Here we are with panther one of what I call my "2 AM circular drabbles," because, well, they are drabble-y, begin and end in the same place (sort of like what I did with Pamiętam) and I do them at 2 AM, ish.

Anyway! This fic is dedicated to two people: my Beta Becca, who is an awesome person and a great friend. Our conversations and your things are what inspire me to keep writing Feliks and the Baltics. But also, it's dedicated to Kitty, who's been one of my best Internet friends for… almost a year now. It's been a blessing having you to talk to (and, you know, crash the set of Hetalia with… don't ask) :) And happy (very) belated birthday!

Do you know what Satan is? Because I do. It calls itself "Stockholm Syndrome."

Four totally innocent syllables. Nothing more, nothing less. For most people, it probably simply brings to mind Sweden and Stockholm. Which is a beautiful city in my personal opinion. I have nothing against Stockholm… or Sweden, for that matter.

But to me… Stockholm Syndrome means Hell.

Merriam-Webster's Dictionary defines Stockholm Syndrome as "the psychological tendency of a hostage to bond with, identify with, or sympathize with his or her captor." It then goes on to briefly describe the circumstances thanks to which it is so innocuously named.

But it is so much more than that. You can't just read about it. You have to see it happen. Feel it happen. I've witnessed it happen. With Liet and the others.

I, like, never knew what was happening to them, okay? I wasn't even allowed to them, not to mention talking or interacting with them. I was, like, vaguely aware of what was going on, and that was it. I never knew the true extent of what was going on until so much later.

It was, like, a total accident, really. I never would have found out otherwise. Me and Liet were fooling around one July, and I surprised him with an attack using a water hose. All in good fun. No harm meant. Heck, I was totally about to hose myself next.

But I knew something was very wrong when he shrieked and backpedaled, shouting something that vaguely resembled an apology in my direction before he realized it was me. Once he did, he broke down into tears, whispering something in his native language.

I am, gently speaking, far from fluent in Lithuanian, but I managed to catch: "Tai jūs. Tai tik jūs."

"It's you. It's only you."

I had no idea what had just gone down, but that phrase made my heart stop. What did he, like, mean, it was "only me"?

Who else could it have been?

It took a long time to coax the answers out of him. It, like, felt like I was trying to interrogate him without his realizing it, which felt really guilty. But eventually, he broke down and told me everything. What that dog Ivan had done to him. To all of them, yes, but he had always offered to take their punishments onto himself.

I had totally never known that side of him. The protective side. I don't know whether or not it had been because of the fact that he was the oldest, or because he and I had stood up to him before, but he seemed to have a whole different aspect to his personality that I never would have known about.

But what he had been through surpassed my wildest imaginations. It made my time in Germany seem like nothing. I had been beaten, yes. Beaten a lot of times. I had been whipped, even, if Belschmidt (whether Junior or Senior) was in a bad mood. Hell, my people had been killed off simply because they were Polish, and… since I am, like, the embodiment of the Polish nation, many of them tend to have an attitude similar to mine. I don't know whether to be proud or worried… but I usually settle for a combination of the two. I do worry once in a while, you know.

I had later found out that Hitler had considered us to be the most intelligent people he had ever attempted to eradicate.

But as badly as I had been physically mistreated, it… it felt like I had no reason to open my mouth at all.

What really triggered my gag reflex, though, weren't the countless criss-crossing scars from whippings, or perhaps knife slashings, or fits of meaningless aggression. It was one particular set, right in the middle of his chest. It read, yes, read, in clear and legible Russian: "Cобственность"

Sobstwennost. Which, loosely translated, means property.

And below it, a much newer set, a set that was bright red and seemed not to be healed over yet: "Еще"

Ieshche.

Still.

I admit, I, like, totally lost it at that point. I began screaming and shaking him by the shoulders, demanding to know when this had happened.

He admitted that it was recent. Very recent.

I thought I was going to have a heart attack. Not only was Ivan still hurting Liet, he had done it on MY watch. I was seriously planning to murder him alive. Homicidal thoughts were whirling through my mind when I simply got up and walked away. I don't know what would have happened had Liet not stopped me. I wasn't in control of my own actions.

But Liet stopped me. He stepped in front of me and physically held me back. And he defended him.

He defended IVAN.

He begged me to stop, to look, to see where he was coming from. That he had had a hard childhood. A ridiculously hard childhood. No friends, and leaders who wanted to kill each other and then him. He told me to pity him because he was insane.

I could have slapped him. I was tempted to. I briefly wondered if he was, like, joking but then I thought: Liet? About something like this?

Had it been me on his place, being tortured… I wouldn't have hesitated. That was the point when I stopped knowing what was happening. When he began to beg for me to have mercy on the monster who had made my life miserable since I was born. And the one who had made his, along with those of two others, intolerable.

Stockholm Syndrome. Is that what that means? Is that how far it can get?

Not quite.

I left that evening. I decided to give Liet a break and, like, go shopping myself. It's not like I can cook, but I wanted to give him at least a little break. It was totally the least I could do.

I don't feel like it took me especially long. I was gone maybe an hour and a half. I didn't hurry because I totally expected Liet to be asleep when I got home anyway.

When I got home, my first sign that something was wrong was that all the lights were turned on. Liet never would have done that. Especially not if he was asleep.

What made my blood run cold were the tire tracks in the driveway. Long, black tire tracks. As if somebody driving a large vehicle had taken off quickly.

It made me incredibly glad that I hadn't removed the gun from the secret compartment of my car like Liet had tried to tell me to when I pushed the unlocked front door open, weapon in hand. In retrospect, had I had either the posture or the strength to do such, I would probably have kicked it open, commando-style. But as I do not, and am 165 centimeters tall, I settled for slamming it open with my arm.

Empty. The house was completely empty. Not a person to be seen. But that wasn't shocked me the most.

The entire living room was totally trashed. And when I say trashed, I mean TRASHED. I mean that all the furniture had been shoved against the walls roughly, and there wasn't a single item that wasn't overturned and/or smashed.

Being, okay, let's be honest here, a relatively small country with relatively powerful neighbors (there! I said it! Get off my case), my first thoughts were either "invasion" or "hostile army."

Okay, actually, my first thought was "No… not AGAIN!" But those two were close seconds.

Calling Liet's name, I recklessly dashed into the house, doing a quick eyeball of each room. Every place he wasn't just gave me more and more reason to fear the worst…

You can imagine my relief when I finally got a glimpse of his figure when I stormed the bathroom. At first glance, at least.

It took me a long time to process what I was seeing. Liet was crumpled against the wall, cradling a purple and swollen arm bent at an odd angle. There was a large, bleeding gash down the left side of his face, starting by his ear and ending at the base of his chin. He had torn off his shirt and tossed it in a corner. From what I could see, it was pretty bloodsoaked.

His head snapped up when he saw me enter, and I could, like, see him scramble to cover up how hurt he was. But he could barely move a muscle without aggravating his arm, and it showed on his face. Not to mention, like, how dizzy he had to be from losing so much blood, whether from the wound on his head which still trickled or… otherwise.

And the worst part is, he refused to accept my help. He refused to allow me within a meter of him.

But I, like, couldn't stand back when he was in this state. He was only semi-conscious, and I easily overpowered him despite his height advantage over me.

Truth be told… despite what I let everyone believe, I had always been able to overpower him in a fair fight. Actually, I am quite a bit stronger than I look.

But that day, I could pretty easily force him to let me help him. I cleaned and bandaged his face, trying my best not to touch the bruising around it. It brought back some very vivid memories of maybe five hundred years ago, when a completely reversed situation would have been totally commonplace. Let's just say… I picked a lot of fights. And I never knew when I was licked. So Liet was left to pick up the pieces.

I mentioned this out loud, hoping to get at least, like, a small smile from my ever-serious friend and ally. But he didn't even seem to hear me. He was focusing on hugging his (also bleeding heavily) chest with his good and bad arm.

When I was done with his other injuries, the ones that didn't include his arm or chest, I pretty much forced him into allowing me to set his bad arm. Okay, so maybe I'll never be the world's most gentle nurse, but it kept Liet alive for the time being and that was what counted. The limb wasn't broken, only badly dislocated (to my not-especially-expert eye). I'd later convince him to get it checked, but that wasn't the moment. I simply popped it back into its socket (evoking a pained but grateful gasp) and bandaged it tightly, not immobilizing it completely but managing to hold the joint in place.

By that point, I was pretty much finished. Liet wouldn't, like, let me anywhere near his chest, even though the blood continued to seep through his clenched fingers, and no amount of coaxing seemed to do the trick. I was losing patience with his stubborn refusals, which were so unlike him.

Finally, I was totally forced into threatening that I was going to help him whether he liked it or not. And I was completely serious at this point. It was only then that he lowered his bloodstained palm from the fresh wound.

There was more writing. The mere sight of it made me sick, but what made it worse was the message: "Польский"

Polskij. Polish.

It was arranged in such a way that the scars now read: "Polish property… still."

When I figured out what the message was, I staggered over to the sink and threw up. That was the most twisted, evil thing that he could have done. Because it was then that I knew it was him. Ivan. He had broken into our home simply to deprive Liet of the feeling of relative safety that it provided. And to show me…

Show me WHAT, exactly? What was the message aimed at me here?

I didn't care if there was any deeper sense to it at the moment.

Liet had begun to shake violently. "It's not m-my, it's not my fault… please don't hate me… I didn't want to…"

Did he really think that I could hate him over being victimized? I didn't even respond verbally, only pulled him into a tight hug, not caring that my nice white shirt would be covered in blood.

Finally, I helped Liet clean and bandage it all- which he had started to do on his own- then guided him into his bed. We shared a bedroom, complete with bunk beds. I let him have the bottom bunk. I don't know whether it made him feel safer, or if he simply chose it because it was more practical, but if it mattered to him…

I didn't join him that night. I simply left to sleep downstairs, on the couch, which had been shoved into a corner roughly. Because I needed a little time alone to think.

Because the message had just become oh, so clear to me.

The only reason Liet had kept our alliance alive, despite everything that I had done to him… the only reason that he still stood by me was Stockholm Syndrome.

I had towered over him, figuratively if not literally, for every minute that we were together. He did what I told him to do. And I did what I felt like. Isn't that reason enough for any person to hate me?

Any person, that is, except Liet. I don't know how he copes with me. I certainly wouldn't be able to stand living with myself.

Except that he didn't. Did he? Or was the only thing that kept him by me an undiagnosed psychosis?

And that is why the one true Satan in this world is Stockholm Syndrome. Because I can never know. I can never know if our friendship is true, or if it is the result of an extended oppressor-oppressed relationship.

Never. And that is why to me, Stockholm Syndrome means Hell.