So, um, hi *waves* I've loved Hetalia for quite some time now and well, this is the product of that love! This is my first time writing fanfiction of any kind, so please be gentle and open minded if you decide to read it. Other than that, I hope you enjoy!
Warnings: Mentions of the two World Wars, Hitler, death etc. Use of human names.
Disclaimer: Hetalia is definately not mine, so keep those lawyers at bay!
Ludwig can remember the first time he ever saw a rat. It was when he was still young and under Prussia's care in the house that was to become his; there had been a high pitched squeal from the kitchen, startling him into action and before he knew it, he was panting in the doorway, sharp blue eyes searching for trouble. What he found was Gilbert standing on top of a chair, a fork brandished threateningly at a small, brown rodent, but with a face full of fear. The rat looked up, twitched its nose questioningly. Ludwig cleared his throat.
Prussia jumped, the chair wobbling precariously and turned his head quickly to see his little brother, arms crossed and eye brow raised, looking between him and the dirty fur ball of doom.
"Bruder, what was that noise?"
Clearing his own throat, Gilbert stood tall.
"That-thing down there-it was-um-exclaiming at my total awesomeness of course!" he laughed, unaware of his brothers unimpressed gaze.
Suddenly, the sound of scratching came at the foot of the chair and Gilbert made the mistake of looking down, large red eyes meeting beady black. Screaming, he flailed backwards, fork clattering onto the table. The rat scuttled forwards, tail jerking in fear as it tried to move away. From the doorway, Ludwig was laughing harder than he could ever remember doing so before, small puffs of breath, barely audible as he watched his brother fall. Gilbert, from his place on the floor, had started to blush. Anger building fast, he scrambled up, his eyes honing in on the still frightened rat trying to find its hole in the wall to get away from the large and terrifying human.*
Still laughing, Ludwig had moved into the kitchen to help his brother up and nurse a bruised ego, distract him from the small creature darting across the floor, but Gilbert stormed away, face scrunched up in determination and disgust and before Ludwig could realise what his intention was, Gilbert had raised his foot ad brought it down in a brutal stomp that resulted in a small screech and resounding crack that echoed in the quiet room. Ludwig's laughter stopped abruptly.
"B-Bruder?" he asked, shakily, eyes on the now dead rat, its neck broken and body crushed.
Gilbert sniffed up and kicked the fragile body into the corner of the kitchen, eyes hard as he brushed past him.
"It was vermin, bruder, and vermin needs to be exterminated."
Ludwig had felt guilty for weeks afterward.
Post World War I Germany was not a happy place. All anyone had to do was glance at its personification; the dull eyes, hunched shoulders, greasy hair and creased clothes were a far cry from the once proud nation that stood in his place. The depression had hit Ludwig's country hard and he felt his people's unhappiness, hunger and pain in the ache of his bones, of his heart. Anger danced through his veins when he thought of the suffering his people were going through, the debt pushed upon them by the Allies; what right did they have to push the blame onto Germany? What right did they have to demand money, land, his people's hard work as punishment for losing a war that hadn't entirely been his fault? How dare they sit back and watch and laugh at him as he worked not to restore his beloved country to what it had once been, but to pay off those who had been at the root of its destruction, cast this dark and dreary cloud upon them. They would give him nothing in return, happy to watch him kill himself as they poked and prodded and criticised from their comfy, perfect homes.
Ludwig had never been one for regret, self pity or over dramatising things. He followed logic and logic reasoned with him that as he had been on the losing side of the war, he had to pay the forfeit and should soothe himself with the thought that he had done damage to the countries he had fought against himself; but in his mind he heard the voices of a thousand angry cries and pained sobs and forced himself to grit his teeth against it, remain stoic. No country could take a depression along with world wide humiliation, plus the extra weight of the Treaty of Versailles and balance it on his shoulders as if they were made to carry the weight of the world. His people were strong and they would get through this, somehow, but they were owed much more than they were currently being given. Rain had started to fall from the sky as if reflecting Germany's mood; at his side, Italy was babbling away with a hint of nervousness, ever present with a smile and a plate of pasta, trying his best to ease Ludwig's despair, though he couldn't for the life of him see why.
How could this type of pain ever be eased? Did Italy not feel it himself underneath that foolish and bubbly façade? Germany would not show any signs of weakness outwardly. He would nod and pretend to listen to Italy, grateful for the small bursts of warmth that briefly penetrated his weary body and keep moving forwards. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a swift movement, a rat, scurrying in and out of the shadows, perfectly content to make its home in the rotten, run down German alleyways. Ludwig fancied he could hear it squeak in happiness and felt a shot of ice cold resentment pass through him, twisting his insides in a way he immediately identified as childish.
Just keep moving forward.
It had gotten a bit better, just as Germany knew it would, somewhere, deep down. Italy was starting to become less like an extra burden to bear and more like something resembling a friend. It was difficult getting used to his overly affectionate gestures, but Ludwig supposed he should thank Italy for testing his blushing skills so much as it kept him warm through the harsh winter that accompanied Germany's depression. He had also gotten a new leader and the rot and pain that had clung to his country like stubborn ivy had started to clear. The sun seemed to shine that little bit brighter and Ludwig cast aside his calm, collected and logical thought paths, not minding romanticising this new period Germany was going through; everything he said felt like a breath of fresh air, removing the weight off his shoulders little by little as he openly expressed the injustice reigned down upon the German nation by the rest of the world, passionately spoke about his people's anger and distress and promised wholeheartedly to fix it. And Ludwig trusted him to do the right thing, the aching in his bones being replaced by relief.
It wasn't long before the relief was replaced by something more burning; revenge. Ludwig had never felt more motivated by anything in his life. He would make his people proud of Germany again. The red arm band on his sleeve was his symbol of dedication to that. He would make the world suffer the pain and humiliation he had gone through, reclaim the fruits of his people's labour and then save the pitiful fools from themselves, cleansing their society and integrating it with his pure, German one. First however, he had to cleanse his own society, rid it from the dirt and the sickening scourge of Germany's underbelly, clinging like leeches, sucking the life out of and damaging its economy, livelihood, people, its very power to exist as a nation and train his allies hard. Germany would set the ultimate example for how the rest of the world should act and then, they would live together in harmony, a beautiful and hardworking race of people speaking his language as its legacy.
Italy clung to his arm, commenting on how strong he was becoming, large dark eyes sparkling, his smile looking painful. Japan was silent at his side, but offered a small smile of his own as Ludwig made some offhand comment that Italy would be just as strong if only he would stick to the training plan Germany set him and use his time in a more productive manner than making white flags, running away and making pasta. Italy giggled and called him silly, causing him to sigh. He couldn't help agree with his earlier comments however, as he passed a soldier and saluted him in greeting, arm and hand straight and true, like the magnetic north of a compass; he was becoming strong, his leader matching them down the pathway to victory valiantly. Ludwig had never felt better.
There came a time when Ludwig started to forget who he was-when Germany started to forget who he was. But no. They were the same, where they not? Ludwig was Germany. So why did he feel like there was some sort of internal battle with what his people wanted and what he, Ludwig thought was what his people should want? Or did Germany just want what he wanted, the extermination of so many whose innocence was apparently stained and the people want what Ludwig wanted, for this pain to stop, for him to be able to identify where he got his scars from. It felt as if he was passing through a series of tunnels; when things went good, when he was in the light and Italy's smile gave him reassurance, he felt as though freedom and victory was just one step away and the blood that stained his hands was justifiable; but when he was in the dark, which seemed far to often these days, Italy's smile masked the pain and confusion that shone so clearly in his eyes and Ludwig felt like he was falling into the waiting arms of despair, questioning his every move and reluctant to push past the threatening throb in his mind, reminding him of what he had done, the creaking in his bones seemingly foreshadowing his inevitable doom once again at the hands of the Allies.
He had entered the Fuhrer's office with questions ready to spill from his lips, a determination to find out exactly where this inner conflict was coming from, but as soon as he stepped over the threshold of hallway to office, the emotion left him and he was the perfect soldier, cold, strong, intelligent and at his command, ready to follow any orders. His arm felt heavy as he raised it and as it snapped back to his side, it felt like it had cut a bit more of Ludwig off, leaving an unrecognisable nation in his place. Some demonised mass of molecules with a smirk, made to glitter like smoke, trash that littered the floor and pass off as gold. He listened carefully to his orders, filing them away in the appropriate part of his brain subconsciencly but all he could concentrate on was his Fuhrer's eyes and how they were small and black and beady-and all he could remember was a small broken body in the corner of a room, Prussia's words ingrained in his brain: vermin.
One day, Germany woke up sticky and dirty and covered in various bodily fluids, mainly blood, that he knew definitely wasn't his. He didn't ache in some oddly familiar way, didn't feel any pain at all even though he knew, somewhere, there lingering in the back of his mind that logically-logically-he should be hurting somewhere. He had just lost an entire platoon of men and-something else. Something else that lingered like a bad smell, like burning flesh on the battlefield. He had stopped questioning.
Germany stared at the dead child, her eyes glassy, clothes dirty and hanging off her. Blood covered her, staining her sullen cheeks and lips as if she had just found her mothers make up bag and decided to try some on; her ribs pressed against her chest, threatening to break out. On her arm, the star of David had been carved jaggedly, branding her. Clinical eyes took in the dirty surroundings, the broken furniture. The overwhelming odour of sweat, death and fear hit his nostrils, turning his mouth dry.
The hand holding his gun wavered.
Germany felt his crisp, perfect uniform absorb everything in the room, images and smells weighing him down, his heart sending jolts of pain down his spine with each beat; the ivy that he thought had been cut away was creeping back up, curling around his stomach and chest and clouding his mind. His sub-conscience kicked and screamed, this wasn't right, this agony he was ignoring, this mindless killing spree in the name of a perfect society run by Germany; the dead children whose dreams were so cruelly taken away from them with the pull of a trigger, whose breath he could feel catch in his own throat as it left their bodies, whose screams he could feel trapped on his own tongue, fighting to break out of his mouth like his own questions he kept so deeply buried.
The gun wavered again.
Why could he feel these-these things lives be wrenched away, like tearing off pieces of his own flesh? Why could he feel their blood turn cold, making the hair on the back of his neck stand up? Why could he see flashes of their memories, feel their emotion as he stared into dying eyes? He felt the pain of his soldiers every day, had his body ripped to pieces as bombs hit his cities and their people, but that made sense, because they were good, German people and Ludwig would take that pain for them because they deserved it-but these others, this child…they weren't Germans, were they? He had said so. But this extra anguish, heartbreak, agony…it tore at his soul.
The gun clattered to the ground and he fell to his knees, his stomach burning as bile rose up in his throat; it forced it's way out of his mouth violently and mingled with the blood pooled on the floor. Nobody helped him as he shivered and continued to vomit what little he had in his stomach. When he was finished he felt as though he could lie back and blend with his surroundings, the disgusting yellow and red rivers on the floor, the brown streaks up the walls, the ruined homes and lives. A hand scrunched into his hair, messing up its gelled back perfection and yanked his head back harshly, forcing him to look into the corner of the room. A family of rats had burrowed their way through the wreckage and had started to nibble at the corpses and rotten wood. Prussia stared down at him, red eyes darker than usual as he jerked his brother forward, forcing him to watch the scene.
"What do you see, bruder?"
I can't…I can't look at her eyes any longer, I can't-
"Because what I see, is simple. These rats are all the same and the sooner we rid our country of them, the sooner we can become great again," Prussia lowered his voice, knelt down to Germany's level and mumbled sweet poisons gently into his ear, so only he could hear him "That's what you want, isn't it Ludwig? To be great, famed throughout history?"
But her eyes-oh god her eyes, why couldn't he see?
Prussia's voice returned to its normal level and he pushed himself up, "I know you want what's best for your people. You're a good man, West. But these…these things aren't human."
He could feel the coldness start to creep back into his body and he hardly had time to register the terror flashing through his brain as the image of the child and the rat became intertwined, replacing the image of him that he hadn't known he'd automatically identified the creatures with. If this was what his people wanted…
"They're vermin. And what do we do with vermin?"
He had to be strong. Keep moving forward. He couldn't go back to how he was, couldn't let Germany fall back into the hands of the depression. Germany stood, back straight, expression hardened, mind focused on the task he had been given to help his country achieve victory, freedom, a new and glorious future.
"We exterminate it."
A few notes...
*-Okay, so yes I realise that Gilbert is Prussia and therefore a nation no matter how much he and other nations may resemble humans. However in these type of family situations when they don't have the burden of everything else and can just be themselves, I think it's fair enough to call them human, especially as they feel the same things we do. I used human and nation names at different points for certain reasons, though I'd like you to take away your own thoughts on that.
Bruder-German for brother, though I think that was fairly obvious.
Treaty of Versailles-http:/ en . wikipedia . org / wiki / Treaty _ of_ Versailles
Poor Ludwig. I often wish I didn't like angst quite so much. I apologise if any of you feel this is a little out of character, but no matter how strong and logical a person is, if you were hit with a defeat like Germany was in WWI then you're bound to want to lash out and want answers, even if those answers come in the form of wild accusations and another war. I wanted to portray Ludwig as both himself and Germany (yes, I know they're the same) and how his thoughts and emotions are being manipulated by a crazy leader he has to obey until in the end, he almost believes they're his own.
Anyway, I believe that's quite enough from me. I'm planning on writing a companion piece in Prussia's POV, so if anyone is left a little confused by anything in this, look out for that and your questions may be answered. Please review so I know what I'm doing right and what I'm doing wrong, I'd really like to know if you enjoyed this :)