My Hetalia version of The Battle of Walcheren Causeway, 'cause I felt like wasting my life doing research on a battle I wrote inncorrectly anyways DX Oh well, say hello to: Newfoundland, Alberta, and Saskatchewan. I love my provinces *huggles them*
"Here," a grubby, dirt stained hand appeared in front of me as if by magic, holding out a cigarette between two scarred fingers. It was as unappealing of a fag as I had ever set eyes on but I reached out and took it anyways, the yellowing paper dry and gritty against my skin.
"Thanks," I mumbled, bringing the present up to my mouth, striking a match, and breathing in, watching the tip flare to life before dimming as I breathed out. The smell of sulfur tickled my nostrils until the bitter tang of tobacco replaced it, filling my lungs and burning the sensitive tissue with its nostalgic embrace. I hated it and yet I craved it, even longed for it in those lost hours as I tossed and turned alone in the dark.
England crouched down beside me, carefully keeping the bottoms of his shoes as the only part of him that touched the dirt. I had no such reservations and my legs stretched out straight ahead of me in pants that were so stained with blood and grime that they seemed to blend in with the ground.
"Are you ready?" he asked softly, hesitant, avoiding my gaze that was resting on him. Every new person I've met during the war was like that, they avoided my gaze just as desperately as they avoided looking straight at me. In the First World War it had confused me so much that I had turned to one of the few men who actually would look at me and asked him about it. He had shrugged while fishing out the last of his food from a can and told me it was because my appearance unnerved all of those who didn't understand what the war was really like.
That night had I found a mirror and looked at myself, really looked, and in that reflection I found the image of a man who should be dead. Who was dead if one believed that the eyes were really the windows to the soul.
"Canada," I blinked and refocused my eyes in time to see the nervous expression flit across his features, "Lad, are you okay?"
"Yes, thank you," I replied, bringing my hand back to my mouth and drawing in more of the acrid smoke as people stirred around us, heading for the boats and the upcoming battle.
"Sir, I hate to disturb you but I was told to gather up everyone involved with the main force," a polite but no nonsense voice spoke from behind us, so young in sound but so old in tone. Arthur turned to look at the soldier, but I already knew who it was and used the energy I would have wasted turning to put out the cigarette and stood up.
"I'm coming," I told him, watching as he squirmed beneath mine and Arthur's combined gaze. Fredrick was one of mine, hailing from a torn Quebec that could not offer the adventure and glory that he had craved so desperately. Now he stood before us: disillusioned, disheartened, and stripped of the innocence that he had tried to throw away so carelessly.
"Thank you, Corporal. You may go." Arthur told him, and I glanced over, noting in those few seconds the way he closed himself off, probably telling himself that he was not responsible for ruining this young man's life.
Fredrick saluted, his eyes darting to me before marching off, his entire body tense with confusion and intimidation.
"Why are you here, England? It can't be to break my cover, even if you are doing a remarkable job of it." I kept my voice light and pleasant and my body language guarded yet uninformative. These days everyone was guarded.
"I came to see how you were doing," he said, looking extremely uncomfortable under my scrutiny, "You haven't had a rest since you came to Europe, so I started to worry."
Silence stretched between us until he finally broke down, fingers tapping unconsciously against his left leg, "America sent me a letter yesterday asking me where you were and if I knew anything about how to contact you. He said he's been looking for you, and that you never answer any of his letters."
My jaw clenched as I fought back the words that desperately tried to spill from my mouth, their cruel intent to tear down and destroy so tempting and seductive that I almost gave in. I couldn't though, the aftermath would take more effort to repair, and I didn't have that kind of energy to waste on someone who forgot about me until he wanted something.
"I'll contact him when I have time," I ground out, pouring out empty promises that held just enough truth to please.
"See that you do, lad. And now we better get going," his hand clamped down on my shoulder and gave a half hearted squeeze, a gesture that was meant to be comforting but just made the bile rise in my throat.
"Good bye, England. I'll see you in a week so have the correct paperwork set up," I replied with a thin smile that was just the slight curling of the corners of my mouth. Normally we were on good terms, normally I was polite and on the passive end of passive aggressive; but, right now I was fighting to clear up a mess that shouldn't have had to be so bloodstained. Right now was not a time that I could accept my place silently, and I took pleasure in watching his face drain of colour and then turn green with what I was implying.
"There's no need to be so reckless, Canada. Just...Try to take care of yourself," his eyes searched mine then looked away angrily. Whether that anger was directed at me or himself I wasn't sure, but I could tell he was dealing with inner turmoil that had his shoulders slightly more hunched than usual.
I shrugged off his request, knowing that I could never make good of it, at least not in the way that he wanted me to, "You have a battle to prepare for, just as I do. A week, England. Remember this time. If I end up not needing it then I'll have a message sent to you."
A few seconds passed without him saying something, then he sighed and squared his shoulders once more, "A week. Good luck, soldier."
I gave him a mock salute before spinning on my heel, leaving a deep furrow in the ground and a twisted, broken cigarette to be swallowed up by the mud.
"You really shouldn't let him get to you, Mattie boy," a cheerful, accented voice spoke as its owner plopped down beside me, "We can't change what our people do."
"He is a jackass though," another voice spoke, and another body parked itself on the other side of me while a third body sat down across from us. Alberta stretched out his legs ahead of him, nudging Saskatchewan's boot with his own until the middle prairie province gave him a sharp glare.
"You're with the Black Watch this time around?" I asked Newfoundland, knowing already that Alberta and Saskatchewan had come to join the Calgary Highlanders.
"I was, but I missed roll call," his hand ruffled my hair as more soldiers got on, many giving my three new companions odd looks that quickly turned to disinterest, "I was just finishing up some paperwork when these two passing by and mentioned that their company was heading over to back up the Watch. I figured why not join them."
"Which one are you with?" Saskatchewan asked suddenly, his somewhat freaky kaleidoscope eyes boring into my own.
"I was told to fight under Major Bruce McKenzie this time, but it seems like I'll be joining you guys first."
"That explains it," Alberta exclaimed, "I was wondering why you looked like shit, and I think I got my answer. When's the last time you took a break?"
"Define 'break'," I told him wearily, leaning my head back against boat wall, "It took time to get here so I used that time as a 'break'."
"Maybe you should go home for a bit. You've been here since the war began," Newfoundland started, but I cut him off with a soft snarl.
"So have you, so don't give me any of that bullshit, Eric." My eyes had closed, but I didn't need to have them open to know the entire boat had gone quiet, the air vibrating with tension. Prussia had once told me that when we fought on the battlefield I had an odd chill around me, a dark feeling of single minded killing intent that could rival Russia.
Laughter broke the stalemate, loud and carefree even if a bit misplaced, "C'mon you two, you both need a rest. Once this war is over you can argue it out over beers, but until then we have battles to be won. How we deal with things until this is over is up to us."
My eyes opened just in time to see the look that passed between my two provinces, and the way Saskatchewan closed off the moment his neighbour's eyes left him. The kaleidoscope gaze suddenly jumped to me, the colours dark and muted, daring me to say something that would draw Alberta's attention to his turmoil. I gave him a small smile back, one of the few real ones that I could still manage, then looked over at Newfoundland.
"Sorry," I muttered, "Lack of sleep is putting me on edge."
He nodded with a look of understanding that was just dark enough to let me know he understood in ways I hoped he wouldn't; the constant bottles of alcohol that appeared in his bags were suddenly making more sense than I wanted them too. We all had our ways of coping; I buried my sanity, Newfoundland drank, Alberta threw away his morals, and Saskatchewan focused on protecting the one hurting him the most. Out of all of us I wondered who would be the least broken by the end.
The sound of gunfire got our attention, then the loud pings of bullets bouncing off of the metal hull.
"Sounds like a party out there," Alberta grinned, teeth bared, as he adjusted his grip on his rifle. Saskatchewan just sighed and stood up, starting a chain of movement from the other soldiers that had stilled around us once again.
I turned my head to look a Newfoundland, "Are you ready, Eric?" I asked, my own lips pulling back in what would have been called a smile if there had been less teeth, less promise of bloodshed. He mirrored it and nodded, the cheerful look in his eyes suddenly becoming hard and closed off as he grabbed his own rifle and stood up.
"No time like the present, aye?"
The four of us walked past the other soldiers, past Fredrick who was tucking his rosary beads into his shirt, and stood by the door, ready. Waiting. All with matching smiles and granite eyes.
"You guys have the devil's own luck," a choked voice called out followed by a rusty laugh as the four of us jumped off the boat, alive, but bloody and bullet ridden.
"You're one to talk, Blackie!" Alberta shouted back, heading over to throw his arms around the Company Sergeant Major. Yeah, it was a mouthful, which was why we never referred to him by rank unless in the company of higher ups
"Alex," I called, and then waited until I had Alberta's attention before motioning him over, "I need you to get rid of the shrapnel."
His disgusted expression almost made me laugh as he sat down behind me with tweezers, "You know I hate doing thing like this," he grumbled at me as he pulled out a piece of metal, and Saskatchewan laughed.
"Weren't you the one that named the hand in the trench wall 'George' and shook it every time you walked past?"
"That's totally different! George didn't bleed, wince, or swear at me. He just chilled there."
"Yeah, until his fingers fell off in your hand."
"Oh gawd, don't remind me. But even then he still didn't bleed, or yell, or scream."
"George?" Newfoundland chimed in suddenly, "What happened to Alex the Second?"
"Alex the Second was from the First World War, wasn't it?" I had to ask, trying to keep my mind off of the pain as I sewed up a laceration that ran over my ribs. It was a doozy and hurt like an outright bitch- my side looked like a peach might if you tossed it into a bag of rocks and then dropped it over a cliff- so distracting myself was a bit hard.
"Yeah, I'm still positive that arm was mine. I'd been blown up over that area of land a couple of weeks before they put the trench there, and it had the same scars on its fingertips."
"Didn't mean you had to try and dig it out," Saskatchewan complained as he switched places with his patient-now-doctor.
"What's the fun in finding your old body if you can't even look at it," Alberta argued back, then quickly apologized when I hissed in pain. He had managed to get the majority of the shrapnel out and it sat in a little pile to my right, mocking me with every new bloodstained bit that was added.
"Your turn," I told him as I tied off the last stitch. Alberta grumbled something that sounded suspiciously like 'sadistic nation being sadistic', but I chose to ignore it as I set to work pulling out a bullet that had lodged itself into his side. He was the least hit out of all of us, and the most likely to complain about the injuries. Which he did. Loudly. A few soldiers from the Newfoundland Regiment that were sitting nearby actually started laughing and shouting ideas for curses so that by the end Alberta had picked up the accent and a few words only found in that eastern colony.
"Where will you head off to now?" Saskatchewan asked me as he packed up his kit, eyes carefully focused on his work and voice pitched low, "I heard they're going to give us time to rest up a bit."
"I'm going to sneak in with Alfred's troops and help out with the Siegfried Line; Arthur was told to plan my paperwork so I'll just get him to change my nationality." I coughed out a laugh as I said this, wondering what Alfred would think if he ever found out that I was willingly calling myself American.
Alberta just rolled his eyes while Newfoundland laughed just as humourlessly as I had. It wasn't the first time I had done it, nor would it be the last, but what none of them understood was why I did it when I refused to have any contact with my neighbour.
I wasn't even sure myself, I just knew that if I stopped fighting then I would have to sleep, and no one wants to sleep when their dreams are full of dead men and the taste of trench water.
This fic would probably have never seen the interwebs but I had a terrible day today so I finished it up and am now tossing it out. According to FFN this should be M, but I know for a fact that kids know worse language than I have here, and have seen way worse, so it's just T.
Saskatchewan's eyes: His provincial quote thingy is: Land of Living Skies. See what I did thar?
"Blackie" is in here because he threw back grenades at the Germans before they could explode. How could I not put such badassery? And Fredrick ties in with another Hetalia story I may or may not finish.