Here's the next installment from me! I hope you all enjoy. I was freaking myself out over this for some unknown reason I'm not really sure why. But I let my friend read it and she gave it the go ahead so here we go!

I'll work on that vampire story I mentioned in the other story soon enough, promise. It sounds way too fun not to so never fear!

I don't own Hetalia and cutting isn't a good thing unless you're immortal.

xXx

Every year he watched the same scar fade and longed for it to stay while wishing the others would follow. The one scar he wanted to linger would leave and the multitude he wanted gone would be with him forever.

America fingered the familiar Cyrillic letters on his wrist, rubbing against the white marks that were nearly completely gone. It had taken only a few years to get to this point and he loathed each day he'd look down and notice they were just a little less clear, a little less a part of him.

Sometimes he really hated not being human. Hated his extraordinary healing. Hated how quickly the binding of blood between them would just...disappear.

Something so important shouldn't be so easily lost, shouldn't need to be renewed. It should last forever, the same way their passion would never, ever die. Even if some years he hated Russia, the passion still lingered, longer lasting than any scar they could give each other.

It wasn't always on his wrist and it wasn't always done with kindness.

Once he'd had a nasty, twisting, looping scrawl of Ivan's full name carved into his inner thigh. His Russian lover had done it with a smirk and a murmur of cold love(here is your Cold War, Alfred), lips and tongue cherry-red with the flavor of Alfred's beating life.

Alfred had dug blunt nails into soft white skin, using his super-strength to breach the fabric of organ holding Ivan's body together and literally clawed his message across the bigger man's chest(United States of America) making sure to frame the empty hole where a heart should have been.

These scars lasted the longest and provided the strongest emotions and memories, but sometimes they did mark each other with love in their eyes and gentleness in the blade.

"I-Ivan..." Alfred panted softly and tried not to wiggle or squirm too much. He felt his lover kiss his ankle, cupping the muscle of his calf as he carefully traced his message into the bottom of the American's foot with the tip of a razor. He was gentle about it, the blade sharp enough that it hardly hurt and was actually tickling the blond more than harming.

"Almost done, Amerika." Ivan purred, squeezing gently. His inner elbow throbbed where the younger nation had written his initials already, the wound dressed and already scarring nicely. Alfred still had a dab of blood on the tip of his nose from where he'd lovingly nuzzled against the cuts, 'kissing them better'.

"Did i-it have to be my-y foot?" Alfred whined, toes wiggling until Ivan took one into his mouth and sucked in a way that had him giggling and straining not to pull back on instinct. He spoke through his laughter, blue eyes bright and lips curled happily. "No fair! Stop that before I kick you in the face!"

"Mm." Ivan let go and dropped down, nuzzling the slightly bloodied appendage before kissing just as Alfred had earlier. He kissed his way up his blond lover's leg then, before moving over a flat stomach; he loomed above America and smiled in a way only the superpower had ever seen.

Dipping down, he rubbed their noses together playfully, blood smearing between them.

Every few years he had to get Russia to give him another. He had to return the favor. They needed their fix; they needed each other's pain and blood and love.

"Russia." America stood on the threshold of the bigger nation's hotel room in London, hours before the world meeting. He wore his typical clothing but had the collar of his jacket pulled aside, revealing a patch of perfectly smooth collarbone. His blue eyes blazed accusingly.

"Da?" Russia smiled softly and unbuttoned his coat, un-tucked his shirt, and showed off the still slightly marred hipbone. It was faint; barely discernible but still present. Ivan's lips curled knowingly when Alfred looked almost stricken by the sight. "It's not time yet, Amerika. Maybe next year?"

Russia always had scarred easier than America.

No one who saw understood. Not England or Canada or Australia or Germany or Italy or anyone. They all thought he was crazy for willingly letting(craving) Russia bring a knife to his flesh. But he couldn't help it.

He couldn't really explain it himself, either.

"Please, Ivan." Alfred knelt naked in front of the older nation, his body completely smooth and tanned and perfect but for the scars his people bore. There was nothing marring his body as Alfred; no clumsy slip of a knife while cooking, no klutzy trip down the stairs, no headlong rush up a tree only to fall faster down it.

Nothing but America's scars.

"Mmm." Ivan knelt in front of the blond, equally naked and already bleeding at his low-back. Rarely did he ever make the first cut; Alfred was always the eager one, the teenager experiencing the rush of something newly discovered; no matter how many times they shared these moments.

He twirled a lethal looking knife in one hand, eyes trailing across his lover's beautiful, aroused body. The jutting excitement drew his attention but he knew from experience that Alfred drew the line at cutting into something that could interfere so directly with their pleasure.

"Lie down." Ivan leaned forward and urged him back, laying the tanned nation out along the carpeting before straddling him. He pressed their eager flesh together and smirked when Alfred let out a muffled little keen, strong muscles clenching below Ivan in a delightful way before the American bucked up, trying to rub himself against the bigger man.

Rocking gently to meet him, Ivan placed the tip of his knife against Alfred's flexing belly. The sting of metal piercing skin didn't deter the American in the slightest, his hip movement only increasing as the Russian continued carving into him and meeting his thrusts.

Blood welled thickly as Alfred worked the muscles directly under the cut, sweat beginning to bead and slide into the wound, reminding him of the mark he'd carry with him for years to come. He didn't care about the pain, reveling in the pleasure of feeling Ivan against him, of knowing he'd carry a piece of the Russian around until the next time they had to claim each other.

Because these markings were his.

Russia didn't mark any other nation this way and America was the same way. They only pulled knives on each other, only hurt each other, only cut one another up with the intensity of a long practiced ritual of lust and need. It was an exclusive pain; their blood pact was monogamous and never-ending, even if the proof vanished.

They always came back to each other; blood-lust and passion rising from the ashes to form into a meeting of powerful nations and needy human bodies.

"You are thinking too hard, Amerika." Russia was suddenly beside the blond, large fingers curling possessively around a thin wrist. Calloused finger tips pressed against the scar laid out across Alfred's pulse-point, only trusting it was there, not able to actually feel it.

Reaching around with his other hand Ivan laid the flat of a blade up against the place where leg met groin, teasingly close to sensitive places that immediately began to react to his silent promise.

"I just wish it would stay..." America trailed off, legs spreading a little, encouraging the blade to press more, harder. He felt Ivan chuckle against his hair.

"Each time I cut into you, Amerika, I become that much more addicted to the next time." Ivan murmured softly. He felt the American stiffen eagerly, a small tremor traveling up his lithe back.

"Mm." Alfred reached back and gripped the back of Ivan's neck; where his last mark had landed. He caressed softly, nearly purring. "Me, too."

In just a few more years it would be time to mark each other again.