A/N: Angst time~!
France during WWII. Involves Nazi!Germany, but not explicitly. Also involves WWII/Holocaust victim!Poland, and a bunch of other unhappy countries.
PAIRINGS INVOLVED: Jeanne D'Arc/France, GerIta, slight LietPol
Hetalia is not mine.
Vive la Vie! Long Live Life!
Francis is choking. His throat is burnt with Nazi invasion, and his limbs are light like there is nothing inside him to keep him living. Germany, the smug, cold, monster saunters smartly within his boarders. Marches handsomely in his beloved Paris, takes hold of France's heart and brands the Goddamned swastika amidst the Thump Thump. France can feel it burn and he screams in agony; loud and shrill and in so much pain because his people, no matter how much they want to, can't.
He can feel the Nazis' smirk and laughter as he writhes in anguish, clutching his heart as the skin bubbles and burns with their forsaken symbol with weak dirty hands. He feels sick and repulsed as thick, crude German fingers tug harshly at his unkempt, once luxurious, hair. He wants to vomit when they coo in hideous rough German as they yank the dry strands right off his flaky scalp.
Solch hübsche Haar und Augen und enthäutet. Nett und blass. Der Führer wird so glücklich sein mit unserer Gefangennahme von Frankreich.
France is disgusted. They treat him like a prize; a toy that their precious Hitler will be so thrilled to play with.
He watches as young arrogant Germany, with his cruel ice blue eyes and his stupidly slicked back hair commands his government, commands France. He watches as his leaders fall within no time at all and he is forced to bow before his conqueror.
He is soon locked away with his fellow victims when the Nazis are bored of him. Poland, Czechoslovakia, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Norway, and Denmark are his original 'roommates'. They looked awful, mostly. Denmark looked strangely healthy, with shine, albeit dull, to his hair, and dim color in his cheeks.
Poland especially was a travesty. His hair, once a shiny sunny yellow, was pastel like old hard scrambled egg yolk, and just as dry. Clumps of his hair fell out at given moments, while his skin was sallow. He was awfully thin, a tad too thin to be healthy, with lackluster eyes and dry lips. His clothes were dirty and dull, the only brightness from the yellow star sewn with precise careful stitches on the heart of his shirt. His eyes flicked to France and he laughed, raspy and cold.
"Like, look who's come to join the party." He choked. "Come on in, we're totally having a ball."
Time struggled to pass in their room. Others came, eventually. Lithuania, who cried when he saw Poland, who couldn't summon the energy to cry back. Estonia and Latvia followed. When Ukraine stumbled in, tears cleaning her face of dirt, France dimly thought that Russia would be rather furious. Greece was tossed in sometime, eyes wide, awake, and in pain.
He literally howled in grief when the corpses of his cats were thrown in after him.
One day, Poland was taken away.
He didn't have a single hair on his head. The 'tad' of thinness was so jutting you could see every rib, every bone in his body; as if his skin was paper pasted over. He would scream and choke on invisible substance and shriek about dogs in his sleep.
Lithuania begged, and screamed, and cried, and clung to the Nazis' arms and repeated crazily, "No, not Poland. Don't take Poland away! Not Poland!", and had to be knocked out for the Nazis to successfully take Poland to wherever they dragged him off to.
France wanted to give up. To die. The Allies were losing. They were losing, and suffering, and dying, and he just wanted it to end.
When he saw her smiling face and sad eyes, he knew he had finally lost his sanity.
But as Jeanne caressed his thin tired face, and pressed her soft lips to his brow, he realized he didn't really care. "My poor Francis" she murmured in her sweet heavenly voice, holding his hand and petting his hair so softly and lovingly, and he was in heaven, because he felt so good after so long-
"You're not real" France rasped to her, the saintly illusion of his insanity. He didn't care if the others thought he was crazy. The spoke to nothing too, the Netherlands whimpering for his precious Princess Juliana. Norway pleading with an invisible Iceland, Lithuania crying for possibly dead Poland. "There is no heaven. You're not real."
"Given up on God so soon, my silly nation?" She settled next to him and his head fell into her shoulder. He inhaled the scent of lilies, and felt fire and passion spark in his body. His eyelids closed over glassy blue orbs in bliss. "I gave up on God when he took you from me." He mumbled, too focused on the softness of her skin. "I love you."
"You love many, mon amour." Jeanne giggled back, smoothing hair from his eyes.
"Not like you, never like you."
"You can."
"I can't." France sobbed, burying his face in her skin. "I can't. I tried so hard, but I simply can't."
"But you shouldn't give up." Her voice was sharper, like when she had commanded his army and brought him sweet ambrosial victory.
"I shouldn't?" France barked a dead laugh. "Why not? Not like I want to live like this. I don't even want to live-"
"Non!" Jeanne grabbed his jaw and forced their eyes to meet. He began to drown in her stormy blue gray eyes, and felt tears stream down his face. "Non! You are going to live! You're going to fight! This isn't the first time Paris has fallen to enemy hands! You can fight!"
"We couldn't liberate Paris then." France snapped. "Why now?"
"You liberated Paris, Francis! You can do it again! People are fighting for you! I can feel it! You can feel it!"
"I'm so tired." France whispered, and her face softened and she pressed her lips to his forehead once again. France whimpered in pleasure, for any touch from his angel was a step closer to ecstasy. "Jeanne-"
"I believe in you, Francis." she whispered against his dirt streaked skin. "I do. I believe in you, and I want you to live, so please live." He ran a hand through her perfect silky hair, still cut short like a man's, but so wonderfully Jeanne. She kissed his neck chastely, and he felt alive. God, he hadn't felt alive in so long. Did this feeling of life always feel this good? "Live for me, Francis?"
"Yes." He breathed huskily, wrapping his arms and pulling her into his lap. She felt so amazing pressed against him, every curve of her body melding into his. "Oh Jeanne, yes. Anything for my angel, Jeanne." She smiled with such radiance his breath stopped. He swallowed thickly.
"Kiss me?" She giggled. "You're silly." She said simply and leaned towards him. The two gravitated towards each other, and France could feel her warm breath, could feel the soft rose petals of her lips-
A soldier hit him from his dream, and he woke up to no Jeanne. Only a Nazi and other dying, chained nations in a cold, gray room of this nightmare of reality.
"Essen Sie", and France is presented with a piece of stale bread, some tepid water, and some potatoes.
Jeanne says people are fighting for me. She says I can feel them.
And France could. He could feel them in the angry rush that his blood pulses, the slightly stronger beats of his heart. People were fighting and dammit, Jeanne wanted him to live, so he was going to live.
"Essen Sie."
No.
France screams in French, screams for the Nazis, for Hitler, for Germany to burn in Hell, and slams his 'meal' in the soldier's face. He tackles him while he is wiping potato from his face and clumsily manages to steal his gun. He fumbles and shoots, and the fucker is dead and he runs. He doesn't look back on what the others do. If they followed, he didn't notice. If they stayed, he didn't care. He just runs, and runs until he is finally out of that building and looks for anything.
When he crashes dazedly into a man who would later introduced himself as Charles de Gaulle, he knows that this man is the man he needs. And as he is fed, and clothed, and made strong by resistance, he cries because he's alive and his angel, after all this time and what he's done still believes in him. He fights the Nazis for her and Paris. He fights and struggles. He holds England as he wails from the nightmares of his London Blitz.
England is unconquerable.
France is stepped on and crushed, but keeps on fighting.
Francis wonders which one of them is the stronger one.
England goes to Africa, while France stays at home to make the Nazis stay in his heart as unbearable as possible.
England sends a telegraph.
France STOP
I'm in Africa fighting the bloody Krauts STOP It's hot and I miss Europe STOP We're going to win Frog STOP Japan must've really pissed America off for him to join the war so suddenly and enthusiastically STOP
From, England
America is here to save the day, just like WWI. Only stepping in because his people are in danger, he fights viciously. The youth and enthusiasm of his people shock the Allies with energy, and they push, for the first time in, well, ever, the Germans back. They retreat and Rommel falls, and Romano happily surrenders as America charges Sicily. Italy is not so willing to leave his precious Germany, and Germany, who refuses to lose Italy, bombs his brother instead and protects Italy's boss carefully.
Romano, who didn't want war in the first place, limps past his wounds and coughs blood and creates his own resistance. It's Italian, but strong. Fierce. Unmoving and firm and passionate. They are victorious and hang Mussolini and surrender and cheer as war in their land ends, while Italy cries as Romano drags him from Germany's hands.
For the first time, people see why Romano was named Romano.
And for the first time, people wonder if Veneziano was really Rome's favorite child.
And soon it's time for what America so childishly calls 'Operation Overlord'. The barge into his home through Normandy, and so many die, but soon he is free. Paris is free.
He cries, and Jeanne cries with him. He wipes away her tears and she kisses his.
He kisses an illusion under the Eiffel Tower, and the illusion kisses him back but he doesn't care, because they're alone.
They're alone, and in love, and he's free and she wants him to live.
And that's all he really needs to keep this feeling of being alive.
Because that's what he's feeling as her nonexistent warm lips meet his own, and her hands run though his hair and his moans of pleasure hums through their fused mouths.
Alive.
Historical Notes:
Poland is taken over by Nazi Germany September 1, 1939. France and England declare war on Germany. 1940, France is captured. Between 1939-1942 Norway, Denmark, Lithuania, Estonia, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Latvia, Ukraine, Czechoslovakia, and Greece are seized by Nazi Germany (not in that order). America joins WWII after Pearl Harbor is bombed by the Japanese on December 7, 1941. France resistance begins in 1942. Italy surrenders around 1943 (I think) when the Allies invade through Sicily and capture Rome. Mussolini is overthrown, but is rescued by German forces. Germany bombs Naples in this weird "Italy is mine or no one's" train of thought. The people of Naples resist and kick German soldiers out. The Italian resistance starts up and 1944 (I think), they capture, kill, and hang Mussolini (and his followers/friends) from a public square and officially surrender. June 6 is the beginning of Operation Overlord (AKA D-Day). France is liberated August 25. WWII ends with Japan's surrender on September 2, 1945 (not in story).
The Warsaw Ghetto in Poland is where a lot of Polish Jews were forced to live before sent to the concentration camps. Jews in Nazi Germany had to sew yellow stars of David to their clothes so people would know they were Jewish. In the concentration camps, the Jews/homosexuals/disabled/mentally challenged/challengers of Nazi rule/Gypsies/those who didn't 'fit' Hitler's ideas of a "purified German society" were worked to death or gassed in gas chambers and cremated in giant ovens. Those who survived were so thin you could literally see every bone in their body. The Nazis had these really vicious dogs that they occasionally set on people in the camps. The dogs would kill them and eat them if the Nazis had starved them for a few days.
Jeanne D'Arc led France to victory during the Hundred Years War against England before the English burned her at the stake. She is a very important figure in France's history and culture, and was canonized as a saint around 30 years after her death when the unfairness of her trial was acknowledged. She is the patron saint of France.
Kraut- a offensive (nowadays at least) term for Germans used by the Allies during WWII
Language Guide- It shall be noted that I speak neither language whatsoever, and used online translators.
Solch hübsche Haar und Augen und enthäutet. Nett und blass. Der Führer wird so glücklich sein mit unserer Gefangennahme von Frankreich. - Such pretty hair and eyes and skin. Nice and pale. The Fuhrer will be so happy with our capture of France. (German)
Mon amour- My love (French)
Non- No (French)
Essen Sie- Eat (German)