Y'all, this story contains a lot of discussion of suicide. Please, if you're having issues with this kind of thing, don't read it. Please don't trigger yourself by reading this. Your mental health is important. Thank you. This is also crossposted on ao3.
Alfred had been thinking about death recently. Now, don't get him wrong, he was perfectly happy, thank you very much. It could be due to the factor of having a large population and having many die, as well as the absurdly high gun violence rate in his home. Then again, he was playing a lot of war video games recently. That tended to do it for him, and send him down a minor existential crisis, seeing his character die over and over again. It reminded him of how nations could die and yet still somehow manage to come back to life, and that thought always freaked him out.
But the biggest wonder was always how a nation died. America had died of course; he was almost 250 years old for crying out loud! Nations could die, but it's such a difficult feat to die permanently, to not rise from your ashes and and laugh mockingly. It was difficult for humans to permanently kill a nation; hell, it was difficult even if another nation had attempted it. However, one thing he had no idea about was the effects of one nation doing it themselves. Suicide was a taboo topic, even among the ever living nations, so the topic was never talked about.
Yet, the topic refused to be left behind from Alfred's head. He had never attempted to do anything, but the thoughts sometimes came. Maybe he was chopping some vegetables (he could eat healthy every now and then) and he'd think what if he suddenly slit his wrists. Or he was at the balcony of a skyscraper and a voice whispered to him if he jumped off.
When he asked Iggy about what the hell these thoughts were, worried for his sanity, Iggy said that these were called intrusive thoughts; thoughts that were distressing. He then scoffed when Alfred said they sounded sort of like like a robber.
Nevertheless, the thoughts were strange, and the wondering of could a nation actually die from this? refused to leave his head. He couldn't rest until he found the answer, until someone had confirmed or denied his suspicions. If a nation died, would they die temporarily like normal, or be dead forever? How would their death affect their people? If the nation didn't die, what happened to them? Was the healing process at the rapid rate of nations, or at a human rate? Would it be successful after multiple attempts, or would it be forever a useless endeavor?
The thoughts scared him greatly. He didn't want to be thinking about such things, but he knew if he got burning questions out of his system, his mind would finally stop focusing in on that topic. It was one of the reasons he kept interrupting at meetings; he just couldn't focus if his answers weren't answered. Once his question was answered, he could finally go back to shoveling down burgers and binge watching his favorite netflix shows, or maybe watch some anime.
So he prepared for the next nation meeting, trying to figure out how the fuck he was going to get his answers.
The day arrived. After two grueling months of anticipation, it was finally time to meet up with the other nations. The wait had made him anxious, and he had probably gained at least 5 pounds from nervous eating, but he was the Hero Of The World so it didn't really matter as he was still the best and hey hamburgers are delicious hey wouldn't stop eating them even if the world was nuked. Anyways, he was the United Fucking States of America and if anyone told him what he could or couldn't eat he'd simply punch them in the nuts, because that's his business, not yours, thank you very much.
Food aside, he bounded to the meeting hall, hosted by said Hero. Large McDonald's bag shoved aside into the mini fridge where the nations stored their lunches, he sat at the head of the table, spinning around on his swivel chair. Meeting started, time to input his brilliant ideas of saving the world by building giant robots, fuck off if you don't like them.
Five hours of pure boredom came and went before the lunch break had finally begun, and he ran to the bathroom as fast as he can because he made the mistake of drinking a trenti sized cup of coffee in the morning AND a Big Gulp sized coke during the meeting. Not feeling like he was bound to explode any time soon, he strolled over to the mini fridge and grabbed his lunch of two whoppers, fries, a large Dr. Pepper, a mcflurry, and an apple pie. He was hungry.
Now, he could enact his plan. Find a table, start eating, and casually mention oh hey yeah can nations like, die permanently if they kill themselves? Scouting out a spot, he sauntered over to sit next to Germany, Russia, and Lithuania, a rather odd group, but he supposed that anyone could sit together if they were hungry enough. Lithuania gave a half smile towards the blond American before returning to his sandwich. Russia scrutinized Alfred's overly large meal, Germany rolling his eyes at Alfred's antics, too far used to dealing with everyone's bullshit to even try to attempt to reprimand him for such a high calorie lunch.
Plowing through the awkward silence, Alfred began his plan.
"Hey Germany, you ever hear of these uhhh... shit, whatchamacallit... robber thoughts? No, that ain't right..." he paused, trying to remember the name. "Uhhh, OH YEAH I REMEMBER NOW! Intruder thoughts!"
Bemused, Germany replied, "Do you mean intrusive thoughts?"
"That's the one! Sorry, sounds like someone robbing a house. Anyway, I've been kinda having those recently and I want to know if by any chance nations can die if they try and kill themselves. It's just been bugging me recently and I want to get them out of my head, no worries, I don't ever plan on doing it."
His rambling made the tension skyrocket, and Alfred shoved one of the whoppers in his mouth out of nervousness. Lithuania put down his sandwich, starting to pale. Alfred tried of ways to explain it, but the awkward tension and the burger in his mouth made it difficult, and Germany was about to speak when suddenly Russia butted in.
"You are aware that nations cannot die permanently unless their country is dissolved, yes?" Russia said, taking a sip of his tea. Of course he just had to have the dumb and terrifying grin that never met his sad, sad eyes on his face as he stared at America.
"Well yeah, no shit. But I mean, isn't that kinda different? Instead of having humans cause it or other nations cause it, would it change the end result if you were the one to do it?"
The stupid grin on Russia's face widened; such a mystery, he was. "I guess that would be a plausible theory, as your own powers against your body might seem to work. But I can tell you a nation who kills themselves cannot die permanently. It's simply a miniature death, a break in your life."
"Fair enough. But what about if you do try it multiple times? Because I know sometimes when you have allergies like getting a bee sting, it can just be itchy but if you get it again the symptoms get worse until you have anaphylactic shock. Couldn't the same reasoning work in the case of killing yourself?"
And once again, that stupid grin taunted him, laughing at his lack of stupidity and how he devoured his fries at the speed of sound (not light because choking was bad). "Once again, young one, nations cannot die by their own hands. It doesn't matter how many times you may attempt, or what different methods you use, but it simply doesn't work."
Alfred stared at Russia, and a bad feeling came to him. But he didn't want to think about it, especially not with such a guy like the damned snowy-haired man. Instead, he would bury it deep, deep down, pretending that he had never heard it. It was something he was good at. He diverted his thoughts, retorting; "Hey, you little fuck, don't call me you you com-"
"That's enough!" Germany announced, his hands balled up into fists and trembling. "America, I appreciate your concern for this topic, and for bringing up your... theories... but you have to consider the time and place in which you discus these topics. We are eating lunch, and you are disrupting it. Not to mention how serious of a topic this is... please be more careful next time." Packing away his gnocchi that Italy made, he excused himself, giving a cursory look at Lithuania, who was making little worried glances at Russia, and looked as if he was going to throw up, and the brown-haired man ran off to the bathroom.
"No problem, dude! 'Sides, I got my curiosity satisfied." Alfred readjusted himself, and once more began to eat. He shoved a fry in his face, and began working on his second burger. "That went pretty well, I'd say."
"It went so well, that Germany and Lithuania had to leave out of amazement" Russia said sarcastically.
"Hey, go shove a stick up your ass."
It was at this point that America noticed the sorry excuse of a lunch that Russia had. It was a cup of tea and a piece of bread with a slice of cheese. "That's a sad looking meal. Want my pie?"
"Oh, a grease-trap offering, how lovely," Russia replied, but took the dessert anyways. "Don't you still want to eat it?"
"I mean yeah, but I've got enough, and I always buy more when the meeting's over. It's my secret tradition! Although now that I think about it, it's not a secret anymore because I told you..."
"Perhaps you will take me one day," Russia mused. "Although the portions and the greasiness of the food scares me... I think it would be a fun experience"
"Hell yeah. And I could take you to Ben and Jerry's and other places; although you don't eat nearly as much as I do."
"I don't think anyone eats as much as you do, America."
Alfred spluttered, but after some thought he laughed in agreement. "That's true. But I still want you to come with me. It'll be fun! Just some food for thought."
Food for thought indeed.
Bit of a weird ending, but it'll do. If you got to the bottom, I'd like to thank you for reading this. I've had this thought for a while, and I'm sorry for the hiatus of fics. Nothing had really come to mind in the past months that was longer than a 100 words or so. Still, I would really appreciate if you left a comment, and if you told me what you liked about it.
Thank you very much.
-potato