It's not unusual for people to come to his house unannounced, everyone seems to do it. It actually seems to be a bit of a trend. France will do it on very rare occasions, Prussia will randomly appear out of thin air, Romano will just kind of materialize in his bed some nights, but fewer times as of late, and Portugal can easily be seen wandering his gardens on an early summer's morning. It didn't seem to matter if he was considered neutral nor did it matter that he was in fact 'isolating' himself from the rest of the world.

Well, technically anyway. But today all he really sees is the beating sun and the shade disappearing from the front side of his house. He doesn't mind the silence most of the time, but the silence can get deafening if he remains in it too long. Especially when his country, his people are so divided, sighing he resigns himself to leaning on the windowsill and watching the day begin.

That's when he notices the shadow appearing at the end of the road. The Spaniard cranes his neck out the window to get a better look. He can barely see it, but it's there. The vague outline of a car just at the far end of the drive, a large dust cloud in the machine's wake. Engine gunned and the tires spitting up the dust and rocks; it reminds him of some sort of beast coming to drag him to hell's gate. But as he watches the machine realizes something.

It's Prussia's car that he's looking at and for a moment or two he's actually excited to have company until he can hear something. A scraping noise, almost as if…as if something is being dragged behind the car. His excitement quickly disperses.

This is not a social visit, this is business. The Spaniard lightly frowns, pulling himself back into the house from the window and tiredly makes his way to the door, only turning the knob and going out when he knows the car is closer. He stands what is left of the shadow in front of his house, watching the vehicle make its way up. The heat wouldn't bother him most days but today he doesn't feel like baring it now.

The car is exactly what he would expect of the Prussian. The underside being a shiny black that seems to shimmer in the light, the upper part the same if not a darker color, and in the middle a thick white line with an unfinished decal painted on the door. Appearing very similar to that of the nation's own flag. The car stops in front of the door and enthusiastically Prussia leaps over the door and window, landing directly in front of the Spaniard. Posing like some kind of hero that the world has yet to know.

"Spain! My isolated friend," Prussia swings his arm over nape of his neck and wraps it around so his arm is resting on the opposing shoulder. Spain doesn't mind it, Prussia is a friend, but he finds it to be rather warm for such a heated day. Nor does he find the physical contact all that friendly but rather threatening as of late.

"Prussia," is all he can really say to greet him. He feels the need to properly greet his old friend but he can't seem to bring himself to do that. He can smell the irony scent of blood, the smoke that's clinging to his skin, the burnt flesh and the decomposition on the Prussian from a mile away. He's been in a battle recently; it will take more than one bath to rid him of the scent. But it's a scent he's well used to by now.

The Germanic laughs, the obnoxious sound filling the quiet air of the later morning. The stench of alcohol under his breath. "Nothing else?"

Spain doesn't even dare look him in the eye. Prussia just grins again and finally removes his arm from behind the Spaniard's head. "I bring gifts!" It's far too joyous as the Prussian swings his arms up in the air and practically dances to the mangled thing that he knows is laying there. There's too much happiness in his eyes, as if he doesn't realize what he's done, what he's doing. Spain stares in the opposite direction, Prussia reminds him of a dog he'd seen once, playing with a dead cat long after it had passed. He supposes the dog killed it in a futile attempt to play with it. It apparently thought the cat was still alive and continued on, swinging the corpse around and chasing it. Perhaps at the time, the dog didn't understand the concept of death.

He doesn't want to look at what's been dragged behind the back of the car. He's seen his fair share of war, its carnage and destruction. He's seen it all before, he was an empire after all and it's how you become such an empire, but he doesn't want to see it now. He's different now, he doesn't… he's done with war…

The Prussian cuts the rope tied to his bumper, grabbing the thing's legs and swings the mangled body at the Spaniard's feet. Spain still doesn't want to look at it. He just wants to admire the garden; this isn't his war. Out of the corner of his eye he can see Prussia bow as he would to any great ruler or king. It's less of a formality and more of a mockery... "It is with my great pleasure, that I, the Awesome Prussia present the Kingdom of Spain with their lost colony! The Netherlands!" The Prussian is laughing his ass off again. He's laughing so hard he can't even breathe. Holding his stomach and keeling over with laughter. Spain convinces himself he's not shaking with some sort of fear and some sort of anger.

"Have fun España!" And with that the Prussian jumps back into the car, narrowly avoiding the window and almost taking the mirror clean off, and drives off. Still cackling at something he finds so very humorous that Spain doesn't get. No goodbyes or stories to regale, just that, do your job and be done with it.

That was not the Prussia he knew, yes, the nation was vile and a bit of a pervert sometimes but he didn't drag people behind cars on a regular basis. Prussia was part of Nazi Germany now, and they were willing to do anything to get back the all power they had lost and then some. Even if it meant doing things like this, but to do that, they needed allies. Strong allies, not weak allies that were in the middle of recovering from a civil war. But despite that, his boss was still lending troops to the Germans… he hated politics. Therefore, apparently as at token of the Germanic's appreciation he decided to give Spain a 'gift'.

Spain still didn't want to look down or even in the general direction of what was lying before him. He knew what to expect either way but he didn't want to see it. For a brief moment the thought crossed his mind about leaving Netherlands there and going back inside. Like nothing had ever happened. But even he's not that cold and there was no way he could ever do something like that to anyone… anymore…

Internally wincing, he sucks in a breath and finally looks over and down at his former colony. Netherlands is lying on his stomach, head turned to the side, his normally spiky blond hair muddied and matted, and his eyes pinched shut. But he looks rather unharmed, despite the crimson tinted mud clinging to his every feature and clothing. He was probably dragged off the battlefield that way and no one bothered to clean him off. They didn't care, it wasn't their problem. He frowns at the very thought of it. To think, that he, was once like that, but aren't they all at some point?

Spain kneels down, brushing bits of dirt off the man's once tan jacket. Netherlands groans in response, cracking an eye open. The Spaniard grins, "Heh, I guess you were just knocked out, you know for a guy who just came out of an all-out war with someone you don't look too bad."

The former colony glares, or winces, one of the two. Spain smiles happily and moves to help the nation up from the dirt. Wrapping an arm under his chest, careful to avoid the scrapes on his shoulders and neck. Lars screams, actually screams, it's short and not very high pitched but a scream nonetheless. It takes the Spaniard a moment or two to actually register exactly why. He doesn't quite remember the dirt being so red earlier, or muddy. Actually it had been quite dry earlier, and sandy. Spain fully turns Holland over.

He's riddled with bullet holes. He can't even really tell exactly where the bullet holes are, that kind of riddled. His chest probably took a couple and his abdomen looks worse, if the Spaniard had to be honest with himself it looks like they took him down to a shooting range and used him as the target. Netherlands coughs, blood spattering the untouched spots and smaller droplets onto Spain's pant leg. It continues on for a moment before under the nation's breath he mutters, "Not bad aye?"

Spain swallows, okay, okay, okay, and he ignores the bile that's threatening to make its way up his throat. He really doesn't like blood anymore, blood's messy, blood's part of living beings, blood's blood and there's a lot of it here. Netherlands draws a ragged, wet breath and Antonio wonders how exactly he missed that noise in the first place.

Lars winces and mumbles to himself in Dutch, periodically spitting out or coughing up said accumulated blood. It's even dripping out of his nose. Finally, Spain manages to fully collect himself before reaching for the Dutchman. Moving a bit closer and peeling Netherland's previously blue shirt from his wounds and skin. He barely even touches the fabric before the nation hisses through his teeth. Antonio tries to ignore it, continuing on, but even as he's looking under the tattered fabric he can't even see the injuries very well at all either.

He's not a doctor, nor a physician or even a medic. Spain himself has a very basic idea of battlefield medicine and even that's a bit outdated. It takes him a moment to retrieve any information about treating wounds. He needs to clean them; otherwise the chance of them getting infected is higher. "Please, tell me you can stand?"

It takes about half a minute for the Dutchman to even understand the words that are coming out of his mouth. "Not well." It sounds more like a choke than actual words, but he can understand them.

"Linkernie geschoten." And we've slipped into two different languages, forget understanding.

"I don't speak Dutch, ehe…" The Dutchman grits his teeth and tries to get his arms underneath himself in a futile attempt to get up.

Spain jumps in to help, immediately taking the arm nearest to him and pulling Netherlands shakily to his feet. The nation grunts as soon as he's up, painfully glancing down at his chest and stomach. Whatever veins that had clotted before seem to have been opened again, he's bleeding more steadily now. Antonio gives a barely audible curse and ushers Lars to move a bit faster but the man is almost dead weight at this point, and he finds it almost impossible. But Netherlands still has his pride and despite everything is, with very little effort, pushing Spain off him. Idiota.

Even though he's not using his left leg no matter what and refuses to place all his trust in the Spaniard to basically drag him inside. In short it was making the Spaniard's life that much more difficult. Opening the door was a bit of a trick and he didn't even bother closing it after. He barely manages to get Netherlands upstairs to the washroom without falling back down them. He's basically dragging the persona by the time they get up to the second floor.

Spain unhooks Netherland's arm and manages to get him into the empty tub. The Dutchman's head lolling back over the edge despite his boots touching the footer. Spain has officially concluded that the Dutch are just far too tall.

Netherlands continually switched from consciousness to unconsciousness now, once and awhile he'd throw himself forward and choke out an amount of blood Antonio didn't even think was in his body anymore. Then there was the fact that cleaning the wounds in the first place was almost completely fruitless. You'd clean them off and they'd only continue bleeding. He'd managed to remove the sand and the mud though which was at least a small accomplishment.

Clothing was getting to be an issue too; he couldn't really get Lars to take his jacket off, or his scarf, much less his shirt. They'd probably had a pretty one sided conversation a couple of times about how if Netherlands wanted to keep his human body alive for much longer he'd have to actually be able to treat the wounds properly. He just kind of lay there, eyeing Spain or the wall, mumbling to himself in his strange, harsh language.

Eventually he did manage to shrug off his jacket, hissing away Spain every time he even looked like he was going to help. The shirt he gave up on and just peeled it of the skin before cleaning around the wounds so Antonio could at least gage where to bandage the persona. God this was a mess. Although only to reveal that the Dutchman's right side was bruised and mildly malformed, probably a couple broken ribs. As if it didn't hurt to breathe already…

Netherlands seemed almost completely out of it after he'd been bandaged. Staring at nothing particularly and now completely limp instead of tense like he had been before. There was a two minute time frame of where Antonio actually debated about leaving him in the tub and just covering him up with a few blankets. The idea was rejected after a couple moments of consideration.

So, dragging the impossibly-too-tall Dutchman out of the tub and readjusting his position to better suite Spain, they went on. The Spaniard would continue to readjust this position throughout their little 'walk'. But he got the persona to one of the nicer guest rooms of his house. "Alright Netherlands," grunting, Spain eased him onto the bed in a fluid motion that he was quite proud of, "and there we go. You're just lucky that most of those bullet holes had exit wounds otherwise there'd be a lot more pain than what you're feeling now mi amigo."

"Don't call… me… that…"

"Ah… so we're back to English, finally, I was wondering if you'd ever get back to it."

Lars groans, lazily opening his eyes to glare at the Spaniard again. Spain perks up, "Which reminds me," turning around and padding off through the door, he disappears around the corner.

Netherland's just eyes the doorway for less than a moment before letting his head rest again. What'd he say? Which… what does that mean… sleep seemed like it would be a good idea at this point. Not translating, translating takes time. He can't even really tell exactly what's hurt and what's not hurt anymore. It just all hurts, every little movement just makes it worse. He doesn't even really think this body will make it through the night in this state even. So what's the point? What's the point of Spain saving him? It's not like he'd go away forever, it'll be such a pain to heal anyway.

Spain wanders back into the room, small vial in hand and ever present grin, "This will help with the pain."

Lars rolls his head over to the side and flinches away, bringing on some more undesirable pain with it. He hisses a breath and weekly mutters, "No."

Antonio gives him a perplexed look, "I know you really hate me but I didn't think it was that bad."

Netherlands gives a slow blink, "Not what… I never… hated you…"

The persona relaxes into the far side of the bed, keeping himself a good distance from the Spaniard and the vial. "'ust… keep that away from me."

With half lidded eyes the Dutchman watches Spain slowly glance at the vial, placing it on a table to the far side of the wall and slowly walk out. "Well, I guess I'll go then."

He doesn't close his eyes until the door is shut before he drifts off into the nothingness that knows him all too well.

…TO BE CONTINUED…

AGH! Yes, I started a new freaking story… why!? Because this is the result of my insomnia and I've found that I've basically fallen in love with NedSpa. But anyway… my brain apparently wanted a change of pace from, sad, sobbing and entirely depressing to a less depressing area. This is more, as-a-result-of-war and I guess a diving into one's mind thing.

If you've read any of my previous Hetalia fanfics you've probably noticed a trend here. I don't really know how it happens but I'll just call it a habit and gore is my thing. Plus I apparently just don't feel the need to post anything that doesn't have to do with gore…

~EarlyMorningMassacre~