Warning: Contains themes of cutting, suicidal thoughts, scenes of burning, and mentions of the Holocaust. If you are triggered by or sensitive to any of these, you deserve to know before you continue reading, if you decide to continue at all.
Title: Over the Rainbow - A Man's Journey to Happiness
Holy fuck. He was on fire. Fucking fire.
His skin burned and blistered as he screamed his damn throat raw. His clothes were burning. His mind was blurring. His heart was hurting.
"Burn the witch! Burn the witch! Burn the witch!" The deafening screams of the villagers bellowed in his ears as they tore his hearing apart and tore his mind apart and tore him apart, too.
"Satan! Satan! Satan! Burn the spawn of Satan!" Screams, screams, screams, they filled the air with words of poison and hate. The chanting grew louder, and meaner, and made him want to scream and shout that thou not the damn Devil, but burning a boy will get thou to hell in quick haste as well!
"DEVIL! DEVIL! DEVIL!" the villagers cried. They watched him burn at the stake. They watched him, a child, burn, his frail body helpless against the flames that licked his skin and his clothes and his hair and ripped through his very soul.
The fumes stank. They were intoxicating. The yells drowned him. He was drowning in shouts and hate and flames.
At the top of his lungs, Gilbert fucking screamed.
The shrill sound that escaped his mouth sounded beastly, almost otherworldly, for he was on fire yet could not die. Air escaped his lungs at an almost ungodly pace as his screams drained every breath within him. It hurt so much, but he couldn't escape. He couldn't die and escape.
He wanted to die. He wanted nothing more than to just die, so that it couldn't hurt anymore, and he could see Vati again, and then he wouldn't be alone anymore.
He was so confused. He'd been confused for centuries. Ever since Vati left the earth, for what seemed to be forever, everyone had been afraid of him, angry at him, hateful of him. They told him the poison that was the belief that he was the devil. They told him that he was the devil because of his white hair and red eyes, and for that, the red eyes and white hair that had once made him special, the same red eyes and white hair that Vati had once told him were a sign of great things and a great future and a great him, were now the very cause of his burning.
Gilbert wanted to die.
Unbeknownst to him, this wouldn't be the last time. By far, this wouldn't be the last time he wanted to die.
Throwing his head back in pain and wailing for as loud as his throat allowed, Gilbert screamed at the top of his lungs for them to stop, or for him to stop, or for it to just go away. Gilbert wormed violently against the chains that held him down, but nothing came of that. His wrists burned as the hot iron rubbed against him. His burning hair stank even more than the rest of him. He watched as the cross on his Tunic Knight uniform burned. Burn, burn, burn, burn! Fucking burning! On fucking fire!
The tears that ran down Gilbert's face boiled away just as quickly as they came down.
He was one of them! He was the Tunic Knights! He wasn't the devil, wasn't the devil, he said!
"I'M NOT THE DEVIL! I'M NOT THE DEVIL! I'M NOT THE DEVIL!" Gilbert wailed, over and over and over. He felt his shouts knock the air out of his lungs, knock the hell and heave and hull out of them. Gilbert desperately gasped for air, but he could only inhale the smoke and fumes and ash.
His shrill cries for it to end cut through the forest and shook the trees, and after reasoning, then begging, then angrily proclaiming, Gilbert was now screaming, screaming at the top of his lungs that he wasn't the son of Satin, that he wasn't the Devil, that he was just like everyone else.
"I AM HUMAN! I BURN, JUST LIKE YOU! STOP IT! STOP IT! STOP IT! I AM NOT THE DEVIL! I AM NOT THE DEVIL!" Despite his pleas, Gilbert was convinced that nothing but the flames could hear him.
"I AM NOT A WITCH! THY ARE CONFUSED! I AM NOT A WITCH! NOT A WITCH!" The screams fell on deaf ears.
"IT HURTS! IT HURTS! IT HURTS!" No one batted an eye. In everyone's mind, burning him at the stake wasn't wrong. They weren't going to hell for burning a child. Everyone thought that burning him, that burning Gilbert, was the righteous thing to do, that if they did, they could get into heaven and maybe even save Gilbert's soul, too.
His soul definitely did not feel saved. He felt like he was in hell before he even had the chance to die.
Vati would be so disappointed.
Gilbert wanted to die, but what he didn't know was that this wouldn't be the last time.
What he didn't know was that he'd spend centuries of his God-given life wanting to just end it all.
The moment Gilbert laid eyes on Hungary, he found himself enamored. Completely, irreversibly, undeniably enamored. Gilbert was fascinated, and star-struck, and the singing of his heart told him that maybe, possibly, probably, he was in love.
Hungary was gorgeous.
And tough as nails.
And so, so charming.
So, being the little boy that he was, it only made sense for Gilbert to torment the crap out of his crush.
Gilbert liked Hungary, but he'd never show it.
Gilbert teased Hungary, and fought with him, and at one point, Hungary even kicked Gilbert out of his house because the Prussian had tried to claim the territory that he was supposed to recover for Hungary.
Gilbert didn't mind, though. He didn't care what Hungary did to him; the song of his heart always guided him back.
Through the centuries, as either enemies or allies, friends or rivals, empires or subordinates, they would meet, again and again and again, and since no one objected, since no one questioned his feelings towards Hungary, Gilbert assumed that his preference for other boys was okay. Gilbert assumed that society accepted that he liked other boys, and with that his feelings grew and bloomed and blossomed into genuine and tender care for the other nation.
Gilbert thought, or rather knew, that liking guys was okay. No one objected, or burned him, or even spared a second glance, and as the years passed Gilbert and Hungary honestly couldn't help but run into each other, over and over and over.
He and Hungary spent so much of their younger years together, spent so much time fighting and bickering and laughing and scheming, that Gilbert honestly couldn't help but fall in love. Swinging swords, and swinging at each other, and generally being boys, Gilbert didn't suspect a thing about himself or Hungary. Everyone else just played along, with Gilbert all the while not questioning his gender preference at all.
And during those formative years, Gilbert could remember actually being happy. Despite him being a nation, Gilbert could confidently say that he didn't have a care in the world during that time.
. . .
He also had a hell of a time pissing Hungary off.
. . .
"Give that BACK, dammit!" Hungary demanded as he chased after Gilbert who, in his hands, was clutching Hungary's sword.
Gilbert laughed all the way through the woods, his form sprinting through trees as Hungary lagged behind due to Gilbert's head start.
Hungary's face was red with anger, and when Gilbert turned his head to see the tomato-faced boy chasing after him, he almost tripped as he began laughing his ass off.
"I'm warning you!" Hungary threatened. "I'll pummel you when I get my hands on that sword, got it?!"
Gilbert just cackled at the top of his lungs, and as he ran, the sound of his running and laughing and merriment echoed through the woods. He and Hungary were so loud, in fact, that they accidentally disturbed a flock of roosting birds, and when the startled birds flew in droves to get away from the running maniac and his pissed-off frenemy, the utter mayhem of the scene only exponentially grew.
Just for kicks and giggles, Gilbert pushed himself up a tree, and, with the sword he had stolen from Hungary, impulsively chopped the branch he had used to climb the tree so that Hungary couldn't get up.
"YOU PRICK!"
Gilbert could only laugh at the vein that was popping out from Hungary's forehead.
Hungary, on the other hand, was glaring daggers, an expression that honestly scared Gilbert, but he did what he usually did: put on a brave face and looked the big, scary, mean bear in the eyes.
"Nah, nah, nah-nah, nah! Can't reach it! Can't reach it!" Gilbert teased. His subsequent laugh spooked even more birds, and as the birds swarmed around him and Hungary and the tree, Hungary was still trying desperately to climb the trunk.
"You can't reach me! You can't reach me!" Gilbert screamed over the shrill cries of the birds.
"You DEVIL!" Hungary spat.
Gilbert was just about to bite back with a witty, awesome remark, but suddenly, he froze into place when he realized what Hungary had said.
DEVIL.
His joints stiffened, and his hands went numb, and his fingers dropped the sword, which landed onto the grass below with a muffled drop.
DEVIL.
"Hey! careful! That damn sword could've hit me!" Hungary looked at Gilbert, eyes narrowing with both flourish and annoyance.
DEVIL.
Gilbert couldn't move. He couldn't speak. He could barely breathe.
At that moment the world stopped spinning, while at the same time Gilbert's head twirled, violently, at warp speed. Gilbert leaned against the trunk, and in all honesty he had no idea how in hell he was able to keep his balance, but Gilbert stood there, the memories of the flames eating him alive crashing down onto him like a house.
"Gilbert?" was the last thing he heard Hungary say, the last he'd heard at all, before things went blurry. Not black, just blurry. He didn't pass out; things were simply so hazy that Gilbert was so certain and sure that something had taken his soul.
The bleeding silence continued for a while, a while far too long for comfort, and suddenly the world began to spin again, and the birds were loud again, and somehow the height seemed scarier when he looked down.
Then, Gilbert did something he hadn't done since he'd burned at the stake. It'd been decades, perhaps a century or two. He hadn't done it in so long that now tears felt like fire and gunpowder and poison and arsenic on his face.
So strange, how very peculiar it was, that he had started crying.
He really, truly, uncontrollably, started bawling his eyes out like the child that he was, and such cries reminded him that he was only such, that he was only a child.
Gilbert brought his hands to his eyes, sat down on the tree branch, and tucked his head into his knees. He felt hot and light-headed, almost as if the world was about to end, and from the loud, monstrous, animalistic screams and sobs that escaped his mouth, it really, truly, absolutely felt like, and sounded like, the world was actually ending right before Gilbert's eyes.
He was trembling with his own sobs. His face was wet and salty with tears. His head pounded and ached, and he heard his teeth chatter under the chilly morning air, and really, he kind of felt like he'd just drop dead at the rush of anxiety.
How long he was there for, crying, he didn't know. All he did know was that after both the longest and shortest time, he looked up, and he fucking screamed.
Gilbert's eyes widened, and then the pair of eyes in front of him widened, and with that, with him being so startled and being given such a fright, Gilbert let out a blood-curdling, spirit-shattering, forest-clattering wail, and he would've fallen out the tree and splat onto the ground if he hadn't been tugged on by the cape.
Hungary sat there, right in front of Gilbert, face obviously confused and unsure with an even greater dab of confusion.
"Prussia?" Hungary harshly shoved Gilbert back onto his place on the tree branch, and he leaned in so close that for the first time in his life Gilbert felt truly scared of another nation. Of course people scared him; they always did, with all that they were capable of doing to both him and each other, but Gilbert was so scared, so intimidated, so frightened of Hungary that he felt like a deer at a hunter's bow.
He didn't know so at the time, but this, by far, would not be the first time Gilbert would be scared of another nation.
"Here, here," Hungary said, gently, quietly, softly. Hungary's smile was soft. His hand over Gilbert's shoulder was delicate, almost fragile and dainty. It almost convinced Gilbert that Hungary was a girl - foreshadowing for later.
"Hmm?" Gilbert looked up weakly, and on Hungary's finger sat a small yellow bird.
"Look, the bird wants to make you feel better," Hungary told him. With more care than Gilbert had ever seen Hungary with, Hungary set the little bird onto Gilbert's shoulder. "He's scared. He got lost and frightened when all the other birds started flying away, so he just stayed," Hungary started. "See? It's okay to be scared sometimes. He's scared; you're scared; I'm scared for you. We can be scared together."
"I'm not the devil," Gilbert muttered under his breath, embarrassed that he had been crying in the first place.
"So that's what made you go off?" Hungary asked.
Gilbert looked at Hungary, expecting to see an expression of mocking. However, to his surprise, Gilbert only saw concern.
Gilbert nodded. "Can we . . . can we never talk about this, again?"
Hungary nodded, too.
"I think he likes you," Hungary told Gilbert at the sight of Gilbert there, getting all cozy and snuggle-happy against's Gilbert's cheek.
"Gilbird," Gilbert stammered.
"Pardon?"
"I think I'll call him Gilbird."
"That sounds good."
As promised, they never talked about this again. Also, Gilbert never figured out how Hungary got up that tree, nor could he ever figure out how Hungary got both of them down.
Funny, how getting him down from that tree would be so much easier than him coming down from depression.
"H-here," Gilbert stammered as he threw his jacket to Hungary. "You can have it."
Hungary was sitting, weak and battered from battle, underneath a tree, and "he" looked at Gilbert, confused.
With that, Gilbert walked away, himself being equally thoroughly confused, confused about himself and his feelings.
As Gilbert almost hesitantly stumbled away, he mentally slapped himself for offering Hungary his crotch cloth. How stupid, how very stupid he was to think that Hungary was a guy for all these damn years! Dammit! Stupid! Stupid! So fucking stupid! Gilbert was really, truly, irreversibly shell-shocked at the revelation, and even as Hungary called for him back, off Gilbert went. He wanted to run, but his legs had gone numb. His mind had gone numb. Everything was just numb.
Hungary, the boy he'd grown up and fallen in love with, was . . . a . . . girl.
A GIRL. GODDAMMIT.
Gilbert could feel his heart break at that.
So that was why. That was why no one tried to stop him, or burn him, or question him. That was why his feelings for Hungary were accepted within society. All the men before who had been accused of sodomy, all those men who had been whipped and punished and fucking executed, and to think that no one even tried to do that to Gilbert. All this time, all this damn time, Gilbert thought that people were scared to burn him because maybe he was the devil, or maybe it didn't matter because he was a country, or maybe the people he had encountered were unusually accepting, or maybe he was just lucky. But they knew; they knew that Hungary had been a girl this whole damn time.
Gilbert felt like he was at the end of a joke where only he wasn't laughing.
That day, Gilbert's heart broke, and it took centuries for it to be patched all up again.
Gilbert promised that he wasn't crying. The sky was just kind of moody today.
Heartbroken, confused about his feelings, and with self-loathing continuously boiling through him, Gilbert spent the next few centuries conquering. That was all he could do. He just declared war, conquered everything within sight, and formed fleeting, temporary alliances, for too tender was his heart to form a friendship, much less a romantic relationship, much less a romantic relationship with his preferred gender. So large was his aversion to love that avoiding marriage had became a full-time hobby.
Also was a problem that the more he grew, the more he found the world unfriendly towards the homosexual man, and as even more time passed, Gilbert couldn't help but feel alone. It almost felt as if every single person who had engaged in a homosexual act ever had been imprisoned, perhaps even executed, and Gilbert really, really, truly felt as if he was completely, terribly alone.
He felt as if he was the only person who felt this way, and it felt wrong. He felt wrong. And all the while, he had no idea, no idea at all what to call himself. He wasn't a woman, yet he couldn't just describe the act alone. Liking men was more of a feeling; it was more about who he was, who he is, than anything else, and no matter how hard he pushed or how hard he tried to fight it, he could seldom deny that he liked men.
For the longest time, he never did figure out what to call himself and his feelings, but regardless, he, no matter what, chose to keep these feelings under lock and key. Even as loneliness ate away at him, even as his feelings of self-hatred grew, even as he felt more and more as if he was the only homosexual to exist in this day and age, silent Gilbert remained about his feelings and fancies and desires.
Broken over Hungary his heart remained, no matter how much he tried to nurse it himself.
Gilbert had tried denial, and he'd tried to ignore his feelings, and he tried to shove them down, shove them deep, deep, deep, far, far, far down into his stomach, and he tried to leave them there, but no matter how hard and valiantly he tried, Gilbert couldn't help it. Every time an attractive man passed by, he would catch Gilbert's eye, and Gilbert's heart would beat and his head would spin and his feelings, and lust, crept up once again.
He never acted on his desires; he didn't allow himself to act on them. However, he felt that they were wrong, that they were sinful. For that, he hated himself. He hated that he desired men in the first place, and he wished, wished and prayed and begged to God with all his heart that these feelings of his could be cured.
The feelings never went away.
One day, though, one fateful, terrible, mind-blowing, fantastic, fate-changing, world-altering day, Gilbert discovered something he was sure that he wasn't supposed to discover. So dark was the discovery, so dark was the part of himself that wanted to do this to himself, and so dark was his state of well-being that he honestly couldn't resist the temptation.
On that one, fateful, destiny-altering, mind-bending day, Gilbert accidentally nicked himself on his sword. It was just a small scratch, really, and it sat there innocently enough. The small, tiny, little, insignificant cut sat there, staring all beady-eyed at Gilbert, and just as Gilbert was about to simply wipe the blood off, the thought struck him.
1.
He pressed his finger against the blade of the sword, and another nick on his finger.
2.
His homosexual thoughts entered his mind, and he cut himself, again. The thoughts came back, but every time they came back he would nick his finger on his sword. He felt release, and after the release came a high. There was a buzz in his mind, and he couldn't stop.
3, 4, 5, 6.
Gilbert was floating, floating up higher than he'd ever been before.
It wasn't a big deal, he told himself! He would only scratch himself if his homosexual thoughts came to him, and maybe, with enough discipline, he could be cured of such thoughts and desires. Or at least that was the justification he used for harming himself.
However, the small habit, the small scratch of nicking himself whenever his homosexual thoughts came to him, would spiral. Down, down, down he'd go, for as the hatred he had for himself, the hatred of himself that greatly exceeded any hatred he could ever hope to conjure up for anyone else, grew, so did the red lines on his wrists.
Gilbert could truly say that he wanted to die.
"And who may you be?" Gilbert asked.
It was cold that day, and snowy, and dawning his cape and feathered hat, Gilbert had been wandering through the snow. Then, he found him. He found a small, fragile country with blonde hair and expressionless blue eyes, just there, standing in the cold, with little more than a wool shirt, a pair of trousers, and suspenders.
The little nation turned to him, and he simply, curtly, stoically said, "Germany."
Silence.
Gilbert reached his hand out, out to Germany's small one, and Germany gently took it into his own.
Germany looked up, and all Gilbert could feel was paternal and brotherly love.
Gilbert smiled, hoisting Germany onto his shoulder and proclaiming, "Well, if you're Germany, then you can call me big brother!"
Germany nodded. Gilbert felt a little less lonely now. Gilbert could sure as hell tell that Germany was headed for great, big, powerful things, and Gilbert would be there every step of the way.
"You feeling scared, little one?" Gilbert questioned as, with Germany hoisted on his shoulders, he trekked through deep and plentiful snow.
Germany didn't say anything, but Gilbert could feel him shake. As they journeyed through the snowfall, one thought more than any other dominated Gilbert's mind.
Holy Rome.
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, FUCK!
Everything was happening so quickly, so damn quickly and speedily and suddenly!
What made the Great War happen? Why was everyone fighting each other? Then Gilbert watched in horror as his beloved brother Germany lost territory and strength and spirit, and he felt the restlessness of the world grow by the day, no, the minute.
Then the depression hit, and suddenly no one had anything, and people were burning money and using it as fucking wallpaper, and all the countries were sick and unwell, and the Prussian Empire was no more, and Gilbert felt empty, so damn empty, just like before
Well, he'd always felt empty, but empire building, and conquering, and Germany, made it a little less, made all the pain he felt a little more bearable.
And World War II, FUCK. They destroyed everything, fucking EVERYTHING.
Gilbert's head was spinning once more, and suddenly the Holocaust happened. Gilbert could hear his heart clench, his stomach churn, his head spin. What the hell was happening with his little brother? What the hell was happening in Germany?
People died, so many damn people! The Jews and Gypsies and Slavs and homosexuals. If Gilbert thought that all of the homosexuals were gone before, now he really knew what it felt like to be alone.
17 million.
17 million innocent people died. They weren't soldiers, or kings, or queens, or anyone who had any business being in war. Just regular people who died because someone said so. They didn't deserve to die. That was 17 million people, maybe even more, people who didn't deserve to die, dammit!
Gilbert couldn't stop it; he couldn't fucking stop it!
He felt horrible, like a monster, and he saw the country he had once loved become a monster. How monstrous, how horrifying, how gruesome it was to witness all the horror and death and dead bodies just laying there. The dead people who'd had so much to live for, gone, just like that, 17 million people. They were people. They were humans beings who didn't deserve to die, and Gilbert couldn't do a damn thing about it.
And then The Soviet Union came, and Gilbert suddenly found himself under the control of Russia.
He was without his brother, with a metaphorical iron curtain and a literal wall separating Europe, separating Gilbert from everything had ever cared about. Everything he'd ever loved, ripped away from him just like that, and on top of millions upon millions of dead bodies.
Gilbert couldn't stand all this fucking death.
Yes, humans indeed scared Gilbert to the very core; however, they scared him not with what they were capable of doing to him, but with what they could do to each other.
Gilbert opened his mouth and fucking screamed at the top of his lungs.
Just make it stop.
Gilbert, very much so, wanted to die.
Gilbert found Russia absolutely, positively, horribly horrifying.
Under the USSR, Gilbert saw even more people die. Even more lives gone to waste. And Russia was cruel, childishly cruel, as if he didn't know what right and wrong even meant.
The way he hurt his subordinates, and the way millions of people died, and then the Chernobyl disaster, even more lives gone to waste! When will it stop! Make it stop! Just make it stop! So much death! So much death everywhere he turned!
Gilbert wanted to die. He wanted nothing more that to just die already! Maybe it'd make up for all those who'd died before him, but not really. Gilbert just felt like he deserved to die somehow, and then he'd rot in hell, because he hadn't been able to stop the Holocaust, or the millions of deaths because of USSR policy, and probably because after all of that, after all he'd been through, Gilbert was still a homosexual through and through.
He still liked men, and he couldn't even fathom kissing woman.
The way the Soviet Union treated homosexual people, people like Gilbert, horrified Gilbert's very soul, but he'd be damned because he couldn't do a single fucking thing about it.
Gilbert really, really did hate himself.
And now he was here, in a bathtub sobbing his eyes out.
He felt so alone.
The self harm in which he had previously only occasionally partaken in, and usually only to curb his homosexual thoughts, had morphed into marathon sessions of razor-blading.
Gilbert would sit in the bathtub for hours on end, just cutting his pale skin with a razor-blade. It was never enough. He could never cut himself enough. People died. People died because he hadn't been able to do anything. He felt a sense of duty, almost atonement, to do something, anything about it.
3,456.
3,457.
3,458.
3,459 times he'd nicked himself.
But it wasn't enough. It was never enough.
17 million people had died in the Holocaust, and Gilbert wouldn't stop; he told himself that he'd never stop, not until all 17 million of those lives had been accounted for.
Gilbert felt guilty, guilty as hell, for just letting all those people die.
3,460.
3,461.
3,462.
3,463 times he'd nicked himself. 3,463 reasons he loathed himself. 3,463 prayers to God that his homosexuality would just go away. 3,463 moments when he wanted nothing more than to just drop dead.
November 9, 1991.
The Berlin Wall was smashed, and crumbled, and denounced so that all on both sides could reunite.
Gilbert stood, desperately scanning the crowd for any sign of West. Gilbert leaped over people and climbed on top of ruble and took his part too in tearing down this fucking wall. His heart was going at an ungodly pace. His hands were trembling with sweat because it'd been so long since he'd seen his brother in person. So long, in fact, that he'd almost forgotten what West looked like. Almost.
"GILBERT! GILBERT! I'M RIGHT HERE!"
Gilbert looked up, and there Germany was, standing there. Gilbert could see as clearly as day Germany standing over the edge of the Berlin Wall, waving his arms like a madman.
Gilbert started crying, fucking crying out of sheer joy.
He ran, ran faster than he'd ever in his life. He ran with more passion and gusto and determination than he thought he'd ever be capable of. Gilbert ran frantically to West. His arms were outstretched as for the first time in almost a hundred years, joy gushed through him. Gilbert was bleeding pure and utter joy.
Run, run, run, and suddenly, Gilbert was throwing himself into a hug with Germany.
Gilbert looked up; Germany was sobbing.
Amidst all the cheers, amidst all the happiness and reunions and chaos and noise and smashing and crashing and unrestrained human nature, Gilbert hugged West so tightly that he was surprised that he hadn't broken his brother's ribs.
It was cold, and loud, and there was rubble and stone and bits and bobs and blocks of Berlin Wall everywhere the eye could possibly hope to see, but West was there, in Gilbert's tight embrace.
"I missed you," was all Gilbert could say, all he could do, after so damn long.
"I missed you, too."
Gilbert wasn't afraid to admit that that day, he spent the entire rest of the night sobbing as he held his brother tight.
Gilbert's persistent bouts of sadness were in full swing. He didn't know why, but he couldn't help but feel so, so, so sad all the fucking time.
6,794.
6,795.
6,796.
Gilbert sat in the bathtub once again, this time at his brother's house rather than Russia's, but it was all the same. Gilbert still possessed the unstoppable habit and desire to just hurt himself.
6,797.
6,798.
6,799.
6,800.
The pain sent him up to Jupiter. He was so high off of pain.
He knew that somehow, he deserved it anyway.
Gilbert still fancied men.
After so long Gilbert thought that his desires would subside just a little, but they did not. He still craved the touch, the kisses, the love of another man. He couldn't get it to stop. His homosexual thoughts just wouldn't stop. And then all those people who died from the Holocaust, people who Gilbert hadn't been able to save. And all those people who'd died while he just helplessly watched during his time under the USSR.
It was his fault, all his fault because he couldn't stop it. They'd all died because Gilbert was so fucking useless! So fucking useless because he couldn't stop it!
Gilbert wanted to keep cutting. He wanted to keep cutting for eternity, until he had accounted for all that damn death and until he could be free of his homosexual desires.
Every night Gilbert would pray, pray to God, pray to the moon, pray to Vati, that one day, he'd wake up, and he'd want to date a woman instead of a man. And every morning he'd wake up, still wanting so badly the same gender. He wanted it so badly that it hurt.
6,801.
Gilbert wanted to die.
Okay, so that's it for chapter one! Fear not, though, for I plan to have chapter two posted very soon. I was originally planning to just make this a one-chapter thing, but it got so long that I decided to split it into two parts. I have another one-chapter story which is over twice as long as this one, but I NEVER WANT TO WRITE A 14,000+ ONE-CHAPTER STORY EVER AGAIN, so you're stuck waiting for chapter deux.
I hope that you enjoyed this angst-fest, please review, favorite, and follow if you like this story because it lets me know that people are actually reading and interested, and other than that, I wish you a happy, turtle-filled existence. :)
(Because turtles are the best!)