Trouble Is A Friend
Authors Note: This is another what-if story inspired by my girlfriend, who ships Russia/France like something fierce. It made me wonder... what if Russia was only dating America because he and France look similar? You know, blonde hair, blue eyes? Haha. Thanks for taking your time to read!
He's there in the dark, he's there in my heart,
He waits in the wings, he's gotta play a part,
Trouble is a friend, yeah trouble is a friend of mine,
So don't be alarmed if he takes you by the arm,
I won't let him win, but I'm a sucker for his charm,
Trouble is a friend, yeah trouble is a friend of mine.
Oh, how I hate the way he makes me feel,
And how I try to make him leave, I try.
Trouble Is A Friend - Lenka
It's amazing the feeling that you experience when you let go. Not that he's experienced this quite yet but he keeps thinking he does, he keeps thinking he's one step closer to not caring, to just letting go, to not giving a fuck about anything or anyone. He wants this.
He wants this more than he could possibly explain. And part of him refuses to believe it, part of him doesn't want to believe it. This part is still in denial and this part is what's causing him to not let go. This part is the part that's still in love, this part is still sad and blue, this part still aches and makes him human. Sometimes, he hates this part of him. Sometimes, he just wants to be like all the other nations. He wants to be blank, numb, he wants to pretend that he feels but, in reality, he doesn't really feel a thing. Wouldn't that be lovely?
He really thinks it would.
If this part of him could just let go. He doesn't know why he clings so much. But he's always clung on, to the bitter end. To everything. To the past, to the present, it's why he always had a hard time throwing things away. People always thought differently, they thought he could brush things off and bounce right back but he couldn't and that was the brilliant thing about acting. He was really good at acting, but no matter how much he acted, it didn't make it real. He wasn't fake.
Because some little part of him refused to let him become wholly fake.
Some little part of him remained real, remained true.
That's what was so "beautiful" about him. He was one of the only nations who still felt, who still cried, who wasn't fake, who was real. But they could do it just as easily. Yes, all they had to do was just give up. To stop pretending. To not care about their reputation or what others think of them.
And, oh yes, he still cared what people though of him. In fact, it was always an anxiety for him. He was always concerned with how he would come off, even if it didn't seem like it. But, you see, when you lived your life mostly hated you either stopped caring or started caring more and, well, Alfred, he was caught in the middle. He didn't care and yet he did. He cared because everyone was always looking at him to slip up, to fall, to make a mistake, to not be that hero or they were looking at him to be that hero, to help them, to care for them, to live up to everything he had ever boasted and promised.
They were always looking at him when his superiors did something new, something different. They were always looking to see what his reactions would be.
Sometimes it got tiring.
Sometimes he wonders why he can't be normal, why he can't be like the human people, the ones that grow old and die, that he passes on the streets. That he hears whisper in his head if he listens closely, if he opens up that channel, the one every nation got. That he loves, he cherishes, he protects. He loves his people, his nation, oh yes, there was never any doubt about that. But all nations were like that, they always had that pride, that glow, that they got. And Alfred, America, well, he got it even more so.
Because that's just how he was.
He was still young, he still hadn't experienced as much as everyone else, and maybe that's why he's so attatched to his country, his people. Maybe that's why he has so much pride and so much of that youthful arrogance that just pisses everyone off. Maybe that's why he wasn't fake.
He can't stand to be around many people at the moment. He got like that when he was upset because he just didn't want people to see how upset he was, he didn't want them to see how hurt he could get and just how easily they could break him. But as easily as he could break, he could push himself to his feet a second later, stand on his own, be just fine. It was weird but it was how he worked.
He never liked to dwell on things because to dwell on things brought on pain and he would always drown in the memories.
Sometimes he would drown for a day until someone found him and shook him out of his reverie. He always did this when he'd go into his room with all the memories, all the photo albums and old toys and clothes. Sometimes he would go in there to hide, to drown, to remind himself of his mistakes and of the things he's learned. Sometimes he would just go there because he didn't want to be bothered.
He glances up from one of his photo albums, the ones filled with old black and white photos, yellowing with age, each page wedged with dry and cracked wax paper. He hears her bare feet against the dusty floor as she moves into the room, swaying to some rhythm he couldn't hear and he just watches, a smile replacing that sad look on his face instantly, although it wasn't real. But he made it real. He tried.
His need to be so optimistic was always so pathetic.
"I knew I'd find you in here," she says, spinning in the new polka dot dress he had just bought for her, the skirt fluttering up and around her toned brown legs. He watches, seeing the bruises blooming on her thighs, on her thin little arms.
"Did you visit Mads?" he doesn't know why he ask, he knows she's visited Madagascar because she would always come home with those bruises, she would always come home ranting or laughing or a combination of the two. Once, he had witnessed how they would fight, how heated they would get until there was kicking and punching and he was kind of just floored by the actual strength Seychelles possessed. She says it's always been like that with the other African nations, that none of them really got along, that they were always poking fun of each other. And Madagascar, well, she really liked to make fun of Seychelles and her "speaking English", which he always sort of found odd because two of the official languages in Madagascar had been French and English. Then they would bicker back and forth, sometimes in French, sometimes in some other language Seychelles had told him she learned just for the sake of learning, and sometimes they wouldn't even fight at all. He doesn't get their relationship.
Then again, no one ever really understood any relationship a nation had with another.
But he doesn't think they're dating. He doesn't think their relationship is a love sort of thing because how could you ever hurt someone you loved?
Oh, that's a question everyone always asked. It was like asking the meaning of life. No one really knew, no one really had an answer. Everyone thought they did, but everyone thinks too much and everyone thinks they've figured it out but, really, no one has. No one's figured out the love thing.
He hides the bitter smile by looking back down at his album.
"She doesn't like me," Seychelles laughs and shrugs, having stopped spinning.
"But the sex is great?" Alfred teased and Seychelles just smirks at him, just rolls her eyes at him, plopping down across from him. He'd always tease her about that and, sometimes, he truly did wonder if there was something happening between her and Madagascar but he never pushes it because she never really mentions it.
She produces a bottle of vodka, probably having nicked it from his fridge, and he looks at it for a moment or two, eyes blank. He thinks back for a moment, back to why he had gotten it and how vodka always made him feel and that was really just the point. He didn't want to feel. And he thinks that, maybe, it was Russian but he sees that it's not. He sees that it's actually a bottle Poland had given him. Feliks had boasted about how his vodka was stronger, how his vodka was better, and Alfred had promised to try it.
Well, he supposes tonight is the night he was going to.
Tonight was the night everything was going to come pouring out, wasn't? He senses it, he doesn't know why, but Seychelles always had that effect on him, no one else did. No one else but...
Ah, well, he was always an open person. There were just some things he didn't want people to know, there were some things that were meant to be private because he doesn't like for the whole world to know his problems, though they always some how did. Everyone knew because he was the god damn center of attention and sometimes he just wishes he could be like Seychelles, sometimes he wishes he could be little with most of the world not even knowing of his existence.
Sometimes he wishes he could go back to when he was younger. Before he was discovered. When he would run through the prairies with the natives, when he would laugh and not have a care in the world and none of them would question and none of them cared. He misses it. He misses how simple things used to be. He misses the simple happiness, the simple sadness, he doesn't like all these complications. He doesn't like that all eyes are on him, always. In this moment, in this space of time, he really hates it.
Everyone's watching him, everyone's waiting, everyone sees the fake smiles and the fake laughs and everyone knows.
He's disgusting.
"I thought that, maybe, you would need a drink," she pushes the cold bottle into his hand gently, a flicker of concern touching her bright blue eyes. He glances up at her and, for a moment, that blank look is still on his face and then he's all smiles, all fake, and he takes the bottle with a laugh.
"You read my mind," he twisted the red cap off, happy that she didn't find the stock from Ivan.
He sets his jaw as he thinks of the name. He doesn't know why, he just did. It was as if he was stopping the inevitable spew of words and emotions and tears and -- god. God, God why did he of all people have to have this affect on him? Why couldn't it have been different, why couldn't it have ended differently, why was he suddenly drained of all that arrogance and ego, that confidence that would just make him glow because of one little thing? Why was he doubting himself?
It wasn't little though. It wasn't.
Heartbreak isn't a small deal but he just brushes it off like it is, he just tells everyone he's fine fine fine. He's okay and on the inside he's just screaming. He wants out, he wants to go home so he can just hide, he wants something warm and familiar and comforting -- and, Jesus, he just really fucking hates how much he hurts. He hates how it feels, he hates that he can actually hurt this much but he's always felt too much. He's always been this way. Even when he was on top of the world, even when he was at his most powerful, even when he was fighting those wars, sometimes he'd still cry.
He still had those emotions and he hates it.
"You're hard to read sometimes," Seychelles states gently, breaking into his thoughts and he looks up from the bottle. "I used to be able to read your eyes but now you're hiding."
"I hate my eyes," he laughs as he takes a drink. "Everyone likes them but I hate them. I hate how..." he trails off, taking another swig of the liquid, feeling it burn down his throat. Seychelles waits patiently, legs drawn up to her chest, her cheek resting on her knees, her ebony hair spilling out and over her lower thighs. He always thought that she could be a model. He just stares at her before whispering, "Why don't you look like Francis?"
"Because I'm a girl," she teased and he gives her a feeble smile before handing her the bottle. She takes it, not taking a drink, but instead watching him carefully, cheek still resting on her knees.
"Is this what everything's all about?"
"What?" he fakes dumb, as if he doesn't know what she's talking about because he kind of just wants to draw it out. He kind of just doesn't want to talk about it, he doesn't want her to see how suddenly insecure he was, how ridiculous he was being. Because he was being ridiculous right?
She sits up, slowly, as if she were a puppet carefully being pulled to life and she lifts the bottle up to her lips, saying carefully, "Francis. This has to do with Francis and how you two look alike." her own blue eyes were watching him intensely, carefully, burning into his and he doesn't look away. He smiles, just one corner of his lip pulling up into this pathetic smile and he even gives a pathetic laugh.
"He left me for him."
"I know." She slides the bottle back toward him, looking down at his hand as he grabs at the neck.
"Everyone knows," he spits. "And everyone--" he cuts himself off, making a sort of disgusted sound and chugging the liquid. "Well, I guess I shouldn't be surprised. We look a lot alike, don't we? Blonde hair, blue eyes and fuck he did help raise me for a bit, too." he just shakes his head and pushes the bottle back toward her and continues, not really needing any prompting, his voice suddenly soft, "Do you think when he looked at me he saw Francis? Do you think when he looked at my eyes he saw Francis? They're the same shade of blue. He said that when he left. He said a lot."
Seychelles just listens, fingers ghosting over the lip of the glass, curling one arm over her knees and letting her cheek rest on her forearm as she watches him.
"You're different than Francis," she says slowly.
"Yeah, of course I am."
"He's a liar," she smiles at him, her soft lips parting and showing teeth, showing just how amused she was with herself. Her blue eyes sparkle and dance with that familiar laughter as she says, the words that were said to her so long ago, "He plays this game, does this little song and dance, just to keep you wrapped around his finger because he hates when people hate him. He loves loving people, he loves when people love him, he loves making people happy because it only makes him happy. But he does it in this selfish way. He does it where you think you benefiting but you're not. But you're too blind to see it. You're too in love because he can wrap you around his finger like that. He's actually incredibly selfish but attention starved."
She just smirks and shakes her head.
"No one sees that, though."
Alfred just blinks, taking the bottle from her, asking quietly, "And why do you see that?" he didn't know that this was how she felt about Francis, about the man she claimed to like more than Arthur, claimed to say that he was the main she considered a father because he was the only one who could raise her properly.
"He raised me," she shrugged. "I saw what he did. Even if it was just a little charm and a little flirt, I wasn't oblivious to it. That, and, he liked to send me gifts when I was under Arthur's rule but never once did he visit me. And I always thought he would..." she just laughs a little, again, this small sort of breathy laugh and just shakes her head, as if she's used to it, as if she doesn't hurt anymore.
And she doesn't.
He finds himself jealous that she can say that so easily, that she can say it without her words catching in her throat or without that blank look in her eyes. And then he's just slightly annoyed with himself because it's stupid to be jealous of. He's being stupid and he knows it. He should stop dwelling, he should just get over himself, that's what he always did. He always just bounced right back, he always did, he never got like this for so long. Only sometimes.
And that was usually when it had to do with war.
"Trouble is a friend," Seychelles smiles at him, moving onto her knees and leaning forward, draping her arms around his shoulders in a comforting sort of gesture. He looks up at her, blinking, as she looks down at the photo album, at the picture he had flipped open. He focuses on her expression, at how her brows raise just a little and a soft smile pulls at her lips. If he looks hard enough, he can nearly see the reflection of the photo in her eyes.
This was a photo no one knew he had, though, and no one knew he had taken. This was a photo he never talked about nor ever shared. And he often caught himself looking at it, even before he and Ivan had broken up, even before they had "gotten" together.
"Do you know that song...?" she doesn't mention the photo, just shifts her expression back onto him and he nods wordlessly, thankful that she didn't mention it, thankful that he didn't have to explain why he was looking at it though he was sure she didn't need an explanation for that.
"Come on," she jumps to her feet, tugging on his hand impatiently. "Let's get out of this room."
He slowly rises, bringing the half finished bottle of vodka with him, and follows her, not even bothering to shut the album, though he had shut the door on his little room of secrets. His room of memories.
He wishes it was that easy.