The avatar of Prussia was no stranger to pain. He'd won and lost so many wars he'd stopped keeping count long ago, and he'd taken so many wounds in battle it was little short of a miracle that he wasn't all scar tissue. He'd suffered torture at the hands of his own people many times, from when they'd believed him a demon with his unnaturally pale skin and white hair and red eyes, from idiot bosses trying to bend him to their will, from the sick 'experiments' of that twisted fuck of a so-called doctor... Oh, Prussia knew pain well enough it was almost an old friend.
Having his nation dissolved eclipsed everything he'd suffered before. All of it. All at once. If he'd had to describe it, he'd have said it was like having his soul scraped out of his body with red hot rasps - and he knew what red hot rasps felt like against skin even though those scars had faded so long ago he rarely remembered they'd ever existed.
He didn't bother to try to suppress his screams. The small part of him that nothing could touch, that watched everything, cold and calculating, that part took a certain grim amusement in the way his screams rang off the metal walls, the way the Allies flinched from the sound. They wanted him to suffer, they'd get an earful of it. They could have the blood, too, when his throat started to go and he sprayed blood with every hoarse scream. Part of him hoped he could spatter them with it, but mostly all he wanted was for the agony to stop.
Not that he could do anything except ride the pain, losing awareness of everything except suffering, until there was no more screaming, only harsh, panting whimpers, until everything faded and jumbled together.
Prussia wished he could pass out. Oblivion looked good about now.
That mercy was denied him: instead the hazy world of pain stretched on, and on. Dying, too, didn't seem to be an option. Well, he'd always said he couldn't be killed, but he could have done without proving it like this.
The world tilted, and he was slung over someone's shoulder like a sack, head spinning with new pain and unable to do more that twitch and breathe. And breathe. A shift, and Prussia knew he was being taken to that other realm where he and his kind were much closer to each other and where an avatar could die if he failed to defend himself from the horrors that lived in the collective subconscious of humankind.
He heard a wet thump, metal striking flesh and bone, crushing it, heard the unearthly scream of the nameless creature. More wet crushing sounds, more screams, then the world of humans was back and Prussia shivered with cold that was more than merely physical.
He welcomed the cold: cold numbed pain. When he was dropped to a cold earth floor - ground? It didn't matter - the cold rose from it, numbing everything, and finally, finally, he could escape for a while into the emptiness of unconsciousness.
He wasn't sure if he wanted to wake or not.
#
Prussia drifted. Sometimes he almost heard voices around him, almost felt movement, but it never quite penetrated the chill that held him, never reached more than a vague sense that there might be others tending his starved, battered body.
He couldn't bring himself to care. Memories flickered past his awareness, some bare hints of past actions, some deeper. How long they held him he couldn't have said. There was no time in the place where Prussia's mind and soul walked. Just things happening after other things.
Slowly, the memories stopped rolling and he was in a place he knew well: a forest glade that had no physical existence any more but it was where he was born, who he was. This place went all the way back to before the Teutonic Knights, to Old Prussia, when he'd been a mere infant, toddling about with a sword too big for him clutched in both hands, and using it to defend his people even though they tried to kill him because he was a demon, a monster.
The Teutonic Knights had found him here, long ago. They'd laughed, but his desperate fight appealed to their honor, and when he could touch their crosses and recite - awkwardly, with a horrible accent - their Latin prayers, they decided he must be theirs, so he'd become their avatar as well and done his best to merge his two peoples peacefully.
He smiled a little at the thought. Some of his bosses back then had been right bastards, but most had been decent men, if hard. He didn't mind the hardness: it was something he understood. Soft things died. Only the strong survived. The strong and the smart. Prussia fought to be both, never knowing what he was, only that he was different because he didn't get any older while people aged and died, because of his unnatural paleness, his red eyes. The whole time he was the Teutonic Knights, his body never grew to more than about the size of a ten year old - but by God he was the toughest ten year old there was.
Meeting Hungary for the first time, when he was sent to defend her land... God what a fuckup that was. She'd thought she was a boy, and he - who'd never met anyone like him before - how was he to know different? The thought that he was supposed to be a girl and his penis would drop off when he got old enough terrified him for years. Not that he ever said anything: he'd never needed to learn that lesson. You never told anyone your weaknesses. Ever. They'd use it against you. There were no friends in this world, only enemies and rivals. You could ally with your rivals for a while but they'd turn on you in the end. Everyone did. Always.
How many peoples had he been? Old Prussia, the Teutonic Knights, Prussia in all her forms as Duchy, Kingdom, Republic and State... Germany, too. That link was still there, still strong with millions of hearts beating, millions of lives and dreams. Hurting, but strong. Germany would recover and if they didn't land any more idiot prick bosses, the fatherland just might become the great nation he'd dreamed of. The Knights was still there, too, weak and faded, but present. Odd. He'd thought the order long gone. Old Prussia was gone, faded past discernment, and where Prussia should be was a raw, gaping void.
The new link, though, that one burned fiercely with the light of determination. Never forget, never again. He could feel them, his new peoples, the gypsies collecting with their kin in other parts of Europe, the Jews streaming to more welcoming shores, many heading to the deserts of the Middle East, their ancestral homeland. Others, too, scattered across Russia, the Soviet camps where men and women were held for trivial reasons... Prussia wasn't sure how he'd come to claim those as his own. Possibly the fierce thirst for justice, an outgrowth of what he'd been as the Kingdom of Prussia.
Justice, not just rules or laws. Prussia knew from long experience that rules and laws were everywhere but justice... that was a rare thing. Justice for the people his boss had turned on... for everyone a boss had turned on. Because by then, the Austrian fucker hadn't been his boss: he'd been that rarest of creatures, an avatar bound solely by the needs of his people.
It was one of the benefits of being a rebellious son of a bitch, Prussia mused. He'd learned something he doubted anyone else knew: an avatar couldn't be controlled by a boss who'd turned on his own people. It was his people that kept him at that hell-hole in Auschwitz when he could have simply stepped into the other realm and taken himself anywhere he wished. His people's need and his brother's need.
A flicker of regret: he shouldn't have protected his brother so much. Germany was too naive, too easily deceived. Too obedient, even for a proper soldier. God, the poor kid had believed that Austrian fucker's line of a new, glorious Germany and never once realized what it would cost.
And Prussia protected him, taking the suffering for him, taking it all - while smuggling Jews and homosexuals and gypsies and anyone else the Nazi fuckers set their sights on out of the country. Hell, there'd been times when he'd had dozens of them hidden in the basement of their Berlin home, while Germany met with Italy and Japan and sometimes with the bosses as well. That amused Prussia, working against the Austrian prick that way. He'd helped with all the attempts to kill the little shit, too, until he'd been found out and sent to that sick fuck Mengele.
And protected Germany again, when the Allies wanted their vengeance for the whole sordid mess, claiming he'd masterminded the whole thing and goaded and taunted them into agreeing. Well, France and Canada hadn't been fooled: they remembered him smuggling them to safety. But with America, England, Russia and China all wanting blood, he'd made damn sure they got his blood and not Germany's. Made sure it was him that got bent over for the traditional victory gang-bang, not Germany.
He couldn't stop them making his brother watch, but he could make it look like he didn't care, like he was still taunting them, still defiant. Never show weakness. Always show them what you want them to see. He wanted them to see Prussia the vicious bastard, Prussia the warmonger. Prussia who'd keep spitting defiance even as he was ground into the dust. Prussia who'd rise again and kick all of them back to their filthy dens and seize their vital regions for good measure.
Well, that part wasn't going to happen, not as Prussia.
Pity, he thought with a sigh. I kind of liked that name.
There was another link, this one the oldest of all of them, and the most diffuse. Not the weakest though. This link was more primal, going back to Prussia's first memories, cutting his teeth on the hilt of the sword that was too big for his tiny hands. It was why, if he concentrated, he knew every place in the world where armies clashed. Knew, too, where there would be battle soon, though he couldn't have said precisely when it would erupt. Only that this place was ready to explode, where that would remain at peace for a while longer. Why there was a part of him that never, ever relaxed, never trusted. Why they'd called him an army with a country.
That link had the shortest name of all, a name not even Prussia's complex internal defenses and the front of bravado they generated dared claim.
War.
#
He dreamed he spoke to Germany, whispering to him in the space between dreams, assuring his brother that all would be well, that he would return when the time came, consoling and encouraging and teasing gently even as Germany told him the Allies knew he'd lied, knew he'd taken their vengeance to protect his brother.
Prussia looked forward to meeting them, grinning at them and watching them try to pretend they weren't squirming with guilt. It wasn't the vengeance he'd like to take, but it would do for now. Besides, better he satisfied their need for blood and revenge than his brother. The victors' gang-bang would have destroyed Germany, where Prussia had been on the wrong side as many times as he'd been on top. He wasn't fool enough to claim it didn't hurt, but he'd grown accustomed to it, calloused.
Dreams faded, new dreams came, darkness, cold, warmth, all of it a tangle half-remembered, then sensation - actual physical sensation, not the dream-world analog of it - returned slowly, trickling back to him. His nose was cold, the air he breathed chilly, but he was warm, wrapped in warmth on a soft surface. After a while the word 'bed' drifted to his half-awake mind. A soft crackling sound... that was a fireplace. Scent of wood smoke. Sour taste in his mouth, the taste of old blood and too long without nourishment.
His eyes drifted open.
He lay in a room that had once been grand, the paint faded and patches on the walls marking where paintings and other decorations had hung for so long the walls had changed around them. The remains of an ornate ceiling, the precious metals long stripped from the ornamentation leaving the underlying tin to tarnish. Large windows to one side, heavy curtains of faded velvet open to a bleak sky and snow falling in flurries and large wet clumps.
Odd. He'd half expected to wake chained in a prison.
He sighed softly. He could feel the steady beat of his people's hearts, the German strongest but the others still there, and his brother's presence with him too. A faint stickiness, the sense of unhealed wounds whose dressings could hold no more seepage.
It could be worse. His bladder was as empty as his stomach. Just as well, since he knew he lacked the strength to leave the bed. Heavy lassitude wrapped his body though he was quite alert. He wondered how long he'd been unconscious before discarding the thought. He'd find out soon enough, since he'd clearly been cared for.
Footsteps, the sound of heavy boots on wooden floors, muffled by the closed door but coming closer. The doorknob turning - another surprise: Prussia had expected the door to be locked. He wasn't - technically anyway - a willing guest.
He turned his head, and blinked at the blond man who towered over him. Sandy-blond hair, the color of steppe grass in summer. Eyes the purple-blue of the eastern sky at sunset. Small smile that didn't reach those eyes, a smile that should have been innocent but wasn't. And of course, the ever-present icy chill of winter. The avatar of Russia carried that aura with him wherever he went, no matter the actual climate, just as that little smile of his was usually there whether he held a priceless treasure or was beating something - or someone - to a pulp with the length of pipe he'd adopted as his personal weapon.
The smile broadened now, and actually touched his eyes. "Ah. It is good to see you awake at last, comrade."
Prussia smiled a little, not one of his trademark smirks, just a faint smile. "I have to admit, I'm waking in better circumstances than I expected, all things considered. Thank you for that, comrade. May I ask how long I was out?"
Russia seemed a little bewildered by that - likely he'd expected hostility.
Prussia was quite happy to keep the bigger avatar off-balance and wondering at his motives.
"I... it has been five years. For a long time we did not know if you would return to us at all, yes."
Oh. Fuck. No wonder I'm weak as a day old kitten. For all his long and bloody history, he'd never been so badly injured he'd gone into hibernation for more than a month or two. Spending five years unconscious and vulnerable... He had to suppress the desire to shiver. "I see." He couldn't stop himself from sounding shocked. "Remind me not to get my country dissolved again, would you? In retrospect, that wasn't the most awesome thing I've ever done." He did manage to get a decent amount of dryness into the latter comment.
Russia actually laughed. Not his creepy chuckle that sent weaker avatars – which was just about everyone - fleeing, but real laughter. "Ah, Prussia." He wiped his eyes with the back of a gloved hand. "Only you would say such a thing."
Prussia forced a grin. "Only I would be crazy enough to get my country dissolved," he pointed out. "Nobody would dare do that to you even if they got past General Winter. Me, well, I'm safe to hate." He kept his tone light, not letting anything that could hint of bitterness into his voice. Never show weakness, ever.
"I disagree, comrade." Russia's expression settled back to his usual unnerving half-smile. "You would dare."
"Me and what army, comrade?" Prussia asked with a dry twist of a grin. "Your boss is going to be keeping me on a tight leash now I'm back, and it's not going to include an army that can go against you. And that's if he's generous and lets me represent the part of Germany he's holding." Again, he was careful to keep his words relaxed, matter-of-fact. He also chose not to mention that he still held that part of Germany.
This time Russia's laughter was his well-known chuckle that sounded like thunder rolling in the distance. "Oh, you need not worry about that. You are now the Deutsche Demokratische Republik. Would you rather be known as DDR or East?"
Prussia pretended to consider that for a while before he said "East works." He and his brother had been 'East' and 'West' for years already, just between the two of them, and he wasn't going to take that other appalling excuse for a name. It was as bad as the USSR - which nobody used except formally anyway. They went for either 'Soviet' or 'Russia'.
Before the bigger avatar could start to frown, he gave the man his best smile - the full force of the charm and appeal he could exert if he wanted. "Thank you, comrade, and do thank Comrade Stalin for me, if you would be so kind."
Russia actually blushed. Now that was worth knowing. He'd be stuck dealing with fucking Soviets until the bastards collapsed from their own uselessness, so he'd make their lives a misery while he let them think he was on their side. It was still war, but a war fought with words and gestures and smiles. A war, in short, where the skills of the royal court were more appropriate than those of the battlefield.
"Ah, Pr... East, I will do that, of course." He fiddled with the scarf he always wore. "Why did you lie in the trial?"
Prussia couldn't hear anything but innocent curiosity in the question. He raised an eyebrow. "Been going through the Nazi fucker's records?"
"What?" Russia blinked and retreated a step. "No! It is only... we did treat your wounds, and... You talked sometimes, while you... slept."
Ah, yes. When a boss turned on his people, the avatars got horrible weeping sores on their backs. Between those, the identification number on his arm, and his delirious mutterings, he would have let the whole thing out. "Sorry, comrade. I didn't mean to accuse. The truth is, I've got so used to those I almost forget them."
Russia blinked again, relaxing fractionally. "Why did you take the blame?" He sounded almost plaintive. "Why did you goad us to blame you?"
"Comrade, really," Prussia said in a gentle tone. "Would you not do the same to spare your sisters?"
The larger man's eyebrows went up. "If they were innocent, of course."
Prussia nodded. "Germany is. He didn't know there was anything more than a perfectly normal war going on."
"And you kept that knowledge from him." Russia wasn't accusing, just stating facts.
Another nod. "It would have destroyed him. You'd do the same for Ukraine, yes?"
A pause, then Russia nodded. "Yes." He fiddled with his scarf some more before he said, "You seem... different."
Prussia lacked the strength to shrug. "Hardly surprising, I suppose," he said in an indifferent tone. "Having one's nation dissolved and spending five years in hibernation will do that." If it kept Russia off-balance, Prussia had no objections. He had no allies here, and no strength. He'd be living on his wits for a while.
Quite the challenge – he liked that notion. Rising again from impossible odds to kick the arses of the bastards who'd tried to destroy him, making the whole damn world watch him to try to guess who he'd come after next... he lived for this.
Not so much as a hint of his thoughts touched his face. "So, comrade Russia, what now?" he asked. "I have to admit I hope it's going to involve a change of dressings and food – not necessarily in that order, either."
#
To Prussia's surprise, Russia helped him – actually carried him – from his bed to a cavernous bathroom that looked as though it was straight out of the last century and sat him on a plain wooden chair to peel off the soaked, sticky bandages while a parade of avatars Prussia didn't recognize – he suspected from their dark hair and vaguely Mongolian features they were the 'stans - hauled buckets of steaming water into the room to tip into the tub.
Russia didn't introduce them, and the crusted blood and ooze coming loose from his skin hurt enough he didn't feel like asking.
The tub had a drain, at least, but the faucet clearly wasn't any use, and the idea of running hot water was probably nothing more than a dream. Ah, well. It would still get him clean.
The only reason he didn't doze off was that despite Russia's – remarkable, really – gentleness, getting cleaned up hurt. It couldn't be helped: while most of the war wounds were pretty near healed, his back wasn't going to get any better for a long time. He knew from experience that those wounds wouldn't start to heal until there were no survivors left to remember the betrayal that caused them, and the scars they left would last a lot longer. The raw ridged line through his heart where Berlin was divided between Russia, America, France, and England would heal before the weeping sores from the camps did, as would the ugly scar on his right hip marking where Dresden had burned.
Getting bandaged again afterwards took so long he did doze, and had to be nudged awake for Russia to feed him.
Under the circumstances complaining about broth being for babies and invalids seemed a bit silly. Not that he wouldn't have done it, if he'd seen an advantage to it, but for now there was no reason to play the fool. He was vulnerable enough without adding to it, and if he worked this right he could have Russia convinced the dissolution had changed him permanently.
Russia's careful touch – not what he'd expected from a man known for casual brutality – and concerned expression suggested Prussia was well on the way to that goal already. Not that this meant Prussia was safe here: far from it. The avatar of Russia had lost his mind years ago, and only rarely showed signs of anything resembling sanity.
In some ways that was a good thing: Russian bosses who didn't abuse their people were a rarity to say the least. The fucking Soviets were just the latest in a long line of power hungry bastards who saw the millions of Russians as simply bodies to throw at enemies to build their own power. What use was strategy when you could throw millions of peasants armed with fucking knives into the teeth of a modern army and wait for the sheer number of bodies to overwhelm the other side?
Hell, Prussia wouldn't ask a soldier to face that. That kind of slaughter broke good men, destroyed their will to protect their own people. He wouldn't call any man a coward because he couldn't bring himself to shoot at a wall of innocent peasants herded into place by fucking tanks.
Knowing Russia – and remembering his own rashness there many years ago now – Prussia would prefer to leave that field to others. General Winter could keep the fools who challenged his lands of endless winter: Prussia would find other ways.
Besides, he rather pitied the larger avatar, though he never let that get in the way of extremely cautious respect. Russia could snap him in two if he wanted, especially now, and Russia's madness included bouts of rage that usually left a trail of blood. And that was before considering that the big man genuinely forgot his own strength half the time.
It was going to be interesting, living in Russia's house.
#
Almost a week passed before Prussia recovered enough to make his way – slowly, and stopping to rest several times – to the dining room of the Russian mansion. Once he got there, he sank down onto one of the chairs and let his head drop forward, closed his eyes.
He was healing well, but he tired so quickly it was maddening. Having to pretend to be a happily brainwashed little Soviet client-state didn't help, although at least he was getting enough information about what he was supposed to be to play the part well enough.
He could hear soft conversation, too soft to make out the words, and smell food, so he'd made it down here in good time. Another week and he'd be well enough to take part in what seemed to be a never-ending list of chores Russia gave his many dependents.
That would help keep boredom at bay, too.
Boredom, possibly the surest breaker of prisoners, stalked him constantly. With no reading materials beyond those Russia supplied, and no strength to do anything, he had little beyond his own mind for entertainment, and that was definitely not awesome. Prussia was used to constantly shifting streams of information, to alliances that became wars in the space of a few hours – sometimes less. The chill sameness of Russia's house was its own form of Hell.
If not for the links to his peoples, he would be in real danger of madness. As it was he could lose himself in those links, sifting through the fast-flowing haze of thoughts and dreams and needs to learn what he wanted to know. Russia would be... displeased if he knew just how broadly his guest's peoples were spread, so Prussia made sure the larger avatar had no notion of what he could do, made sure not to tap the full strength of his peoples, not to heal too quickly.
It had occurred to him that no other avatar could have survived dissolution. The primary link was the strongest, after all, and when the suffering became too much, a hibernation could become a permanent thing, the avatar never waking, just fading. He'd watched Holy Rome die that way, his body too weak to survive the collapse of his fragile empire.
To see that same soul in Germany was a blessing Prussia had never expected. It was why he'd done so much for his brother: Germany was his second chance, his God-given opportunity to atone for all the things he'd failed to do for Holy Rome. But Germany was still young, his country less than a hundred years old. He hadn't had the time to build the layers of links to peoples and lands that all the older avatars had.
Hell, that bloody pervert France could likely still connect to everything the little Corsican had conquered – everything except what had been Prussia, of course. He might have lost the battle and had to play French territory for a time, but once the French had been sent home with their tails between their legs, Prussia had made damn sure the land would never link to France again.
He'd have to teach Germany that one, so he didn't have the Allies constantly needling him. After he'd brought down the Soviets.
It was a long war, all right, one that he couldn't fight openly.
Footsteps, heavy and solid, bringing the aura of the bitterest winters. The footsteps stopped, then approached rather more quickly. "East! You know you aren't strong enough for this." Russia's voice, of course, but the open worry in it was something he hadn't expected.
He raised his head and turned to the larger avatar. "I needed to know if I could make it," he said in a mild tone. "Now that I know I can, I should be fine." And smiled. "I'm sorry I worried you, Russia."
Russia's laid one hand on his head, gently, ruffling his hair in a gesture that did all the right things to be affectionate and didn't quite succeed. "You are such a stubborn little snow-bunny, East."
He locked down the surge of irritation at the patronizing tone, and gave the bigger man the sweetest smile he could manage. "So you keep telling me, comrade." It was a little too soon to start with the 'dear comrade' line, and besides, he'd need to be fit enough to dodge Belarus once he started that game.
The meal wasn't bad: very Russian, of course, but there was plenty of food and drink. Prussia stuck to water, knowing he wasn't strong enough to even think about vodka yet, and besides, getting drunk would be a bad idea. He didn't look forward to abstinence, but you made sacrifices for war and this was one of them.
He pretended to ignore the curious – and in more than a few cases borderline hostile – scrutiny he got from Russia's many territories. The 'stans – Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Turkmenistan – studied him with open curiosity. Of course they, like the cluster of Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia from between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, had never had any interaction with Prussia so there wasn't any old history to color their views of him.
The same could not be said for the rest of Russia's house guests. The three Baltics – Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia – seemed to hover between fear and loathing. Russia's sisters showed no expression at all – which in Belarus's case was a good thing – and the client states were uniformly hostile.
Not that he blamed them. His relationships with other nations had never been particularly friendly.
It was a quiet meal: no conversation, no talking apart from quiet requests to pass this or that condiment. He was aware of Hungary watching him closely, looking somewhere between bewildered and hurt. As though she'd expected the Prussia she'd known for so many years to show himself.
That wasn't happening. It couldn't happen. All of his growing plans depended on the old Prussia being dead. Gone. They depended on this new creature, this sickeningly polite – and above all else, loyal communist – 'East' being all there was. Nobody would swallow what he planned otherwise.
Even though the tears shimmering in Hungary's eyes left him feeling lower than dirt, Prussia didn't let a hint of his old self show. It wasn't even that hard: very few people had ever seen him raw and open and without some kind of defense.
After the meal, Russia gave formal introductions, treating Prussia like a young child. In a sense, he was, being bound to a nation less than five years old. Of course, that link overlaid what he was as Germany, although nobody but he and his brother knew that. Nor would they, yet.
Prussia played up the whole 'new nation' thing, acting confused when Lithuania glared at him, and even pretending not to recognize danger when Hungary stalked towards him with her frying pan in her hand despite every instinct screaming at him to flee. She could kill with that frying pan, then calmly clean it off and make sausage.
She hesitated when he didn't flinch, when he just watched her approach with – apparently – innocent curiosity. "You don't remember?" Her voice wasn't steady.
He tilted his head a little. "I'm sorry, comrade Hungary. I don't understand."
Her grip on the frying pan trembled. "Don't you even remember being Prussia?"
He pretended to consider that. "I do remember," he said softly. "But it's distant." That was a lie, of course. "I think because Prussia is gone." He needed all his self-control to say that calmly. The wound inside where Prussia had been would never heal, would hurt for as long as he existed. There would be revenge for that in time, when he'd regained his strength and his freedom, but for now, he'd play the broken-winged bird, the obedient little territory.
Her breath hissed through her teeth, and that damned frying pan would have knocked him flying if Russia hadn't caught her wrist. "No!" Hungary shuddered. "You're still there, somewhere, you have to be! You can't be gone, Prussia, you can't!" Tears formed in her eyes, ran down her cheeks. "You can't just be gone."
Russia released her, and she sank to her knees, sobbing. "You can't be gone... I love... I loved you."
And he'd thought not flinching from the frying pan was hard. Keeping a blank, somewhat bewildered expression while Hungary cried for who he'd been was almost like being dissolved again. And he couldn't tell her anything. Couldn't even hint.
Well, fuck, Prussia. This is another fine mess you've made for yourself.
###