Come Back, Be Here

by hetaliatheart

Arthur couldn't hold it in any longer. He collapsed onto his knees in the mud and started to cry. Independence Day Fic for Koru.

Come Back… Be Here.
A.N
In case you don't know me, I'm Charli Petidei! Happy Independence Day! *Spontaneous dance in front of laptop*
Okay, I know, this isn't your typical 'Fourth of July, whooh!' sort of celebration! I want you guys to know that as a 15 year old British girl, I have nothing against Independence Day! Have fun, and watch crap loads of fireworks, okay? But yeah, I wanted to write something to show the regret that surrounds Arthur and Alfred's characters on Alfie's birthday.
Oh yeah, happy birthday Alfie :D Have a nice, depressing, angsty, feelsy fic from me! Yehah, anyway XD Urm… So yeah, I hope you like reading this fic. I also wanted to get across Arthur's life story as Britain – going from his badass (*cough cough* sexy *cough cough*) pirate stage to his rather maternal phase as Alf's mummy (XD) to where he is now, wiser than he looks and scared to get too close to anybody. Yeah. Heehee, I love living in a country with so much awesome history! *Pumps fist* Go Great Britain!
Anyway, I'm waffling so I'll leave you alone now! I hope you like the fic, please don't forget to review! Critiques would really be appreciated! Let me know how I did with writing angst XD I enjoyed writing it, and I wanted to know if you enjoyed reading it! This is such a different writing style for me it's unbelievable! But yeah, anybody who critiques will get a llama, a hug, and a virtual chocolate chip cookie. With sprinkles. Promise ;)
Disclaimer: I don't own Hetalia, or the countries, or the fic title - which is taken from a Taylor Swift song of the same name. I DO NOT OWN THE COVER IMAGE EITHER.
Love you all! Keep dreaming!
Love Charli Petidei xxx
Enjoy~!

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Come Back...Be Here

Arthur couldn't hold it in any longer.
He collapsed onto his knees in the mud and started to cry.
Huge choking sobs that made his whole body tremble, his shoulders shaking, tears pouring down his face, he cried. His hand came up to his face as if to hide him from the world, fingers pressed to his skin, nails digging in, the pain nothing compared to the agony inside. He bent double, clutching his stomach, trying to hold himself together and knowing he was failing.
As the rain fell in unrelenting sheets around him, his hair already soaked and dripping down onto his shoulders, he couldn't think of anything but this pain, this awful, paralysing pain. The mud beneath his feet has long vanquished his shoes in its smothering grip. His uniform, once pristine, white and red and black and folded untouched in the bottom of a drawer, now hung loosely from his frame, as if he had shrunk into himself and the clothes were now too big for him. A child playing dress-up in his father's suit.
He was crying and gasping and suffocating all at once, trying desperately to regain any sense of normality. But he knew it was never coming back. Everything he'd known, everything he'd loved, for the last, how many years? Had gone, had left him on this day, a day of rain and tears and blood and anguish and guilt and betrayal and why aren't you here?!
He choked like a wounded animal, barely able to breathe, tears stinging his skin. Green eyes clouded with agony. Glistening wet hair sticking to skin in the half light of a dying day. He couldn't see, though whether it was his tears or the rain that blurred and distorted his surrounding he couldn't possibly know. But still one thing swam in his vision.
That one face, the one that had brought so many things to his life. Arthur had been so different, before he'd ever seen that face, he knew it. He used to be so reckless and wild, so convinced that nothing could bring him down. He'd ruled the world. He'd been so great. Laughing into the sceptical jaws of life./p
But of course it was only a matter of time.
Surely that was why what had happened had happened. Why he had come into his life.
A young boy, with hopes and dreams and fragile arms ready to be held. Naivety, oh, so much naivety. The blind trust of children towards anyone holding out a hand. Arthur wished that the hand offering help and guidance would appear to him now, just as he'd held his own out to the boy all those centuries ago. And he'd be able look up into those blue eyes and know that maybe not everything and everyone was lost to him in a swirling pool of mistrust and hate.
Why aren't you here when I need you?!
He knew that back then, when the boy was still only a boy, Arthur had been so scared to open his heart because of how long it had been locked shut. He was sure that this young boy would turn against him eventually.
Everybody else had.
There comes a time when so many people have betrayed you that you lock yourself away. Give in, and just be what they expect you to be because it's so much more painful trying to make them see you're not. He'd tried to trust, to love. But one by one people had just turned him away and eventually he'd learnt to seal his emotions away. Like that message in a bottle, once upon a time, cast into the ocean off the deck of a pirate ship all those centuries ago. Protect your feelings. Out there surrounded by water, yearning for dry land but not trusting it even so; it was better. Yes, much better.
But despite Arthur's fears, the boy had never failed him. He'd trusted Arthur, and slowly Arthur had started to trust in him too. This boy, with so much capacity to love, could never hurt the man that had always protected him, made him laugh, held his hand when the thunder rolled so loud it seemed the sky was breaking, kissed his forehead when he was half-dreaming, persuaded him there were no monsters in the closet, tucked him into bed every single night without fail, played soldiers with him in a make-believe fort in the garden, promised to bring him back a present whenever he had to go away, always kept his word, comforted him when he cried, loved him so openly that Arthur even now wondered how he'd got to that stage.
He'd learnt to be haughty and not to care about anyone, yet this one boy showed up, and slowly his ability to live and laugh and love had returned to him.
And the boy never knew – never would know – how much he'd done for Arthur. Because Arthur would never, ever admit it to him.
Alfred.
Arthur choked the name out from between numb lips.
Even now, Arthur loved him. In what way, he didn't know. But how could it not be love – any type of love – when nothing seemed the same when Alfred wasn't there, how Arthur's heart lifted whenever he saw those blue eyes, how being with him made all troubles disappear, like delicately scented petals of honeysuckle caught in the wind. How it had hurt so much when Alfred had turned him away.
Arthur knew it would happen. He'd told himself he wasn't good enough for anyone. It'd been proven, time and time again, whenever he got close to someone, they'd always let him down. But he'd been foolish, convinced himself over the years, decades, centuries, that Alfred would always be his little brother.
But of course nothing stays young forever.
Everything has to change.
Alfred had grown up. The years of doubt when all the things he used to believe in suddenly didn't seem so real anymore. Then it was only the reassuring feel of Arthur's arms around him, the whispered words against his ear, the distinctive voice he'd always known, that could make him see that at least some of the things from his childhood were still by his side. The years of rebellion, when suddenly it was rock guitars and leather jackets and Arthur you're not my father! And the only thing that could bring little, peaceful, child-like Alfred back were the nights when the howling wind sounded like ghosts and Alfred would be so paralysed with fear he would persuade Arthur to let him crawl into the older nation's bed and sleep with his head against Arthur's chest like he had as a child. Only he never really needed to persuade that hard. And now the tantrums and the returning-home-at-4-o'clock-in-the-mornings and the fights about Alfred's motorbike were over, there was something different. Something that hurt just as much, but in a different way.
A few more tears fell from Arthur's face and splashed hopelessly into the mud.
Alfred had grown up too fast. Because then all too soon he was an adult. Physically only a few years younger than Arthur himself. He was taller than his father figure. He was stronger too. He could cook better. He didn't want or really need Arthur's protection anymore. He was a powerful country.
The Atlantic Ocean suddenly didn't seem so large anymore.
It must have been his fault, Arthur was sure. He must have done something. Been too hard on him. Pushed it too far. Tried to be Alfred's father again. Asked for too much. But somehow he had snapped. Between Alfred's naivety – he was still so young – and Arthur's stubbornness – he'd never really grown out of it at all, it had happened.
Alfred didn't want to be a part of Arthur's family anymore. Little Matthew was still there, but had never been watched over and protected as fiercely as Alfred had. Alfred knew he was too old to keep on living with Arthur the way he was. He must have felt trapped. And Alfred, sweet, honest, beautiful Alfred was prepared to die for his freedom.
Arthur felt like he couldn't breathe. He tightened his fingers in his hair, desperately needing something to hold on to. Finding himself shouting something unintelligible towards the unforgiving sky, he clapped a hand over his mouth in shame. He had a feeling the word was Alfred's name. He didn't really know. He didn't know anything anymore.
The battles. The long, hard battles. Blood and tears and sweat and fervent praying and wishing to God it could all just be over. Arthur was only physically twenty three but battles made him feel like the old nation he really was. Every time someone from his country was killed, Arthur felt it like a knife to his back, adding to the scars that made him the nation he was. And every time he saw Alfred was suffering in the same way for the casualties on his side, it hurt him even more. Everything was so much worse when they were against each other this way. So why couldn't Arthur just... let go?
Let me go Arthur! I'm not your little brother anymore!
Harsh words, so poisonous that pretending you weren't listening was the only way to survive. Arthur knew the feeling himself. You have to hurt someone that much to convince them to go. Even if you care, the rule is you have to pretend you don't. It makes it easier for you both. Or so you would hope. Yes, the rule of the game. Never admit anything. And Alfred, with his poker face, never revealing anything, leaving Arthur guessing to the last moment, had him at checkmate.
Arthur knew it would happen. He shouldn't have trusted himself to get close to Alfred. He was too pure, young, innocent a soul to possibly believe forever that Arthur was a good person. After all of the things Arthur had done when he was younger. Arthur knew he'd done bad things. He just wished he could take them back and show Alfred that he'd been so unkind and brutal because that was the only way to survive back then.
But eventually, at long last the war had played itself to its very end. That day. A cold, bitter face-off in the driving rain. The biting wind that stung their flesh like the prick of the thorns that used to bite into Alfred's skin as a child when he and Arthur would go out picking blackberries together.
Checkmate.
Arthur had nowhere to run. He was alone, staring into Alfred's face, that perfect face that used to look at him with such joy and wonder, as if Arthur were the only thing he'd ever want to see. That face now clouded with distrust and desperation and aggression. His men all around him, Alfred had the upper hand by far.
But somehow, incredibly, Arthur had found himself pointing his gun at Alfred's face, completely at the perfect opportunity to end this battle once and for all.
Alfred. He'd looked at Arthur with a mixture of shock, resignation, and hate, and then somehow, through that mix of emotions, Arthur looked into Alfred's eyes and saw the same young boy he'd first met all those years ago. Those eyes that had trusted Arthur so completely, so absolutely. Alfred was still the fearful young boy Arthur had always known.
Yes, it was the eyes that did it.
Alfred knew that Arthur could end it right now. And yet he showed no fear. He just carried on calmly meeting Arthur's eyes with an expression that dared him to pull the trigger. Arthur wanted, more than anything, to throw the gun away and wrap Alfred in his arms and hold him and ask where it all went wrong. But Alfred now hated Arthur, didn't he? Arthur felt worthless.
The pain hit Arthur again like an electric shock and he doubled over, hair trailing in the mud.
It's all my fault!
The gun had suddenly increased in weight, too heavy for him to hold. Arthur couldn't pull the trigger. He couldn't even hold it. He couldn't do it. He'd just sunk to the ground, unable to ham him, gun in his lap, head in his hands. Alfred had looked shocked. Arthur didn't know why. Did Alfred truly believe that Arthur could possibly have pulled the trigger? Of course Arthur could never shoot Alfred. He never would have been able to. He…he loved him, for God's sake.
Arthur had a faint idea that he was screaming. He didn't know for sure.
Arthur knew there was no use pretending anymore. He loved the foolish, haphazard, clumsy, forgetful American, who'd grown from barely a boy to a man in front of Arthur's eyes. Arthur didn't know whether his feelings were wrong or not, or whether it was perfectly right. All he knew was that Alfred was everything to Arthur, but Arthur meant nothing to Alfred. And this pain. And those words.
You used to be…so…great.
And then Arthur had wept. For himself, for all the things they could have had, for everything that could have been, for the cracked gun lying beside him, for the expression on Alfred's face, for the way he felt, for all his dreams, for everything that was broken, for everything that had ended, for the rain, for the sky, for everyone that had died, for the hopelessness of it all... For Alfred.
Yes.
Mostly for Alfred.

And as Alfred had walked away, Arthur knew what it truly meant for a heart to break. Not snapping or tearing in half, but shattering into a million pieces inside him. An intricate delicate puzzle which would take centuries to put back together but would always have a piece missing. Alfred had walked away with the key piece meant to hold the whole thing together.
Arthur lifted his head, tears still streaming down his face. Alfred's shadow had long gone, disappearing across this dark, muddy battlefield that would forever haunt Arthur's memory. Arthur stretched out a hand hopelessly, as if beckoning for someone to take it, pull him up.
Anybody else would assume the gesture was just a general beg for help. Not that it was waiting for one person only. Only in Arthur's mind did he have an image of Alfred, smiling that way he always did, taking his hand, pulling him to his feet, wrapping him in a hug, warming his chilled body, telling him it would be okay, looking into his eyes, moving closer, pressing a soft kiss to his forehead.
No, it was just in Arthur's head.
Arthur carried on crouching there for a long time, hand stretched out, just waiting. The touch, the help, the hug; it never came. One hand desperate to be held. Because if his hand was taken, it would mean everything was alright. And Arthur couldn't let his hand fall to his side and get up himself, could only keep his hand there, waiting. Because letting go would be giving up. And giving up would mean giving up on Alfred. And he couldn't bring himself to do that.
England wasn't the only nation crying that night.
A young, ashamed, pained, distraught American sat on the bed of a shabby hotel room, alone, head in his hands, sobbing into his palms. He didn't know what he'd done. He just wished beyond anything else he hadn't done it. He bit down into his skin, shaking, breath coming in ragged gasps, hardly noticing the pain. He just knew that he'd turned away the person that meant the most to him the world. He'd got his freedom. It was what he wanted, wasn't it? But finding out the real price of it…he'd barely scratched the surface.
And as Alfred stretched out his hand as if to help someone up, and Arthur carried on waiting for his own hand to be taken, four words seemed to stretch the distance between them. They closed their eyes and wished.
Come back.
Be here.