Title: The Empty Love
Rating: T
Pairings: Ireland/England, others mentioned
Characters: Ireland, England, others mentioned
Variation: N/A
Summary: You don't fall for empires. You don't fall for them unless you're prepared to hate yourself, taste the bile in the back of your throat at the thought of them and have the longing to watch everything they love crash and burn around them.
Xxx
It's not even dawn when he wakes, moving to sit on the edge of the bed without so much as looking at the blonde beside him. It's too early in the morning to want to strangle him and too soon after some pitifully empty fuck he's partook in hours before.
The cigarettes are there, on the side from where they were thrown the night before, the scratches on his back burning as he reached for them, wondering if the smoke would wake Arthur or not. Is it too early for another argument, too early for another screaming match, too early for that smug little smirk on the English man's lips that made him want to just drive his fist into his mouth and break all his pretty little teeth.
Nobody would want to fuck him then.
Save the ice of his cold shoulder, save him having to hear the bastard fuck his way through the house, hear the exotic tones of India or some other overseas whore he'd conquered and brought back with him. No, they weren't the whores. The whore was in bed beside him, looking deceivingly like an angel as he slept.
He's puffing away on his cigarette within seconds of removing it from its packaging. He needs the nicotine kick to keep him going since his alcohol had been robbed of him, since drinking away his problems is no longer an option he plans on smoking them away.
But it doesn't hurt any less; it doesn't make his sense numb and hide the rib cage he can see clearly in the mirror at the other end of the room. It just makes it worse, makes the arguments less frequent but somehow more violent, tongue running over his split lip and he doesn't need to look for the ones littering his body.
Oh, what he'd do to kick the living daylights out of him, to watch his world crash around him
There's a shake in his hands from the rage, breath becoming ragged as he imagines it, a smirk gracing his split and bruised lips and he has a bubble of laughter in his throat, waiting to rip itself free in a manner which could only be described as hysteric and inane.
His joints crack as he stands, picking up the clothes from the floor and sliding them on over purpled skin and stiff joints, finally looking at the empire in his bed and feeling his lips purse, anger curling and squeezing his insides as the shame settled in.
It's an addiction.
The bruises will heal, the scratches will stop burning and the shame will disintegrate the next time those green eyes meet his own, that flicker of something that isn't contempt and shameless pride before it all comes back and drowns him.
But it's an addiction.
An addiction to dominate him, to be better than him, to splatter his sun weathered skin with reds, blues and purples, the off yellows of a healing bruise and the dark pinks of skin gripped to tightly. To put an empire in his place, to watch his world crash down around him in flames as everything he loved left him a crippled mess on the floor.
Dropping the spent fag on one of his shirt, bare foot pressing it into the floor and he can barely suppress the shiver as he feels it burn.
Walking along the bed, fingers trailing the shape beneath the covers gently, he moved along with a slight swagger in each step. It would all be over soon, he could feel the clock ticking to the inevitable time bomb that had happened when he found and brought that snivelling, little brat back from Belfast after the famine.
No, he didn't cause the time bomb. He was it. The famine was the trigger it needed and then the child appeared.
A chuckle leaves his lips as he reaches bare shoulders, savouring the slight flinch that the blonde nation has, as if he knows of his plans, know of every desire he has of the empire. His hands find his neck, pausing and waiting there, wondering if it'd be satisfying or not to just strangle the other.
Oh, he'd look beautiful with blue lips as he fought for air.
But no, he can't. Not now at least, moving his hand back and lips curling in disgust before he turns and walks out, running a hand through his black hair and softly closing the door, no matter how much he wanted to slam it.
The shame is still there, now mixed with self-loathing and disgust because of all the things he could have taken a fancy to, it had to be the empiric cunt in there.
And oh, how he hates himself for it.
