characters/pairings: Russia/China, though assumingly one-sided, brief mentions of Eastern Bloc countries, Korea, and Japan.
warnings: self harm (/wrist), psychotic Russia, possible historical inaccuracies.
disclaimer: I do not own Axis Powers Hetalia.
summary: Russia learns that being too greedy has its dire consequences.
notes: posting some things on , let's see how it goes.

Going Under

Russia held the glass shard over his wrist. His hand was shaking—it was hard to keep it still, what with the smooth, clear edges of the shard hanging so closely to his prominent blue veins. But why was he scared? He had hurt Lithuania with the same culprit dozens of times before, carving patterns of scars into the smaller nation's bare flesh. It had once been a favored pastime of his—causing pain to his subordinate—but he enjoyed it only because it brought him temporary relief to his own pain, his own sorrows that dug deep inside this vast nation of snow.

But what Russia was doing—or rather, attempting to do—right now had nothing to do with Lithuania. No, this concerned a certain Asian nation, with a small, slender frame, and long, ebony hair…

Russia had known China for centuries. Ever since he was little, he remembered China as the constant figure down south—a beautiful exotic gem of the Orient that he never dared to approach. And he was there while Russia grew up, too, always smiling, smiling to everyone, the warm smile that Russia wanted for himself.

He remembered once, as he walked along his southern border (he walked there often, always hoping to catch a glance of his intriguing neighbor) so many years ago, he had found China out playing with his two younger brothers, then little Japan and Korea—carrying the younger nations around in the basket on his back, drawing pictures in the sand with wooden sticks, all of them (even stoic Japan) laughing, laughing. And Russia was jealous, not only of their family and companionship (things Russia had always craved but never received enough of from his sisters) but also of Japan and Korea's possession of their brother, China.

But the little boy had only watched, observing everything from behind a tree with hungry amethyst eyes. He didn't dare step out, afraid that the smiles and laughter would fade in his presence, the rejection that he was bound to receive.

And so Russia grew up, watching, always just watching. He promised himself he'd grow strong, stronger than Korea and Japan and all of western Europe, stronger so that he could finally go down south and claim China as his. And he did—though it had taken so many centuries and cost him so many lives—it had been 1949, and he finally had his southern neighbor to himself.

But it hadn't been enough.

Russia couldn't stop at mere camaraderie—no, he had greedily pressed on (in hindsight, perhaps a touch too greedily), forcing on China his ideals of government and economy, his Leninist and Marxist theories, trying to convince the older man that of course the proletarian mattered more than the farmers, who else will make the pots and pans and desks and chairs and industrialize and move forward—? All this Russia did because, as he had told Belarus innocently upon her inquiry, it was only in this way—by teaching, helping, conforming China can the two truly be together.

The plan went awry within the next two decades, a record even for this once-struggling nation that was so used to failure. Mao came into the picture; Russia watched as China grew stronger, self-reliant, and increasingly less dependent on him. With the first Five-Year Plan came news of China's diverging ideas of Communism; his fears were confirmed ten years later, when Russia saw that the Cultural Revolution was only a poor disguise for telling him to get the hell out.

But nonetheless, Russia was still devastated when China cut off all contact with him, and even more so when one day, he found all of the books and instruments and little machines that he had ever given China haphazardly piled in a wooden crate left at his front door. Russia fingered a novel, long white fingers trailing along its yellowing pages, pages China had once touched and turned eagerly in his early enthusiasm to learn. He looked at the rest of the crate, at the instruments' brightly-polished brass and dully-shined wood, at the bronze and black metal of typewriters and sewing machines, and his once-favorite, a simple glass vase with a dark blue leafy design around its top, the very one he used to keep his sunflowers in (the beauties of his dreams, with their brilliantly yellow petals and rich brown middles, studded with the blackish seeds that China used to bake).

Suddenly, all Russia could see was China, wearing the same old red top and the same old black pants and the same old warm smile, and the sudden loss that he felt was so strong, so bitter that he couldn't help but smash the vase against the ground, and smash and tear and break everything else because it all just hurt to look at.

Russia doesn't stop, doesn't know how to stop; it is only the Baltics' fear that he feels emanating from the first floor window that slows his destruction, until eventually he just stands there in the middle of his yard, kneeling and panting and somehow crying. He stills, wires and metal and splinters underneath his black-gloved hands while he breathes, hard, his breath misty in the freezing air.

Slowly, slowly Russia picks up a piece of the broken vase, toys with it for a moment. He sits up, then suddenly seems to get an idea, extending both his arms forward and pulling his sleeve back. Somewhere along the line, Russia vaguely realizes that he has crossed the line of insanity and straight into beyond, but he still keeps breathing his shuddering breaths and positions the glass over his wrist, because using pain to counter pain has always worked in the past, so of course using this particular broken shard that meant so much to him (and, he had thought, to China too) would work.

"It will be fine," Russia murmurs to himself, though his hand still shakes above his translucent white skin. "Everyone comes back. Everyone always comes back." His skin looks so impossibly delicate, his arm a fragile little thing despite its muscle. "Belarus, Ukraine." His blood pumping. "Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia." His head spinning. "Poland, Hungary, Prussia, Finland." The slight pressure of glass on his skin. "All becomes one, and one becomes all…" Blood, startlingly red blood drips down his wrist in a neat little rivulet, and Russia smiles to himself.

"But in the end, all will be one again."