Title: Centennial

Fandom: Hetalia: - Axis Powers

Author: Me, obviously

Genre: everything, but mostly romance

Characters/Pairing(s): England/Belgium

Rating: T

Warnings: Everything

Summary: 100 day fic challenge for England/Belgium

Chapter Summary: It begins and ends with a broken plate. HetaOni!verse

A/N: Spoilers: this is my number one OTP. Prompts found from 100-prompts at LJ. Enjoy, lovelies~!

001: Crash

It's the broken plate that starts it.

After what feels like months, after a hundred terrible days, they finally pull free of the darkness and tumble back into the light, gasping after drowning and laugh without breath for a long while. There are casualties, of course, because there are always casualties, and once the relief wears off, they realise those casualties.

Veneziano – North Italy – Feliciano Vargas – he can't stand, can barely even breathe. Germany is refusing to put him down, carrying him so gently in his arms that it must surely feel like the little Italian hero is flying. It's just as well, for Italy is refusing to let go of his German – what exactly were they, anyway? – well, whatever he is, he's got his fingers tangled so tightly into the tears of his jacket that there's little to no chance they're coming apart any time soon. Not that anyone would care to pull them apart, not after all the things that happened.

The others are battered and bruised, aching in places they haven't ever ached before, and they're all desperate for a good night's sleep, for a warm, safe bed and a warm meal waiting for them on waking. They'll get it, of course, they'll get all that and more.

They're out of there. They're safe. That's more than any of them could have wished for.

England has to walk carefully, hand tight around America's sleeve. He'd turned down offerings to be carried – save your strength, brat, he'd said, meant thank you – and had made a spiel about how he had to learn – and was beginning to regret it, a little. Even though America assures him there's nothing in front of him, he keeps his free hand outstretched all the same, ready for any sudden obstacles.

Once they're back in the town, a little later than the others to compensate for England's baby steps, everything slots into place. It feels right now, it feels good. Everyone's alive, everyone's here, everyone's okay.

Then Belgium starts screaming, and the good mood dissipates.

England doesn't know how she knew, whether France or Spain or Romano had tried to tell her quietly and prepare her, but as far as England knows, it's the second she sees him that she starts bawling. Everything goes silent, and all he can hear is the clack of her heels on the cobblestones and then America's easing his hand away and he's trapped in a limbo filled with the smell of her, sugar-sweet and cloyingly gentle, and forced to do nothing but listen in as she screams obscenities he's only ever heard on her tongue in the midst of war.

She tries to hit America, he learns, not that it comes to much good, because out here, the boy's back to being an immovable brick wall and all she does is bruise her knuckles.

'You promised me!' she screeches, and England is reminded of the fierce little fireball that had put him in his place whilst gloating on his flagship. 'You promised me you'd take care of him! That he'd come back safe!'

'He did!' America replies, that whining tone he adopts when he's in trouble and under attack. 'Look, he's right there! He's in one piece!'

Belgium is not impressed, and the sound of her slap is loud enough to jar.

'He's blind,' she snarls, and breaks.

'Bel,' England says, reaches for her, hopes it's the right direction. 'Give me your hands.'

He's wearing America's aviator sunglasses over makeshift bandages from China. It didn't really do much, but until they could clean his eyes out properly, it was the best they could do with what they had. The glasses were just to distract, England thinks, doesn't remember America's reasoning. There's still blood all over his face, he can feel it dried and flaking on his cheeks and in the scruff on his jaw, clogged under his nose and stained into his lips and gums and tongue. He looks a state, but he supposes they all do.

They all did, last time he saw them.

It takes her a moment, but she eventually puts her hands in his, and oh, he'd missed her hands, dainty and warm and fitting into his so imperfectly they couldn't possibly have been made for anyone else. He tugs her in, and she goes, falls into his arms and buries her face in his chest, sobs against his heart and he's still damp with sweat and blood and God knows what else, but she doesn't seem to care, just begs him not to leave her again. Carefully, he runs his fingers through her hair and settles his arms around her, holds her tight.

'America?' he asks after a moment, nose buried in her hair. It still smells of roses, though a little more like blood.

'Yeah?'

'Can you take us home?'

America hesitates. 'Will you be alright?'

'I can look after him just fine,' Belgium replies, still pressed against the clock tower ticking steadily in his chest. 'None of you are getting your hands on him again. Not for a long time.'

He knows better than to argue; they all do. America agrees quietly, and they all disperse, go to where they most want to be, now that they can. England wouldn't be much surprised, bullied into curling up in the back seat of a rental car with his head in Belgium's lap and her fingers teasing through his hair, to know there were new relationships formed by that house, that he'd get his sight back to find that there were new couples outside of politics clinging to each other and whispering loving nothings into their lover's ear.

They were all a little slow on the uptake, he thinks, sighs pleasantly and tangles his fingers in her cardigan that used to be his, he'd gotten a relationship outside of politics centuries ago.

It's a long time before they get to an airport and get home. Home is a cottage in the Cotswolds, from the 1600's with additions made where necessary. It hasn't much changed since Victoria, but there are new fixtures and fittings from where Belgium first moved in. He's rather fond of this house, and rather fond of all the little ways she's crept into it.

He's startled awake by the sound of a crash. It sounds like metal hitting the floor, and he rolls out of bed and to his feet, calling for her. If he couldn't recognise his bed by the feel of the sheets alone, he might have panicked, thought he was back in the mansion, but his nose is full of Chanel no. 5 and his laundry detergent, and he knows he's home safe before he's even on his feet.

'Bel? Are you alright?'

'Get back into bed!' she calls back, amused and exasperated in equal measure. 'I dropped the teapot, it's alright!'

'I would,' he murmurs, reaches out with his hands and steps until he finds the bed post and inches his way back into bed. 'But it's hard to do things right now.'

He's half asleep again by the time she comes up.

'Lazy,' she accuses, and he waves a hand at her. There's a rattle and something's set on the bed. 'Sit up, lazy, I brought you a cream tea.'

Tea sounds good, actually, but when he sits up, she settles in his lap, and that's even better. Even though he's wearing pyjama bottoms, she isn't. She isn't wearing anything, by the feel of her, except one of his T-shirts.

'Oh,' he says, hand on her hip under the shirt.

'Maybe later,' she replies, and brushes her mouth along his jaw. 'For now, tea, and then I'll get you in the shower. It's been a long week.'

'A week,' he repeats, but lets her feed him jam and cream and scones she made herself, steadies his hands so he can drink, and all the while, she remains straddling his lap and half-naked.

They have a brief argument about whether or not he needs help showering, and eventually she makes him promise that he won't wash his hair. She stays in the bathroom in case he does need help, but otherwise lets him get on with it. She dries him off, helps him step into jogging bottoms and tugs a T-shirt over his head and leads him back to bed.

'Just stay here, sweet,' she murmurs against the corner of his mouth.

She disappears again, and comes back soon enough. She's got something with her, England thinks, and she settles across his lap again. It smells sterile.

'I'm going to clean up your face, okay?'

Oh, that's what it was.

'Alright,' he agrees, and holds still whilst she peels the bandages away.

Belgium has a strong constitution, apparently, because she barely flinches to see his eyes, or what remains of them. As she cleans out the sockets, she tells him that she survived two world wars working as both a spy and as a field nurse, getting him home to find he's burnt his eyes out is child's play.

'They brought you in a few times, do you remember? You made such a mess of yourself, and you made such a fuss trying to convince me you were okay. 'Tis but a scratch! You'd say. You were missing a fucking arm.'

'It was my bad arm.'

'It was your left arm.'

'Exactly.'

He can almost see her, can imagine the look she's giving him, and he just grins lazily at her. He behaves, sits quietly and lets her work, and once he tells her he misses her. She says she's right there. That's not what he meant and they both know it.

When she's done, cleaned the blood off him and bandaged him up and padded his eyes so he can't scratch or bump into anything and make it worse, she stays in his lap, lays him back and kisses him until he's asleep. She repeats the process every day, and whilst it's just the two of them, just the two of them sending things crashing to the floor trying to help the other, just the two of them doting on each other and loving until all they can do is tumble into bed and giggle their way into the night, just the two of them and the bloody cat, it's okay, he thinks, to let her.

She doesn't forgive him for months. His eyes are back within a week, and once they are the nightmares start, and she doesn't forgive him for that either, because he should know better by now, he's old enough and ugly enough to look after himself. But mostly she doesn't forgive him for worrying her sick, for having her convinced that he wasn't going to make it out of there, that he was going to do something mindlessly heroic and, frankly, stupid, to save America or God-knows-who, and she wouldn't have forgiven him if he had. She's never been so scared in her life she tells him one day, curled up around him with the windows open to let the rain in. He's tracing patterns with his fingertips across her skin and she's tracing patterns around his eyes. She says that even that mission in Italy wasn't enough to scare her like this.

It's the closest she's ever come to losing him and he wishes he could promise her that it'd be okay, that he wouldn't do it again, but he can't.

'I love you,' he whispers, presses kisses along her back whilst she sleeps and he goes to make breakfast.

He drops a plate when he trips over the cat. The crash startles him as much as it does Samhain, and she leaps up onto the counter and then onto his shoulders whilst he stands there looking at his shaking hands.

'Sweetheart?'

England turns to look at her, and Belgium looks back at him, a hand on the doorway with her hair a mess. His dressing gown is hastily gathered around her, held by her hand rather than the belt. (He hasn't seen the belt for a year, convinced the bloody cat's made off with it.)

'Are you alright?'

Samhain meows and England nods, rubs a hand over his face.

'I think so. It just startled me, is all. It's early, go back to bed.'

Belgium ignores him, of course, because she always ignores him, and crosses the kitchen to reach up and brush her thumbs across his cheeks. Samhein leaps back down to the floor and disappears outside with a tinkle of her bell.

'You're crying,' Belgium whispers. 'Come back to bed. You're not okay.'

He closes his eyes and swallows. 'No,' he agrees. 'I'm not.'

NOTES::

If anyone remembers, Arthur's cat in Devil in a Midnight Mass was called Salem. Since this isn't USUK, I thought Samhain would work better. I don't know, what do you think?

"Tis but a scratch" is an anachronistic shout-out to Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

When England says his left arm is his bad arm, he's referring to the fact that left-handedness was considered a sign of the devil for a long time within the Christian faith. It might still be, I don't really follow church doctrine closely enough to know, nor, particularly, do I care. It's my headcanon that he's left-handed, which is why it's a point at all.

On the topic of headcanons, I like the idea that England burnt his eyes out when he went blind, which would have left bloody gaping holes in his face. Of course, once he's back to his nation state, it's quick for him to heal, but since they're human in the mansion. Well.

This is such a lovely way to start the show, isn't it? Still, we'll get a bit of lighter entertainment eventually. Maybe. The next four prompts are kind of iffy, but day 5 is a good one, so there's that at least.

++Vince++