and massively-built, like a great white monolith casting everyone around him in the shadow of his great overcoat. Broad shoulders swathed in the folds of a long black coat, so worn and favoured you can almost imagine the pearly cracks in the leather are light dustings of snow.

He doesn't even try to hide the fact he's severely, severely cracked. Panning his steely gaze around the room and watching every nation flinch, one after the other, cutting a swathe as cold as night mist as the fission continues like a domino effect. The dirty smoke from his cigarette crumbles to ashes in his palm and floats away to the ceiling as he breathes dark fumes between his teeth, scoffing France's claims of legalizing same-sex marriage, and growling like a wounded bear whenever Germany glances at him.

God, the things I've seen him do.

I walked in on him, on them, before a meeting once.

The air had been still and heavy, swarming down my throat and nostrils like icy water – central heating hadn't kicked in yet. Shadows had layered the walls as I'd shuffled along the hallway, the early-morning light seeming to drain the vicinity of colour. The door had been open the tiniest of slivers, I'd peered through, wondering if anybody had arrived yet, and…

They had been standing in the middle of the meeting room, dim, lit only by a weak ray of sunlight. The grey curtains were drawn tight over the windows, sealing off an intrusive view of the outside, and the sunbeam that penetrated the blinds seemed weak, feeble, tired.

"Zhatknis… vse gotovo…"

Russian words.

I got a brief glimpse of a figure hunched in a chair, leaking blood, a blade gleaming white in the dimness, murmured Latvian words of defiance, before a dark-eyed, dark-coated figure had hurtled for the door, slamming me backwards. The corridor seemed impossibly long, and the carpet soft and fluid as it collided with my knees, dragging me down to the floor. The walls seemed to rise up around me, watching expressionlessly.

Body. Weight.

Pinned backwards.

A Russian-accented voice hissed in my ear like a boiling kettle. "You will not tell anyone what you saw here." A harsh laugh – fingers through my hair, twisting, ripping free of the roots. "Da? You understand?"

And then there's France. France often sits opposite me, lounging like a cat with all the self-assured grace of a model; body compact, hair the colour of gold, and blue eyes dancing beneath glib, crooked lips… can I call him Machiavellian? He's the bloody seducer of the lot.

"Tu m'amuser, ma chère." He whispered to me once, eyelid sliding down in a wink. He doesn't speak English – his translator has a hard time keeping up with things.

Once the meaning got through to me, I had to blush.

"I… I'm a man, France. With all due respect."

France jerked his head towards the screen, where a projector whirred as it broadcast the latest topic for debate onto a bare patch of wall: the legalization of gay marriage in France.

"Venir avec moi," he whispered to me, ignoring the protests as usual. Then, as I stared at him, another wink, and an added: "Après."

After.

If I'm really lucky, I can pin his wrists behind his back. I don't have to worry about him making a noise; he's used to that, I think. The French Colonial Empire, it was a type of… no, not a harem, no, no, no, it was just a…

An outlet. Frustration, anger… France can be both a lover and a sadist, and I admire that skill, that ability to switch between terrifying and comforting in the twitch of an eyebrow, a snarl, a moan, the flicker of a smile, the reassuring pat on a shoulder.

He was a much kinder empire than England or Russia, I think. But I haven't read the history books, so I don't know.

We both think with our whole bodies. Words don't work. Cry with our head and shoulders, speak as we race for the finish. I make enough noise for both of us. When it's done and I let go, he sighs and sits up, slowly drawing himself back together. He catches his breath. As we both come down off the high, he lets me touch him. I let myself soothe the marks I've left. I remind both of us this wasn't a fight.

This is the most dangerous part. Raw, bleeding, exposed in ways I'll probably never know. Sometimes he trembles so badly I think he'll break. His eyes are glass holding something back, and, however much he tries to hold it in, I just know sooner or later, they'll shatter. He doesn't fight the monster inside him like Russia does. He deals in bursts. A burst of love. A burst of calm. A burst of me.

It's fucking scary, and I hate that.

All of the nations are so painfully fragile.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

1783. The Revolutionary War. America had gotten stabbed through the side by a bayonet, stabbed deep enough and hard enough to die.

All he had done was breathe. Breathe and bleed.

Breathe and bleed while England looked at him, looked at him (America! His own colony, shouldn't he view him as a loving child?) with blank, dead eyes that mimicked coldness and trapped politeness, trapped politeness and darkness and honour and racial purity, and all the thoughts that chased themselves around in endless circles in heads too full of everything else…

How was it possible that the world couldn't hear their nation's screaming?

Screaming behind padded cell doors. By all rights, by human rights, they should have been locked up, sealed away from the world and its troubled, sealed away from all the doubt and terror and confusion of a cynical, bastardized world not worth living…

He needed to change that. He wanted to lighten it. A dash of colour on a canvas there… no, no, too heavy, too heavy, that heavy head reminded him too much of Russia. Start again, this time on paper, a bigger nose, a fainter eye, yes, yes, that was it, that's it…

He worked to fill his apartment with worlds.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

By the light of flickering candle, tired eyes traced their way over pages upon pages of scrawled cartoons. In amidst the layers of charcoal and bruise-purple shades, a pale hand swept across lines of cramped text.

Japan sat by his side. Pressing close – too close, uncomfortably close, but he was used to it by now. Quiet, but attentive – Japan had come to him in the early hours of the morning, seeking attention, seeking care, seeking a helping hand. Now that the weight of the sheets had passed, the sun crawled onto the sky in shaky-gasping fits, and his eyes followed the progress along the page.

The artist hesitated, searching for the right words, before turning to face him.

"I've decided…" the words seemed halting on his tongue. Japan raised an eyebrow, fluidly beckoning him to continue, a command without words.

"I've decided to call it 'Hetalia'." The words were coming stronger now. His voice trembled. "H-hetare and… and…"

Japan's hand on his shoulder. "And?"

He blinked back tears. "Itaria. Hopeless Italy."

Why was he explaining Japanese words to the personification of Japan?

His nation's eyes darkened.

He rushed on. "To, you know, make it light-hearted. Something for you all to laugh at."

But Japan's eyes weren't seeing, instead looking ahead, far ahead, into the future.

"I doubt any of us will be laughing," his voice was coldly condescending as he stood up, brown wood chairlegs scraping across the tiles. "I doubt any of us will enjoy it at all, Himaruya-san."

He blinked. "But… but it will be light-hearted…"

The door closed in his face, and he dropped his gaze back to the scrawled comic with a sigh.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

The relationships the nations had pursued before the Wasr had jarred with international politics, creating a scrum of world-shaking proportions. Nations had become lovers, formed their own private friendships with each other, become rivals, criminals and killers. Fleeting, fragile bonds that could just as easily be ripped away with the blast from a gunshot or the reek of flames. Paper-thin alliances – the only comfort they had left, in a world where wars and feuds ground the cliffs of their memories like the never-ending tide, where minds grew rusty and corroded, skittering like clockwork as they attempted to puzzle out manipulations as tricky as any game of chess or chance. They perpetually kept their distance, perpetually kept their hearts closed.

I've seen them frustrated enough to growl, lustful enough to hurt, angry enough to victimize, lonely enough to want. I've seen them almost torn apart and somehow hanging onto shreds of themselves. I've asked them, talked to them, interrogated them, broken them and helped put them back together.

So far, all they do is breathe.

A/N:

… well, that was depressing.