It's a shame that my first Hetalia fanfiction in four years has to be a coping mechanism from being completely disillusioned with my country but... well, that's pretty much what this is.
Surprise, surprise it's about the referendum and it's way too personal. If that makes you uncomfortable then don't even attempt to read it.
Warning: Alcohol abuse, smoking, self-harming thoughts, overwhelming sadness
Disclaimer: I do not own nor claim to own Axis Powers: Hetalia or any characters and places associated with Hidekazu Himaruya and Gentosha Comics. No profit is made from the writing for this fanfiction!
There would always be conflict buzzing in his head. All nations had it. He had learnt how to deal with it like they all did; most of the time it was simply an easily ignorable hum somewhere in the back of his head that he forgot to be irritated by.
He'd walked down to a corner shop because he thought the air away from the hotel would be quieter –clearer. He had been wrong.
Milk, he had thought. A bottle of fresh milk instead of the rubbish that UHT stuff hotels always gave out. Because tea might not have been able to take it away but it could calm him down enough to fall into sleep.
"How about that referendum, ay?"
He left with a packed of Richmond and a bottle of store-band Whiskey. 70cl.
The bottle was mostly empty by the time he got back, and a pack's worth of burnt out cigarette butts on the pavement like a grim Hansel and Gretel trail. It wasn't that Arthur didn't think he could wait until he got back to his room – it's that he simply didn't want to. If the buzzing hadn't been load enough to deafen the talk of it from every person he passed then he would have driven something spikey through his ears to do the job himself.
It was everywhere. Painfully domineering. He was choking on in, drowning and his nation was watching in morbid excitement… well, those that weren't stamping on his head to keep him down were.
He would cry – he wanted to, to purge himself of that weighty press of sadness if nothing else, but the horrible middle ground between distraught and numb had frozen the tears in their tracks. An uncomfortable pressure on his sinuses was all he was afforded; his eyes felt hold and swollen along with his nose and his throat, raw, and completely dry no matter how much of the Whiskey he put back. Rightly so, he told himself. He cursed it all the same.
The voices, the sobs of fear and anguish, the shouts of protest and anger mixed with the already load ones of the bar calling him, taunting him… he didn't know. There was too much of it to hear. He couldn't hear.
He dunked his head down and moved quickly, hand clutching on the bottle so tight he almost prayed it would shatter.
That had been half-an-hour ago. Not that he could tell. Little had managed to find a stable place in his mind. He hopped between blinding awareness and almost unconsciousness, and having found himself a patch of wall unobstructed by furniture he slid down it.
"Arthur?" Antonio was crouched in front of him before he registered the door open. A hand was on his shoulder before he heard the door shut.
Antonio had seen him at the bar. He had been the only one of his company to keep his mouth closed. He didn't believe for one moment that the others meant harm. All of the emotions of their people were high in one way or another. He could have guaranteed that they meant the words to come out kindly when they came out bitterly.
Count to sixty and dismiss yourself, he had said. But stood up within ten and left leaving his share of the tab on the table and the obnoxious, drunk comments somewhere behind him.
Arthur must not have responded. He thought that he had but his limbs hadn't moved in accordance with his thoughts. The others hand was cupping the side of his head, rolling his face towards the lamp light he had bowed it from. A sequence of taps came on his cheeks before he found the strength to open his eyes. "Come on Arthur."
Antonio was the image of complete concern; no underlying hope or happiness, a look foreign to his face.
The bottle slipped out of his hand, so he had thought. He hadn't noticed Antonio pull it out of his weakening grip and place if off somewhere beyond his reach. With arms hooked under his Antonio pulled the Briton up enough for him to stand, balanced with forehead on Antonio's shoulder.
Much to Antonio's surprise, Arthur didn't weaken and slump. Even more to his surprise he didn't spring to life and strike him. He clung back.
"It's worse." Arthur's mumble had been barely recognisable, it took his a few moments to realise he was still speaking in English. The other lifted his head enough to expose his face from the other.
The tears that had failed him for the past weeks had finally found some grip. Only a few… enough to make his under eyes damp but nothing more. It could have been pain.
And Antonio couldn't see it.
Antonio's hand slid back into his hair gently, pulling his head back to his shoulder in a way that would have made their past selves cringe – but they were not their past selves and Antonio felt Arthur's fists ball all the harder into the back of his shirt.
His head rolled on his shoulder. Somewhere beneath him his feet were moving, guided by Antonio's small and gentle actions. Without consciousness he knew he could follow those movements.
He did not see the room then, or hear the angry, hurt voices of millions of his people. He saw them, how they been back then – how he wanted things to be again so badly. He saw the brightness of the room and the crispness of colours. He felt the warmth coming from the other's smile and the strength in the softness of his touch on his arms.
"We don't hate you…" the other muttered against the top of his head.
"I do."
It was only then did he notice they were dancing. Right there and then, not just somewhere in his memories where the buzzing couldn't reach. Their lazy steps, barely lifting from the floor, moved seconds apart and therapeutically so.
Antonio's lips trailed up the side of his head and he pressed them hard into his hair. "Don't."
Thing will be alright. They have to be x