All the Best People are Mad – Part One

A collection of AusHun oneshots by electoriasinfonie

"There is a lady all in white,

Holds me and sings a lullaby.

She's nice to see and she's soft to touch

She says, 'Cosette, I love you very much.'"

"Father, I want to kill her!"

Roderich pauses the movie that's playing on the television and looks down at his son. "Oh? Well, what shall you kill her with?"

The younger boy thinks for a moment before standing and deciding, "I'll get the kitchen knife and slice her wrists… and then once I've gotten her cut up good enough I'll slit her throat and hang her from somewhere." The boy pauses and says, "Pity she's not real." But then he gets the kitchen knife and stabs the television, which makes an awful crackling noise and goes black.

"Oh, but she is real." Roderich looks like he's seen a ghost. He raises a trembling hand and points at a spot on the stairs. "She's there. She's coming down, she's going to hurt us…" The Austrian falls to his knees, trembling.

His son hugs him tightly and calls, "Mother, he's gone again!" Then he pats his father's shoulder worriedly and whispers, "It's just a vision, it's not real…"

"Roderich!" A disheveled-looking woman runs into the room and kneels by her husband. "Roderich… There's nobody there, it's just you and me and Leopold." She takes his cold hand and kisses it gently before pressing it to his chest, hoping to get some warmth back into him.

Within five minutes he exhales and hangs his head. His eyes look alive again. "Eliza. I'm sorry." He brings her into his arms and embraces her.

"It's not your fault," she murmurs and hugs him close. When he holds her she seems more relaxed, as if she's glad that he hasn't remained trapped in his hallucinations.


It's Eliza's turn to make dinner that night. Though they have very little, they make the most of it.

Roderich watches from the shadows. He doesn't trust Eliza to be alone in a room where there are knives, in fear that something will happen to her.

And he's right to watch over her – halfway through she's holding a knife to her own neck again. He comes up to her and pries it from her fingers, despite how tight her grip is on the handle.

"Eliza, stay with me," he whispers. "I love you." He kisses down her neck a little before she collapses, sobbing, into his arms.

"I'm so worried," she cries, "take this pain away from me! Please, anything you can do! It hurts!"

It has always been this way. After the war the family slowly started going insane: Roderich was first to go, he began hallucinating when he came back from the battlefield. Eliza, in her worry for him, grew suicidal. And their young son Leopold became a maniac, damaged by his parents' insanity.

So Roderich places his hands a little below her chest and murmurs sweet condolences into her ear.

When she's feeling better she tells him, "I love you," and kisses him deeply.

He finishes making dinner that evening, as he usually does after Eliza's episodes. He loves her and she loves him. This is really the only reason they are both alive; she makes his world become clear again and he's why she hasn't killed herself yet.


After dinner they go to the parlor and listen to Roderich play. He appears content and is smiling again. Eliza and Leopold are happy too, his music has always relaxed them and it's one of their anchors to the real world.

He's playing quite well until the fast passage is done. He looks down at his fingers in terror and the piano sounds stop. "They're bleeding…" he says in a hollow voice.

They aren't, of course. But he has played until his hands bled in the past, and this memory haunts him.

"Go to bed, Leopold," Eliza says firmly. He nods and scampers off, probably to polish his knives and guns before he sleeps.

She approaches Roderich quietly and sits on the bench next to him. "Can I see your hands?"

He nods and lays his hands in her lap. She kisses each finger and leans in close to him. "You're all right."

He blinks twice and the vision is gone. "Thank you," he tells her gratefully.

They go up to their bedroom hand in hand. She lays on top of him and caresses his cheek before he sits up and embraces her.

Eliza knows what he's going to do. They've done it many times in the past and she doesn't mind it – in fact she likes it now.

He brushes her hair away from the back of her neck and bites down. His fangs sink into her skin and he tastes her blood. It's good, of course, and the taste is especially sweet to him since they're married.

A little sound escapes her lips and she leans back against him. Though she can already feel a bruise forming, it's better than the pain of worrying.

After this it will be her turn to have his blood. This is how they spend their nights, their immortal nights… because anything is better than a hurting mind.