Disclaimer: I don't own Hetalia, or any of its characters. Those belong to Himaruya Hidekaz-sensei, who made a lot more out of them than I ever could have. ^^;; I just do fanfiction for fun, and earn no monetary rewards for writing it. Reviews are, of course, worth as much as silver.
Summary: You keep saying it, over and over, so easily. Doesn't it lose its meaning if you say it too much? We go 'round and 'round. Love and hate. Are you all right? You can't leave yet, I don't know you well enough!
Title: Drowning In Those Words
Chapter One: Stop Saying It
Word Count: 4,132
Page Count: 5
Anime: Hetalia
Pairing(s) in this chapter: England/France
Warning: Slight angst (pretty tame, though, I think), Language, BL, mention of attempted suicide
Author: Kita Kitsune (Call me Fox!)
Date: Friday, August 6, 2010
Miscellaneous notes: I'm sorry if there are lots of errors or typos. I wrote this in about three hours, sometime between 2:00 AM and 5:00 AM. x/x I'll check for mistakes when I'm more coherent, but I'll post this up, now, so you guys can read it~ Sorry for the 1st-person POV, I don't usually write like that anymore, but it's just the way it flowed. Oo;;
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You know that feeling when you feel sick to your stomach? Where it feels like your entire world has gone inverse, and you can't put enough blame on yourself to satisfy your guilt? You know, when you've been making all these assumptions, and guessing that those are the real reasons and nothing bad could happen because it's just not possible and—
It was only four days. Four days since I'd talked to him, and about ten since he'd said he'd loved me. In the heat of the moment, overcome, I allowed myself to believe him and clung to him and hid my face in his shoulder as he held me. Every time I asked him to repeat it, he would. Over and over and over. It was at least four times. And every time I still couldn't believe it. It was like I'd heard him wrong, so I had to hear it again. And again. And again and again and again. Because even though I've had my share of heartbreak, even though I never wanted this to happen, even though I'd been fighting for the past month from letting myself fall that weak, again— It seems I didn't have a choice.
And when he left for four days I tore myself apart, inside. I'd never really given him my mobile number—he kept asking for it, and by now it was a game, of sorts. In the depths of my heart perhaps I did want to give him my number, if only so I could know what was going on, in case of an emergency… But I waited too long. I waited too long, and the emergency came and went after four painstaking days of silence.
Now I am not of the dependent sort, and I can handle living my own life. But when the person who says they've loved you, every day since they confessed—and you can only respond with harsh words, your tongue thick in your mouth and preventing you from saying what you half-regret in the heat of an emotional moment—when they suddenly cut off all contact and you don't know their address so you can't check on them… When that suddenly happens—well. I'm not sure about you, but it almost killed me.
Did he grow bored of me that fast? Was it so easy for him to lie, that when I became too much, it was easier just to pretend as though we'd never been in contact, at all? Were the past ten days only a vague dream, an illusion of fantasy and hope for my delirious mind that hungered for love in any shape or form it could take? Was it a sign as he gradually stopped kissing me on the cheek, even though he continued to do it in the company of his other friends, that he was losing interest? Had it finally run its course? Because, let me tell you, a relationship that lasts less than a fortnight is no relationship at all. It's a mockery. A mockery, that you would open yourself up and be so vulnerable that— Well, no more of that.
I suppose my first mistake was letting him see I cared about Alfred. Alfred, the stupid, infuriating, endearing boy who came crying to me after one of his friends tried to commit suicide. Unfortunately for me Francis was there, but he remained silent so I had to step up and offer my services. I did an admirable job of lending a kind ear and a few comforting words, I think—after the initial freaking-out Alfred actually cracked a smile. I forget what I said, but I prodded the corner of that tiny smile and remarked about how much better a sight it was, and the daft lad grinned at me, just like he always did. Naturally, I was flustered at that reaction and, of course, Francis took that moment to mock me on how well I gave advice. I told him to shut it, stupid frog. He hadn't uttered a word although he'd been sitting there the entire time! Lazy Frenchman!
At the end of the fourth day everything had been simmering inside for far too long. I reiterate, I can hold my own as well—likely better—as the next man. Stiff upper lip, keep everything inside and continue on as though it hadn't affected you. I hadn't obsessed over his absence. I hadn't tried to contact him with numerous messages as to inquire where he was. I hadn't indulged in anything that would make me seem dependent or weak. But by the fourth day I sought out Alfred. I was in a horrible mood. There were so many emotions swirling inside—I'd thought Francis had gotten tired of me, and half of me wanted to kiss Alfred where so many people could see it, just so Francis would hear of it and get jealous. This was a petty urge, I know, but it was so strong I almost gave into it. The boy was sweet, and he kept asking what was wrong, but I just wanted to punch something. He kept saying if there was anything I wanted to talk about or rant about that he'd listen, but Alfred didn't understand. There was nothing I wanted to say. What went on in my own head was very private, and I certainly couldn't tell him I'd been contemplating 'cheating' on Francis just to make him jealous. It wouldn't really be cheating, would it, if I did it with the intent of hurting that stupid Frenchy instead of out of lust? To make him hurt as badly as he'd made me hurt. I went over what I would say to him when he came back—I'd preempt his spiel about how we should 'see other people' by breaking up with him, first, and that would be that. If the tosser couldn't bother to give me a heads-up when he'd be gone for a few days, why should I need him, then? He'd obviously not proved himself—he wasn't 'up to snuff'. So I made the decision, half-aware in the back of my mind that I'd likely act differently when I at last actually saw him.
I made the mistake of finding out he'd contacted Gilbert—I don't recall what it was, but the German had been laughing stupidly about hearing from Francis recently (by which I mean on the third day of silence) and it just sent my blood boiling. So Gilbert, 'only a friend', was more important and more 'in the know' than I, someone who was apparently Francis' 'boyfriend'? We hadn't even gotten around to using those terms—but that's what we were supposed to be, right? Even if we'd been 'dating' for less than two weeks and hadn't gone beyond a bit of kissing?
I'll never forget that first kiss. He was nervous, and I was nervous, but for some reason we quickly settled into an odd rhythm and then he seemed to gain some confidence after the first few tentative touches where I had to urge him along, a bit. It left me breathless and panting (and more than a little aroused, but there wasn't anything out of the ordinary with that), I won't deny. It had my head spinning, how much a brief little French kiss could wind me up. We hadn't really had a kiss like that since, although in the company of ourselves, sometimes, we'd slip into some nervous hand-holding or chaste kissing. Francis seemed almost too careful, around me. Like he was holding himself back, and it was annoying. What, did he think I couldn't handle anything he threw at me? Preposterous.
And so this was the state of affairs at the end of the fourth day. While I had issues demonstrating any sort of physical attachment to someone, he seemed to have no such qualms, and yet did nothing. It was giving me the oddest sense that he didn't think I was adequate. And, curse me, I'd actually started to believe him—oh, hell, who am I kidding, I believed him from the start even if I didn't want to—because when I would get tired of his dilly-dallying and take an initiative of my own and kiss him he'd snag my shirt and pull me back in with a smirk. It sent me to flustered, the brief impulse gone cold after I'd drawn back from the short kiss, and I could only stare at him, wide-eyed and flushed at my own boldness as well as the sultry look on his face as he dragged me back in for another.
Perhaps I didn't fight it so much as I should—but the fact I'd said it back to him, so easily, at the beginning, bothered me. It felt as though I gave up too soon. As though there was nothing more for him to chase after. I wouldn't wish to be boring, after all! If I was to keep his interest, we had to keep the dance we had going, but I still had to reassure him I felt the same without actually 'saying' it. It made me feel cheap and vile, but I couldn't for the life of me bring up the nerve to say it again—my own troubles seemed only augmented by the fact he could say it to me, so easily. So—not necessarily confused or unaware, but more frustrated about my own inadequacies—I cursed and yelled and hit at him, which he would only laugh off. I kept wondering why, if he was so affectionate with those girls he caught for one-night-stands, he couldn't be so with me. I'd gone into this thinking I'd have contact forced on me—only grudgingly admitting to myself that I'd prefer it that way, I'd prefer someone else making the first moves because then and only then I could be absolutely sure of where they stood.
So many people only react when someone does something. They react, they don't think, they just like the feel of it and think of the repercussions afterward. I, however, am different. I know exactly what I want to do, and would have no problem doing it if I didn't think it might alter how someone else would act. If I were to grab him, throw him on the bed and straddle his waist, what message would that send? If I were to lean in and start a kiss, of course he would kiss back. But if I were to not do that, would he have ever considered kissing me first? If I had not kissed him, would he have kissed me anyway, or no? It is these thoughts that keep me carefully contained. Certainly, then, I am not only reacting when he kisses me, because I have already thought of all this. I can do well with either—in certain moods I prefer to kiss, and in certain moods I prefer to have the other person's interest demonstrated to me instead of always doing it myself. You would not believe how many people are so self-centered and lazy that they leave the work up to someone else, entirely. Prats, the lot of them. It's so hard to find the right balance, and I kept thinking that perhaps, if only we kept working on it, we would find ours. Unlike others, we were honest. He knew where I stood, he knew what I would and wouldn't lie about—and he was growing to learn when I wasn't really lying, just flooded with too much emotion and too stressed over it all. Francis would pick up on the stress, and he would ask and ask what was wrong, but eventually I just exploded at him that I couldn't tell him what was wrong if I didn't know, myself. He went silent, after that. I don't think he'd ever realized, before, that my defensiveness could just be because I didn't want him to know I didn't know. That I didn't have all the answers for my own behavior. It is a very powerless feeling, when your insides are boiling and churning, unsettled and aching, when you can't pinpoint what is causing all of it, and someone keeps asking you because they are concerned with what is making you act so strange… Where was I?
Ah, yes. The end of the four days of silence.
It had occurred to me, of course, that something terrible might have happened. I'd swiftly pushed that thought out of my mind, though, because something terrible would never happen to him. It simply wasn't possible, this early on. Our relationship—if it could indeed be called that—was too young and green to be tainted by sorrow.
But it was. And it did.
I made the mistake of sending him an e-mail on the third day, after I heard of his contacting Gilbert. It was quite succinct, involving only the letters 'f-u-c-k-y-o-u'. I am actually quite proud of myself that I did not go on an angry tirade. Before you ask, no, I did not see Francis on the fourth day. No, the only contact after four days of silence was in the form of a paragraph-long, rambling e-mail that iterated how he was annoyed at me, and that he had been in the hospital for the past four days and couldn't get around to contacting me. He seemed both irritated at my response, apologetic for not contacting me (although he stressed that it'd been quite impossible) and sensitive to the possibility that I'd been over-reacting in my own mind ever since that last night we'd been in contact. The idiot even asked me to forgive him in the final line of the message, and hoped I would come to visit him the next day.
Let me tell you, my stomach just about dropped out when I heard he'd been in the hospital. All along, I knew if I was given a probable reason for his disappearance, I would instantly forgive him even if I didn't communicate that little fact. The guilt then proceeded to settle in, that I'd thought to think so badly of him and even contemplated making him jealous to pay him back for his supposed 'negligence', when all along he hadn't had a choice. That he'd given me the name of a nearby hospital gave a sense of reality to this that I didn't like, as well. Abruptly, all the anger and hurt that had been festering for the past four days evaporated, replaced with dizzy speed by guilt and shame. I knew I'd been over-reacting, even if no one could tell. I knew this, and yet I could do nothing to stop it. I am suspicious of people, I have good reason to be. But Francis…
I would have to visit him. There was no way around it. I couldn't not do it, even if every nerve in my body screamed and strained at me to avoid him until he was better, like the plague. Part of the reason I couldn't ignore this was because it was unhealthy to not face my fears, and part of it was because… I just wanted to see that he was all right.
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I brought a small bouquet with me. Lilies, he liked those, and yellow daisies with baby's breath and a pink rose or two. I felt it was too early in our relationship for red roses, and a part of me fluttered in relief that he'd never been thinking to leave me, during the four days of silence. He hadn't been plotting out the best way to break it to me, so I wouldn't have to break up with him first. A small part of me breathed in relief, but I was still deathly nervous to see him. The guilt and shame hadn't receded, and I knew he was sick—he was still in the hospital, after all!—so I couldn't act the way I normally did, around him. It made me shuffle my feet and look at my shoes as I stood outside the door to his room. Eventually I managed a shuddering breath and pushed the door open, stepping inside. It was just a semi-private room, but the other occupant was asleep so I didn't feel too embarrassed as I shuffled past him and peered around the curtain, the bouquet hidden behind my back. Immediately I realized he was awake, and his blue eyes snapped to me from the window, a childish, gleeful smile breaking out over his face as he raised his arms as though inviting me into them. I couldn't help but notice the pulse monitor clipped to one of his fingers.
"Petit lapin, you came~!" I felt my face heat as I purposefully strode over to the chair beside the bed, refusing to look at him and walking stiffly. Apparently I was too close, though, because he grabbed my elbow and hoisted me into bed with him, making an undignified squawk escape me without my permission. I had to glare up at his smiling face for that one, and practically shoved the bouquet up his nose to free myself.
"L-Let me go, moron!" He just laughed and I tried to pretend that I hadn't missed the sound, clambering out of the bed and his embrace and straightening my clothes as I grumbled to myself. There was a bit of an awkward silence—in my opinion, at least—as he inspected the bouquet, I suppose. I wasn't really looking up at him, more at a tile on the floor a little ways off. My mind wandered, reflecting on the silly nickname he'd given me—really, I was nothing like a rabbit, it was ridiculous. But French was his language, after all, and—
"Arthur?" I started a little, blinking up at him before returning my gaze to the hands in my lap, which were currently clasping each other, tightly. I didn't deserve that edge of concern on his face. From my peripheral vision I noticed him reaching out with the bouquet—he couldn't get up, and the petals of the flowers came dangerously close to brushing my cheek as I pulled away to the side, to avoid them. I heard the frown in his voice when he spoke, again. "Arthur? What is wrong?"
I couldn't tell him, of course. I couldn't tell him the reason I was so quiet was because I didn't know what to say, didn't know what would be appropriate, and that I was beating myself up for having assumed the worst of him. And right now, he was sitting in a hospital bed, making me feel like a horrible person for even thinking that he'd be so under-handed as to not tell me straight if he was tired of me. But what else could I have thought? What else was I supposed to think? I could debate with the best of them, but right here, right now, in this situation I couldn't think of anything to say. It was my own fault I was upset, but that didn't stop me from thinking I wished he could fix it. Who knows, he probably could. Francis had always been good at saying just the right thing at the right time—well, when he felt like it. The rest of the time he'd just purposefully say something to piss me off. Not that I would've minded that, at the moment, either, but…
"It's nothing." I clasped my hands together and forced a smile, looking up at him. His frown grew deeper, and he motioned to the bed, scooting back a little.
"Arthur. Come here, mon cher." I hesitated, naturally, then shook my head a little, that smile growing a bit as though to try and reassure him, even though I didn't really feel like smiling.
"Oh. No, I'm fine." This wasn't like me, I realized. Usually I'd be yelling at him by now, about how he'd made me worry, about how he should take better care of himself, red in the face and fighting tears at the fact it felt like I'd almost lost him—like we'd had such a close call. If I was this worried about losing him, after not even a fortnight, what chance did I have? I was already in deep, but then I'd already known that. From the beginning, a little over a month ago when we'd met, he'd made me take notice of him, and we'd ended up in more than a few scuffles and verbal spats. I hadn't realized how satisfying it was to have someone argue with me, so candidly. It was even better when I realized he argued for the same reason I did—it made things more interesting. I'd never really run into someone like that, before. Everyone always got so defensive and riled up, and as soon as I felt they were taking it too personally I would immediately step back and try to diffuse the situation I'd inadvertently caused. It was too late by then, most times, though—often I'd offended them so badly with my argumentativeness that they wanted nothing more to do with me, or only decided to ignore me when that came about.
But I should still be angry, shouldn't I? I should at least feign anger, then we could go back to arguing back and forth as we usually did, but… I didn't want to over-stress him. He was in the hospital, for goodness' sake! I smiled that watery smile at him, again, but had to lift one of my clasped hands to rub at the moisture collecting at the corner of my eyes. I heard a sigh, and the sound of sheets being slid against. I looked up when a hand clasped mine. His eyes were kind, if a tad uncertain.
"I am fine. You needn't worry."
"W-Who said I was worried? It's the air conditioning, in here! It's too dry!" I sputtered that as an excuse, quickly looking off and trying to grab my hand back. He kept a firm hold on it, leaning precariously off of the bed—the pulse-ticker still connected to his clipped hand—and over the rail, lifting my fingers to his lips with a small smile that gradually slipped into an all-too-irritating leer.
"Perhaps you should get in bed with me, oui~? Can't have you being cold~" To that I just know my cheeks went pink and I snarled at him, snapping my hand back and standing hastily.
"Y-You! Idiot! You're ill! I won't be caught doing that sort of—" He grabbed my hand again and jerked me forward, cutting me off with light laughter.
"Ah, cher, I was thinking no such thing~!" By now I was sprawled over him, again, pressed against his chest by a lazily firm arm as he smirked down at me once more, leaning in. "You're the one with the naughty mind, after all." His eyes twinkled. "Have you ever done it in a hospital bed, I wonder~?" I sputtered, shoving at him despite the fact I felt a little relieved at feeling him, solid and there, beneath me.
"I-I'm not the pervert! You are!" He sighed, dramatically, leaning back into his pillows and pulling me along with him, still pressed against his chest.
"Oh, I suppose you are right." Francis grinned down at me, then, and leaned to kiss my nose. Curse it, I know I flushed again. "Not that I regret it~" I just shook my head, shifting around with a grumble and trying to find a spot on the bed that was comfortable.
"Moron…" He just laughed again, whispering those too-familiar words to me once more, and I tried to ignore that ever-present pessimist in me that whispered that we wouldn't win against time. I really, truly tried to ignore it. Because no matter how much I might curse him in my own mind, how much guilt I might feel, how many insecurities I tried to hide—it was at least a comfort to think he wouldn't run away because of my bad behavior. A comfort to think he might stick around until all the bluster had died down, and be there to catch me when I needed it.
(Sometimes I honestly hated being such a romantic, at heart.)
I suppose that's all I could really hope for, at this point. If we were still together in three months I might start to take his proclamations of 'forever'—or at least long-term—more seriously.
(Disregarding the fact I was seemingly already cursed to believe every—or at least most every—goddamn sappy word he spouted out at me!)
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My first time writing FrUK~ Was it all right? x/x (Gah, I know it probably sucked, I'm sorry…)
I know it was a bit random and spacey, but… Erm. Review, please? ;~; -Fox