So I was cleaning up the folder with all my oneshots and stories this morning, and I stumbled upon this. I wrote it last summer (I think), and apparently just completely forgot to upload it. So yeah, here it is.
The song and inspiration of this oneshot is You Found Me from The Fray. The characters obviously belong to Himaruya. So I own nothing but the actual concept of the story. (Don't sue me, please.)
This is sad, okay? There's death. You've been warned.
Lost and insecure,
You found me, you found me.
Lying on the floor,
Surrounded, surrounded.
Why'd you have to wait?
Where were you? Where were you?
Just a little late,
You found me, you found me.
Why'd you have to wait to find me, to find me?
xxx
He tried to gather the last fleeting vespers of his consciousness, pulling them together as he struggled against the oblivion that tore at his soul. Yes, he would leave, but not right now. Right now he wanted to see. It was a wish he knew would likely not be granted, struggle as he might. Never again would he have the ability of sight. Or, for that matter, any of the other senses.
Those were something reserved for the living. And he, he had allowed it all slip away from him.
He didn't mind it. He had wanted it. To not have to feel anymore. An escape from the pain. Cowardly, just like in life.
But still, he found himself wishing with all that was left of his non-being that he could just see.
Please. . . Before I go. . .
And abruptly, the room swam into focus, vision suddenly returning if only for this moment. It never quite reached perfect clarity, stopping somewhere along the lines at hazy and blurred, but it was still something he had thought he would never be able to experience again, and he found himself inexplicably grateful.
Then the room unexpectedly tilted, and his vision nearly disappeared. A vaguely panicked feeling – the best his dissipating consciousness could muster – arose within him and he struggled to center his focus, choosing an obscured form in the middle of the floor to gravitate his sight. The darkness was already returning to consume him, but somehow, he managed to keep it at bay for a while longer.
Please. Please let me have just this. . .
He was existing on borrowed time, and the reason why he fought to remain here was slipping from his mental grasp. The elsewhere was slowly but surely pulling him away.
But no, not yet. Eventually, yes, but… not yet. There was something he was waiting for.
He was waiting to be found.
xxx
The house was quiet. Much too quiet.
Ludwig was frowning even before he had made it to the kitchen.
The front entryway had been empty. That wasn't too odd, but then the hallway, which led through the heart of the house, had also been empty. Again, Ludwig could understand the reasons for its bareness, but he was now acutely aware of something being not quite right.
It was when he stood in the middle of the abandoned kitchen, only the smallest of signs showing that someone had been in here, that Ludwig felt the first stirrings of dread surface in his mind.
He was once again conscious of how quiet the house was. Deathly quiet.
"Feliciano?" he found himself calling out into the silence of the house, voice echoing strangely. "Um, I'm home…"
Nothing. Not even a hint of an answer. Only the empty kitchen and a single, medium-sized pot on the stove to fill the void of Feliciano's absence. All alone, Ludwig fidgeted uncertainly.
That bubbly Italian had been at his home to greet him every day for the past fifty years. Day in and day out, his slim form would slide into Ludwig's house whether or not the German nation was home, typically gravitating towards the kitchen in order to make some kind of enjoyable meal for the two of them to eat. Ludwig wasn't sure when the visits became less annoying and more endearing, but for the last thirty years, he had stopped complaining altogether.
He couldn't understand why Feliciano wasn't home right now.
xxx
He found it difficult not to disperse into nothingness.
He had nothing to hold his form together, and each passing second he felt wisps of his consciousness disintegrate into the void beyond. There was no body to contain his being, and his hold on this world was quickly weakening.
He wanted to stay. Here had been a nice place, most of the time.
But he wanted to go. Elsewhere was calling to him.
No, I have to wait. . . just a little l-longer. . . He stumbled over the concept of time. He couldn't remember exactly what it meant. A moment was eternity. Forever was but a fading second. But he needed to stay. Stay until he was found.
He drifted abstractedly towards the object he had chosen to center his waning focus. That obscured form in the center of the room. An unmoving mass with neatly folded limps, surrounded by a dark, glistening substance.
It meant something to him, this form, more than just an anchor for his consciousness. The closed eyes, almost peaceful looking. Auburn hair, spread out around an oval face. Yes, it had meant something to him. It had meant... him. But whatever important that connection had been was slowly slipping through his grasp.
It was a faded memory from a different existence.
My existence. . .
But the thought receded, having to real attachment anymore, and the purpose of waiting coming once again to the forefront of his awareness. A sense of anticipation, an old notion of finally, someone will know overshadowed by the sickening realization of too late.
And of course, the last thing holding him to this world. The desire to be found.
xxx
Ludwig slowly walked up the staircase, hand skimming the polished banister.
He had realized, only moments before, that his assumption of Feliciano simply not being in this house was probably wrong. Yes, the rooms had been deserted, but like that abandoned pot on the stovetop, there had been signs showing that the Italian had indeed been in the house. Recently too.
It was as if the smaller nation had just suddenly stopped what he had been doing and disappeared.
"Feliciano...?" Ludwig called again, voice gruff and uncertain, as he reached the top of the stairs. He peered down the length of the shadowy hallway, the late afternoon sun not quite reaching the windows and the lights all were turned off. He had searched all the downstairs rooms, having poked his head through each and every doorway with the occasional voiced call for the sprightly Italian.
Downstairs it had almost, almost, felt like a simple game of hide and seek. It was something that Feliciano had used to do a lot, a bright, innocent smile of his face when Ludwig would eventually find him. And so Ludwig had pretended that this case was nothing more than harmless play. There had still been that vague sense of dread drifting in the back of his mind, but had tried to convince himself that something hadn't been wrong.
That something hadn't been wrong for a while now.
Ludwig hadn't seen that innocently bright smile in nearly a decade.
And upstairs it all seemed to rush back to him. The odd behaviour, only strange enough to be noticeable by Feliciano's closest acquaintances. The strained smiles and forced laughter, never quite as carefree as what Ludwig knew they could be. And the long bouts of silence. A muteness that could last up days in length.
Ludwig tried to ignore those thoughts, forcing himself to take the first step down the foreboding hallway. He spotted a door down at the end of the hall which hung just slightly ajar, a thin strip of light spilling out onto the hall's gloom. He set course to that little bit of brightness, ignoring all the closed doors on either side of him.
It seemed like the right place to look.
"Um, Feli...?" he sent forth, using the shortened version of the Italian's name that Feliciano had once so happily told him to use. Feliciano seemed inexplicably pleased whenever he did, and although Ludwig silently thought that it was a somewhat pointless contraction, he found himself employing the name more and more often through the years if only to see the smaller nation smile.
But even those smiles held something unnatural about them. Something artificial. That carefree, honest grin was hidden beneath something Ludwig couldn't seem to peel away. Feliciano had caved in on himself, and Ludwig couldn't understand why.
No one else had ever really noticed anything off, or if they did, they commented on how restrained and mature Feliciano seemed to have gotten. They praised it. It's nice to see some control in that one, they would say, and Ludwig would nod his head in agreement, because yes, it was nice. Feliciano had become something subdued and disciplined.
He had become something not Feliciano.
Ludwig didn't want to think about how bad Feliciano had gotten.
xxx
The atmosphere seemed to change, an approaching presence disturbing the stillness of the room. He willed his focus towards the door, struggling desperately against the claws that tried to pull him from this existence. He was nothing more than pure willpower now, and even that was quickly fading. Thoughts had almost all but collapsed into abstracted ideas, an impression of desire given form.
Where are you?
He tried to gather his dispersing consciousness, holding out for one last moment. Just let him find me, he managed to think, knowing even in this detached state that he was waiting for one person and one person only. He's here. He'll find me.
He hovered above the splayed form on the floor, having succeeded in condensing his form enough to center his existence. It was here, this moment he had been holding on for. He could feel a kind of pulsing aura just beyond the threshold of the room, a warm sense of being that dispelled the awful chill of this area.
So close, but still so far away.
Where are you? He echoed his previous desire. In his simple state of existence, he couldn't quite gather the idea of doors and walls and obstructions. He could feel the living presence lingering, but it wasn't here yet.
Where are you? Where w-were you. . . all this time. . . An image suddenly seemed to jump to the forefront of what was left of his mind, a memory from before. An idea of being alone. Of being useless and weak and unwanted. Of always being told he was a coward and unimportant. Words that had slowly torn away at his sense of self. The desire for pain, if only to feel something.
Where were you? The memories faded, his existence returning to a vague sort of consciousness, but the idea remained. Why did you have to wait? Where were you?
His focus drifted downwards to his anchor, that hazy sense of attachment rising up within him. But it was far too late for anything like that. That existence was long gone.
All that was left was to be found.
And then he would go, filled with regret, but finally ready to leave.
xxx
Ludwig blinked, the ever-so-slightly open door he had set as his goal suddenly in front of him. He had crossed the entire hall without really taking into account his surroundings, and now, almost unconsciously, he found his hand rising to push the door inwards. He held his breath as the room beyond was slowly revealed.
Light poured in from the open window, a gentle breeze ruffling the hanging curtains and lightweight sheets of a messy, seldom-used bed. And there, in the middle of the floor, was Feliciano.
xxx
He knew that he couldn't see him, not in this state. He had enough presence of mind to realize that. He was a silent ghostly spectre, a shadowy manifestation of his last, desperate desire. An invisible echo of his final wish to stay and not leave – stay even as he realized that he had cut too deep and too much and that crimson substance was his lifeblood and not just innocent, easily cleaned up liquid.
No. He was dead. He had known it from the moment his sight had pitched sideways, abruptly fading into nothingness, heart pounding so very slowly, that he had gone too far. A sense of ethereality and emptiness having soon overtaken him, and an abyss opening up where before there had been nothing.
An abyss that now drew him unhindered into its cold, calming embrace. He didn't struggle. He just watched with what was left of his consciousness the final moments he would ever experience in his existence.
He watched him, standing silently at the door, eyes widening at the sight of the room.
It was slightly distressing, seeing him so suddenly overcome by a kind of comprehending terror. He wished – the desire coming to him unexpectedly in his fading moments – that it didn't need to be this way.
It was, of course, far too late for these kinds of whimsical wants.
I'm sorry.
And as he stumbled gracelessly into the room, a choked, pained sound coming from his lips, he knew that his time (what was that again?) was long up. He could feel the final threads of purpose breaking loose, setting him free.
He had been found. Finally. After the long years – which shouldn't have been long, not for him, not compared to how unbearably eternal his life should have been – he had been found.
The abyss pulled him away.
Goodbye.
xxx
It was too late, and Ludwig knew it as soon as he had taken that first step into the stagnant air of the room.
The stillness of Feliciano's form, the sharp smell of drying blood, the permeating sense of death – Ludwig felt weak with realization, and an almost crushing grief pressed in of him.
He forced his feet to move forwards, body seeming to act more so on instinct than by thought. His mind felt numbed by anguish, and Ludwig was surprised by how much pain he could feel without there being an actual injury. It would have been better if this was just an injury...
Injuries like the cuts and wounds marring Feliciano's too-pale skin. Old and new mingling together, scars overlaid with gaping, fresh slashes.
How could have Ludwig been so blind?
He sunk down at Feliciano's side, only a pained choking sound making its way through his lips. He had known something was wrong, but he had never thought... never even considered this.
And now it was far too late.
As he closed his eyes in some vain attempt to block out the tragedy in front of him, Ludwig thought he heard a single, whispered word.
Goodbye.
A brief sense of calmness seemed to settle over him, like a comforting presence of a known friend (or perhaps it was something a little more), before it gradually faded away. The room was left feeling more cold, empty, and devoid of life than ever. And Ludwig knew, this was the end. Feliciano was gone.
Alone in the fading shadows, his hand just barely brushing the cold surface of Feliciano's cheek, Ludwig let out a dry, miserable gasp that may have just been a sob.
"Goodbye."