Leaving Heaven

So I know I'm on a sort-of-hiatus thing! This little smudge of a one-shot just wanted to be written, so don't blame me.

This one-shot is mainly based off the 'Lithuania's Out-Sourcing' strips – by the awesomeness that is Hidekaz Himaruya, obviously – so… some references will make more sense if you've read them or go re-read them to refresh your memory.

Lithuania was hiding.

He was not proud of himself for it. He was, for better or worse, nine-hundred and twenty years of age – a warrior, a former empire, a nation.

And yet, here he was again, trying to stay out of sight as the house was torn to pieces by his rampaging 'boss' (but not, perhaps, the one you'd expect). Sounds of ripping and crunching and cracking were integrated with furious yells and the odd pained scream every now and again.
"IF I CAN'T HAVE IT, NOBODY ELSE CAN!"

Alfred had always been a child who mindlessly discarded his toys, but now they were being taken away by force he fought and struggled, punching mirrors just to see his own reflection shatter, then grasping onto items in an erratic fervour. Scraps of a comfort blanket he hadn't touched since his colony days; toy soldiers; a chess set with three pawns missing (two white, one black). Worthless, meaningful items he protected by cramming them into the small suitcase the government gave him.

The costly worthless things, he broke.

He snapped the legs from chairs, tore carpets, burnt curtains. His ornate piano, the envy of even Austria, was overturned with a juddering thump.
He never could play it anyhow.
"NOBODY TO BUY, IT'S JUST JUNK!"

This is destroying him, and so he must destroy.
He's… exactly the same as Russia, in that way.
How did I never notice it before?

If he's honest with himself, Toris does know why he failed to notice. It's because there's been no chance for that rage to be released: the last few years had been nothing but a party, nothing but good times, each day somehow even better and sunnier than the last. These were the days of sneaking moonshine-tinted kisses and stock exchange betting and the gold of the wheat, the gold of the plentiful. Europe, fleeing war, had settled here – Italy, Germany and Ireland all searching for somewhere to belong.

And he, Lithuania, who had become the closest to the world power.

Although the Eastern European citizens who'd come to the 'New World' were a larger proportion Polish than Lithuanian, he felt he represented both groups here, personal anger at Feliks aside. And it had not all been summer days. Life as an immigrant was hardly easy, and times had been feeling more pressured as of late. But still, it was nearly heavenly: food on the table, steady jobs and – better still – steady pay, which was more than most of their people could dare to dream of right now in their original countries.
Anyway, America always plastered that crazy grin on his face, and reminded them that everything was all right, and it would keep going all right, because his boss had said so and your boss wouldn't lie…

Oh, how Lithuania wished he'd corrected that naivety. But he had been naïve, too.
I actually believed the good times would go on forever… as if food and work were any security… like I was some sort of child, too…

Alfred had spent the week writhing in a fever as shares plummeted; panicked, shortened breaths reflecting Lithuania's own – the brown-haired nation had looked after him as much as possible, but America's people were killing themselves in their hundreds, and it filled the heroic personification with an agony of useless despair. His head pounded with their misery, and when Lithuania brushed his sweat-dampened hair back, planting kisses on that damp brow, he only cried for 'Iggy'.

But when the crash finally slowed and prices trickled to a horribly low halt… when Alfred could stand, though shakily… the President had visited.
That evening, instead of the usual yearly Halloween party he'd planned, America had been forced to stage an emergency Meeting of the World to apologise for the financial crash.
And now… he had to move into something more modest, as the President had put it.
A kind way to say Alfred had lost everything, and was being thrown out of his own house.

The sounds of his fury eventually died away, and, with a final crunch of glass, stopped completely. Lithuania slipped out of the closet he'd been veiled in, and slowly took the stairs, barely daring to make a noise on each step.

"…Mr. America?"

Huddled in the centre of the kitchen floor amongst the wreckage, America did not look up.

"I'm not Mr. America anymore," he sniffed, his voice husky and stripped of its usual bravado.
"I'm nothing but an idiot."

"It's a terrible thing to happen, but it wasn't your fault, Alfred." Lithuania crouched beside his friend, and tentatively touched his shoulder. "No matter what they say, you're not the only one to blame."

"They despise me, Toris!" The tears were running freely down Alfred's cheeks now. "Even Italy despises me! I knew they didn't like me… I never cared too much, but… look what I've done to them all… They're sick, their people are starving… Your people are starving! M-my people are starving…"

"Don't be silly - my people were starving long before they came here! Coming here saved a lot of lives. I don't despise you, and never will."

"Even though you know how - how weak - and how - "

"Shush."

America realised something - "You could never despise anybody."

Lithuania did not know what to say to that almost-truth. So he wrapped his arms around the bespectacled nation, and rocked him until he stopped sobbing, and joked softly: "Prussia gets on my nerves."

The day after that, America sent them home.
Ireland, who said not a word to his 'nephew', but left with mutterings about famines upon famines upon famines; Italy, who just cried, and held Germany's hand as if it were a lifeline; and Germany himself, who could only think of his own upcoming misery – trapped in depression, yet again.

Lastly, Lithuania.

"You don't have to send me away." He had nearly thrown himself to his knees and begged to stay there, long after the others had turned their backs. "Those three… they have something to go back to. All I have is Poland stealing my land… And Mr. R-Russia – Russia's so strong now… and I left that all behind for a reason, Mr… Alfred! Please, p-please let me stay – I can help you!"
Ugh. I do despise somebody, Alfred, can't you see? I despise myself. I despise my weakness.
I despise how afraid I am of my own home.

America was still quiet. He hadn't talked since the previous night, when Lithuania had tended to his cuts and bruises and held him through the horrible dark as he had been doing for so long. He knew that if he spoke, his feigned composure might evaporate completely – he might grab Lithuania and bawl: "STAY! DON'T GO! I know I'm too weak to protect you anymore, but I can't be alone, don't go! I don't think I can't live without you now you've been here!"
At last, he understood Russia's obsession with the man. Lithuania was so wonderful because he cared. He cared so much about other people; he didn't want others to ever be in pain.

He was addictive. A drug of love and light.

But all of this was Alfred's fault.
So he must lose everything.
So he didn't raise his head in protest when he felt Russia's oppressive presence.

"Mr. America!" Toris tried one more desperate plead as Ivan's hands grabbed him, and oh no not again not again Alfred if you're the hero save me now…

"Please take care of him." America managed at last to Russia, in more of a squeaky growl than anything else. Ivan shrugged, smile bright with his victory; he had his Lithuania back, and he was more powerful than he had been in a long time.
Perhaps ever.
And they all knew it.

"Lithuania…" Finally, finally, America looked the brunet straight on. "Thanks for everything you did for me. You'll hang out again, right? When all this blows over?"

Betrayed, Toris said nothing. He barely listened Ivan's excited chatter, staring with his large, large eyes until the country that had taken him in for so long was out of sight; wishing for a place where naïve children could live.

A place where the good times lasted forever, and nobody had to leave their ever-imperfect Heaven.

~ Aged 920 – This story is set in 1929; Lithuania was founded in 1009CE (According to Google)

~ "Personal anger at Feliks"… "Poland stealing my land"… - Poland captured Vilnius, Lithuania's capital, in 1920. And refused to get out. Which was just rude.

~I prefer the perspective of England being a 'father figure' to America here, but interpret their relationship however you like, of course!

~Thanks also to CoffeeAndSunshine's fic Potato Friends, which made me think of Germany and Ireland being there. There was mass immigration from Italy, Ireland etc to America during the 1920s, as things were going so well there economically. I'm assuming most people know about the Wall Street Crash and Great Depression that followed it, when share prices (which had been climbing-climbing-climbing-climbing 'each day even better than the last'…) had to plummet.

~Ireland is not a stranger to famine.

~Many people lost a lot on the stock market, and there were suicides, and loss of life savings, and… *feels sorry for America*

Goodbye for now~!