A/N - So Criminal Minds Season 10 ended, And Three Makes Five ended, I read Gutters, and I think allergies have finally come to kick my ass...

Please enjoy and review!

Three Days Later

Listen hard.

Breathe lightly.

Fiddle with the lock.

Pause…

Repeat.

The piece of stone was digging into the dirt-mottled skin of his hand. Already there was a long slice across his palm, blood dripping to the floor. His fingers stung due to the slim nicks that littered them.

Italy froze to listen, the rock pick held steady.

All there had been, for several minutes, was trickling water.

He sighed, and continued with picking the lock.

The pick he had just happened to find two days ago. It wasn't as sharp as he had made it to fit the lock, but he did that by scraping it against the stone wall, so there was a pile of damp dust that was either a dark gray or navy blue or just simply black altogether where he'd done it. If this worked, then he'd kiss the nearest stone the moment he was certainly safe.

Day Thirteen? Fourteen?

Who knew?

The day after his sort of… mental pep talk…? he'd begun to mark the walls again.

Day Thirteen.

Who knew but him, his captor, and surely the other Nations.

"What did you last say to him, Lovino?"

"Nothing bad, Nonno-!"

"Lovino…"

"... he was a stupid brother."

Italy could hear their voices from where he hid underneath one of the bushes that grew by the house - he could never go far. But his tears had dried quickly, and he had easily forgiven his brother the moment those hurtful words had first met the air. Romano never meant anything mean he'd said.

And this place, under the bush… was rather distracting. It was peaceful, and he got a pretty view of their yard, that is, if he took out the fact that both Romano and Grandpa Rome currently blocked the view. But maybe he would come back later to paint…

"Well," Grandpa Rome mused. "do you mean it?

Italy knew that there would be a frown on his brother's face.

"... W-wuh… well, don't you know I don't?!"

And Grandpa Rome would be smiling. "Then why don't you tell that to Feli yourself, hm?"

Italy didn't expect to be yanked out of the bush, and brought into the air. It took a moment's realization to understand that he was safe, that he could laugh, that maybe from Grandpa Rome's incredible height, he could be easily seen in the bush.

Grandpa Rome placed Italy on his shoulders, both peering down at a flustered Romano.

"He does! He knows! I know he knows!"

Italy listened hard again, but not for scuffling footsteps or rough voices, but the clink and ping of the lock, well, unlocking. Duh.

He released a breath he honestly didn't know he had been holding. His fingers, nicked and splotched with dried blood, dropped the rock and gripped the rusty bars of the door, only to test shifting it a fraction, enough that he could slip through. A faint squeak pierced the air, so Italy froze.

Again, he listened.

Nothing.

It was "safe."

After his agonizing moment of stillness, Italy's heartbeat sprung forward with adrenaline.

He ran forward.

It was scary as to how easily he got out.

His feet - bare, as the need for shoes of any kind were unnecessary in his situation - scraped the rough stone beneath him as he headed down the stretching hallway to his left. It stretched onward to the right, behind him, but most likely shorter. It only made him wonder just how big this hellhole was.

Water still trickled too, loudly when he first began to run from his prison cell. And then it would grow faint - a part of the background he shouldn't care for, but he did. It drove him mad because what if they heard his soft, wild panting? His scratchy footsteps? His racing heartbeat or the blood pumping in his ears?

At last, he got to a staircase with steps that reached before him, winding several flights so he couldn't say that it was like the American UN, with the stairs that had forced him to leave Romano behind.

Winding on the landing, he crossed the nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen…! steps. There loomed a door.

He bit his bottom lip, uncaring for the unevenness of the slightly peeled skin. His fingertips tingled - just reach out to that dusty, cold doorknob and yank open that door. But there could be guards coming, to retrieve a prisoner from an empty prison cell for a reason that the prisoner had yet to know.

You would think after maybe three days of being here, you'd start noticing the guards' cycle. he thought.

…

Italy continued up the next flight.

At the time he came to the next landing with a door, he noticed a window. There was a brief thought of propelling himself with a small burst of water to it, to see if he was at ground level considering below him was watery and stoney and cold, but he'd most likely get caught.

He dared to open the door.

Italy supposed this was a lobby of sorts, with a staircase, again, to his left and a mirror opposite further away.

But the walkway was…

It was constructed of metal sheets, bolted together and held steady with thin poles of metal too. The whole structure was old and rusty. Italy gritted his teeth as he rested the ball of his right foot on the first platform, the eerie, faint groan ringing in his ears and making his stomach slowly, ever so slowly, flip.

There was the chance to walk big strides, quickly and lightly as possible, to the bottom where smooth, dark hardwood with dusty, white scratches swirled into its surface.

So Italy did just that.

He stepped onto the platform, performing a quickstep that allowed him to swing his body for the rusty stairs.

They creaked as he skipped every other one, jumping the last few with a hiss.

And then it happened.

Italy pulled the water from what he could, even if it meant that the air had a different feel to it, he needed it because the whole building seemed to be shaking with angered and hurried footsteps.

He slashed the whip of water into the doors, doing enough damage to have them swing open on their own and that he could just spill out like a cool, foamy wave receding from damp, dark sand and broken, colorful seashells.

The sky was fading from dusk, stars bright and streaks of wispy clouds hanging across what Italy could see. The moon provided a glowing pathway for a great escape.

He was running.

The sharp blades of dark green grass tickled his bare feet, and he picked up the water from the ground as he went. He glided freely, quickly, as shouts exploded into the courtyard.

"No, no, no…"

Italy swept to the side, the water beneath him splashing.

"I have to, I have…!"

Something tripped him up, swaying around one ankle before snapping around the other. A wave of pain traveled up his legs, throwing him forward towards the ground.

But then there was a whistle in the air and there was no choice but to welcome the darkness approaching the corners of his eyes.

The water was still trickling.

Italy's head twisted to the side, his whole body giving off the signal that he was uncomfortable with simply sitting up. A groan left his lips. He tasted blood.

He opened his eyes, welcoming his blurry vision. He was rewarded with a poorly-lit figure standing behind the bars in which he had broken free from. But Italy knew who it was.

He shifted his weight with a hiss, flicking his head to clear his hair from his face. His throat hurt, and to have even a sip of water to get rid of the metallic flavor was longed for.

The first time this had happened, he had only sat there on the stone floor and cried. He'd been so confused and scared and wanted his brother, wanted Germany, wanted somebody that he knew. But there had been things he'd been told, by his brother, by his friends, to keep silent, as said by Germany; to give vague answers, from Japan; to turn the tables, from Romano.

Though at the time Romano had given him the advice, he'd been in some form of early drunkenness and thought it would be clever to say turn the tides.

"Why?"

It was a question he had never spoken aloud here, had only ever thought.

The man tipped his head to the side, closing his mouth.

"Why are you doing this to me?"

No answer.

"Why are you doing this to someone who is basically human?"

You are not human.

"How am I not?" Italy swallowed, gathered his thoughts. "... I never asked for this. My brother didn't. None of us asked for this. We never asked to be immortal, never asked for Bending."

Again, he shifted.

"Like… my one friend. He loves animals, he has a little pet bird. It's yellow and while it has a cage, it would rather sleep in an open shoebox filled with newspaper by his bed. He got caught for TP-ing another friend's house three times. He broke five skateboards. He plays the flute…"

Italy paused to breathe.

"There's my brother… my big brother… he thinks he's an asshole but he's one of the sweetest people I've come to know. He has a boyfriend who he also loves dearly, even if it doesn't show. He owns a candy shop and we both split a restaurant. He used to sell spray-paints. He loves getting tattoos, and they first started out by drawing on himself with RoseArt markers. He likes photography and playing the guitar and covering songs and beating people in card games. He has a Tumblr and he actually likes little kids If he could… Where are you going?"

Italy got up and ran for the bars, hands grasping them. Down the hall, the man walked.

The stone pick was nowhere to be seen. It was gone.

Tears pricked the corners of his eyes, he bit his lip and tried to count to ten but it didn't work.

"Where are you going?! You… YOU SICK PIECE OF SHIT, COME BACK HERE!" he screamed.

Italy was left alone to cry as the tides had returned to sea.