blood_winged (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
blood_winged) wrote2010-06-24 02:57 am
blood_winged) wrote2010-06-24 02:57 am
Entry tags:
From Fire to Flame [3/?]
Title: From Fire to Flame
Genre: Drama/Angst
Pairing/s: (in this chapter) USxUK, hinted others.
Characters: (in this chapter) UK, US, Sealand, Russia, Lithuania, Switzerland, Austria, Liechtenstein, S. Italy, N. Italy, Spain, Canada, France, Estonia, Latvia, Poland, Germany, Japan, China, Greece, Turkey, Egypt, Iceland, Denmark, Netherlands, Sweden, Finland, Norway, Australia, Indonesia, Belarus, Ukraine, Cuba.
Rating/Warnings: None. PG.
Summary: The sequel to At the End of All Things. Ivan is on the road to recovery, leading a normal life with Alfred and Arthur, when his world is turned upside-down after a simple question leads to a chain of horrifying discoveries. Can the young nation cope with the knowledge of what he once was, or is history destined to repeat itself?
“Aah, man, being a nation is hard.” Peter leaned back in his chair and stretched, tilting his head back to look up as a hand fell on his shoulder.
“What have I told you about coming into my house without permission?” Arthur said, one eyebrow raised as his brother grinned up at him and half rolled out of the chair, coming to his feet, eye-to-eye with the Englishman.
As always, Peter had arrived first. The young nation prided himself on his engineering skills, and had by far the fastest means of travel when it came to crossing to the Americas, and as usual, he had let himself into his brother’s garden and sat waiting for him, lounging idly in one of the wicker chairs on the decking. There was the customary awkward moment of silence as once again Arthur had to accustom himself to Peter’s height, then they shook hands, and the Sealander pulled his brother into a rough hug.
“How you doing, jerk England?” he asked with another grin, glancing up as a window above them opened and a sleepy-faced young Russian poked his head out, his expression immediately brightening as his eyes fell on Peter. The two of them had been firm friends almost from the beginning, owing in part to the position of the country of Sealand, and in part to Peter’s instant ‘adopting’ of all the reborn nations as surrogate brothers and sisters. The window shut, and less than a minute later Ivan stepped outside, still a little pale and drawn as he hugged the taller blonde and looked up at him with a smile.
“Privyet, Vanya,” Peter said fondly, slinging an arm around the younger boy’s shoulders and heading inside. With one eyebrow slightly quirked, Arthur glanced over to Alfred, who shrugged, and smiled, stepping up behind his husband and wrapping his arms around him, resting his chin on the Englishman’s shoulder, nuzzling against his cheek.
Over the next few days, more nations arrived. Some had been unable to pull themselves away from their obligations in their home countries, or had simply been unable to make the journey, but Arthur couldn’t remember the last time he’d been surrounded by so many of his own kind. Ivan began to isolate himself, and where he would have once at least attempted to be friendly he now steered clear of any contact whatsoever, but for the few who came to him.
“I’m a terrible person,” Ivan murmured dejectedly, sat on the floor of his room with his back against the door. Near to him, a young man shook his head, flicking brown hair out of his face and reaching over to place a hand on the Russian’s knee.
“You’re not that person anymore, Ivan. I keep telling you that,” his companion said. “You need to stop reading all those books, they don’t have all the facts in them.”
“But, Toris… I killed millions of-”
“You didn’-”
“I allowed it! That’s just as bad! I-I let myself be… be persuaded to sanction the deaths of millions of people and I didn’t do anything!”
“Ivan!” Toris stared at him, his eyes wide and concerned. He could see in Ivan’s eyes a faint spark of what used to terrify him, and he reminded himself not for the first time that he, like all the others, could not afford to forget just who, and what, Ivan was. As soon as it had appeared, however, that spark vanished and the Russian was gazing fixedly at the floor between them.
“I did so many terrible things… I don’t know why you’re sitting here after what I did to you…” The young Russian shut his eyes. “I don’t remember it all, but it comes back in pieces, like… like a photo album with pictures missing. All those things I did… I know the world didn’t used to be like this… and I know it’s my fault, but I can’t...”
“Ivan…” His tone was gentler this time. “Let me tell you something… A long time ago, we used to live together, do you remember that?”
“No… I… I might, I don’t know…”
“We did, and back then, things were very hard for you. Harder than you could cope with.” Toris shot Ivan a friendly smile. “I remember, one day, your boss was having tea in the palace, and I came to speak to you. You were stood by the window, watching a riot outside…” The Lithuanian looked down. “You started to cry, because even though you had tried so hard, they still hated you… The next thing I knew, you’d smashed the window, and you turned to me and said-”
“We don’t want children who can’t play nice, right..?”
The two boys shared long look, Ivan’s violet eyes wide as Toris worried his lower lip and fidgeted.
“I remember… it was snowing that day, da?” The Russian frowned, drawing his knees up to his chest and resting his chin on them. “We didn’t ‘live together’ though… not like that.”
“No, not exactly…” Toris rubbed the back of his neck a little awkwardly. “I suppose I was like your servant…” He sighed. “Ivan, I won’t lie to you. You did treat me badly, sometimes… but not always. There were good times, too, I promise.”
Though Ivan didn’t look entirely happy he no longer seemed completely devastated, and he managed a small smile as they both stood and he wished Toris good luck for the meeting. Nobody had told him what it was about, but he knew. He knew from the reading he’d done and the slowly gathering pieces of his memory that the meeting was about him.
0-0-0-0-0
“It was a mistake to let him live,” Vash stated, frowning darkly as an elbow was jabbed firmly into his ribs by the Austrian beside him. “What? You can’t honestly be defending him, Roderich.”
“You should not say such harsh things in front of your sister,” the brunette replied, indicating the small blonde girl sleeping in the Swiss man’s lap. Defensively, Vash wrapped one arm around her and drew her a little closer, casting the Austrian a glare that quickly melted as Lili let out a quiet cooing sound and cuddled against him. Roderich leaned on the table and looked at his hands, closing his eyes briefly before he spoke again. “Although I cannot say that I do not share your sentiment.”
“Do you even know him, Roderich?” Arthur demanded from the other end of the table.
“Do you?” Some things never changed, and the calm superiority in the Austrian’s eyes as he glanced over to Arthur was one of them. The Englishman bristled, but his younger brother’s hand on his arm limited him to an irritated grumbling, while Alfred took up the slack and leaned forwards, his best peace-talk expression on his face.
“I think we’re all in agreement that we can’t ignore what happened and what he put all of us through,” he said, and several nations nodded, a murmuring of accord moving through the room. “But I’m siding with Arthur here. He isn’t the same, we have no way of knowing that he will be the same even if he remembers everything, and we don’t have the right to take his life because of what he did in the past.”
“Of course you’re going to side with Arthur,” Lovino, sat between his brother and Antonio, both of whom appeared equally irritated, pointed out with a slight sneer in his voice. “But you can’t count yourself in the number of us who were killed by the crazy bastard when his mind snapped.”
“What would you have us do?” A voice that would have once been overlooked snapped back at the Italian from a few chairs down, as Matthew leaned forwards to send a cold look down to where Lovino sat. Instantly, the Italian shrank away, and another, less content murmuring rippled over the gathered nations. For a moment Matthew looked surprised at himself, but with an encouraging pat on the hand from Gilbert and a reassuring smile from his brother he stood, and cleared his throat. “This isn’t something that we can decide on in a day. There is no punishment suitable for the crimes committed by Russia, but he has already died once, by Arthur’s hand. We could kill him again, but to what end? We already know that we don’t stay dead. Are we to continue to kill him every time he returns? Would one of you like to volunteer to be the one to do that?”
The silence that followed was long and uncomfortable, and Matthew sat back down. Arthur, who had spent many years trying to forget the very thing of which he had just been reminded, had his head in his hands while Alfred wrapped an arm around him and Francis patted his shoulder sympathetically. Even Vash seemed to be having second thoughts about his previous words, an almost worried frown on his face as he watched his sister play with the lapels of his jacket.
“I’ll do it.”
“Hey, you don-”
“Don’t tell me I don’t mean it, Eduard!” Pale and shaking, Raivis gripped the edge of the table hard enough to turn his knuckles white. “He.. h-he made my life hell. H-he wasn’t the only one, b-but he was the worst.. I-I don’t care. I’ll do it. I’ll kill him a million times if I have to. Ivan Braginski is a monster!”
“Raivis, stop it!” The Latvian flinched, a horrified expression on his face as he stared wide-eyed at the Estonian beside him. His lower lip trembled, and he turned into the other man’s arms, crying quietly against his chest. On his other side, Toris gently tapped his nails against the top of the table while Feliks sighed, before dropping his head to the polished wood.
“We could kill him,” Toris stated, each word careful and measured. “But would we not be punishing him for a crime that he no longer remembers and can’t be held accountable for… a crime for which he has already suffered one death? Certainly, we could kill him… but if we do… then who is the monster here?”
Another long pause followed, though this one was tense and thoughtful, each nation struggling with their own fear and wish for vengeance against their knowledge of what was right and wrong. Alfred comforted his guilt-wracked husband while Francis steepled his fingers and rested his forehead against them, his eyes closed. Feliciano looked up at Ludwig, who frowned and silently shook his head, the quiet ‘ve…’ that followed unnoticed by everyone. Lovino leaned his head on Antonio’s shoulder, his expression troubled. Kiku and Yao exchanged glances, while Heracles, as usual, missed out on the proceedings by dozing in his chair despite repeated prodding by Sadiq, who was drawing scolding glares from Gupta. Óskar sat pensively with two young boys sporting wild blonde hair sat in his lap, the other Nordics in various states of concern and deliberation. There was a sigh, and a harried-looking Australian pinched the bridge of his nose, looking to the Indonesian beside him, who shrugged. Natalia had gone white. Although it had changed, she still held love for her brother, and she clasped her sister’s hand tightly, biting her lip.
“I don’t believe we’re even thinking about this,” Alfred said after some time had passed, disbelief clear in his voice and several nations jumping at the volume of it. “We’re thinking about taking a life, an innocent lif-”
“Your opinion can hardly be called unbiased, America,” Cuba pointed out. Alfred glared at him. Some rivalries died hard, even now. Matthew leaned over to his old friend and murmured something to him quietly, and the Cuban fell silent, gesturing for the other man to continue.
“… An innocent life,” the American went on. “I know only a few of you have met him since he was found, but Peter, Toris, Natalia... can you honestly say that you see him as a threat? He’s just a child.”
“Now, he is a child,” Yao spoke up. “But in the future? He will not remain a child forever and what then? What happens when he is too strong for any of us to control him?”
“Now you’re talking about controlling him?” Alfred pushed his chair back and stood up, nudging his glasses a little higher. “What gives you that right? What gives any of us that right? He’s one of us, and he deserves just as much respect. If we had all been more united all those years ago, instead of living in fear of what he might do and isolating him from all of us, if we had shown him any compassion, maybe we wouldn’t be in this situation!” He slammed a closed fist down on the table, prompting further flinching from the more highly strung nations. Nobody had to tell Alfred that he was just as guilty as any of them of steering clear of any interaction with Ivan. If the Russian had had even one person to rely on, one person he could trust…
Even in the quiet that followed, the sound if someone shifting outside the room was almost overlooked. With one finger pressed to his lips, Arthur stood and crossed the room, the yelp as the door handle was turned followed by noisy retreating footsteps. The eavesdropper, however, did not flee quickly enough and Arthur caught a glimpse of pale blonde hair before they disappeared around the nearest corner. The Englishman shut the door, and leaned against it, letting out a short breath through his nose.
“I knew I should have tied a bell on that kid…”
-----------------------
<| Chapter Two | Chapter Four |>
Genre: Drama/Angst
Pairing/s: (in this chapter) USxUK, hinted others.
Characters: (in this chapter) UK, US, Sealand, Russia, Lithuania, Switzerland, Austria, Liechtenstein, S. Italy, N. Italy, Spain, Canada, France, Estonia, Latvia, Poland, Germany, Japan, China, Greece, Turkey, Egypt, Iceland, Denmark, Netherlands, Sweden, Finland, Norway, Australia, Indonesia, Belarus, Ukraine, Cuba.
Rating/Warnings: None. PG.
Summary: The sequel to At the End of All Things. Ivan is on the road to recovery, leading a normal life with Alfred and Arthur, when his world is turned upside-down after a simple question leads to a chain of horrifying discoveries. Can the young nation cope with the knowledge of what he once was, or is history destined to repeat itself?
~ Forgiveness is the fragrance of the violet which still clings fast to the heel that crushed it. ~
*****
“Aah, man, being a nation is hard.” Peter leaned back in his chair and stretched, tilting his head back to look up as a hand fell on his shoulder.
“What have I told you about coming into my house without permission?” Arthur said, one eyebrow raised as his brother grinned up at him and half rolled out of the chair, coming to his feet, eye-to-eye with the Englishman.
As always, Peter had arrived first. The young nation prided himself on his engineering skills, and had by far the fastest means of travel when it came to crossing to the Americas, and as usual, he had let himself into his brother’s garden and sat waiting for him, lounging idly in one of the wicker chairs on the decking. There was the customary awkward moment of silence as once again Arthur had to accustom himself to Peter’s height, then they shook hands, and the Sealander pulled his brother into a rough hug.
“How you doing, jerk England?” he asked with another grin, glancing up as a window above them opened and a sleepy-faced young Russian poked his head out, his expression immediately brightening as his eyes fell on Peter. The two of them had been firm friends almost from the beginning, owing in part to the position of the country of Sealand, and in part to Peter’s instant ‘adopting’ of all the reborn nations as surrogate brothers and sisters. The window shut, and less than a minute later Ivan stepped outside, still a little pale and drawn as he hugged the taller blonde and looked up at him with a smile.
“Privyet, Vanya,” Peter said fondly, slinging an arm around the younger boy’s shoulders and heading inside. With one eyebrow slightly quirked, Arthur glanced over to Alfred, who shrugged, and smiled, stepping up behind his husband and wrapping his arms around him, resting his chin on the Englishman’s shoulder, nuzzling against his cheek.
Over the next few days, more nations arrived. Some had been unable to pull themselves away from their obligations in their home countries, or had simply been unable to make the journey, but Arthur couldn’t remember the last time he’d been surrounded by so many of his own kind. Ivan began to isolate himself, and where he would have once at least attempted to be friendly he now steered clear of any contact whatsoever, but for the few who came to him.
“I’m a terrible person,” Ivan murmured dejectedly, sat on the floor of his room with his back against the door. Near to him, a young man shook his head, flicking brown hair out of his face and reaching over to place a hand on the Russian’s knee.
“You’re not that person anymore, Ivan. I keep telling you that,” his companion said. “You need to stop reading all those books, they don’t have all the facts in them.”
“But, Toris… I killed millions of-”
“You didn’-”
“I allowed it! That’s just as bad! I-I let myself be… be persuaded to sanction the deaths of millions of people and I didn’t do anything!”
“Ivan!” Toris stared at him, his eyes wide and concerned. He could see in Ivan’s eyes a faint spark of what used to terrify him, and he reminded himself not for the first time that he, like all the others, could not afford to forget just who, and what, Ivan was. As soon as it had appeared, however, that spark vanished and the Russian was gazing fixedly at the floor between them.
“I did so many terrible things… I don’t know why you’re sitting here after what I did to you…” The young Russian shut his eyes. “I don’t remember it all, but it comes back in pieces, like… like a photo album with pictures missing. All those things I did… I know the world didn’t used to be like this… and I know it’s my fault, but I can’t...”
“Ivan…” His tone was gentler this time. “Let me tell you something… A long time ago, we used to live together, do you remember that?”
“No… I… I might, I don’t know…”
“We did, and back then, things were very hard for you. Harder than you could cope with.” Toris shot Ivan a friendly smile. “I remember, one day, your boss was having tea in the palace, and I came to speak to you. You were stood by the window, watching a riot outside…” The Lithuanian looked down. “You started to cry, because even though you had tried so hard, they still hated you… The next thing I knew, you’d smashed the window, and you turned to me and said-”
“We don’t want children who can’t play nice, right..?”
The two boys shared long look, Ivan’s violet eyes wide as Toris worried his lower lip and fidgeted.
“I remember… it was snowing that day, da?” The Russian frowned, drawing his knees up to his chest and resting his chin on them. “We didn’t ‘live together’ though… not like that.”
“No, not exactly…” Toris rubbed the back of his neck a little awkwardly. “I suppose I was like your servant…” He sighed. “Ivan, I won’t lie to you. You did treat me badly, sometimes… but not always. There were good times, too, I promise.”
Though Ivan didn’t look entirely happy he no longer seemed completely devastated, and he managed a small smile as they both stood and he wished Toris good luck for the meeting. Nobody had told him what it was about, but he knew. He knew from the reading he’d done and the slowly gathering pieces of his memory that the meeting was about him.
0-0-0-0-0
“It was a mistake to let him live,” Vash stated, frowning darkly as an elbow was jabbed firmly into his ribs by the Austrian beside him. “What? You can’t honestly be defending him, Roderich.”
“You should not say such harsh things in front of your sister,” the brunette replied, indicating the small blonde girl sleeping in the Swiss man’s lap. Defensively, Vash wrapped one arm around her and drew her a little closer, casting the Austrian a glare that quickly melted as Lili let out a quiet cooing sound and cuddled against him. Roderich leaned on the table and looked at his hands, closing his eyes briefly before he spoke again. “Although I cannot say that I do not share your sentiment.”
“Do you even know him, Roderich?” Arthur demanded from the other end of the table.
“Do you?” Some things never changed, and the calm superiority in the Austrian’s eyes as he glanced over to Arthur was one of them. The Englishman bristled, but his younger brother’s hand on his arm limited him to an irritated grumbling, while Alfred took up the slack and leaned forwards, his best peace-talk expression on his face.
“I think we’re all in agreement that we can’t ignore what happened and what he put all of us through,” he said, and several nations nodded, a murmuring of accord moving through the room. “But I’m siding with Arthur here. He isn’t the same, we have no way of knowing that he will be the same even if he remembers everything, and we don’t have the right to take his life because of what he did in the past.”
“Of course you’re going to side with Arthur,” Lovino, sat between his brother and Antonio, both of whom appeared equally irritated, pointed out with a slight sneer in his voice. “But you can’t count yourself in the number of us who were killed by the crazy bastard when his mind snapped.”
“What would you have us do?” A voice that would have once been overlooked snapped back at the Italian from a few chairs down, as Matthew leaned forwards to send a cold look down to where Lovino sat. Instantly, the Italian shrank away, and another, less content murmuring rippled over the gathered nations. For a moment Matthew looked surprised at himself, but with an encouraging pat on the hand from Gilbert and a reassuring smile from his brother he stood, and cleared his throat. “This isn’t something that we can decide on in a day. There is no punishment suitable for the crimes committed by Russia, but he has already died once, by Arthur’s hand. We could kill him again, but to what end? We already know that we don’t stay dead. Are we to continue to kill him every time he returns? Would one of you like to volunteer to be the one to do that?”
The silence that followed was long and uncomfortable, and Matthew sat back down. Arthur, who had spent many years trying to forget the very thing of which he had just been reminded, had his head in his hands while Alfred wrapped an arm around him and Francis patted his shoulder sympathetically. Even Vash seemed to be having second thoughts about his previous words, an almost worried frown on his face as he watched his sister play with the lapels of his jacket.
“I’ll do it.”
“Hey, you don-”
“Don’t tell me I don’t mean it, Eduard!” Pale and shaking, Raivis gripped the edge of the table hard enough to turn his knuckles white. “He.. h-he made my life hell. H-he wasn’t the only one, b-but he was the worst.. I-I don’t care. I’ll do it. I’ll kill him a million times if I have to. Ivan Braginski is a monster!”
“Raivis, stop it!” The Latvian flinched, a horrified expression on his face as he stared wide-eyed at the Estonian beside him. His lower lip trembled, and he turned into the other man’s arms, crying quietly against his chest. On his other side, Toris gently tapped his nails against the top of the table while Feliks sighed, before dropping his head to the polished wood.
“We could kill him,” Toris stated, each word careful and measured. “But would we not be punishing him for a crime that he no longer remembers and can’t be held accountable for… a crime for which he has already suffered one death? Certainly, we could kill him… but if we do… then who is the monster here?”
Another long pause followed, though this one was tense and thoughtful, each nation struggling with their own fear and wish for vengeance against their knowledge of what was right and wrong. Alfred comforted his guilt-wracked husband while Francis steepled his fingers and rested his forehead against them, his eyes closed. Feliciano looked up at Ludwig, who frowned and silently shook his head, the quiet ‘ve…’ that followed unnoticed by everyone. Lovino leaned his head on Antonio’s shoulder, his expression troubled. Kiku and Yao exchanged glances, while Heracles, as usual, missed out on the proceedings by dozing in his chair despite repeated prodding by Sadiq, who was drawing scolding glares from Gupta. Óskar sat pensively with two young boys sporting wild blonde hair sat in his lap, the other Nordics in various states of concern and deliberation. There was a sigh, and a harried-looking Australian pinched the bridge of his nose, looking to the Indonesian beside him, who shrugged. Natalia had gone white. Although it had changed, she still held love for her brother, and she clasped her sister’s hand tightly, biting her lip.
“I don’t believe we’re even thinking about this,” Alfred said after some time had passed, disbelief clear in his voice and several nations jumping at the volume of it. “We’re thinking about taking a life, an innocent lif-”
“Your opinion can hardly be called unbiased, America,” Cuba pointed out. Alfred glared at him. Some rivalries died hard, even now. Matthew leaned over to his old friend and murmured something to him quietly, and the Cuban fell silent, gesturing for the other man to continue.
“… An innocent life,” the American went on. “I know only a few of you have met him since he was found, but Peter, Toris, Natalia... can you honestly say that you see him as a threat? He’s just a child.”
“Now, he is a child,” Yao spoke up. “But in the future? He will not remain a child forever and what then? What happens when he is too strong for any of us to control him?”
“Now you’re talking about controlling him?” Alfred pushed his chair back and stood up, nudging his glasses a little higher. “What gives you that right? What gives any of us that right? He’s one of us, and he deserves just as much respect. If we had all been more united all those years ago, instead of living in fear of what he might do and isolating him from all of us, if we had shown him any compassion, maybe we wouldn’t be in this situation!” He slammed a closed fist down on the table, prompting further flinching from the more highly strung nations. Nobody had to tell Alfred that he was just as guilty as any of them of steering clear of any interaction with Ivan. If the Russian had had even one person to rely on, one person he could trust…
Even in the quiet that followed, the sound if someone shifting outside the room was almost overlooked. With one finger pressed to his lips, Arthur stood and crossed the room, the yelp as the door handle was turned followed by noisy retreating footsteps. The eavesdropper, however, did not flee quickly enough and Arthur caught a glimpse of pale blonde hair before they disappeared around the nearest corner. The Englishman shut the door, and leaned against it, letting out a short breath through his nose.
“I knew I should have tied a bell on that kid…”
-----------------------
<| Chapter Two | Chapter Four |>