I have returned, and I bring Hetalia brand fanficshun with me.

Finally, I write again. I haven't written anything for Hetalia since starting college, but I've finally got enough of a routine that I can put time away for writing.

So, yeah, review for me please?

“What’s your name, kid?”

Name... He had a name. A... Ame...

“... America.”

They looked confused by his answer, and he took that as a chance to look at his surroundings. A hospital, maybe. It was white, anyway. Overwhelmingly white. Even the people were pale, as if they wanted to blend into their coats. Hospitals were white, though how he knew this was currently eluding him. The doctors, for that’s what he presumed them to be, looked at each other, one exasperated, the other worried. Both slightly confused.

“Your name’s America? Do you have a last name?”

America! Stop being so stupid! America, don’t eat that! America, don’t shout in public! America! America!

“No, just America... I think...”

They both looked at each other, shaking their heads slightly. The one on the left, lefty?, made a note on his clipboard. It was all so controlled, so... So.... So something. The words seemed to have deserted him, but they were never his words to begin with, were they? He just borrowed them.

You don’t even know how to speak your own language.

He wasn’t quite sure where that thought had come from, but it left him with a vague feeling of unease and an even vaguer sense of inadequacy. He wasn’t sure why he should have his own language, why that was so important. He just felt like –

You’re losing all sense of yourself. Becoming an amalgamation of other countries. You have no culture, no future. You cling to the past because it’s all you have left.

“Do you have any family or friends you wish us to contact?”

He swallowed, pushing down an image of a fairly young man with blonde hair that sprang instantly to mind. He was alone, that much he was sure of.

“No.”

They shook their heads again, and he wondered what he’d done to disappoint them. They gave him that look like he was doing everything wrong.

“Do you know where you are?”

He opened his mouth, feeling strangely insulted that they’d ask him that. Of course he knew where they were, of course, they were... Were...

His eyes opened wide in shock. He didn’t know where he was. Didn’t know. Had no idea. But he should always know where he was because he was, he was, he was different. There were screams, and he only vaguely registered that it was him who was making them. His entire being was focused on the fact that he had no idea where he was.

The last thing he registered was the pain of having a needle poked through the skin of his upper arm.

--------

“Little man, you’ve not the money for the arts I sell.”

The older man sighs, and pats the younger on the head. The younger hates this and growls between clenched teeth. This amuses the older man, who lets out a sharp bark of laughter. There is an illusion of closeness between the two, but any attachment that exists merely came to life through centuries of familiarity.

“Both poor, we make our living how we can. It’s good, but it hardly fits the piece.”

The younger frowns at this insult and looks back to the book, his eyes scanning over words that blur in front of him. The language unclear. He stops at one page and scans the text.

“How would you prefer to die, on a perfect April evening?”

The older frowns, leaning back into his chair. He lifts his own book and places it to one side with almost tender care. The younger snorts with laughter at this, and purposefully bends the spine of his own book until it almost snaps.

“Too melancholy. Try another. Hate reminders of that period.”

The younger’s lips curl into a sneer as he flicks through his book, stopping every few pages. He finds a page that appeals and smirks.

“You would. She said place your legs around my neck, that’s right. Yes.”

The older laughs once more and opens his book to show the younger a picture of a piece of artwork. The younger doesn’t think much of it, but doesn’t voice his opinions.

“Yes. Now that one I like. Fits the piece, though I’m not sure if it’s in the way the artist expected.”

The younger just continued flicking through his book.

“His flirt’s smile.”

The older frowned and raised one eyebrow. He plucked the book from the unresisting hands of the younger and read the words written upon it for himself. He grinned.

“This is how you see me?”

“All I know is this, he went out for his walk a man and came home female.”

The older got up from his chair and started walking towards the door, placing the glass from which he was drinking on the bookcase. The younger frowned at this. At the doorway the older man paused for a second and turned back.

“I’d give up if I were you. If that’s the best you have to offer, then, frankly, you are losing your touch.”

The younger is left holding a book, looking down onto the printed words. They blur together to form one large block of black and white, and he resists the urge to scream.

He burns the book later that night.

-----------------

“There you go.”

He stared down at the two small paper cups they placed in one hand. One held water, the other held colourful tablets. They looked like sweets. Red pills and blue pills. He thought that something about that should be funny, or at least vaguely symbolic, but for the life of him he couldn’t remember why.

He’s ill, they told him.

So he swallowed the pills and the water, because he knew what would happen if he didn’t. He still hadn’t found out where he was, but he liked going outside. They told him he could only go outside if he’s a good patient, takes his medication and doesn’t attack anyone. He’d never actually attacked anyone, but he knew what would happen if he did.

The pills dulled his mind sufficiently for him to be allowed from his room, and he made his way down the hall in a daze. People passed like ghosts, blending into the white of the walls. His own clothes, his hands, were stained with red that would not wash out, no matter how hard he scrubbed and no matter how many times he changed what he was wearing.

Here’s the smell of the blood still; all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. Oh, oh, oh!

They told him it’s all in his head, and it probably was. However, he knew he’d done bad things in the past. He woke up screaming sometimes, images of people long forgotten laying dead at his feet still running through his mind. He’s broken and tainted and utterly, utterly mad.

Yet he still laughed, though nothing was very funny anymore.

--------------

“There’s a hole in the world like a great black pit and the vermin of the world inhabit it and its morals aren’t worth what a pig would spit and it goes by the name of London.”

The older just sighs, and rubs at his temple with his thumb and index finger. He’s tired and looks it, his green eyes framed with red and underlined with black. He brushes his hair from his forehead and closes his eyes for a long moment.

“Sing something else, if you must. I hate that song.”

The younger just grins in that dazzling way of his, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose as he stares across the table. He does not look tired.

“Rule Britannia is out of bounds, to my mother my dog and clowns.”

The older smiles sadly, and his pen taps on the surface of the desk.

“It’s on America’s tortured brow, that Mickey Mouse has grown up a cow. There was a series named after that song.”

The younger nods and his own pen taps out a different rhythm against the wood of the desk.

“I know. I made my own version. Mine was better.”

The older ceases his drumming, and the only sound is that of the younger’s pen tapping out his own rhythm.

“Was it really...?”

---------

The room was cold, but it was always cold. He’d long since gotten used to it. The doctors had mentioned, once upon a time, that he had an unnaturally high tolerance for hot and cold temperatures, but he didn’t really care about that.

They said that a lot of things about him were unnatural.

He didn’t know how long he’d been there, wherever there was. He knew he hated it, but that wasn’t exactly much help. Everyone hated it there.

“Do you want a game?”

He looked down toward the source of the voice, and nodded. Sitting down in the chair opposite the man who’d spoken, he began to set up the pieces on his side of the board. The man smiled at him, his face warm and kind but his eyes frozen and dead. He set up his own pieces, black.

“White moves first.”

He looked up toward the man, who was strangely familiar. His voice was heavily accented, but he had no idea what that accent was. He didn’t even know what language he spoke anymore. The man’s cold, cold eyes sparkled as he regarded his opponent.

“I know.”

He moved a pawn, his opponent moved a pawn, he moved another pawn, and his opponent mirrored his move. Knight, castle, bishop, castle, knight. The man’s blonde hair fell into his eyes as he played and he made no move to brush it away.

“Do you remember?”

The sudden question surprised him, and he shook his head silently in answer. The man smiled wider, his hand pulling at the scarf he wore.

“You would not wish to, comrade. You got off lightly.”

They finished their game in silence, and then the man had to go.

-----------

“This world is rotting.”

The black haired man raises an eyebrow and sips out of his cup, but says nothing. He is a man of few words and good advice. Outside the sound of children playing in the street filters in through the open window. Wind chimes tinkle softly in the light wind.

“Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.”

“Heaven will direct it.”

The blonde man smiles softly at the black haired man and sips his own tea. He leans back into his seat and closes his eyes.

“So you do know it?”

“How could I not? I saw it, once.”

He sits up then, and opens his eyes.

“You saw? I didn’t see you there.”

The black haired man shakes his head, hiding his smile behind his tea.

“You weren’t there.”

The blonde man’s eyebrows raise, and he leans forward in his seat.

“But I’m always there.”

“Except when you aren’t.”

The blonde man blinks, then sighs and settles back down onto his seat. He picks up his tea again.

“He waxes desperate with imagination.” He mutters, talking into his drink.

The black haired man just smiles.

--------

“England expects that every man will do his duty.”

He looked up from his book, his eyes wide. He couldn’t actually read the words written, but he liked to look at the shapes of the letters on the page.

It was another blonde man, another young blonde man. The man stuck out a large hand to shake and he took it. It was rough and dry.

“What’s your name?”

“America.”

He almost sounded as if he believed himself when he said it. It got easier to say that name every time, and he didn’t know why but that fact made him feel desperately sick. Something in the back of his mind was screaming at him, but the drugs muted the voice too much for him to be able to hear it. He tried and failed to place where he saw the young man before.

The man smiled, he seemed pleased by the answer.

“Really? America you say?”

The man’s smile was comforting, and he found himself smiling back despite himself. The man patted him on the shoulder, and he felt himself relaxing into the touch.

“Yes. America.”

The man stood up then and flashed one last dazzling smile before he walked out of the door.

He couldn’t help but think of how wonderfully blue the man’s eyes were behind his glasses.

--------

“Germany has a word for it.”

The man laughs at that, watching the waves break over the sand with eyes the colour of emeralds. They say he has very green lands, but to him they’re just home. His home, imperfect, but getting better slowly.

“And I have about twenty different terms for rain. You name what you have.”

The other man sighed and sat beside him in the sand, his trainers, sneakers, tennis shoes, whatever, making indentations in the ground as he walked. He patted the older man’s shoulder and looked towards the sand, his spectacled face grave.

“And how long until you lose those terms? We can all see what’s happening to you. We’re worried. You’re losing yourself. If you slip any further then you may never be able to return. We want you England. We... We don’t want you to become like your brothers.”

The green eyed man, England, turns to the other. He looks angry, but it’s hard to be intimidated by such a gaunt face, eyes dark with exhaustion and pain. He looks pathetic.

“You’re hardly one to talk about being like him.”

The other flinches slightly, digging his hands into the pocket of his red hooded jacket. Fingers clench the fabric as he thinks over his words.

“I’m his brother, people mistake us all the time, but I spend three quarters of my time fighting to show people the fact we are not one and the same. You... You’re worrying.”

The green eyed man just laughs again and waves one hand in casual dismissal. He grins, and the other flinches again.

“I’ll be fine. I’ve been through worse.”

-------

In a white room, green eyes opened from restless sleep.

Pale hands pushed a gaunt figure from a messy bed, paler legs carried the figure across the floor. He cried, but the tears ran unheeded down his cheeks. Reaching the door, he didn’t even bother to test the handle. He simply sank down to the floor and sat there. Just sat there.

“I’m not America.”

No, but near as dammit these days.

“... Who am I?”

There was nothing but silence to answer his desperate question.

In the darkness, tears like diamonds fell from emerald green eyes.

Though his home wasn’t green anymore.

I got this idea in English class the other day.

We were discussing the effect of Americanisation on modern Britain, and about how we were losing our culture and identity. So, uh, yeah. This idea was born.

There are many quotes and allusions to literature and the like here, as a homage to the fact I am taking English LIT class.

1: “Little man, you’ve not the money for the arts I sell.” “Both poor, we make our living how we can." = 'Standing Female Nude' by Carol Ann Duffy.

2: “How would you prefer to die, on a perfect April evening?” = 'Shooting Stars' by Carol Ann Duffy

3: "She said place your legs around my neck, that’s right. Yes.” = 'Oppenheim's Cup and Saucer' by Carol Ann Duffy

4: “His flirt’s smile.” “All I know is this, he went out for his walk a man and came home female.” = 'Mrs Tiresias' by Carol Ann Duffy

5: Red pills and blue pills = The Matrix

6: Here’s the smell of the blood still; all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. Oh, oh, oh! = Lady Macbeth from the play Macbeth by William Shakespeare.

7: “There’s a hole in the world like a great black pit and the vermin of the world inhabit it and its morals aren’t worth what a pig would spit and it goes by the name of London.” = Sweeney Todd the musical

8: “Rule Britannia is out of bounds, to my mother my dog and clowns.” “It’s on America’s tortured brow, that Mickey Mouse has grown up a cow." = 'Life on Mars' by David Bowie. There is indeed a series named after the song, and it has an American remake. I prefer the British version, myself.

9: “This world is rotting.” = Death Note, I think. Can't remember, really. Couldn't resist the quote though.

10: “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.” “Heaven will direct it.” “He waxes desperate with imagination.” = 'Hamlet' by William Shakespeare.

11: “England expects that every man will do his duty.” = Admiral Horatio Nelson before the battle of Trafalgar. It was a message sent out to every ship.

12: “Germany has a word for it.” = Schadenfreude. I.e. Deriving pleasure from the pain of others.

That's all the quotes and stuff, so please review my stuff.

Nôs da, poblach.