Axis Powers Hetalia is the property of Hidekaz Himaruya. I make no profit from this work. Trigger warnings for mentions of depression, suicide, and other sensitive topics. If you feel that any of these things will negatively impact your mental health, I strongly encourage you to read something else.
Felicia- nyo!Italy
Sterile
He's cutting pills again.
He knows that it's not really a secret, his partner was there for all of it, but there's still a sense of shame that accompanies him.
So he does it when his partner is not looking.
His hands are shaking. Like he's committing some unspeakable crime. As if he were a thief or a murderer. In fact, he's trying to save a life, not end it. He used to wish he could end it. What kind of life is it when your own mind has gone rogue and seems intent on destroying you from the inside out? You might be better off dead if you can't even leave your house without fear churning in your stomach and zipping around your mind like a lab rat on cocaine.
But then there's… She saw everything. Every embarrassing, ugly, illogical, stupid thing. He was stripped bare of all pretense in front of someone. He should trust her now. He should let her sunny presence ooze into all the shameful parts of himself. Seal up all the cracked pieces of his being and make him whole again.
There is no way to enact some ontological change. He will never be normal. So why bother?
He likes to think that perhaps his partner has forgotten all about the nights when he was crying into the phone, the irrational temper tantrums, the trips to cold doctor's offices and pharmacies. His greatest fear is that she will look at him and only see those things. He will be a patient. Someone who needs to be taken care of. That she will stay with him because he is unstable.
"Ludwig?"
His hand jerks and knocks the open bottle of pills onto the floor. His partner says nothing, just bends down and begins to scoop up the little white pills into her waiting palm.
He watches numbly, a nagging little thought like a message box pops up and warns him that there are germs all over that floor and if he takes the pills after this, he could get sick.
He folds his arms over his chest in a kind of self-comfort gesture and tries to remind himself of what his brother had said about how pills don't get germs on them. He knows it's not true but the thought is all that's preventing him from trying to get a new bottle from the pharmacy.
His hands are still shaking.
She stands back up and places the bottle on the counter gingerly, making sure to secure the lid this time, then touches his arm and smiles gently. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you like that."
He licks his lips and shakes his head. "It's fine." It's not fine.
She grabs his wrist and tugs him down to the dirty, germy, bacteria, virus-covered floor. They sit with their knees up and thighs touching.
"I wanted to talk to you about something. I've been putting it off for a while, but, ve, I don't think this can wait anymore." She turns and wraps her arms around him and perches her chin on his shoulder. "Have you thought anymore about having a baby?
No, he has not thought about that because he has been trying very hard not to think about it. Actually, he had mostly put the idea out of his mind because it was patently, absurdly out of the question.
A baby. Half of him. Raised in part by him. How can he possibly expect to raise something so innocent and helpless when he, a grown man, can barely take care of himself?
"I… I don't think it's a good idea."
Her face doesn't fall. She doesn't have tears running down her sweet little Bambi eyes. She was so much different than when he had first met her. She's learned to be calm. She's learned to control her reactions. She has to, because one of them has to be strong. They can't both be emotional train-wrecks.
She sighs lightly through her nose. After a moment, she begins rubbing his kneecap in what he assumes to be a comforting gesture. His heart beats even faster now. Is this the last straw? Will she decide that he is just a basket case?
"Ludwig, if you don't want to have children, I won't be upset. I just want to know what's going on with you. You're really good at hiding what you're thinking and you can't do that. I mean, we can't have a happy relationship if we don't talk to each other. I want us to be on the same page."
She picks up his sweaty, cold hand and squeezes it gently in between her own. His head bows with the weight of self-loathing and fear. He closes his eyes so he doesn't have to look at her while he tells her the truth.
His throat aches with the threat of tears but he forces himself to speak. "Felicia, I'm sorry. I have a, ah, difficult time telling you because," his voice cracks and his lower lip trembles, "because I'm so ashamed. I don't want you to have to see me… the way I am."
"But you shouldn't be," she insists. "We're a couple, Ludwig. I love you the way you are! You don't have to be embarrassed." She sounds so annoyed, like they'd been over this time and again. Like he is a thorn in her side. Like he is standing in her way.
"Well, I am! God, if there was some way I could- if I could just take out this part of myself. It's not fair, for either one of us. I can't stand feeling this way and you shouldn't have to put up with me like this."
She doesn't respond immediately, just continues to massage his hand. With his eyes shut, he is acutely aware of the uncomfortable slide of their palms together. His mind is assaulted with thoughts of all the germs on her soft little hands, now all over his own hands. His brain pings from anxiety to anxiety, making connections too fast and too irrational.
When was the last time she washed her hands? What all had she touched in the time between then and now? Was he going to get sick? A cold? The flu? You could die from the flu. People died every year. A cold could turn into pneumonia, which you could also die from.
SicknessInfectionDiseaseDeathContagiousGermsDirtyUncleanUnsanitaryUnsafe.
"Ludwig, did you hear what I said?"
His opens his eyes and snatches his hand away from her. "A normal guy would be happy to be holding hands and all I can think about is all the germs on your hand and dying from the flu!" He knows he's lost his temper again. He knows he is out of control and scaring her but he can't stop.
Quietly, tone far too calm and measured, she says, "You have a medical condition. If you had migraines, you would keep seeing your doctor and he would keep trying until you found the right medication and the right dose to make you better. This is the same."
"Depression and migraine headaches are two completely different things," he snarls. Depression. He hates using that word, hates having to give it a name. He can practically feel his blood pressure ratcheting up at the thought.
Felicia seems to have lost her patience and her own temper that she tries so hard to suppress is coming out. "Don't you dare try to make this about something stupid so you don't have to talk about what's really happening. Ludwig, I know you're scared-"
"No you don't," he roars, the frustration of so many miserable, confusing years finally revealing itself. "You don't know how I feel or you would never want to have my children. I cannot do this, Felicia. I cannot risk giving my children something I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy."
And then, because he knows it will hurt her and the irrational part of his mind wants to make her feel as terrible as he does, he says, "You want us to have a baby. Then we'll be the perfect family you've always wanted. Well, I'm sorry to tell you, but that will never happen. In November, I was driving home from work thinking about how badly I hated my life and how everyone would be better off without me. Now, I'm clinging to my sanity by a thread with antidepressants. Does that sound like a perfect father to you? This! This is why we can't have a baby! I am not normal. If we had a baby, it would be half of me and there is a significant chance that it would be just- like-me. Do you want that, Felicia? Do you want to deal with another crazy person?"
He leans his head back against the dishwasher and cries hot, petulant tears. How many times had this exact scenario, throwing a temper tantrum and his long-suffering wife left standing in the blast zone to clean up shrapnel, occurred over the course of their relationship? And how many more times would there be before she figured out what was good for her, left, and never looked back?
They sit in silence, he unable to form coherent speech through his tears and Felicia cold and tight with anger. Suddenly, an ugly fact comes to the forefront of his mind, as it often happens when he is having one of his episodes. And, as usual, he cannot forget or ignore it. So he says it out loud.
"You know, the Nazis sterilized people who had undesirable traits, like mental illnesses. If you were recorded as having panic attacks, they would take you in and make certain you could never spread your defective genes to future generations."
"The Gestapo doesn't exist anymore, Ludwig," Felicia says in a hoarse whisper. "The only person that hates you is yourself."
His chest clenches when she gets up and walks away a few minutes later. He tries to lay his palms on the tile floor to calm himself, but jerks his hand away when he remembers how dirty it is.
An hour later, the front door closes and he barely notices, because he has been so busy scrubbing the floor on hands and knees with disinfectant.
He's alone now. In his shiny, white, sterile kitchen.
This story is not meant to promote any kind of social or political view. I'm not suggesting that either character is "right."This is just based on my own experience as someone who has depression and anxiety.
Writing this was mostly just a way for me to express my feelings and since I've always had a headcanon about Germany having these conditions as well, I decided to go this route.
And unfortunately, it is true that the Nazi regime would forcibly sterilize people who had any type of mental illness or disability, even things such as alcoholism or epilepsy were considered to be cause for sterilization. It is also true that many governments also utilized compulsory sterilization laws and programs during this time, including but not limited to, the United States, England, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Switzerland.
As always, thank you for reading.