Disclaimer: I don't own Hetalia and I never will.
The River
"Those things which are precious are saved only by sacrifice."
- David Kenyon Webster
Roderich is many things – rational, even, grounded – but it cannot be said he is an unmerciful soul.
True, he does not know why people require a God to believe in life or embrace faith, or why earthquakes must too shatter the sky. People are illogical like that; they allow sorrow to touch where it should not, not remembering that the trembling earth is not the cause of the broken sky.
He has faded into insignificance. The Great War shamed him; the war that trembled in its wake destroyed him. He has followed his cousin's footsteps, but he is but a shadow of what he once was.
He has grown earthly. He allows tears upon his shoulder and hands upon his body. He does not cry when he wakes to find himself vulnerably bare in another's bed; he gathers himself and leaves, only to find himself in another bed the day after.
Or perhaps it is the same bed. He forgets these things.
It is not a gesture of submission. It is a gesture of compassion, of mercy. He does not care much for physical affection; he grew out of that when he shed the skin of his innocence. He spends his days comforting the lost - him, and others like him, with faces and stories too much like the others': blank faces who are only visible because of the blood splashed upon their skin, which is otherwise charred with the taint of lost glory.
His body is not much. Try as he might, he always knows that the taint is there, in his pale limbs and in the cast of his angel's face. He has no qualms tossing his worthless, defiled body from bed to bed, because after all, he is in Hell already; his body is the least he can offer.
And, as he learns, it is also not the most he can, and will, offer.
Elizaveta's call comes as a surprise to him. It comes out of the blue, but he knows who it is because there were three calls before it and only Elizaveta does not know of the disrepair he has fallen into.
He picks up on the fourth ring of the fourth call. He does not remember much of what she says; he has ears only for the broken sound under it. Hidden beneath the sorrow of rejecting Gilbert and Feliciano, her 'brother,' finding someone, is a sob she did not sob when they divorced in coldness.
The divorce only confirmed their gradual split. They floated away on clouds of their own ambition, dreaming of separate heavens, full of different fires and different furies. The passion had gone from their eyes and their marriage peeled away to the rotting tie between their souls. It did not hurt to sever that; they gasped as they came spinning free, dizzy with euphoria.
Their clouds come racing back when she opens her door and the loss slams into him full force. She flinches and he finds that the air he is struggling to push out of his lungs has gone dry.
It is not because Elizaveta is pretty. No, Elizaveta was never pretty, not really, and she still isn't pretty. Her eyes are mismatched, the left bulging more than the right, and she holds herself awkwardly, gracelessly, with hair coloured a shade that draws attention to how sickly her skin is. She will never be pretty, but there's a shimmering cast to her eyes like the light of a burning forest that, at first glance, feels like beauty.
She appraises him in turn with eyes too unskilled to be subtle. He is aware of his own flaws, but they do not mark him; he is fluid, moves in ways that transcends physical flaw. She blushes at the fiery feeling of his eyes brushing against her skin and that is how he knows that she feels the presence in his eyes.
"Elizaveta," he says cordially, stepping inside past the dumbfounded girl. "Where's Feliciano?"
"He's out." He's been out, her voice implies, and maybe he shouldn't come back. Roderich nods curtly, casts a wary eye over the living room.
"Do you have any tea?" he murmurs, filling the silence with the etiquette she forgets.
"Oh, ah, yes…" Her cheeks are redder and she wanders off into the kitchen. "Make yourself at home."
Roderich sits on the edge of the seat closest to the door. Elizaveta comes wandering back and frowns at him. "At the coffee table, stupid."
She pats the spot next to her forcefully, and he is forced to kneel beside her on the cold wooden floor.
They drown in the veritable discomfort and the tea, which chills faster than it should.
"I'm lost," Elizaveta confesses finally, face tilted up into the teacup to sip at the milky dregs of her cup, and they might not have spoken in a long time but Roderich knows how to read people and she is avoiding his eyes, the place in which all judgment makes itself known.
"Yes. I know." There's a curious coldness in his voice, like cold tea, that she might find warmth if only she knew how to look for it.
But she flinches; she doesn't. And, truthfully, there is none.
She stares at him blankly, hunting out the words dancing forever on the tip of her tongue. They are clumped tight, bound with the truth; they will come free if only she will acknowledge the enigma that sits before her, sipping frost from her favourite teacup.
But she doesn't. And Roderich knows why; because it hurts her, that she might not understand him – once the only constant in her life – as well as she used to (used to believe she could) and he remembers the past that stretched its hands to have him here today.
The sun was too bright to be a colour that day, beating down on them with the wrath of summer, and they lay panting on the wooden bridge that arched above the cool river, swathed in sweat and innocence. She had scrabbled up on her knees to poke him with a chubby finger, and laughing with the pain of heat, they fitted their legs through the gaps in the railing to feel the spray of the river on their bare feet. She bemoaned the heat and he let her; she dreamt of falling into the river, into relief, and he spoke in a soft murmur like the muted roar of the ocean, with salty foam gilding the edge of his tongue, and she cried out at the images he offered.
So many years later, they sit again on the riparian. It is a different river, a different bridge; the river has since reversed its currents and she could slip so easily through the now too wide bars. And she probably will, he knows; she is looking to have ice on her skin again and he is tempting her again.
Tears are leaking down her face.
"You didn't deny it."
"I didn't," he confirms, and draws her neck to his with a half-hearted hug, looking past her shoulder, praying for courage.
She is limp against him and the crook of his neck is wet. He glances at her and goes back to staring into the wide beyond blocked only by her, too grown to be surprised.
"Roderich, for the love of God, help me..." Her plea chews through his skin and her lips gnaw against the bone. He can hear the words she dares not say: Love me.
It is not pity he feels and it is not love he will give her. What is about to happen makes slime crawl over his skin and something slosh in his stomach, but it must happen, because such is the way of the river spirit.
He does not want her. He does not need her. She is one of many, and he will flow on forever.
But she means something. She is the youth he lost and he will give his life defending it.
He kisses her. It is a cold kiss, with no feeling in it, but her eyes close in bliss as he moves his lips against hers in the mockery of water.
"God, I love you," Elizaveta breathes. "I've always loved you."
Shame blossoms in his heart. His breath steals away. He wonders how long it will take for the sludge to contaminate the rest of him.
"I know," Roderich responds, and tightens the noose: "Me too."
He wants to make this easy. He wants to promise her his mind, soul, body, heart but the miasma is already spreading through his blood.
She beams at him and presses up against him in a hug, but all he can feel is her weight resting on his conscience, floating as he carries her further and further away.
Author's Note: I don't know what inspired this, really. I don't usually write het and I'm ambivalent on Elizaveta; I am faintly fond of her at best. But this was begging to be written.
As always, thoughts are appreciated.
Danke!
loveliness decays